Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the (...) harm to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

This paper analyzes how military service can be a source of women’s antiwar voices, using the Israeli case of “Women Breaking the Silence”. WBS is a collection of testimonies from Israeli women ex-soldiers who have served in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The WBS testimonies change the nature of women’s antiwar protest by offering a new, paradoxical source of symbolic legitimacy for women’s antiwar discourse from the gendered marginalized position of “outsiders within” the military. From this contradictory standpoint, the women (...) soldiers offer a critical gendered voice, which focuses on criticism of the combat masculinity and gendered identification with the Palestinian “other.” While they reaffirm the republican ethos that grants political dominance to male soldiers, they also deconstruct the image of hegemonic masculinity as the emblem of the nation and undermine gendered militarized norms. (shrink)

Does life have meaning? What is flourishing? How do we attain the good life? Philosophers, and many others of us, have explored these questions for centuries. As Eva Feder Kittay points out, however, there is a flaw in the essential premise of these questions: they seem oblivious to the very nature of the ways in which humans live, omitting a world of co-dependency, and of the fact that we live in and through our bodies, whether they are fully abled (...) or disabled. Our dependent, vulnerable, messy, changeable, and embodied experience colors everything about our lives both on the surface and when it comes to deeper concepts, but we tend to leave aside the body for the mind when it comes to philosophical matters. Disability offers a powerful challenge to long-held philosophical views about the nature of the good life, what provides meaning in our lives, and the centrality of reason, as well as questions of justice, dignity, and personhood. These concepts need not be distant and idealized; the answers are right before us, in the way humans interact with one another, care for one another, and need one another--whether they possess full mental capacities or have cognitive limitations. We need to revise our concepts of things like dignity and personhood in light of this important correction, Kittay argues. This is the first of two books in which Kittay will grapple with just how we need to revisit core philosophical ideas in light of disabled people's experience and way of being in the world. Kittay, an award-winning philosopher who is also the mother to a multiply-disabled daughter, interweaves the personal voice with the philosophical as a critical method of philosophical investigation. Here, she addresses why cognitive disability can reorient us to what truly matters, and questions the centrality of normalcy as part of a good life. With profound sensitivity and insight, Kittay examines other difficult topics: How can we look at the ethical questions regarding prenatal testing in light of a new appreciation of the personhood of disabled people? What do new possibilities in genetic testing imply for understanding disability, the family, and bioethics? How can we reconsider the importance of care, and how does it work best? In the process of pursuing these questions, Kittay articulates an ethic of care, which is the ethical theory most useful for claiming full rights for disabled people and providing the opportunities for everyone to live joyful and fulfilling lives. She applies the lessons of care to the controversial alteration of severely cognitively disabled children known as the Ashley Treatment, whereby a child's growth is halted with extensive estrogen treatment and related bodily interventions are justified. This book both imparts lessons that advocate on behalf of those with significant disabilities, and constructs a moral theory grounded on our ability to give, receive, and share care and love. Above all, it aims to adjust social attitudes and misconceptions about life with disability. (shrink)

In this article I examine the proposition that severe cognitive disability is an impediment to moral personhood. Moral personhood, as I understand it here, is articulated in the work of Jeff McMahan as that which confers a special moral status on a person. I rehearse the metaphysical arguments about the nature of personhood that ground McMahan’s claims regarding the moral status of the “congenitally severely mentally retarded” (CSMR for short). These claims, I argue, rest on the view that only (...) intrinsic psychological capacities are relevant to moral personhood: that is, that relational properties are generally not relevant. In addition, McMahan depends on an argument that species membership is irrelevant for moral consideration and a contention that privileging species membership is equivalent to a virulent nationalism (these will be discussed below). In consequence, the CSMR are excluded from moral personhood and their deaths are less significant as their killing is less wrong than that of persons. To throw doubt on McMahan’s conclusions about the moral status and wrongness of killing the CSMR I question the exclusive use of intrinsic properties in the metaphysics of personhood, the dismissal of the moral importance of species membership, and the example of virulent nationalism as an apt analogy. I also have a lot to say about McMahan’s empirical assumptions about the CSMR. (shrink)

According to the most important theories of justice, personal dignity is closely related to independence, and the care that people with disabilities receive is seen as a way for them to achieve the greatest possible autonomy. However, human beings are naturally subject to periods of dependency, and people without disabilities are only “temporarily abled.” Instead of seeing assistance as a limitation, we consider it to be a resource at the basis of a vision of society that is able to account (...) for inevitable dependency relationships between “unequals” ensuring a fulfilling life both for the carer and the cared for.**. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the lexicon. The demand for a fuller and more adequate understanding of lexical meaning required by developments in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science has stimulated a refocused interest in linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. Different disciplines have studied lexical structure from their own vantage points, and because scholars have only intermittently communicated across disciplines, there has been little recognition that there is a common subject matter. The conference on which this (...) volume is based brought together interested thinkers across the disciplines of linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and computer science to exchange ideas, discuss a range of questions and approaches to the topic, consider alternative research strategies and methodologies, and formulate interdisciplinary hypotheses concerning lexical organization. The essay subjects discussed include: * alternative and complementary conceptions of the structure of the lexicon, * the nature of semantic relations and of polysemy, * the relation between meanings, concepts, and lexical organization, * critiques of truth-semantics and referential theories of meaning, * computational accounts of lexical information and structure, and * the advantages of thinking of the lexicon as ordered. (shrink)

In this article I examine the proposition that severe cognitive disability is an impediment to moral personhood. Moral personhood, as I understand it here, is articulated in the work of Jeff McMahan as that which confers a special moral status on a person. I rehearse the metaphysical arguments about the nature of personhood that ground McMahan’s claims regarding the moral status of the “congenitally severely mentally retarded” (CSMR for short). These claims, I argue, rest on the view that only (...) intrinsic psychological capacities are relevant to moral personhood: that is, that relational properties are generally not relevant. In addition, McMahan depends on an argument that species membership is irrelevant for moral consideration and a contention that privileging species membership is equivalent to a virulent nationalism (these will be discussed below). In consequence, the CSMR are excluded from moral personhood and their deaths are less significant as their killing is less wrong than that of persons. To throw doubt on McMahan’s conclusions about the moral status and wrongness of killing the CSMR I question the exclusive use of intrinsic properties in the metaphysics of personhood, the dismissal of the moral importance of species membership, and the example of virulent nationalism as an apt analogy. I also have a lot to say about McMahan’s empirical assumptions about the CSMR. (shrink)

Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the (...) harm to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

Every ethic, if it is not to be a feather in the wind, needs an epistemology. As we look at epistemologies from Plato's Theaetetus to Kant's First Critique to contemporary virtue epistemology, the question of knowledge is always tethered to an ethics, sometimes tightly, sometimes loosely. To live a good life and act rightly toward others, we need to know what we need to know to do this well; we need to know how to know that what we are doing (...) is what is good or right; and we need to know how we can know what is good and right. That is, if we wish to know that what we are doing is right, what principles or precepts to follow, we need to reflect on the nature and the possibility of knowledge itself.What Vrinda Dalmiya... (shrink)

This book's thirty essays explore philosophically the nature and morality of sexual perversion, cybersex, masturbation, homosexuality, contraception, same-sex marriage, promiscuity, pedophilia, date rape, sexual objectification, teacher-student relationships, pornography, and prostitution. Authors include Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Alan Goldman, John Finnis, Sallie Tisdale, Robin West, Alan Wertheimer, John Corvino, Cheshire Calhoun, Jerome Neu, and Alan Soble, among others. A valuable resource for sex researchers as well as undergraduate courses in the philosophy of sex.

The Canadian health care system is a publicly fundedsystem based on the philosophy that health is a right,not a commodity. The implementation of thisperspective is hampered by the fact that the CanadianConstitution makes health care a matter of provincialjurisdiction, while most taxing powers lie in thehands of the federal government. Further problemsarise because of Canada's geographic nature and a moveto regionalization of provincial health careadministration. The issue is compounded byrecent developments in reproductive technologies,aboriginal health, changes in consent law, (...) etc. (shrink)

Annual Reports on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) issued by Health CanadaCanada on behalf of the Government of Canada strive to make essential information public, on this large national program that over five years has provided death to over 30,000 Canadians. The source of the information is self-reporting by physicians and nurse practitioners who offer to act as MAID assessors and providers, as well as self-reporting by cooperating pharmacists. Focus of this discussion is the latest available document in this series, (...) the Third Annual Report on MAID published in July 2022 and providing data on 10,064 deaths by MAID in 2021. In addition to reviewing essential information about MAID recipients and MAID providers, the discussion is centered on the method of data collection, the rapid and unexpected annual increase of cases, the underlying medical conditions, the nature of suffering reported by MAID applicants, the use of palliative care, the decision-making about one’s eligibility, the role of the reflection period, necessary requirement to obtain informed consent and the denial of assisted dying. In each case, the attention is drawn to missing or indeterminate elements, and essential but unavailable analysis of data, in order to identify further information that ought to be collected and used to generate future annual reports and to refine the delivery of MAID program and its oversight. (shrink)

What happens when the world changes in ways that make Canada's physical capital, natural resources, and geography - once the ultimate competitive advantages - less important than knowledge, information, technological know-how, and human capital? What happens to Canadians? In A State of Minds Thomas Courchene examines the political structures that link local, provincial, and federal governments and challenges many longstanding beliefs about how society should be organized and financed. While focusing on Canadian competitiveness in a global economy, Courchene shows (...) us how an open federal state like Canada can achieve both economic prosperity and social justice. Always provocative, Courchene blends compelling analysis and reasoned insight with a prescription for change: To stay ahead of the competitive curve and protect the Canadian way of life, Canada must become a "state of minds.". (shrink)

This article examines the possibility of establishing a Department of Peace (DOP) as a Department of the Government of Canada. The topic has been introduced in Parliament twice, as Bill C-447 in 2009 and as Bill C-373 in 2011, without any further actions beyond the formal First Reading. The introduction of the bills could only happen on the basis of significant support among Canadians. At present efforts to introduce the DOP continue, although in somewhat muted form. Based largely on oral (...) interviews, this article assesses the potential for establishing a DOP in the context of the Canadian peace tradition as well as global developments. It concludes that a DOP has great potential to move the peace agenda forward but that, in view of the priorities of the current government and the general mood in Canadian society, it is not realistic to expect a DOP to be implemented at present. (shrink)

As concerns of the Earth heading towards environmental change is gaining more prominence, this article will introduce a pilot study intended to investigate the common ideas children have about nature and how such ideas emerge within a philosophical community of inquiry about nature. We are particularly interested in a cultural comparison between German and Canadian children in order to see if the different historical and cultural developments influence how children understand and feel about nature. This pilot (...) study contributes towards a greater understanding of the cultural differences underlying how children’s perceptions of nature are tied to their identity formation. Furthermore, the process of philosophical inquiry may lend sensitivity to how children reflect and feel as they grow in today’s culture focused on environmental sustainability and economic development. (shrink)

Mr. Mathien asks for evidence that there is Canadian philosophy in a special sense. He is not concerned with questions about whether people who were Canadians, or lived out much or most of their working lives in Canada, wrote philosophy which deserves to be taken seriously. Rather, he asks whether what has gone on in Canada by way of philosophy can be assembled in such a way as to make a coherent discipline.

Mutual accommodation is about co-operation, compromise, and inclusion. It's a big idea, equal to freedom, science, and compassion. The postwar global economic order led by the United States is one of the greatest historic achievements of mutual accommodation, yet it is now at risk from the centrifugal forces that have led to populism. Today, to many nations and people, Canada is the model country driven by successful mutual accommodation. In Might Nature Be Canadian? William Macdonald explores the theme (...) of mutual accommodation with a close lens on the Canadian experience. Canada has a drive toward mutual accommodation. The United States has a strong drive toward division. There has always been a divergence of ideologies between the two countries. The United States now appears to view the world as a never-ending struggle, which has become greater since 2000, between good and evil, while Canada, by contrast, leans toward the idea that there is an underlying order at the heart of things. Canada has always faced strong limits in creatively overcoming a challenging geography and French/English language differences within its own borders; on the other hand the United States sees itself as a country with virtually no limits. Throughout its history Canada's drive toward mutual accommodation, stronger than that of any other country, has allowed its increasingly diverse citizens to live together peacefully and successfully, even as they retain their own culture, language, and religion. Nature can be described as simultaneously either/or and both/and. Is there something fundamentally Canadian about this? Taking inspiration from British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who said that "civilization is the triumph of persuasion over force," Macdonald argues that the urgent spread of mutual accommodation, a charge led by Canada, is central to achieving a bearable world for everyone. (shrink)

A traditional task of epistemology is to establish and defend systematic standards that must be met in order for us to have knowledge or justified beliefs. A "naturalized epistemology" tries to arrive at such standards through an empirical investigation into how we interact with our fellows and the world around us, what we seek in these activities, and the particular ways in which we can and cannot succeed. This approach is a radical departure from tradition because its means of investigation (...) is empirical. Nevertheless, since its inception three decades ago, this style of epistemology has become a powerful trend in contemporary theory of knowledge. This collection breaks new ground in extending the insights and methodology of naturalized epistemology to the subject of moral knowledge and moral theory. The essays are divided between two overarching themes. One is the so-called fact-value distinction. How can an empirical study of knowledge hope to address the normative questions about how we should reason about moral matters, how we should live morally? The other is the relation of practical moral know-how to moral discourse. Can the biological underpinning of morality explain most of its central features or is moral discourse essential to our understanding of the cognitive dimensions of moral experience? (shrink)

This paper has two goals. The first is to fill a gap in the literature on inductive risk by exploring the relevance of the notion of inductive risk to macroeconomics and monetary policy. The second goal is to draw some general lessons about inductive risk from the case discussed. The most important of these lessons is that the notion of inductive risk is no less relevant to the relationship between the proximate and distal goals of policy than it is to (...) the relationship between policies and their goals. (shrink)

This is a collection of Canadian legal decisions, mostly from the highest court of the land, that raise and respond to central issues in political and legal philosophy and social ethics. All the issues raised by these cases are current and controversial. They include: the scope of judicial review and legitimate powers of the courts; separation of powers; the nature and scope of rights of speech, association, Aboriginal rights, and legal protections in criminal prosecution; equality and its pursuit (...) in a free and democratic society; autonomy and its protection; the nature of legal responsibility in criminal and tort law; and legitimate punishment. This edition takes into account the many changes that have occurred in our court's interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Twelve new cases have been added, as has a new section on "Group Self-Determination" that takes into account important changes in Aboriginal rights. Many of the cases from the previous edition have been re-edited and slightly expanded, with "follow up" cases included to reflect how they are now interpreted. (shrink)

Law can greatly facilitate responses to public health emergencies, including naturally-occurring infectious disease outbreaks and intentional or accidental exposures to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear agents. At the federal level, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, as the lead for federal public health and medical responses to public health emergencies and incidents, has a range of authorities to support federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial responses. For example, under the Public Health Service Act, the Secretary may (...) provide temporary assistance to States to meet health emergency needs or deploy medicine and supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. The Secretary also may determine that a disease or disorder presents a public health emergency, which may be the first step in triggering other critical legal authorities for response.Since the 2001 anthrax attacks, one focus of public health preparedness has been on developing, distributing, and rapidly dispensing medical countermeasures for CBRN emergencies and pandemics. (shrink)

Canadian Environmental Philosophy is the first collection of essays to take up theoretical and practical issues in environmental philosophy today, from a Canadian perspective. The essays cover various subjects, including ecological nationalism, the legacy of Grey Owl, the meaning of “outside” to Canadians, the paradigm shift from mechanism to ecology in our understanding of nature, the meaning and significance of the Anthropocene, the challenges of biodiversity protection in Canada, the conservation status of crossbred species in the age (...) of climate change, and the moral status of ecosystems. This wide range of topics is as diverse and challenging as the Canadian landscape itself. Given the extent of humanity's current impact on the biosphere – especially evident with anthropogenic climate change and the ongoing mass extinction – it has never been more urgent for us to confront these environmental challenges as Canadian citizens and citizens of the world. Canadian Environmental Philosophy galvanizes this conversation from the perspective of this place. (shrink)

By analysing original sources and evaluating conceptual frameworks, this book discusses the idea proclaimed in the Preamble to the Constitution that Australia is a federal commonwealth. Taking careful account of the influence which the American, Canadian and Swiss Constitutions had upon the framers of the Australian Constitution, the author shows how the framers wrestled with the problem of integrating federal ideas with inherited British traditions and their own experiences of parliamentary government. In so doing, the book explains how the (...) Constitution came into being in the context of the groundswell of federal ideas then sweeping the English-speaking world. In advancing an original argument about the relationship between the formation of the Constitution, the representative institutions, configurations of power and amending formulas contained therein, fresh light is shed on the terms and structure of the Constitution and a range of problems associated with its interpretation and practical operation are addressed. (shrink)

Is it possible to design a forest policy that satisfies ethical and environmental concerns and is acceptable to business, labour and First Nations representatives? What is the best path through the tangle of ethical issues surrounding the collapse of the east coast fishery? What sort of obligations does a rich nation such as Canada have to satisfy the claims of global environmental justice? These are the sorts of issues in applied ethics that are tackled in this collection of essays, the (...) vast majority of which have been written especially for this volume. It is the first Canadian collection of its kind. The book is divided in to sections detailing with such topics as the environment and the economy; ethical issues relating to non-human animals; issues of gender; and issues relating to native peoples. Most of the authors are philosophers, though specialists in geography, geology, and the social sciences are also among the contributors. Frequent reference is made to theoretical ethical concerns, but the focus throughout is on applied ethics, and a variety of case studies are included. (Examples include essays on animal rights and the case of native hunters; surface mining in Northern Ontario, the Quebec arctic; and fishing communities in the Maritimes.) Comparisons are frequently drawn to policies and ethical questions arising in other countries-most prominently the United States. (shrink)

This Element introduces the reader to Kant's theory of peace and to its place in the broader context of the critical philosophy. It also delves into one aspect of the model that has generated much debate among interpreters, given Kant's changing thoughts on the matter. This aspect relates to the nature and powers of the international federation. Defending the idea that national sovereignty is indissolubly linked to states' full autonomy regarding the use of military power, this Element offers (...) an interpretation and defense of the Kantian federation that, in many regards, departs from the mainstream reading. Special emphasis is placed on the problematic coexistence of two conflicting theoretical desiderata: on the one hand, the necessity of establishing an international institution with coercive powers for securing peace; on the other hand, the necessity of avoiding the risk of an excessive erosion of states' sovereignty. (shrink)

I used to think that we should expect of presidents of philosophical associations that they offer us a few pithy comments on the nature of the universe.

Interest in purchasing local food from suppliers who follow sustainable practices is growing in Canada. Such suppliers wish to have their products recognized in the market so that price premiums might be received, and new markets developed. In response, the organization Local Food Plus (LFP) developed standards and a certification process to authenticate local and sustainable claims. LFP provides certification seals, and labeling provisions for qualifying producers and processors. However, given pre-existing national food labeling rules, it is not evident that (...) existing regulations permit such claims. Using LFP as a case, this study examined whether current federal labeling rules might impede the marketing of local and sustainable claims. Key findings include that the use of the terms natural, sustainable, and local in panel language and on shelf-talkers could be contested; and that the absence of specific regulation of numerous pertinent terms means they can only be assessed against general fraud prevention regulations, resulting in case-by-case determinations of compliance. Sustainability food label approvals in Canada, based on these general provisions, have not always been favorable to sustainable producers and firms. Existing regulation of these potentially contested terms appears to be out of step with other policy-related developments at the federal level and / or conceptual developments in the field. Proposals are made for amending existing rules to better support local and sustainable claims. (shrink)

As part of a larger study eliciting Canadian producer and non-producer views about animal welfare, open-ended, semi-structured interviews were used to explore opinions about animal welfare of 20 Canadian pig producers, most of whom were involved in confinement-based systems. With the exception of the one organic producer, who emphasized the importance of a “natural” life, participants attached overriding importance to biological health and functioning. They saw their efforts as providing pigs with dry, thermally regulated, indoor environments where animals (...) received abundant feed, careful monitoring and where prospective disease outbreaks could be minimized and controlled. Emphasis was also placed on low-stress handling and agreeable working conditions which were believed to promote good animal care. The fact that pigs tend to respond to such conditions with steady growth reinforced the belief that good welfare was provided. Participants supported the use of sow gestation stalls, but with some reservations, and expressed concern about welfare problems that could occur if sows were grouped. Invasive procedures (castration, tail-docking, teeth clipping) were recognized as painful but were accepted because they were seen as: (1) necessary for sales or management; (2) satisfactory trade-offs to prevent worse welfare problems such as injury or infection; or (3) sufficiently short-term to be relatively unimportant. Participants were adamantly opposed to animal neglect and some welcomed actions of animal protectionists that expose poor care. Producers also welcomed natural-science-based approaches to improving animal welfare. The findings contribute to a broader effort to identify overlapping values among different stakeholder groups as a basis for formulating mutually agreeable, farm animal care and handling polices. (shrink)

When I first heard of the Massachusetts state legislation, two things came to mind. One of them was a piece of Canadian history little known to Americans: universal care in that country began with the Canadian provinces, gradually spreading to its federal government. Is that kind of development possible in the United States? The other was the famous 1932 phrase of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis that the states are the “laboratories of democracy.” Could the Massachusetts law serve (...) as a laboratory for national universal health care? While the two questions are related, they raise different issues. The Canadian example bears on the direction and trajectory of health care reform, not on its content. Brandeis’s phrase encompasses the nature of the reforms. The Massachusetts law is encouraging on both counts, but there are reasons to be hesitant in one’s hopes. (shrink)

The report entitled An Analysis of the Canadian Research and Development System for Agriculture/Food which was presented to the Science Council of Canada in July, 1991 contains many far-reaching recommendations for revisions of the research and educational components of the Agriculture/Food System in Canada. The report calls for research of holistic and interdisciplinary nature. It calls for determination of research priorities by broadly constituted committees which would include reporesentaitves heretofore not included in the process of decisionmaking regarding scientific (...) research. In addition, it calls for restructuring of the agricultural education system. The Co-editors of this Journal, believe that these recommendations should be wildely discussed and, therefore, requested publication of the Executive Summary of this Report. (shrink)

The development of the aquaculture industry in Canada has triggered a conflict of a scope never seen before. As stated in Young and Matthews’ The Aquaculture Controversy, this debate has “mushroomed over the past several decades to become one of the most bitter and stubborn face-offs over industrial development ever witnessed in Canada” (Young and Matthews in The aquaculture controversy in Canada. Activism, policy and contested science. UBC Press, Vancouver, p 3, 2010). It opposes a wide variety of actors: from (...) industrial investors, scientists, politicians and environmentalists to Native associations and communities, citizens groups and local stakeholders. The opposition is fierce between those in favor of a flourishing and modern aquaculture of industrial nature and those who fear the dreadful consequences of such an industry. In particular, the possible implementation of biotechnology innovations, such as a genetically modified salmon, has made this debate coextensive with the GMO debate, thus multiplying the opposition’s spectrum of arguments against the industry. Throughout the debate, Canadian environmental NGOs like the Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace Canada have assumed leadership over the opposition to aquaculture development with certain success. Their participation in the debate features numerous ethical concerns related to environmental health, a respect for wilderness and local human communities. Such a position can be associated overall with a form of ecocentric ethics or concern. Nevertheless, a careful examination of the technical solutions proposed by these NGOs reveals their embeddedness in biocentrism. Through the example taken from the Canadian debate on aquaculture development, this paper aims to highlight the conceptual difficulty of enacting ecocentric ethical positions beyond formal arguments. Because ecocentrism implies a true paradigm shift, not only in mentality, but also in the way we conceive our technical interventions in nature, biocentrism remains an important practical method to enact ethical positions related to environmental concerns in public debates. (shrink)

The Canadian medical assistance in dying program, based on an ambitious piece of legislation and detailed regulations, has failed to provide Canadians with sufficient publicly accessible evidence to show that it is operating as mandated by the requirements of the law, regulations, and expectations of all stakeholders. The federal law that was adopted in 2016 defined the eligibility criteria and put in place a number of safeguards that had to be satisfied before providing assisted dying to a person in (...) order not to transgress the Criminal Law. The responsibility of monitoring for the purpose of investigating compliance with the eligibility criteria and procedural safeguards was assigned by the Federal Ministry of Health to the provincial and territorial governments. Some of the governments have released statistical data concerning the program, but none have yet issued a comprehensive report on adherence to the eligibility criteria and its safeguards as required by the law and regulations. This paper explains the process, explores the possible reasons for this shortfall, and offers some suggestions for actions that could rectify this aspect of the MAID program. Accountability and transparency are integral to the delivery of MAID and the publications of the mandated federal as well as provincial/territorial monitoring reports are one important approach to achieving confidence and trust in the program. (shrink)

The rhetoric surrounding the creation of a 'knowledge-based economy/society' emphasizes the interrelationship between ICTs in knowledge and economic development and their continued trajectory throughout the next century. What, however, is really meant by the KBE/S agenda, and how are the important social issues surrounding KBE/S, including access, content, and citizenship being dealt with? Using Canada as an example, this discussion will focus on how Canadian federal policymakers are conceptualizing the issues surrounding KBE/S through recent and ongoing policy explorations.

Magnetic observations were essential for polar navigation, and were carried out systematically on both sea and land-based expeditions to the Canadian Arctic throughout the nineteenth century. John Franklin took a particular interest in magnetic studies and encouraged the Admiralty to adopt Robert Were Fox's dip circle. The establishment of the Toronto magnetic observatory provided a base for John Henry Lefroy's survey of the North West Territories. The Royal Navy's programme of magnetic research, commenced in the aftermath of the Napoleonic (...) Wars, was maintained until the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–76, commanded by Nares. In all these expeditions, the nature and limits of the observations were determined by the available instruments. (shrink)

In this updated second edition, Debating Health Care Ethics explores contemporary moral challenges in health care, providing students with the essential tools to understand and critically evaluate the leading arguments in the field and to develop their own arguments on important moral problems in health care. Written in a clear and concise way, the textbook’s first three chapters explore the nature of arguments and ethical theories, while the remaining chapters introduce students to moral problems in health care through case (...) studies and dramas that feature complex scenarios involving patients, family members, and health care providers. Each case study and drama is followed by a lively debate where the authors defend their unique approaches to the dilemma. This new edition now includes more gender inclusive dramas, an expanded discussion of feminist ethics, a case study on euthanasia that highlights changes to Canadian law, and an update on fetal consciousness that informs the debate on abortion. Emphasizing critical issues in health care from a Canadian perspective, this essential textbook will benefit students in philosophy, nursing, and health studies. (shrink)

In important respects measurement practices underlay both the Second Scientific Revolution and the Second Industrial Revolution. Such practices, using increasingly accurate and precise instruments, both turned laboratories into factories for the production of exact measurement and also made factories the sites of laboratory-type and laboratory-quality measurement. Those who had learnt the protocols of precise, instrumentational measurement in university science and engineering classrooms, used those instruments and their skills to monitor and control industrial production, exchange technical data within and among firms (...) and formulate and implement technical standardization in industry. That these instruments measured not natural phenomena but technological ones made them no different in kind from what are more conventionally regarded as scientific instruments. Some indeed were simply instruments developed for scientific investigation and adapted for industrial use while others were created specifically for particular industrial applications. But more than the purely technical was going on in the use of those instruments. In addition to their function of producing knowledge they were also, in industrial production, instruments of hegemony – hegemony which, as Gramsci reminds us, begins in the factory. Among the lesser known of these devices is the freeness tester, used in production to control the manufacture of pulp and also in industrial research laboratories for the investigation of the pulping process. The Canadian Standard Freeness Tester (CSFT), developed at a Canadian government research facility on the campus of McGill University in the 1920s, quickly became a standard instrument in the pulp mills of North America and gained wide acceptance in other countries; it remains in use to this day. An understanding of its creation and function can provide a useful case study of the general observations discussed above. (shrink)

An investigation into Aristotle's metaphysics of nature as expounded in the Physics. It focuses in particular his conception of change, a concept which is shown to possess a unique metaphysical structure, with implications that should engage the attention of contemporary analysis. First published in hardback in 1982, the book is now available for the first time in paperback. 'A powerful and appealing explanatory scheme which succeeds on the whole in drawing together a great many seemingly disparate elements in the (...) Physics into a neat unitary stucture.' Canadian Philosophical Review. (shrink)

The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans was first developed to establish a standard of practice in research ethics by the three federal agencies responsible for funding institutional research in Canada: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In 2010, a second edition of the policy, known as the TCPS 2, was released with updated information and expanded coverage of research ethics issues. According to the (...) TCPS 2, the Agencies’ mandate is “to promote research that is conducted according to the highest ethical standards,” and the TCPS 2 serves as a benchmark for this with respect for human dignity as its underlying value. Research institutions receiving Agency funding are to comply with this policy statement by forming Research Ethics Boards to review all research involving human participants. The intention behind this review requirement is to provide a proportionate assessment of the benefit-to-risk ratio of the research, and in that process, to safeguard “respect for persons”, express a “concern for welfare”, and uphold “justice”. Research may not proceed until ethics approval is granted by an institution’s REB. The current study evaluates REB members’ perspectives on their knowledge of research ethics, and juxtaposes these perceptions with those of researchers. Specifically, we are interested in the extent to which REB members with less experience read the TCPS 2, and whether those with less experience have decreased confidence in their ethics knowledge. (shrink)

Background In February, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the ban on medical assistance in dying. In June, 2016, the federal government passed Bill C-14, permitting MAiD. Current medical students will be the first physician cohort to enter a system permissive of MAiD, and may help to ensure equitable access to care. This study assessed medical student views on MAiD, factors influencing these views, and opportunities for medical education. Methods An exploratory cross-sectional survey was developed and distributed to (...) medical students across all years of a three-year Canadian undergraduate medical program. The investigators administered the survey to participants during academic sessions from November to December, 2015. Analysis of the results included summary descriptive statistics, Pearson’s chi-square test of independence to identify differences between participants by year of study, logistic regression to identify factors that influence students’ stances on MAiD, and Wilcoxon signed rank test to measure changes in student support for MAiD and comfort discussing MAiD. Results There were 405 participants for a response rate of 87%. The majority of students supported the Supreme Court’s decision, 61% would provide the means for a patient to end their life, and 38% would personally administer a lethal medication. Students who were more willing to provide the means for MAiD found medical education/clinical experience and patient autonomy to be important contributors to their stances on MAiD. Those students who were less willing to provide the means for MAiD found religious/spiritual beliefs and teachings, as well as concern about potential negative consequences, to be important contributors to their stances on MAiD. Educational training desired by participants included medicolegal, communication skills, technical skills, and religious. Conclusions Medical students generally supported and would provide the means for MAiD to patients. They also indicated a desire for directed medical education on MAiD. (shrink)

Although Canada has not yet enacted any biobanking-specific privacy law, guidance and oversight are provided via various federal and provincial health and privacy-related laws as well as via ethics and policy documents. The primary policy document governing health research, the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, provides the framework for the strong role of Research Ethics Boards in Canada, and limits research funding from Canada's three main federal funding agencies to those who agree to adhere to its (...) policies. The broad consent model is gaining traction in Canada, although lack of legal and constitutional precedence for the broad consent or opt-out options makes this an evolving issue. In general, data is required to be coded; more specific security measures are outlined in guidelines that may be implemented by local policy. International sharing is allowed, and Canada meets the European Union's standards for receipt of data and samples. (shrink)

A stereotype is a belief or claim that a group of people has a particular feature. Stereotypes are expressed by sentences that have the form of generic statements, like “Canadians are nice.” Recent work on generics lends new life to understanding generics as statements involving probabilities. I argue that generics (and thus sentences expressing stereotypes) can take one of several forms involving conditional probabilities, and these probabilities have what I call a naturalness requirement. This is the natural probability theory of (...) stereotypes. Each of the two components of the theory entails a family of fallacies that contributes to the spurious reinforcement of stereotypes: inferential slippage within and between the different generic forms, and inferential slippage from facts about frequencies of group traits to beliefs about natural propensities or dispositions of groups. Empirical research suggests that we often commit these fallacies. Moreover, this theory can referee a vitriolic debate between some psychologists, who hold that stereotypes are always false and stereotyping is always wrong, and other psychologists, who hold that stereotypes are often accurate and stereotyping is often reasonable. (shrink)

Indigenous peoples encounter restrictions on their modes of reasoning and account-giving within democratic sites of negotiation and deliberation. Political theorists understand these restrictions as forms of exclusion related to what theorist Iris Young has called the ‘internal exclusion’ of subordinated perspectives and theorist James Bohman has referred to as the ‘asymmetrical inclusion’ of such perspectives. ‘Internal exclusion’ refers to ways in which actors are formally accepted into decision-making processes, only to find their perspectives disqualified due to informal but no less (...) pervasive criteria of exclusion. ‘Asymmetrical inclusion’ refers to the undue burdens placed on marginalized peoples to persuade dominant communities. It is argued in light of these problems that more inclusive institutions as well as the cultivation of an ethos of receptivity will be necessary for genuine inclusion. I argue that this focus on enriching dialogue can mischaracterize the nature of disagreement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.Disagreement does not only arise between opinions or discourses that can be articulated and judged, but also at a deeper level, between the background assumptions against which practices of articulation and judgment are understood. Territorial state sovereignty, I argue, is a background understanding that can render sites of democratic negotiation inhospitable to Indigenous claims. I conclude that when thinking through Indigenous equality and autonomy, theorists should be attuned to the sites and conditions of dialogue that might serve to reinscribe relations of domination and exclusion. (shrink)