This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; coordination of law-based public health actions; and information. Options presented in this paper are for consideration by (...) policy makers and practitioners — in all jurisdictions and all relevant sectors and disciplines — with responsibilities for all-hazards emergency preparedness.Advancing and protecting the public's health depends upon the coordination of actions by many, diverse partners. For effective public health preparedness, there must be effective coordination of legal tools and law-based strategies across local, state, tribal, and federal jurisdictions, and also across sectors such as public health, health care, emergency management, education, law enforcement, community design, and academia. (shrink)

This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the work and thought of the highly influential twentieth-century critic and theorist Walter Benjamin. The volume provides examinations of the different aspects of Benjamin's work that have had a significant effect on contemporary critical and historical thought. Topics discussed by experts in the field include Benjamin's relation to the avant-garde movements of his time, the form of the work of art, his theories on language and mimesis, modernity, his relation to Brecht and the (...) Frankfurt School, his significance and relevance to modern cultural studies, his formative interpretation of Romanticism, and his autobiographical writings. The volume is aimed at readers who may be coming to Benjamin for the first time or who have some knowledge of Benjamin but would like to know more about the issues and concepts central to his work. Additional material includes a guide to further reading and a chronology. (shrink)

A feminist primer for philosophers of science -- The legacy of twentieth century philosophy of science -- What feminist science studies can offer -- Challenges from every direction -- The prospects of twenty-first century philosophy of science.

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part. This doctrine is rooted in Aristotle's conception of the soul, and has antecedents in Hobbes's conception of the mind as a “calculating machine”, but it has become fully articulated (and popularly endorsed) only (...) in the last third of the 20th century. Though the term ‘functionalism’ is used to designate a variety of positions in a variety of other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, and architecture, this entry focuses exclusively on functionalism as a philosophical thesis about the nature of mental states. (shrink)

Crisis demands -- Crisis narratives -- Crisis: refrain!

Ethical reasoning is an integral part of the work of a clinical ethics consultant. Ethical reasoning has a close relationship with an individual’s beliefs and values, which, for religious adherents, are likely to be tightly connected with their spiritual perspectives. As a result, for individuals who identify with a religious tradition, the process of thinking through ethical questions is likely to be influenced by their religious worldview. The connection between ethical reasoning and one’s spiritual perspective raises questions about the role (...) that CECs’ personal religious worldviews should play in their professional lives and their consultative work. This paper offers numerous arguments critiquing the inclusion of a consultant’s own spiritual perspective in her work and has identified only limited circumstances under which such inclusion might be permissible. In particular, these arguments lead to the conclusion that a CEC’s personal beliefs should never influence her ethical analysis or development of a recommendation. Further, religious appeals should not be used in communication during decision-making conversations other than to describe the patient or surrogate’s stated perspective. There may be limited cases in which a CEC may share her spiritual worldview with a patient with the intent of building a collaborative relationship, but such situations should be approached with extreme caution. (shrink)

Science is based onfacts—facts that are systematically gathered by a community of enquirers through detailed observation and experiment. In the twentieth century, however, philosophers of science claimed that the facts that scientists “gather” in this way are shaped by the theories scientists accept, and this seemed to threaten the authority of science. Call this theold worries about science.By contrast, what seemed not to threaten that authority were other factors that shaped the facts that scientists gather—for example, the mere questions scientists (...) pursue. Call this theold nonworries about science.What I suggest is that the old nonworries are turning out to be far more worrisome than the old worries, and I use recent goings-on such as the “Death of Evidence” protests in Canada, the “replication crisis,” and the ongoing feminist critiques of science to illustrate my case. All this raises interesting new questions for philosophers of science to tackle. (shrink)

Although ethical leadership by formal nurse leaders is critical to enhancing ethical health-care practice, research has shown that many nurses feel unsupported by their leaders. In this article, we consider the limited attention directed toward ethical leadership of formal nurse leaders and how our own research on ethical nurse leadership compares to other research in this field. In searching Nursing Ethics since its inception 20 years ago, we found only a dozen articles that directly addressed this topic. We then reviewed (...) nurses’ professional codes of ethics in Canada and found significant retractions of ethical guidelines for formal nurse leaders’ ethical responsibilities over the past decade. We began to seek explanations of why this is so and offer some recommendations for the study and enhancement of ethics for formal nurse leadership. (shrink)

For centuries scientists have claimed that women are intellectually inferior to men and blacks are inferior to whites. Although these claims have been contested and corrected for centuries, they still continue to be made. Meanwhile, scientists have documented the harm done to women and blacks by the publication of such claims. Can anything be done to improve this situation? Freedom of research is universally recognized to be of first-rate importance. Yet, constraints on that freedom are also universally recognized. I consider (...) three of these constraints and argue for tighter restrictions on race- and gender-related cognitive differences research on their basis. (shrink)

This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it (...) is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this ‘Covid Collective’ come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus. (shrink)

Families play an essential role in deceased organ procurement. As the person cannot directly communicate his or her wishes regarding donation, the family is often the only source of information regarding consent or refusal. We provide a systematic description and analysis of the different roles the family can play, and actions the family can take, in the organ procurement process across different jurisdictions and consent systems. First, families can inform or update healthcare professionals about a person’s donation wishes. Second, families (...) can authorize organ procurement in the absence of deceased’s preferences and the default is not to remove organs, and oppose donation where there is no evidence of preference but the default is to presume consent; in both cases, the decision could be based on their own wishes or what they think the deceased would have wanted. Finally, families can overrule the known wishes of the deceased, which can mean preventing donation, or permitting donation when the deceased refused it. We propose a schema of 4 levels on which to map these possible family roles: no role, witness, surrogate, and full decisional authority. We conclude by mapping different jurisdictions onto this schema to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the consent system for organ donation and some important nuances about the role of families. This classificatory model aims to account for the majority of the world’s consent systems. It provides conceptual and methodological guidance that can be useful to researchers, professionals, and policymakers involved in organ procurement. (shrink)

Defenders of pragmatic theories of knowledge (such as contextualism and sensitive invariantism) argue that these theories, unlike those that invoke a single standard for knowledge, comport with the intuitively compelling thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion and practical reason. In this paper, I dispute this thesis, and argue that, therefore, the prospects for both “high standard” approach, and contend that if one abandons the thesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion and practical reason, the most serious arguments (...) against it lose force. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility that there is a parental duty to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for the medical benefit of future children. Using one genetic disorder as a paradigmatic example, we find that such a duty can be supported in some situations on both ethical and legal grounds. Our analysis shows that an ethical case in favor of this position can be made when potential parents are aware that a possible future child is at substantial risk of inheriting (...) a serious genetic condition. We further argue that a legal case for a duty to use PGD for medical benefit can be made in situations in which potential parents have chosen to conceive through in vitro fertilization and know that any children conceived are at substantial risk of having a serious genetic condition. (shrink)

`I have little but praise for this study. The crisp insights of the conclusion are symptomatic of its lucidity and sophistication.' British Journal of Aesthetics.

This collection of contributions from both linguists and lawyers brings a pragmatic perspective to the linguistic basis for legal meaning and for finding a norm by which to decide a case. That is, it turns from notions of linguistic meaning as residing in the text, as literal meaning waiting to be dug out, to focus instead on how readers infer pragmatic meaning, and on the kinds of inferencing that characterise legal discourse.

Among philosophers of science nearly a century ago the dominant attitude was that (in Rudolph Carnap’s words) philosophy of science was “like science itself, neutral with respect to practical aims, whether they are moral aims for the individual, or political aims for a society.” The dominant attitude today is not much different: our aim is still to articulate scientific rationality, and our understanding of that rationality still excludes the moral and political. I contrast this with the growing entanglements within the (...) sciences of the ethical and the epistemic, and I suggest ways in which philosophers of science can usefully respond. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 100 Malloy Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This article examines verbal humour in routine interactions within professional workplaces, using material recorded in four New Zealand government departments. The problem of defining humour is discussed, followed by a brief outline of the theoretical models which underpin the analysis of the various functions which humour serves in professional organizations. Humour can express positive affect in interaction. It can also facilitate or `licence' more negative interpersonal communicative intent. While politeness theory can account for the former, as a means of expressing (...) collegiality at work, or de-emphasizing power imbalances, in its standard form politeness theory does not explain barbed, competitive or confrontational humour. For this it is necessary to look to `the dark side of politeness'. An alternative perspective thus examines the extent to which humour functions, especially in unequal encounters, as an acceptable strategy to help superiors maintain a position of power but also as a strategy used by subordinates to licence challenges to the power structures within which they operate, and as a legitimizing strategy in attempts at subverting the repressive or coercive discourse of superiors. (shrink)

A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience purports to have answered a question posed to Locke in 1688 by his friend William Molyneux, namely, whether ‘a man born blind and made to see’ would be able to identify, immediately and by vision alone, objects previously known only by touch. The answer, according to the researchers – and as predicted by Molyneux, as well as Locke, Berkeley, and others – is ‘likely negative. The newly sighted subjects did not exhibit an immediate (...) transfer of their tactile shape knowledge to the visual domain’. Since then, however, many commentators have argued that the answer is still not clear. Moreover, in the contemporary literature on Molyneux’s Question, and more generally on cross-modal perception and the individuation of the senses, it is sometimes hard to determine what question is being investigated. In this paper, I distinguish a number of different questions about the relation between visual and tactual perception that can arise when considering Molyneux’s... (shrink)

The realism/antirealism controversy has gone on for centuries, and gives every indication that it will continue to go on for centuries. Dismayed, I take a closer look at it. I find that the question it poses--very roughly, whether scientific knowledge is true (approximately true, put forward as true, etc.) or only useful (empirically adequate, a convenient method of representation, etc.)--actually suppresses socially critical thought and discussion about science (e.g., concerning whether scientific knowledge is sexist or racist or socially harmful in (...) other ways, or whether scientific knowledge is useful for achieving the goals we have or the goals we ought to have). I find, as well, that two of the most important responses to the realism/antirealism controversy--that which construes it as concerned with science's aims and that which construes it as concerned with science's results--fail to make sufficient empirical or normative contact with science. As a consequence, they provide representations of science that either do not help scientists (or nonscientists) make informed decisions about science, or actually hinder these individuals from doing so. I conclude that we should either stop engaging in the realism/antirealism controversy entirely, or else engage in it in a more socially responsible way--by gathering the right kinds of empirical and normative data, and framing more helpful versions of the questions we want to ask. I end by responding to the strong objections sure to be voiced by my colleagues in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Two decades of critique have sensitized historians and philosophers of science to the inadequacies of conventional dichotomies between theory and practice, thereby prompting the search for new ways of writing about science that are less beholden than the old ways to the epistemological mores of theoretical physics, and more faithful to the actual practices not only of physics but of all the natural sciences. The need for alternative descriptions seems particularly urgent if one is to understand the place of theory (...) in contemporary molecular biology, a science where, until now, no division between theory and experiment has obtained, and where distinctions between representing and intervening, and more generally, between basic and applied science, are daily becoming more blurred.Indeed, the very division between theory and experiment threatens to slight the extensive and sophisticated theoretical analyses on which experimental work in contemporary molecular biology so often depends. My aim in this paper is to find a way of talking about theoretical practices in biology that is directly rooted in the mix of conceptual and material work that biologists do. As an example of such theoretical practices, I choose for the focus of my analysis the development of a model for gene regulation out of the experimental work of Eric Davidson and his colleagues at Cal Tech. (shrink)

Physicians and nurses need to sustain their unique strengths and work in true collaboration, recognizing their interdependence and the complementarity of their knowledge, skills and perspectives, as well as their common moral commitments. In this article, challenges often faced by both nurses and physicians in working collaboratively are explored with a focus on the ways in which each profession's preparation for practice has differed over time, including shifts in knowledge development and codes of ethics guiding their practice. A call for (...) envisioning their practice as shared moral work as well as practical strategies to begin that work are offered as a basis for reflection towards enhanced nurse-physician relationships. (shrink)

Understanding contemporary environments in the laboratory and elsewhere requires grappling conceptually with multiple, coexisting, nonconforming infrastructures which actors engage at the same time. In this article, I develop the analytical vocabulary of “seams” for studying heterogeneous, multi-infrastructural environments. Drawing upon six years of ethnographic fieldwork with two distributed science teams, as well as studies in Ubiquitous Computing, I examine overlaps among infrastructures and how actors work creatively with and across their seams. Rather than suggesting that actors are hemmed in or (...) incapacitated by multiple infrastructural commitments, inclusions, and exclusions, I show instead how they work artfully to align them in ways concordant with membership and how this produces both consequences for their work and opportunities for analysis. (shrink)

The elegiac lines in PQasrlbrim inv. 78–3–11/1 , first edited and ascribed to Gallusby R. D. Anderson, P. J. Parsons and R. G. M. Nisbetin 1979, raise a number of major problems of interpretation yet to be resolved. As is now well known, the papyrus fragment contains nine fairly well-preserved lines: first a pentameter, followed by two quatrains each composed of two elegiac couplets; the two quatrains are carefully marked off from each other and from the lines which preceded and (...) followed them by a pair of signs which have defied interpretation; another such sign can be seen to have marked a similar separation between groups of lines in the next column of the papyrus. One might think that the sets of lines thus marked off were quite separate epigrams, or perhaps excerpts from longer poems, for they are concerned with separate, indeed discrepant, topics – the naughtiness of Lycoris, the morale-boosting effects of Caesar's forthcoming successes, the love-poet's fearless stance before his critics – and they do not seem prima facie to follow logically after one another. However, various unmistakable verbal and thematic connections between them have rightly been pointed out by Nisbet. So what is this sequence of related verses and why is it set out in this way? (shrink)

Self-ownership is a central concept not only in Anglo-American liberal/libertarian discourse but also in Marxism. This article investigates what it means to say that a person has fundamental entitlement to full property in himself. It looks at possible moments when pre-modern concepts of the self became modern ones, examining Locke’s Second Treatise and his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The aim is to focus on continuities and discontinuities in the transition from pre-modern to modern concepts and practices of identity and agency (...) and the role that attitudes to property played within this transition. It also seeks to alert historians to the pitfalls of accepting contemporary conceptions of moral and civic agency found in normative political theory when they study pre-modern contexts and the people who lived their lives within them. It also attempts to expose certain modern limits on our understanding of society and people’s obligations to one another by rejecting the laws of the oikos as currently applied to the political domain. (shrink)