The ethics of deceased organ procurement (OP) is supposedly based on individual consent to donate, either explicit (opt-in) or presumed (opt-out). However, in many cases, individuals fail to express any preference regarding donation after death. When this happens, the decision to remove or not to remove their organs depends on the policy’s default option or on family preferences. Several studies show that in most countries the family plays a significant and often decisive role in the process of decision-making for OP. (...) Depending on the country, the family may be allowed to take different kinds of actions in different situations, and this may be granted either by law or by clinical practice only. This adds much complexity to the usual classification of consent policies in two categories: opt-in and opt-out. Here we propose a novel and comprehensive taxonomy of the models of consent for OP according to three variables: (1) the deceased’s wishes, if any, (2) family wishes, if any, and (3) default policies. By analysing these models of consent, we show that they rely on at least three different concepts of autonomy: individual autonomy, relational autonomy, and family autonomy. In light of this analysis, we discuss the ethical debates surrounding two policy approaches: presumed consent and family veto. (shrink)

The process of transmitting ballet’s complex technique to young dancers can interfere with the innate processes that give rise to efficient, expressive and harmonious movement. With the intention of identifying possible solutions, this article draws on research across the fields of neurology, psychology, motor learning, and education, and considers their relevance to ballet as an art form, a technique, and a training methodology. The integration of dancers’ technique and expressivity is a core theme throughout the paper. A brief outline of (...) the historical development of ballet’s aesthetics and training methods leads into factors that influence dancers’ performance. An exploration of the role of the neuromotor system in motor learning and the acquisition of expert skills reveals the roles of sensory awareness, imagery, and intention in cuing efficient, expressive movement. It also indicates potentially detrimental effects of conscious muscle control, explicit learning and persistent naïve beliefs. Finally, the paper presents a new theory regarding the acquisition of ballet skills. Recontextualization theory proposes that placing a problematic task within a new context may engender a new conceptual approach and/or sensory intention, and hence the genesis of new motor programs; and that these new programs may lead to performance that is more efficient, more rewarding for the dancer, more pleasing aesthetically, and more expressive. From an anecdotal point of view, this theory appears to be supported by the progress of many dancers at various stages of their dancing lives. (shrink)

This volume continues the story of European political theorising by focusing on medieval and Renaissance thinkers. It includes extensive discussion of the practices that underpinned medieval political theories and which continued to play crucial roles in the eventual development of early-modern political institutions and debates. The author strikes a balance between trying to understand the philosophical cogency of medieval and Renaissance arguments on the one hand, elucidating why historically-suited medieval and Renaissance thinkers thought the ways they did about politics; and (...) why we often think otherwise. (shrink)

“The Pearl of Great Price” is a short story that explores the ways faith can go wrong. The central character, Janet, a single mom in a dead end job, is drawn into a multi-level marketing scheme, Benevite, by an unscrupulous salesman. She is encouraged to believe in herself and her dream and to give everything she has to it. She is fed the standard clichés to the effect that you can achieve whatever you want if you try hard enough. (...) In the end her faith in her dream leads to the loss of her relationship with her child and other losses. Her pursuit exhibits many of the standard features of faith, belief, desire, resilience, tenacity, passion, and yet she does not save herself. The story is not meant as an indictment of faith in general, but as an acknowledgement of the fact that faith can be a vice and an exploration of when this might be so. (shrink)

Research suggests that moral evaluations change during adulthood. Older adults (75+) tend to judge accidentally harmful acts more severely than younger adults do, and this age‐related difference is in part due to the greater negligence older adults attribute to the accidental harmdoers. Across two studies (N = 254), we find support for this claim and report the novel discovery that older adults’ increased attribution of negligence, in turn, is associated with a higher perceived likelihood that the accident would occur. We (...) propose that, because older adults perceive accidents as more likely than younger adults do, they condemn the agents and their actions more and even infer that the agents’ omission to exercise due care is intentional. These findings refine our understanding of the cognitive processes underpinning moral judgment in older adulthood and highlight the role of subjective probability judgments in negligence attribution. (shrink)

Robert Sparrow’s argument that, for the foreseeable future, genome editing will be an identity-affecting intervention subject to the critique of the nonidentity problem (Sparrow 2022) is convincing...

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)

According to a classical narrative, early geneticists, failing to see how Mendelism provides the missing pieces of Darwin’s theory, rejected gradual changes and advocated an implausible yet briefly popular view of evolution-by-mutation; after decades of delay (in which synthesis was prevented by personal conflicts, disciplinary rivalries, and anti-Darwinian animus), Darwinism emerged on a new Mendelian basis. Based on the works of four influential early geneticists – Bateson, de Vries, Morgan and Punnett –, and drawing on recent scholarship, we offer an (...) alternative that turns the classical view on its head. For early geneticists, embracing discrete inheritance and the mutation theory (for the origin of hereditary variation) did not entail rejection of selection, but rejection of Darwin’s non-Mendelian views of heredity and variation, his doctrine of natura non facit saltum, and his conception of “natural selection” as a creative force that shapes features out of masses of infinitesimal differences. We find no evidence of a delay in synthesizing mutation, rules of discrete inheritance, and selection in a Mendelian-Mutationist Synthesis. Instead, before 1918, early geneticists had conceptualized allelic selection, the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, the evolution of a quantitative trait under selection, the probability of fixation of a new mutation, and other key innovations. Contemporary evolutionary thinking seems closer to their more ecumenical view than to the restrictive mid-twentieth-century consensus known as the Modern Synthesis. (shrink)

In the United States, low-income or minority populations tend toward earlier births than the more advantaged. In disadvantaged populations, one factor that may exert pressure toward early births is “weathering,” or pervasive health uncertainty. Are subjective perceptions of health related to fertility timing? Drawing on a small sample of intensive interviews with teenage mothers-to-be, I suggest that low-income African American teenagers may expect uncertain health and short lifespans. Where family economies and caretaking systems are based on kin networks, such perceptions (...) may influence the decision to become a young mother. Heuristic typologies of ways socially situated knowledge may contribute to the reproduction of fertility timing practices contrast the experiences of poor African American interviewees, working class white interviewees, and middle-class teens who typically postpone childbearing. (shrink)

Efforts to professionalize the field of bioethics have led to the development of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C) Program intended to credential practicing healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs). Our team of professional ethicists participated in the inaugural process to support the professionalization efforts and inform our views on the value of this credential from the perspective of ethics consultants. In this paper, we explore the history that has led to this certification process, and evaluate the ability of the HEC-C Program to (...) meet the goals it has set forth for HCECs. We describe the benefits and weaknesses of the program and offer constructive feedback on how the process might be strengthened, as well as share our team’s experience in preparing for the exam. (shrink)

We hypothesize that black women experience accelerated biological aging in response to repeated or prolonged adaptation to subjective and objective stressors. Drawing on stress physiology and ethnographic, social science, and public health literature, we lay out the rationale for this hypothesis. We also perform a first population-based test of its plausibility, focusing on telomere length, a biomeasure of aging that may be shortened by stressors. Analyzing data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), we estimate that at (...) ages 49–55, black women are 7.5 years biologically “older” than white women. Indicators of perceived stress and poverty account for 27% of this difference. Data limitations preclude assessing objective stressors and also result in imprecise estimates, limiting our ability to draw firm inferences. Further investigation of black-white differences in telomere length using large-population-based samples of broad age range and with detailed measures of environmental stressors is merited. (shrink)

Posthuman affirmative ethics relies upon a fluid, nomadic conception of the ethical subject who develops affective, material and immaterial connections to multiple others. Our purpose in this paper is to consider what posthuman affirmative business ethics would look like, and to reflect on the shift in thinking and practice this would involve. The need for a revised understanding of human–animal relations in business ethics is amplified by crises such as climate change and pandemics that are related to ecologically destructive business (...) practices such as factory farming. In this analysis, we use feminist speculative fiction as a resource for reimagination and posthuman ethical thinking. By focusing on three ethical movements experienced by a central character named Toby in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we show how she is continually becoming through affective, embodied encounters with human and nonhuman others. In the discussion, we consider the vulnerability that arises from openness to affect which engenders heightened response-ability to and with, rather than for, multiple others. This expanded concept of subjectivity enables a more relational understanding of equality that is urgently needed in order to respond affirmatively to posthuman futures. (shrink)

Research linking loud sounds to hearing loss in youngsters is now widespread, resulting in the issuance of warnings to protect children’s hearing. However, studies attesting to the adverse effects of intrusive sounds and noise on children’s overall mental and physical health and well-being have not received similar attention.This, despite the fact that many studies have demonstrated that intrusive noises such as those from passing road traffic, nearby rail systems, and overhead aircraft can adversely affect children’s cardiovascular system, memory, language development, (...) and learning acquisition. While some schools in the United States have received funds to abate intrusive aircraft noise, for example, many schools still expose children to noises from passing traffic and overhead aircraft. Discussion focuses on the harmful effects of noise on children, what has to be done to remedy the situation, and the need for action to lessen the impacts of noise from all sources. Furthermore, based on our knowledge of the harmful effects of noise on children’s health and the growing body of evidence to suggest the potential harmful effects of industrial wind turbine noise, it is strongly urged that further studies be conducted on the impacts of industrial wind turbines on their health, as well as the health of their parents, before forging ahead in siting industrial wind turbines. (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)

The goal of this paper is to propose a relational turn in healthcare professionalism, to improve the responsiveness of both healthcare professionals and organizations towards care of patients, but also professionals. To this end, it is important to stress the way in which difficult situations and vulnerability faced by professionals can have an impact on their performance of work. This article pursue two objectives. First, I focus on understanding and making visible shared vulnerability that arises in clinical settings from a (...) triple perspective: patient and family, health professionals, and institutions. Second, to address this challenge for professionalism, in this paper I articulate the term "relational centered-patient professionalism", which has two main axes. The relational approach means taking into account how the relationships among professionals, patients and institutions determine the constitution and evolution of those professional values. The focus on patient centered care is indispensable, because it is the ultimate goal pursued by the development of these professional values, and must always be at the center. (shrink)

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

The organ donation and transplantation (ODT) system heavily relies on the willingness of individuals to donate their organs. While it is widely believed that public trust plays a crucial role in shaping donation rates, the empirical support for this assumption remains limited. In order to bridge this knowledge gap, this article takes a foundational approach by elucidating the concept of trust within the context of ODT. By examining the stakeholders involved, identifying influential factors, and mapping the intricate trust relationships among (...) trustors, trustees, and objects of trust, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of trust dynamics in ODT. We employ maps and graphs to illustrate the functioning of these trust relationships, enabling a visual representation of the complex interactions within the ODT system. Through this conceptual groundwork, we pave the way for future empirical research to investigate the link between trust and organ donation rates, informed by a clarified understanding of trust in ODT. This study can also provide valuable insights to inform interventions and policies aimed at enhancing organ donation rates. (shrink)

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

This book makes a timely and engaging contribution to geography’s resurgent interest in art and artistic practice, as well as to growing geographical concerns with embodied or pre-reflective experience. It introduces Eugene Gendlin’s philosophical and methodological work to stimulate geographical thinking and practice, and explores its disciplinary potential through innovative practice-based research into artistic spatial experience. Gendlin’s philosophy and techniques for articulating the pre-reflective are explained and illustrated using artists’ accounts of their practices, both retrospectively and during their practice. The (...) geographical implementation of research methods informed by those techniques is detailed and critiqued. Diverse and potentially contradictory findings, and potentially problematic methodological choices, are discussed, accounted for, and reframed through Gendlin’s ideas. Significant geographical potential within Gendlin’s work—philosophical, conceptual and methodological—is identified and described, and avenues and challenges for further investigation are highlighted. This first step towards a Gendlin-informed geography invites further engagement with his work. (shrink)

A version of this paper was given as the Inaugural Steven Edwards Memorial Lecture at the 25th conference of the International Philosophy of Nursing Society 16th August 2022. Using the literary meaning of ‘whither’, that is ‘to what place’, this paper will explore the role of philosophy in nursing, past, present, and future. The paper will begin with some thoughts on the history of nursing philosophy, its development as a subject and the scholarly activities that have led to where it (...) sits today. The establishment of the journal Nursing Philosophy, the Annual Nursing Philosophy Conference, the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS) and their influence on nursing both in the academy and in practice will be discussed. The concept of nursing philosophy as a discipline will be considered, and how this fits with nursing theory, and nursing knowledge. Philosophical questions central to understanding contemporary nursing in a globalised world will be explored and the use of analytical philosophy and philosophical method in addressing such questions. The paper will conclude by looking to the future; what the role of philosophy might be in shaping nursing as a discipline and in the preparation of future practitioners. (shrink)

Scientists now agree that common diseases arise through interactions of genetic and environmental factors, but there is less agreement about how scientific research should account for these interactions. This paper examines the politics of quantification in gene–environment interaction research. Drawing on interviews and observations with GEI researchers who study common, complex diseases, we describe quantification as an unfolding moral economy of science, in which researchers collectively enact competing “virtues.” Dominant virtues include molecular precision, in which behavioral and social risk factors (...) are moved into the body, and “harmonization,” in which scientists create large data sets and common interests in multisited consortia. We describe the negotiations and trade-offs scientists enact in order to produce credible knowledge and the forms of discipline that shape researchers, their practices, and objects of study. We describe how prevailing techniques of quantification are premised on the shrinking of the environment in the interest of producing harmonized data and harmonious scientists, leading some scientists to argue that social, economic, and political influences on disease patterns are sidelined in postgenomic research. We consider how a variety of GEI researchers navigate quantification’s productive and limiting effects on the science of etiological complexity. (shrink)

In his thought-provoking piece, ‘Expressivism at the Beginning and End of Life’, Philip Reed contrasts the application of the expressivist objection to the use of reproductive technologies with its application to interventions that bring about death. In the process of supporting his comparative conclusion, that ‘expressivism at the end of life is a much greater concern than at the beginning’, he makes some interesting observations and offers some convincing arguments. Further examination, however, shows that his arguments actually support conclusions far (...) beyond the modest one he intends to draw. The absurdity of these conclusions can be used to identify the flaws in Reed’s argument. Reed summarises the expressivist objection in the context of physician-assisted suicide as follows: > When we allow PAS for individuals who are terminally ill or facing some severe disease or disability, we send a message of disrespect to all individuals who face such adversities in that we imply that they are inferior or their lives are not worth living. Analogous arguments have been made about decisions to use reproductive technology to prevent the birth of people with disabilities. Reed describes a common rebuttal to the …. (shrink)

Philosophie du bonheur by Paul Janet. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1865 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty." Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, (...) the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art. Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) worry that assumptions about fetal personhood used to justify states’ restrictions on a pregnant person’s right to request certain interventions (i.e. abort...

Is it time to take a break from feminism? In this pathbreaking book, Janet Halley reassesses the place of feminism in the law and politics of sexuality. She argues that sexuality involves deeply contested and clashing realities and interests, and that feminism helps us understand only some of them. To see crucial dimensions of sexuality that feminism does not reveal--the interests of gays and lesbians to be sure, but also those of men, and of constituencies and values beyond the (...) realm of sex and gender--we might need to take a break from feminism. Halley also invites feminism to abandon its uncritical relationship to its own power. Feminists are, in many areas of social and political life, partners in governance. To govern responsibly, even on behalf of women, Halley urges, feminists should try taking a break from their own presuppositions. Halley offers a genealogy of various feminisms and of gay, queer, and trans theories as they split from each other in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. All these incommensurate theories, she argues, enrich thinking on the left not despite their break from each other but because of it. She concludes by examining legal cases to show how taking a break from feminism can change your very perceptions of what's at stake in a decision and liberate you to decide it anew. (shrink)

Philosophy of science in the twentieth century tends to emphasize either the logic of science (e.g., Popper and Hempel on explanation, confirmation, etc.) or its history/sociology (e.g., Kuhn on revolutions, holism, etc.). This dichotomy, however, is neither exhaustive nor exclusive. Questions regarding scientific understanding and mathematical explanation do not fit neatly inside either category, and addressing them has drawn from both logic and history. Additionally, interest in scientific and mathematical practice has led to work that falls between the two sides (...) of the dichotomy. We might call these less narrow approaches ‘holistic’. Prior to 1918, work in the philosophy of science was also somewhat more holistic and interdisciplinary in nature. An exemplar of this type of approach is found in the work of Henri Poincaré. In this paper I will consider one particularly flexible tool Poincaré uses throughout his philosophical writings about science and mathematics: the tool of the unifying concept. More specifically, I will focus on one unifying concept: that of structure. I aim to show first, that structure is a unifying scientific concept for Poincaré; second, a focus on structure helps explain his scientific and mathematical success; lastly, this case study may provide a model for how unifying concepts can facilitate progress in mathematics and science. (shrink)

Recent research on the cognitive abilities and emotional capacities of animals has fueled the animal rights movement and renewed debate over the differences between human and non-human animals. This debate has not been central to sociology, although George Herbert Mead drew a very hard line between humans and animals by asserting that the latter were not capable of symbolic interaction. Sociologists are now beginning to question this assumption, and this article falls within this new line of research. We begin by (...) presenting alternative interpretations of symbolic interaction that allow for the possibility of such activity in non-human animals. We review recent research on symbolic interaction between humans and dogs, and we present our own research findings on human-feline interaction. We conclude that there is growing evidence that symbolic interaction is widely distributed throughout the animal kingdom, and that it enables animals to survive more effectively in a wide variety of environments. (shrink)