The idea of creating a society guaranteeing equality between the sexes has never been considered by most political theorists. They have either endorsed, or simply accepted, the assumption that there is a natural inequality of the sexes which ought to be preserved in civil society. This same presupposition has excluded the family from the theorists’ framework of what are thought to be distinctively political institutions. Despite the centrality of the family to human life, it has been consigned to the domain (...) of purely natural phenomena. The related belief that women and children must be relegated for theoretical purposes to the family, to be safely ignored in a realm of brute nature, suffices to allow such theorists to exclude women from the ontology of politics.In looking at major theorists from this perspective, the task is not simply to show that they display sexist attitudes. The main purpose is to demonstrate that their theories rest on these assumptions and that they would be vastly different theories if these assumptions were not made. (shrink)

The nurse perspective is critical in survey research investigating various aspects of healthcare services, staff, and patient outcomes. Researchers are responsible for ensuring that survey research utilizing survey questionnaires employs research methodological strategies that are aligned with the ethical principles of beneficence, respect for persons, and justice. The purpose of this paper is to discuss best practices to facilitate high-quality survey data collection for nurse survey participants. Recommendations are based on the fundamental ethical principles described in the Belmont Report, an (...) overview of evidence published in the current literature, and the application of practical knowledge. Literature searches conducted in PubMed resulted in the inclusion of over 50 articles from a wide range of disciplines. The results include actionable methods for researchers to consider and follow when conducting survey research utilizing nurse participants. This article serves as a resource to guide researchers through ethically responsible design, implementation, and reporting of nurse survey research. (shrink)

Readable and accessible collection of papers re thinking machines.

Experiments are described, using electroencephalography (EEG) and simple tests of performance, which support the hypothesis that collapse of a quantum field is of importance to the functioning of the brain. The theoretical basis of our experiments is derived from Penrose (1989) who suggested that conscious decision-making is a manifestation of the outcome of quantum computation in the brain involving collapse of some relevant wave function. He also proposed that collapse of any wave function depends on a gravitational criterion. As different (...) brain areas are known to subserve different functions, we argue that `Penrose collapse' must occur in a particular brain area when performing a task that uses it. Further, taking an EEG from the area should amplify the gravitational prerequisite for collapse, so affecting task performance. There are no non-quantum theories which could lead one to expect that taking an EEG could directly affect task performance by subjects. The results of both pilot and main experiments indicated that task performance was indeed influenced by taking an EEG from relevant brain areas. Control experiments suggested that the influence was quantum mechanical in origin, and was not due to any experimental artefact. The results are statistically significant and merit attempts at replication in an independent laboratory, preferably with more sophisticated equipment than was available to us. (shrink)

Background: In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended three changes to HIV testing methods in US healthcare settings: (1) an opt-out approach, (2) removal of separate signed consent, and (3) optional HIV prevention counseling. These recommendations led to a public debate about their moral acceptability. Methods: We interviewed 25 members from the fields of US HIV advocacy, care, policy, and research about the ethical merits and demerits of the three changes to HIV testing methods. We performed (...) a qualitative analysis of the participant responses in the interviews and summarized the major themes. Results: In general, arguments in favor of the methods were based upon their ultimate contribution to increasing HIV testing and permitting the consequent benefits of identifying those who are HIV infected and linking them to further care. Conclusions: The prevailing theme of ethical concern focused on suspicions that the methods might not be properly implemented, and that further safeguards might be needed. (shrink)

Social norm transgressions are assumed to be at the root of numerous substantial negative outcomes for transgressors. There is a prevailing notion among lay people and scholars that transgressing social norms can negatively impact one’s mental health. The present research aimed to examine this assumption, focusing on clinically relevant outcomes such as anxiety and depression. The present research further aimed to examine a social cognitive process for these outcomes in the form of fear of negative evaluations as a result of (...) one’s norm transgressing behavior. Specifically, it examined whether it is negative evaluations about ourselves or about those close to us that mediates the effect of social norm transgressions, and whether those may vary as a function of culture. Results of the present research, including a study with a community sample, suggest a positive association between social norm transgressions and psychological distress. Results also suggest that increased fear of negative evaluation mediates that association but does so differently for people from more collectivistic cultures and people from less collectivistic cultures. For people from more collectivistic cultures increased fear of negative evaluation of close others may mediate the association between social norm transgressions and psychological distress. However, for people from less collectivistic cultures that association may be mediated by increased fear of negative evaluation of oneself. Implications for research on consequences of social norm transgressions and cross-cultural differences in perceptions of such consequences are discussed as are practical implications for motivating social norm adherence and the maintenance of constructive social norms. (shrink)

The 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised recommendations for HIV testing in clinical settings contained seven specific changes to how health care facilities should provide HIV testing. These seven elements have been both supported and challenged in the lay and medical literature. Our first paper in BMC Medical Ethics presented an analysis of the three HIV testing procedural changes included in the recommendations. In this paper, we address the four remaining elements that concern HIV screening policy changes: (...) (1) nontargeted HIV screening, (2) making HIV screening similar to screening for other treatable conditions, (3) increasing HIV screening without assured additional funding for linkage to care, and (4) making patients bear the costs of increased HIV screening in health care settings. (shrink)

Some recent cognitive-scientific research suggests that a considerable amount of intelligent action is generated not by the systematic activity of internal representations, but by complex interactions involving neural, bodily, and environmental factors. Following an analysis of this threat to representational explanation, we pursue an analogy between the role of genes in the production of biological form and the role of neural states in the production of behaviour, in order to develop a notion of genic representation. In both cases an appeal (...) to normal ecological context is used to balance multi-factoral, interactive causal determination against the intuition that certain aspects of the causal nexus play a special role in promoting adaptive success. Certain worries abut this vision help us to get a better grip on the concept of genic representation itself. We end with a puzzle concerning the relation between cognition and representation. (shrink)

For trans youth, the experience of gender differs from expectations based on sex assigned at birth (Frohard-Dourlent, Dobson, Clark, Duoll, & Saewyc, 2016). To support gender health—the ability to...

Initially commissioned to record the progress of Pittsburgh’s Renaissance I, these unforgettable black-and-white photographs of Roy Stryker's Pittsburgh Photographic Library capture the city in a state of flux. They reveal a union of opposites—the suited wonderment of the downtown businessman with the easy grace and competence of a shirtless construction worker balanced high over his head; the anonymity and isolation of planned housing with the belief in expansion and renewal; the energy and excitement of a city on the move with (...) the traditions of the established elite; the juxtaposition between the growing optimism about the ability of technology to improve our lives; and the traditional steel and other heavy smokestack industries that still dominated the region. The Renaissance was seen as a way for Pittsburgh to keep abreast of modern urban life and to preserve its economic position, but the rapid development of a white suburban middle class was sapping the very essence of the personalized downtown neighborhoods. These photographers have captured the convergence of destruction and rejuvenation that is the essence of an urban renaissance—all the anxiety and hope of the decade is reflected in these poignant photographs. Constance Schulz's fascinating essay on the story of the PPL, in order to present a full picture of the political and civic goals, achievements, and failings of the project, provides a thorough discussion of the background of the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, putting into perspective the Allegheny Conference's purpose for initiating the PPL, Roy Stryker's own vision and work, as well as those of the photographers who worked for Stryker on the project, and the politics that undermined the full implementation of it. Clark M. Thomas's accompanying narrative offers an eclectic range of facts and fascinating bits of the city's history and neighborhood lore, as well as noting important political and economic episodes. It also provides a glimpse into the often underrepresented lives of minorities and women in the region's development. Anyone moved by the incredible social upheaval and expansion that occurred in cities across the nation in the 1950s following years of depression and war will want to have this collection. (shrink)

For years, experimental philosophers have attempted to discern whether laypeople find free will compatible with a scientifically deterministic understanding of the universe, yet no consensus has emerged. The present work provides one potential explanation for these discrepant findings: People are strongly motivated to preserve free will and moral responsibility, and thus do not have stable, logically rigorous notions of free will. Seven studies support this hypothesis by demonstrating that a variety of logically irrelevant (but motivationally relevant) features influence compatibilist judgments. (...) In Study 1, participants who were asked to consider the possibility that our universe is deterministic were more compatibilist than those not asked to consider this possibility, suggesting that determinism poses a threat to moral responsibility, which increases compatibilist responding (thus reducing the threat). In Study 2, participants who considered concrete instances of moral behavior found compatibilist free will more sufficient for moral responsibility than participants who were asked about moral responsibility more generally. In Study 3a, the order in which participants read free will and determinism descriptions influenced their compatibilist judgments—and only when the descriptions had moral significance: Participants were more likely to report that determinism was compatible with free will than that free will was compatible with determinism. In Study 3b, participants who read the free will description first (the more compatibilist group) were particularly likely to confess that their beliefs in free will and moral responsibility and their disbelief in determinism influenced their conclusion. In Study 4, participants reduced their compatibilist beliefs after reading a passage that argued that moral responsibility could be preserved even in the absence of free will. Participants also reported that immaterial souls were compatible with scientific determinism, most strongly among immaterial soul believers (Study 5), and evaluated information about the capacities of primates in a biased manner favoring the existence of human free will (Study 6). These results suggest that people do not have one intuition about whether free will is compatible with determinism. Instead, people report that free will is compatible with determinism when desiring to uphold moral responsibility. Recommendations for future work are discussed. (shrink)

SWORD W, CLARK AM, HEGADOREN K, BROOKS S and KINGSTON D. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 51–62 The complexity of postpartum mental health and illness: a critical realist studyPostpartum depression (PPD) is a major public health issue that profoundly impacts the woman, her infant and family. Although it may be linked to hormone changes, no direct hormonal aetiology has been established. A large body of evidence implicates numerous psychosocial predictors of PPD. While a history of depression predicts about 50% of (...) cases of PPD, it remains unclear why some women with a history do not develop depression following childbirth, even taking psychosocial factors into account. The aim of this study was to identify the main mechanisms and factors associated with the presence or absence of PPD in women with a history of depression, and the presence of PPD in women without a history, using a critical realist approach. The findings indicate a number of personal and contextual factors that influence postpartum mental health and illness. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, women who did not develop depression identified goal‐oriented actions that were protective. These factors and processes did not exist in isolation and the interplay among them in influencing health was apparent. More research is needed to explore the effects of these mechanisms in different contexts. (shrink)

The question of whether Hebrews is anti-Jewish has vexed readers. To answer it, one must pay careful attention to what the text says and does not say. Moreover, the coherence of the author's claim that the old covenant is superseded by the new covenant is open to question.

It is often assumed that adaptation — a temporary change in sensitivity to a perceptual dimension following exposure to that dimension — is a litmus test for what is and is not a “primary visual attribute”. Thus, papers purporting to find evidence of number adaptation motivate a claim of great philosophical significance: That number is something that can be seen in much the way that canonical visual features, like color, contrast, size, and speed, can. Fifteen years after its reported discovery, (...) number adaptation’s existence seems to be nearly undisputed, with dozens of papers documenting support for the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to offer a counterweight — to critically assess the evidence for and against number adaptation. After surveying the many reasons for thinking that number adaptation exists, we introduce several lesser-known reasons to be skeptical. We then advance an alternative account — the old news hypothesis — which can accommodate previously published findings while explaining various (otherwise unexplained) anomalies in the existing literature. Next, we describe the results of eight pre-registered experiments which pit our novel old news hypothesis against the received number adaptation hypothesis. Collectively, the results of these experiments undermine the number adaptation hypothesis on several fronts, whilst consistently supporting the old news hypothesis. More broadly our work raises questions about the status of adaptation itself as a means of discerning what is and is not a visual attribute. (shrink)

The present study examined the neural substrate of two classes of quantifiers: numerical quantifiers like ” at least three” which require magnitude processing, and logical quantifiers like ” some” which can be understood using a simple form of perceptual logic. We assessed these distinct classes of quantifiers with converging observations from two sources: functional imaging data from healthy adults, and behavioral and structural data from patients with corticobasal degeneration who have acalculia. Our findings are consistent with the claim that numerical (...) quantifier comprehension depends on a lateral parietal-dorsolateral prefrontal network, but logical quantifier comprehension depends instead on a rostral medial prefrontal-posterior cingulate network. These observations emphasize the important contribution of abstract number knowledge to the meaning of numerical quantifiers in semantic memory and the potential role of a logic-based evaluation in the service of non-numerical quantifiers. (shrink)