Digital technologies have transformed both the historical record and the historical profession. This Focus section examines how computational methods have influenced, and will influence, the history of science. The essays discuss the new types of questions and narratives that computational methods enable and the need for better data management in the history and philosophy of science (HPS) community. They showcase various methodological approaches, including textual and network analyses, and they place the computational turn in historiographical and societal context. Rather than (...) surrendering to either technophilia or technophobia, the essays articulate both the benefits and the drawbacks of computational HPS. They agree that the future of the field depends on the successful integration of technological developments, social practices, and infrastructural support and that historians of science must learn to embrace collaboration both within and beyond disciplinary boundaries. (shrink)

It is common practice within primary classrooms for teachers to spilt children into different ability groups so that children of similar level are taught together. Whilst this practice is used across the globe, research is mixed on the benefits of such grouping strategy. This paper presents data collected from mixed methods research which investigated teachers use of grouping strategies and social comparison, the act of comparing oneself with others. It focuses on when, why and with whom children from different ability (...) groups compare themselves and the impact this has on their self-perceptions. Drawing upon data from children aged between 10 and 11 years from 12 primary schools, social comparison was found to play a significant role in daily classroom life for some children. The study identified different strands of the social comparison process including acknowledgment, topic, target, and direction, and it revealed positive and negative effects of social comparison. A difference by ability group was identified. Children within the low ability group were particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of social comparison and found to engage in more frequent and intentional social comparisons which were heavily relied upon for self-evaluation and performance evaluation. The paper discusses the educational implications of social comparison regarding pupil ability grouping strategies, motivation, engagement, and academic performance. Implications for teacher education and professional development is discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundThe use of genetic test results in risk-rated insurance is a significant concern internationally, with many countries banning or restricting the use of genetic test results in underwriting. In Australia, life insurers’ use of genetic test results is legal and self-regulated by the insurance industry (Financial Services Council (FSC)). In 2018, an Australian Parliamentary Inquiry recommended that insurers’ use of genetic test results in underwriting should be prohibited. In 2019, the FSC introduced an industry self-regulated moratorium on the use of (...) genetic test results. In the absence of government oversight, it is critical that the impact, effectiveness and appropriateness of the moratorium is monitored. Here we describe the protocol of our government-funded research project, which will serve that critical function between 2020 and 2023.MethodsA realist evaluation framework was developed for the project, using a context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) approach, to systematically assess the impact of the moratorium for a range of stakeholders. Outcomes which need to be achieved for the moratorium to accomplish its intended aims were identified, and specific data collection measures methods were developed to gather the evidence from relevant stakeholder groups (consumers, health professionals, financial industry and genetic research community) to determine if aims are achieved. Results from each arm of the study will be analysed and published in peer-reviewed journals as they become available.DiscussionThe A-GLIMMER project will provide essential monitoring of the impact and effectiveness of the self-regulated insurance moratorium. On completion of the study (3 years) a Stakeholder Report will be compiled. The Stakeholder Report will synthesise the evidence gathered in each arm of the study and use the CMO framework to evaluate the extent to which each of the outcomes have been achieved, and make evidence-based recommendations to the Australian federal government, life insurance industry and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Clinical research is a necessity if effective and safe treatments are to be developed. However, this may well include the need for research that is best described as ‘invasive’ in that it may be associated with some discomfort or inconvenience. Limitations in the undertaking of invasive research involving people with intellectual disabilities (ID) are perhaps related to anxieties within the academic community and among ethics committees; however, the consequence of this neglect is that innovative treatments specific to people with ID (...) may not be developed. Such concerns are likely to continue while there is limited published knowledge regarding the actual experiences of people with ID who have participated in invasive clinical research. As part of a pilot study trialling the novel use of a surgically inserted device to curb overeating in people with Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) we have investigated the experience of research through semistructured qualitative interviews involving three participants and their carers. Thematic analysis revealed that the adults with PWS and their family carers rated their participation positively, seeing it as a rewarding and enriching experience. This brief report discusses findings from our interview data in order to highlight strategies which may ensure that research is acceptable to participants, meets the necessary ethical standards and is able to achieve the aims set out by the researchers. To our knowledge, this is the first study to record experiences directly from people with PWS and their carers regarding their involvement in invasive clinical research. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, questions have been raised about the impact of face masks on communication in classroom settings. However, it is unclear to what extent visual obstruction of the speaker’s mouth or changes to the acoustic signal lead to speech processing difficulties, and whether these effects can be mitigated by semantic predictability, i.e., the availability of contextual information. The present study investigated the acoustic and visual effects of face masks on speech intelligibility and processing speed under varying semantic predictability. (...) Twenty-six children and twenty-six adults performed an internet-based cued shadowing task, in which they had to repeat aloud the last word of sentences presented in audio-visual format. The results showed that children and adults made more mistakes and responded more slowly when listening to face mask speech compared to speech produced without a face mask. Adults were only significantly affected by face mask speech when both the acoustic and the visual signal were degraded. While acoustic mask effects were similar for children, removal of visual speech cues through the face mask affected children to a lesser degree. However, high semantic predictability reduced audio-visual mask effects, leading to full compensation of the acoustically degraded mask speech in the adult group. Even though children did not fully compensate for face mask speech with high semantic predictability, overall, they still profited from semantic cues in all conditions. Therefore, in classroom settings, strategies that increase contextual information such as building on students’ prior knowledge, using keywords, and providing visual aids, are likely to help overcome any adverse face mask effects. (shrink)

Jane Addams had two romantic partnerships during her years as Head of Hull House, one with Ellen Gates Starr and the second with Mary Rozet Smith. This paper traces the story of these two relationships, highlighting their importance in sustaining her emotionally and examining to the extent possible the place of sexuality in both.

There have been more studies, critical books, and learned articles produced over the years about Jane Austen than of any other English literary "great" with the exception of William Shakespeare. The flow of these studies greatly increased in the latter part of this century. Her novels, juvenilia and surviving letters have been intensively researched. Added to this, there is an ever growing interest in her life, times, the importance to her writing of a sense of place, and in her (...) familial and social relationships. To study her work within this wider context, the student needs to refer to the source texts, some written by members of her family after her death, printed in small printings and now both scarce and valuable. (shrink)

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Shaun Gallagher applies enactivist thinking to a staggeringly wide range of topics in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, even venturing into the realms of biological anthropology. One prominent point Gallagher makes that the holistic approach of enactivism makes it less amenable to scientific investigation than the cognitivist framework it seeks to replace, and should be seen as a “philosophy of nature” rather than a scientific research program. Gallagher also gives truth to the saying that “if you want new ideas, (...) read old books”, showing how the insights of the American pragmatists, particularly Dewey and Mead, offer a variety of resources and tools that can be brought to bear on modern day enactivism. Here, I suggest that the adoption of enactivist thinking would undermine the assumptions of certain scientific positions, requiring their abandonment, rather than simply making it more difficult to conduct research within an enactivist framework. I then discuss how Mead’s work has been used previously as a “pragmatist intervention” to help resolve problems in a related 4E endeavour, Gibson’s ecological psychology, and make a case for the inclusion of radical behaviorism as another pragmatist resource for 4E cognition. I conclude with a plea for further enactivist intervention in studies of comparative cognition. (shrink)

This book brings together the stories of biographers, novelists, scholars, and artists as they have written about the journeys (some literal, some figurative) they have made to their subjects. Contributors include Elizabeth Wood, J.J. Wilson, Leah Glasser, Jane Lazarre, and Alice Walker.

Drawing on the work of Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Dumezil, Van Gennep, Eliade and many others, Dr. Marsland proposes a dual/triune structure to early religion--a structure which appears to be worldwide.Marslander discusses the ideas of E.B.Tylor?s PRIMITIVE CULTURE (1872); James Frazer?s GOLDEN BOUGH (1890): the work of the Cambridge Ritualists, such as Jane Harrison?s THEMIS (1912) and F.M.Cornford?s ORIGINS OF ATTIC COMMEDY (1914); and Jessie Weston?s FROM RITUAL TO ROMANCE (1920). Also explored are the epistemological dilemmas of culture-formation and cultural diffusion (...) based on mythic and societal change. This synthesis encompasses in a coherent whole gods, goddesses and their functions, festival rituals, the composition of sacred sites, the meaning of animal emblems and symbols in art, along with tribal social patterns. Taking a post-Lacanian view of the religious origin of culture, Dr.Marslander posits the use and structure of symbol in new and intricate ways. (shrink)

_Jane and Louise Wilson_ With Essays by Jeremy Millar and Claire Doherty London: Ellipsis, 2000 ISBN 1-84166-027-2 84 pp., inc. 120 b/w photograph.

In this chapter I explore various facets of Addams' approaches to culture as art and as structures of life because they illuminate not only her struggles to reconcile competing perspectives and values, but also because these issues are recurring features in the development of feminist analyses of culture. -/- “This well-crafted collection of essays recognizes Jane Addams as the inspiring and occasionally provocative feminist she was. Connecting Addams’s pragmatism to social theory, political philosophy, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and more, (...) the book’s twelve authors sympathetically and critically explore Addams’s ongoing relevance to issues of art, culture, sexuality, prostitution, religion, cosmopolitanism, public/private divisions, and community organization. Scholarly experts on Addams, as well as those discovering her feminist pragmatism for the first time, will find this volume valuable.” -/- Although Jane Addams's Twenty Years at Hull-House is considered an American classic, her dozen books and hundreds of published articles have sometimes been thought of as quaint examples of an overly optimistic era. Beginning in the 1990s, feminist scholars rediscovered the vitality of Addams's social philosophy and challenged the marginalization of her ideas. Today, following a war-laden twentieth century and the failure of militarism and "get tough" approaches to solve domestic and global problems, Addams's social theorizing, which emphasizes cosmopolitan experiences and sympathetic connections, provides a provocative alternative to Western notions of individualism, transactional relations, and spectator epistemology. Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams brings together many of the leading Addams scholars in North America to consider Addams's ongoing relevance to feminist thought. Aside from the editor, the contributors are Victoria Bissell Brown, Marilyn Fischer, Judith M. Green, Shannon Jackson, Katherine Joslin, Louise W. Knight, L. Ryan Musgrave Bonomo, Wendy Sarvasy, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Eleanor J. Stebner, and Judy D. Whipps. (shrink)

Climate change activists sometimes engage in protests that exert coercion on governments, businesses, and citizens, instead of protests that just attempt to persuade them. I argue that these coercive protests are sometimes undemocratic, despite recent attempts in the literature to describe them as democratic. Coercive climate protests do not always improve deliberative decision-making, and they are a means of exerting control over official decisions that is not available to all affected. I then claim that the fact that some of these (...) protests are undemocratic is not a decisive objection against them. Climate change poses such an extremely serious threat to basic rights worldwide – risking hundreds of millions of lives – that people's right to democracy is outweighed when infringing it is a necessary means for achieving climate change mitigation. (shrink)

When we make public policy choices, is it helpful to know how utopia would look? Amartya Sen argues that it is neither necessary, nor sufficient, nor even contributory. He claims that before making a policy choice one should compare several feasible institutional designs to see which promotes justice most, and that it is misleading to use the perfect design as a standard in those comparisons. Principles of justice are the proper standard. The present article contends that the perfect design has (...) nevertheless an important role to play in the prior task of identifying and refining our principles of justice. It also shows that the perfect design—in at least one sense of this term—may be a legitimate long-term goal for present policy choices. (shrink)

As one of the preeminent philosophers of the twentieth century, W. V. Quine made groundbreaking contributions to the philosophy of science, mathematical logic, and the philosophy of language. This collection of essays examines Quine's views, particularly his holism and naturalism, for their value to feminist theorizing today. Some contributors to this volume see Quine as severely challenging basic tenets of the logico-empiricist tradition in the philosophy of science—the analytic/synthetic distinction, verificationism, foundationalism—and accept various of his positions as potential resources for (...) feminist critique. Other contributors regard Quine as an unrepentant empiricist and, unlike feminists who seek to use or extend his arguments, they interpret his positions as far less radical and more problematic. In particular, critics and advocates of Quine's arguments that the philosophy of science should be "naturalized"—understood and pursued as an enterprise continuous with the sciences proper—disagree deeply about whether such a naturalized philosophy is "philosophy enough." Central issues at stake in these disagreements reflect current questions of special interest to feminists and also bridge the analytic and postmodern traditions. They include questions about whether and how the philosophy of science, as a form of practice, is or can be normative as well as questions concerning the implications of Quine's philosophy of language for the transparency and stability of meaning. In representing feminist philosophy centrally engaged with the analytic tradition, this volume is important not only for what it contributes to the understanding of Quine and naturalized epistemology but also for what it accomplishes in working against restrictive conceptions of the place of feminism within the discipline. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Louise M. Antony, Richmond Campbell, Lorraine Code, Jane Duran, Maureen Linker, Phyllis Rooney, and Paul A. Roth. (shrink)

I consider the role of psychology and other sciences in telling us about our senses, via the issue of whether empirical findings show us that flavours are perceived partly with the sense of smell. I argue that scientific findings do not establish that we're wrong to think that flavours are just tasted. Non-naturalism, according to which our everyday conception of the senses does not involve empirical commitments of a kind that could be corrected by empirical findings is, I suggest, a (...) plausible view that is not easy to dismiss. (shrink)

Clicks, comments, transactions, and physical movements are being increasingly recorded and analyzed by Big Data processors who use this information to trace the sentiment and activities of markets and voters. While the benefits of Big Data have received considerable attention, it is the potential social costs of practices associated with Big Data that are of interest to us in this paper. Prior research has investigated the impact of Big Data on individual privacy rights, however, there is also growing recognition of (...) its capacity to be mobilized for surveillance purposes. Our paper delineates the underlying issues of privacy and surveillance and presents them as in tension with one another. We postulate that efforts at controlling Big Data may create a trade-off of risks rather than an overall improvement in data protection. We explore this idea in relation to the principles of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as it arguably embodies the new ‘gold standard’ of cyber-laws. We posit that safeguards advocated by the law, anonymization and pseudonymization, while representing effective counter measures to privacy concerns, also incentivize the use, collection, and trade of behavioral and other forms of de-identified data. We consider the legal status of these ownerless forms of data, arguing that data protection techniques such as anonymization and pseudonymization raise significant concerns over the ownership of behavioral data and its potential use in the large-scale modification of activities and choices made both on and offline. (shrink)

How are we to explain the authority we have in pronouncing on our own thoughts? A 'constitutive' theory, on which a second-level belief may help to constitute the first-level state it is about, has considerable advantages, for example in relieving pressures towards dualism. The paper aims to exploit an analogy between authority in performative utterances and authority on the psychological to get a clearer view of how such a constitutive account might work and its metaphysical presuppositions.

Background/purpose:Research from other disciplines demonstrates that ethical position, idealism, or relativism predicts ethical decision-making. Individuals from diverse cultures ascribe to various religious beliefs and studies have found that religiosity and culture affect ethical decision-making. Moreover, little literature exists regarding undergraduate nursing students’ ethical position; no studies have been conducted in the United States on students’ ethical position, their self-identified culture, and intrinsic religiosity despite an increase in the diversity of nursing students across the United States.Participants and Research Context Objectives:The study’s (...) two aims were to determine the relationship of self-identified culture, religiosity, and ethics position of undergraduate nursing student and whether students’ level of education and past ethics courses taken related to idealism. Two hundred and twelve volunteer undergraduate students participated.Research design:A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed for participants who completed the Ethical Position Questionnaire, The intrinsic subscale of the Religious Orientation Scale, and a Demographic, Cultural, Ethnicity Form. To test the five hypotheses, analyses included t-tests, correlations, and ANOVA.Ethical Considerations:The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Adelphi University.Results:Idealism and intrinsic religiosity were significantly related. Differences were observed for intrinsic religiosity and idealism for cultural identity and cultural dimensions such as parents’ place of birth, and if participants were US born. Students’ level of education or participation in past courses on ethics did not influence idealism.Conclusions:The study’s findings were similar to most of the research from other disciplines on culture, ethics position, and religiosity. Generic courses on ethics taken prior to clinical work may not assist nursing students in integrating principles into complex ethical dilemmas. Self-identified culture, religion, and intrinsic religiosity related to ethics position; completing ethics courses and level of education, juniors compared with seniors, did not influence idealism. Faculty should consider integrating students’ culture, religious orientation, and ethics position into teaching ethics for all levels of nursing education. (shrink)

Articles in the popular media and testimonies collected in empirical work suggest that many people who have not been bereaved have nevertheless grieved over pandemic-related losses of various kinds. There is a philosophical question about whether any experience of a non-death loss ought to count as grief, hinging upon how the object of grief is construed. However, even if one accepts that certain significant non-death losses are possible targets of grief, many reported cases of putative pandemic-related grief may appear less (...) plausible. For instance, it might be argued that many of these losses are temporary or minor and therefore unlikely to be grieved, and that the associated experiences are phenomenologically dissimilar to grief. In this article, as well as discussing the more general question about the coherence of the idea of non-bereavement grief, we address these obstacles to taking reports of pandemic non-bereavement grief to be literal and true. In particular, we argue that some may have experienced grief over even apparently minor losses during the pandemic. This is generally so, we suggest, only insofar as experiences of such losses form part of an overarching grief process directed at some broader significant loss. Thus, we cast light on both the nature of non-bereavement grief and the kinds of disruption and loss experienced during the pandemic. (shrink)

The Social Intelligence or Social Brain Hypothesis is an influential theory that aims to explain the evolution of brain size and cognitive complexity among the primates. This has shaped work in both primate behavioural ecology and comparative psychology in deep and far-reaching ways. Yet, it not only perpetuates many of the conceptual confusions that have plagued psychology since its inception, but amplifies them, generating an overly intellectual view of what it means to be a competent and successful social primate. Here, (...) I present an analysis of the Social Intelligence/Brain hypothesis highlighting how its anthropocentric origins have led us to be held captive by a picture of what social life involves and the kind of mind needed to navigate the social landscape. I go on to consider how experimental work in this vein either does not test what it claims to be testing, or introduces impossible problems regarding animal minds that cannot be solved, but only dissolved. What we need, in other words, is the application of “Wittgenstein's razor” and the reinvention of primatology along his enactivist lines. (shrink)

This article examines changes in men's attitudes toward the family provider role using data from the National Opinion Research Center, General Social Surveys for 1972 through 1989. Men's attitudes have become more egalitarian over this period; however, men approve more of sharing provider-role enactment than of sharing provider-role responsibility. Cohort succession was a more important source of change than change within cohorts. Differences among men in attitudes toward the provider role were associated with differences in men's provider-role experiences, although there (...) was a time lag between change in actual experience and change in attitudes. The findings suggest that structural change in the economy of the family that has changed men's experience as breadwinners is the major force altering gender expectations about family roles. Attitudes among some groups of men, those not directly affected by these changes and married men who gain privileges from the breadwinner status, however, continue to reflect past ideology. (shrink)

This article draws on an empirical investigation of how Australia’s cervical screening program came to be the way it is. The study was carried out using grounded theory methodology and primarily uses interviews with experts involved in establishing, updating or administering the program. We found strong differences in experts’ normative evaluations of the program and beliefs about optimal ways of achieving the same basic outcome: a reduction in morbidity and mortality caused by invasive cervical cancer. Our analysis demonstrates how variations (...) in values and preferences associated with key concepts underpinning public health such as benefit, harm and burden led to different perspectives on the purpose of an organized cervical screening program. These variations were largely driven by different bases of professional experience. Differently conceived purposes in turn led to conflict over how the program should be operationalized. Following Frith’s model of empirical bioethics, the results of the study both draw on and inform the existing public health and screening ethics literature. (shrink)

FEATURED IN EVENTAL AESTHETICS RETROSPECTIVE 1. LOOKING BACK AT 10 ISSUES OF EVENTAL AESTHETICS. What kind of things are damaged art-objects? Are they junk, trash, mere stuff? Or do they remain art by virtue of their distinguished provenance or still discernible design? What kind of powers do such things have as material bodies and forces? Instead of attempting to locate proper concepts for salvaged art-things, this essay, from a perspective centered on the power of bodies-in-encounter – where “power” in Spinoza’s (...) sense is the capacity to affect and be affected – attempts to home in on the presence of a material vibrancy in the hope of better understanding the postures, reactions, and comportments that damaged art pieces inspire as we engage with them. This article proposes that even so-called “inanimate” things convey specific degrees of animacy even if not all of them qualify under the biological definition of life. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este artículo sostiene que la desobediencia coercitiva motivada por el cambio climático a veces es antidemocrática, pero no por eso es impermisible. El cambio climático representa un peligro tan grave para los derechos básicos de millones de personas en todo el mundo, que incluso el derecho básico a la democracia puede verse justificadamente desplazado como medio para disminuir el riesgo de una catástrofe climática. El articulo responde también a quienes afirman que la desobediencia coercitiva climática es siempre democrática porque (...) sirve para igualar la influencia informal sobre las decisiones públicas o protege las precondiciones de la democracia. Estos argumentos solo rescatan algunos actos de desobediencia climática coercitiva. Los demás son antidemocráticos, pero no por eso impermisibles. ABSTRACT This article argues that when coercive disobedience is motivated by climate change, it is sometimes permissible, even if it is undemocratic. Climate change poses such a serious danger to the basic rights of millions of people worldwide that even the basic right to democracy can be justifiably displaced as a means to reduce the risks posed by a climate catastrophe. The article also replies to the claim that coercive climate disobedience is always democratic because it equalizes informal influence over public decisions, or protects the preconditions of democracy; these arguments only rescue some acts of coercive climate disobedience. The rest are still undemocratic, but they are not for this reason impermissible. (shrink)

How should interaction between the senses affect thought about them? I try to capture some ways in which non sense-specific perception might be thought to make it impossible or pointless or explanatorily idle to distinguish between senses. This task is complicated by there being more than one view of the nature of the senses, and more than one kind of non sense-specific perception. I argue, in particular, that provided we are willing to forgo certain assumptions about, for instance, the relationship (...) between modes or kinds of experience, and about how one should count perceptual experiences at a time, at least one way of thinking about the senses survives the occurrence of various kinds of non sense-specific perception relatively unscathed. (shrink)

Cuando dos agentes reclaman legítimamente un mismo bien, una solución posible al conflicto consiste en que el agente con el reclamo de mayor peso normativo obtenga derecho a todo el bien. Pero existe otra solución, que consiste en que el agente con el reclamo de mayor peso obtenga derecho sólo a una parte bien –la parte mayor–, mientras que el agente con el reclamo de menor peso obtenga derecho al menos a una parte del bien –aunque la parte menor–. En (...) este artículo propongo un argumento a favor de utilizar pro tanto la solución para todos los conflictos distributivos. Luego muestro que las razones para utilizar valen para menos casos de los que parece. (shrink)

En este artículo sostengo que ciertos principios igualitaristas de justicia distributiva tienen alcance solo local y no también global. Me baso en la teoría de Michael Blake, quien afirma que el contenido y alcance de los principios de justicia dependen del tipo de coerción que se ejerce en determinado ámbito. A esa teoría se le critica que no es capaz de identificar un tipo de coerción que solo exista en el ámbito local y no también en el global. Me propongo (...) responder a esa objeción mediante una analogía que muestra que solo en el ámbito local el control coercitivo es continuo, mientras que el control coercitivo que existe en el ámbito global es intermitente. (shrink)

Annotation. Informed by recent developments in literary criticism and social theory, this book addresses the presumption that nature exists independent of culture and, in particular, of language.

How are we to explain the authority we have in pronouncing on our own thoughts? A 'constitutive' theory, on which a second-level belief may help to constitute the first -level state it is about, has considerable advantages, for example in relieving pressures towards dualism. The paper aims to exploit an analogy between authority in performative utterances and authority on the psychological to get a clearer view of how such a constitutive account might work and its metaphysical presuppositions.

Increasing globalisation and advances in artificial reproductive techniques have opened up a whole new range of possibilities for infertile couples across the globe. Inter-country gestational surrogacy with monetary remuneration is one of the products of medical tourism meeting in vitro fertilisation embryo transfer. Filled with potential, it has also been a hot topic of discussion in legal and bioethics spheres. Fears of exploitation and breach of autonomy have sprung from the current situation, where there is no international regulation of surrogacy (...) agreements—only a web of conflicting national laws that generates loopholes and removes safeguards for both the surrogate and commissioning couple. This article argues the need for evidence-based international laws and regulations as the only way to resolve both the ethical and legal issues around commercial surrogacy. In addition, a Hague Convention on inter-country surrogacy agreements is proposed to resolve the muddled state of affairs and enable commercial surrogacy to demonstrate its full potential. (shrink)

This article offers a feminist deconstruction of legitimacy regarding the intentional decision by midlife independent single women to enter solo parenthood. Data collection involved interviews with 26 single mothers by choice and two years of participant observation in two Single Mothers by Choice support groups. Their accounts indicate that SMCs feel entitled to enter solo motherhood because they possess four essential attributes: age, responsibility, emotional maturity, and fiscal capability. SMCs use economic, moral, and religious justifications to further legitimize their decisions. (...) These justifications allow SMCs to present themselves as competent, ethical, and mainstream mothers. (shrink)

Although Penn et al's incisive critique of comparative cognition is welcomed, their heavily computational and representational account of cognition commits them to a purely internalist view of cognitive processes. This perhaps blinds them to a distributed alternative that raises the possibility that the human cognitive revolution occurred outside the head, and not in it.

Some see the co-cognitive view of how we arrive at judgements about others' thoughts as a version of the analogy approach, where I reason from how I find things to be with me to how they will be for others. These thinkers think it a virtue of the view that it need not accept any linkage between thought and rationality. This paper will, however, defend the view that a co-cognitive view is a natural ally of theories which link thought and (...) rationality. It will try to show that exclusive stress on analogy is unduly sceptical about our cognitive capacities and overestimates our similarity to each other. (shrink)