Using data from the authors' 1998-99 survey of 1,040 eighth graders in Wuhan, China, this study explores the differences between single-girl and single-boy families with regard to parental expectation and investment in children's education, children's own educational aspirations, and mathematics performance. The authors found that contrary to the known intrafamily discrimination against girls common among families of pre-one-child generations and still common among contemporary rural families with more than one child, there are no gender differences related to education between single-girl (...) and single-boy families in modern urban China. The authors found equally high educational aspirations and similar mathematical performance for male and female only children. They suggest that this gender equality in education is an unintended consequence of the one-child-per-family policy and that under China's current social and economic conditions, girls are better off living in one-child families in the big cities of modern China. (shrink)

Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. "A masterpiece of scientific writing. You will cherish "What Is Life?" because it is so rich in poetry and science in the service of profound philosophical questions".--Mitchell Thomashow, "Orion". 9 photos. 11 line illustrations.

Following A.N. Whitehead’s rhythm of education, the author provides a guide for parents and educators on raising children to thrive in times of tempestuous change. Each chapter presents exemplary educational events rich in context, and then draws on seminal research to ground her recommendations in a robust theoretical foundation.

This stimulating book critically examines a wide range of physicalistic conceptions of mind in the works of Jerry A. Fodor, Stephen P. Stich, Paul M. Churchland, Daniel C. Dennett, and others. Part I argues that intentional concepts cannot be reduced to nonintentional concepts; Part II argues that intentional concepts are nevertheless indispensable to our cognitive enterprises and thus need no foundation in physicalism. As a sustained challenge to the prevailing interpretation of cognitive science, this timely book fills a large gap (...) in the philosophical literature. It is sure to spark controversy, yet its clarity makes it attractive as a text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Saving Belief should be read by philosophers, psychologists, and others interested in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Richard Lewontin is often cited as an inspiration and founder of what is now known as Niche Construction Theory. The first goal of this paper is to argue that they present distinct arguments from niche construction against Adaptationism. While Niche Construction Theory argues that natural selection is not the only adaptive evolutionary force, Lewontin rejects the externalist characterization of natural selection. The key difference lies in the types of phenomena that are allowed to count as “niche construction” and their argumentative (...) roles. The second goal is to argue that it is time to revive Lewontin’s argument. I argue that it finds renewed support in Denis Walsh’s ecological affordance framework and empirical evidence from ecological developmental biology. Reexamining the roots of Niche Construction Theory, I suggest that the rich conceptual resources therein provide a way for Niche Construction Theory to also develop a neo-Lewontinian argument against the externalism of natural selection explanations. (shrink)

Enzymatic misrepair of ionizing‐radiation‐induced DNA damage can produce large‐scale rearrangements of the genome, such as translocations and dicentrics. These and other chromosome exchange aberrations can cause major phenotypic alterations, including cell death, mutation and neoplasia. Exchange formation requires that two (or more) genomic loci come together spatially. Consequently, the surprisingly rich aberration spectra uncovered by recently developed techniques, when combined with biophysically based computer modeling, help characterize large‐scale chromatin architecture in the interphase nucleus. Most results are consistent with a (...) picture whereby chromosomes are mainly confined to territories, chromatin motion is limited, and interchromosomal interactions involve mainly territory surfaces. Aberration spectra and modeling also help characterize DNA repair/misrepair mechanisms. Quantitative results for mammalian cells are best described by a breakage‐and‐reunion model, suggesting that the dominant recombinational mechanism during the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle is non‐homologous end‐joining of radiogenic DNA double strand breaks. In turn, better mechanistic and quantitative understanding of aberration formation gives new insights into health‐related applications. BioEssays 24:714–723, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Wolves have a special resonance in many human cultures. To appreciate fully the wide variety of views on wolves, we must attend to the scientific, social, and ethical discourses that frame our understanding of wolves themselves, as well as their relationships with people and the natural world. These discourses are a configuration of ideas, language, actions, and institutions that enable or constrain our individual and collective agency with respect to wolves. Scientific discourse is frequently privileged when it comes to wolves, (...) on the assumption that the primary knowledge requirements are matters of ecology, cognitive ethology, and allied disciplines. Social discourse about wolves implicitly challenges this privilege and provides a rich array of social perspectives on human-wolf relations. Ethical discourse has until recently lagged behind the other two. So too, ethicists are increasingly challenging the adequacy of scientific and social discourse. They do so by calling attention to the value-laden character of all discourse, and the unavoidable ethical questions that confront us as we learn to share the landscape with large predators like wolves. (shrink)

Alderson critiques our recent book on the basis that it overlooks children’s own views about their medical treatment. In this response, we discuss the complexity of the paediatric clinical context and the value of diverse approaches to investigating paediatric ethics. Our book focuses on a specific problem: entrenched disagreements between doctors and parents about a child’s medical treatment in the context of a paediatric hospital. As clinical ethicists, our research question arose from clinicians’ concerns in practice: What should a clinician (...) do when he or she thinks that parents are choosing a treatment pathway that does not serve the child’s best interests? Alderson’s work, in contrast, focuses on the much broader issue of children’s role in decision-making about treatment and research. We argue that these different types of work are zooming in on different aspects of paediatric ethics, with its complex mix of agents, issues and relationships. Paediatric ethics overall needs a rich mix of approaches,... (shrink)

Saving God is a rich and provocative book. It aims to "save God" from idolatrous believers, who take God to be largely concerned with the welfare and destiny of human creatures. Banning idolatry, Johnston is led to a panentheistic conception of "the Highest One," who (or which) is not separable from Nature. With echoes of Spinoza and, to a lesser extent, Whitehead, Johnston argues that the natural world is all that there is, but, properly understood, can be seen as (...) "the site of the sacred.". (shrink)

This is the first book published that specifically examines questions of ethics and advocacy that arise in conducting research on homelessness, exploring the issues through the deeply personal experiences of some of the field’s leading scholars. By examining the central queries from a broad range of perspectives, the authors presented here draw upon years of rich investigations to generate a framework that will be instructive for researchers across a wide spectrum of areas of inquiry.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.1 (2006) 174-189 [Access article in PDF] Sophie's Choice: Letting Chance Decide Suzanne Dovi University of Arizona When, if ever, should individuals facing a genuine moral dilemma adopt a random decision procedure to determine the outcome of that dilemma? Or to put the question more metaphorically, is it ever morally preferable to determine the outcome of a moral dilemma by flipping a coin? In this paper, (...) I will argue that sometimes it is. To make this argument, I consider a particularly agonizing moral dilemma—the one found in William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Drawing on this famous example of a moral dilemma, I identify three salient features of a moral dilemma that make it morally permissible, and even morally preferable, for an agent to adopt a random decision procedure to determine its outcome. By 'morally preferable,' I do not mean to imply that an agent is morally required to adopt a random decision procedure to determine the outcome of a moral dilemma. As will be seen, I disagree with the view that humans must always pursue the most morally preferable course of action. Nevertheless, I contend that agents should adopt a random decision procedure when faced with a moral dilemma that possesses three salient features. These three features are: (1) when there is clearly no "better" outcome from the range of choices available to the agent; (2) when particular kinds of moral burdens (guilt burdens) can be alleviated by that agent adopting a random decision procedure; and (3) when the alternatives were given to, and not made by, the agent. The first two salient features are necessary for it to be morally permissible [End Page 174] to decide a moral dilemma using a random decision procedure. The third feature is not necessary since a person could, due to her morally permissible decisions, face a moral dilemma whose outcome could be legitimately determined by a random decision procedure. However, I maintain that all three features are jointly sufficient for determining when it is morally preferable to adopt a random decision procedure to decide the outcome of a moral dilemma. I Hard choices are decisions that require us to choose among conflicting goals, purposes, values, or goods that are very important to us. Such choices pervade our lives. According to David Schmidtz, to face such a hard choice can be "the price of the richness and complexity of a life well-lived. To have both ideals and loved ones is to run the risk of having to make decisions under unresolved conflicts of value."1 Although hard choices are often ordinary, some hard choices can also be genuine moral dilemmas.2For my purposes, hard choices become genuine moral dilemmas when an agent cannot avoid violating his or her deeply held moral beliefs. Moreover, genuine moral dilemmas are dilemmas that have no "right" answer. So, for example, genuine moral dilemmas occur when an agent faces a decision between outcomes that are, as far as the agent can reasonably determine, equally bad or incommensurable. Indeed, some genuine moral dilemmas can involve choices between such horrible outcomes that it does not make sense to use moral language to justify their decisions—that is, to provide reasons for thinking that one outcome is preferable to another. In these cases, genuine moral dilemmas do not offer any possibility for moral redemption: the agent cannot morally justify choosing one outcome over another. Thus, genuine moral dilemmas can impose serious (and potentially devastating) moral costs on the decision-maker.William Styron's Sophie's Choice presents an example of such a genuine moral dilemma. Sophie Zawistowska has been asked to choose which of her two children, Eva or Jan, will be sent to the gas chamber in Auschwitz. An SS doctor, Fritz Jemand von Niemand, will grant a dispensation to only one of Sophie's children. If she does not choose which one should live, Dr. von Niemand will send both to their death. Sophie chooses her daughter Eva to go to the gas chamber. Her son, Jan, is sent to the Children's Camp and she... (shrink)

Case-based instruction is a stable feature of ethics education, however, little is known about the attributes of the cases that make them effective. Emotions are an inherent part of ethical decision-making and one source of information actively stored in case-based knowledge, making them an attribute of cases that likely facilitates case-based learning. Emotions also make cases more realistic, an essential component for effective case-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional case content, and complementary (...) socio-relational case content, on case-based knowledge acquisition and transfer on future ethical decision-making tasks. Study findings suggest that emotional case content stimulates retention of cases and facilitates transfer of ethical decision-making principles demonstrated in cases. (shrink)

M any philosophers who otherwise have disparate views on the mind share a fundamental assumption. The assumption is that mental processes, or at least those that explain behavior, are wholly determined by properties of the individual whose processes they are.' As elaborated by..

The Representational Theory of the Mind (RTM) has been forcefully and subtly developed by Jerry A. Fodor. According to the RTM, psychological states that explain behavior involve tokenings of mental representations. Since the RTM is distinguished from other approaches by its appeal to the meaning or "content" of mental representations, a question immediately arises: by virtue of what does a mental representation express or represent an environmental property like coto or shoe? This question asks for a general account of the (...) semantics of mental representation. Fodor places two conditions on the requisite theory: it must be physi calistic (that is, it must be couched in nonsemantic and nonintentional terms, free of expressions like "refers to" or "denotes" or "means that"), and it must be atomistic (that is, it must allow that the thinker can have a single intentional state without having any others). What is wanted, then, is a reductive theory that "naturalizes" content by specifying sufficient conditions, in physicalistic and atomistic terms, for a mental symbol to represent or express a certain property. (shrink)

YOUNG L, and WHARF HIGGINS J.Nursing Inquiry2010;17: 346–358 Using participatory research to challenge the status quo for women’s cardiovascular healthCardiovascular health research has been dominated by medical and patriarchal paradigms, minimizing a broader perspective of causes of disease. Socioeconomic status as a risk for cardiovascular disease is well established by research, yet these findings have had little influence. Participatory research (PR) that frames mixed method research has potential to bring contextualized clinically relevant findings into program planning and policy‐making arenas toward (...) developing meaningful health and social policies relevant to primary prevention. In this article we provide an overview of a PR program that included two quantitative and one qualitative studies and then we discuss lessons learned. The PR process we found was empowering for lone mothers, and transformative for lone mothers and researchers. Further, PR as an approach to research opened spaces in practice and policy‐making arenas to raise upstream issues relevant to the health of low income lone mothers. We conclude that while PR is an effective approach to social determinants research, as a time‐intensive endeavor, and one that does not easily align with research tradition, researchers must consider the strengths and drawbacks of PR when planning to implement such an approach. (shrink)

This volume reaches beyond the controversy surrounding the teaching and learning of evolution in the United States, specifically in regard to the culture, politics, and beliefs found in the Southeast. The editors argue that despite a deep history of conflict in the region surrounding evolution, there is a wealth of evolution research taking place—from biodiversity in species to cultural evolution and human development. In fact, scientists, educators, and researchers from around the United States have found their niche in the South, (...) where biodiversity is high, culture runs deep, and the pace is just a little bit slower. (shrink)

Bestselling author of The Intention Experiment reveals the latest science that proves the extensive connectedness of mind, matter, and consciousness.

In this study, Lynne Moss Bahr explores the concept of temporality as central to Jesus's proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Using insights from Continental philosophy on the messianic, which expose the false claim that time progresses in a linear continuum, Bahr presents these philosophical positions in critical dialogue with the sayings of Jesus regarding time and time's fulfillment. She shows how the Kingdom represents the possibilities of a disruption in time, one that reveals the intrinsic relation between God (...) and humanity. (shrink)

J. S. Mill's role in the Indian education controversy is well known, but scarcely well understood. That he drafted, in 1836, a despatch sharply critical of Macaulay's infamous Minute on Indian Education, is general knowledge now. That in drafting the despatch Mill drew upon the ideas of H. H. Wilson, a noted Orientalist and sharp critic of Macaulay and the Anglicists, has been adequately demonstrated. That the despatch was never sent to India, because of the objections of the President of (...) the Board of Trade, John Hobhouse, a Whig with some utilitarian connections, has been common knowledge for several decades. (shrink)

For over thirty years, Lynne Layton has heeded the call for a social psychoanalysis and produced a body of work that examines unconscious process as it operates both in the social world and in the clinic. In this volume of Layton's most important papers, she expands on earlier theorists' ideas of social character by exploring how dominant ideologies and culturally mandated, hierarchical identity prescriptions are lived in individual and relational conflict. Through clinical and cultural examples, Layton describes how enactments (...) of what she calls 'normative unconscious processes' reinforce cultural inequalities of race, sex, gender, and class both inside and outside the clinic, and at individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Clinicians, academics, and activists alike will find here a deeper understanding of the power of unconscious process, and are called on to envision and enact a progressive future in which vulnerability and interdependency are honored and systemic inequalities dismantled. (shrink)

Drawing on my recent work using inferential role semantics and elements of speech act theory to analyze the role of derogatory terms (a.k.a. ‘hate speech’, or ‘slurs’) in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as the role of certain kinds of reparative speech acts in post-genocide Rwanda, this paper highlights key pragmatist commitments that inform the methods and goals of this practical analysis of real world events. In “Genocidal Language Games”, I used conceptual tools from Wittgenstein, (...) Sellars, Lewis, and Brandom, with a nod to Searle’s concept of status-functions, to develop an analysis that helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can at least partially constitute genocide, not only be an antecedent to it. In this paper, I sketch some of the tools and lessons of this project, with an eye to highlighting their pragmatist roots and the directions to which such real-world investigations lead. (shrink)

Theories of Early Childhood Education continues to provide a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives in early childhood education from developmental psychology to critical studies, Piaget to Freire. This revised and updated edition includes additional chapters on Michael Alexander Halliday's view of language learning and the attachment theory work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Each author questions assumptions underpinning the use of theory in early childhood education and explores the implications of these questions for policy and practice. Theories (...) reported in this book are a timely reminder of the importance of the relationship between theory and practice necessary for teacher candidates, teacher educators, and early childhood teachers. Students will learn the fundamentals while in-service teachers and professionals will learn the theory behind field observations for their certification exams. (shrink)

What is healthcare professionalism? -- Teaching and learning healthcare professionalism -- Assessing healthcare professionalism -- Identity-related professionalism dilemmas -- Consent-related professionalism dilemmas -- Patient safety-related professionalism dilemmas -- Patient dignity-related professionalism dilemmas -- Abuse-related professionalism dilemmas -- E-professionalism-related dilemmas -- Professionalism dilemmas across national cultures -- Professionalism dilemmas across professional cultures.

There is a growing call for greater public involvement in establishing science and technology policy, in line with democratic ideals. A variety of public participation procedures exist that aim to consult and involve the public, ranging from the public hearing to the consensus conference. Unfortunately, a general lack of empirical consideration of the quality of these methods arises from confusion as to the appropriate benchmarks for evaluation. Given that the quality of the output of any participation exercise is difficult to (...) determine, the authors suggest the need to consider which aspects of the process are desirable and then to measure the presence or quality of these process aspects. To this end, a number of theoretical evaluation criteria that are essential for effective public participation are specified. These comprise two types: acceptance criteria, which concern features of a method that make it acceptable to the wider public, and process criteria, which concern features of the process that are liable to ensure that it takes place in an effective manner. Future research needs to develop instruments to measure these criteria more precisely and identify the contextual and environmental factors that will mediate the effectiveness of the different participation methods. (shrink)

Imprecise definition of key terms in the “public participation” domain have hindered the conduct of good research and militated against the development and implementation of effective participation practices. In this article, we define key concepts in the domain: public communication, public consultation, and public participation. These concepts are differentiated according to the nature and flow of information between exercise sponsors and participants. According to such an information flow perspective, an exercise’s effectiveness may be ascertained by the efficiency with which full, (...) relevant information is elicited from all appropriate sources, transferred to all appropriate recipients, and combined to give an aggregate/consensual response. Key variables that may theoretically affect effectiveness—and on which engagement mechanisms differ—are identified and used to develop a typology of mechanisms. The resultant typology reveals four communication, six consultation, and four participation mechanism classes. Limitations to the typology are discussed, and future research needs identified. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Reopening a Discussion The empiricist-derived epistemology that has directed most social and natural scientific inquiry for the last three ...

This book introduces and explores the role of apprehension in reasoning - setting out the problems, determining the vocabulary, fixing the boundaries, and questioning what is often taken for granted. Lynn Holt argues that a robust conception of rationality must include intellectual virtues which cannot be reduced to a set of rules for reasoners, and argues that the virtue of apprehension, an acquired disposition to see things correctly, is required if rationality is to be defensible. Drawing on an Aristotelian conception (...) of intellectual virtue and examples from the sciences, Holt shows why impersonal standards for rationality are misguided, why foundations for knowledge are the last elements to emerge from inquiry not the first, and why intuition is a poor substitute for virtue. By placing the current scene in historical perspective, Holt displays the current impasse as the inevitable outcome of the replacement of intellectual virtue with method in the early modern philosophical imagination. Written in an engaging and jargon-free style, this book is of interest to a wide range of readers, particularly epistemologists and philosophers of science concerned with the fate of reason. (shrink)

What is the strange eros that haunts Foucault's writing? In this deeply original consideration of Foucault's erotic ethics, Lynne Huffer provocatively rewrites Foucault as a Sapphic poet. She uncovers eros as a mode of thought that erodes the interiority of the thinking subject. Focusing on the ethical implications of this mode of thought, Huffer shows how Foucault's poetic archival method offers a way to counter the disciplining of speech. At the heart of this method is a conception of the (...) archive as Sapphic: the past's remains are, like Sappho's verses, hole-ridden, scattered, and dissolved by time. Listening for eros across fragmented texts, Huffer stages a series of encounters within an archive of literary and theoretical readings: the eroticization of violence in works by Freud and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the historicity of madness in the Foucault-Derrida debate, the afterlives of Foucault's antiprison activism, and Monique Wittig's Sapphic materialism. Through these encounters, Foucault's Strange Eros conceives of ethics as experiments in living that work poetically to make the present strange. Crafting fragments that dissolve into Sapphic brackets, Huffer performs the ethics she describes in her own practice of experimental writing. Foucault's Strange Eros hints at the self-hollowing speech of an eros that opens a space for the strange. (shrink)

What would your life be like if you committed to something larger than yourself? Find out in the newest book from global transformation thought leader Lynne Twist. How does one person make a difference in the world? People constantly seek to discover meaning in their lives, but as humans take on the challenges facing us in this decade and beyond, we're searching for it now more than ever. Living a Committed Life demonstrates the power of dedication that goes beyond (...) the self and teaches how to live a committed life that enables you to draw on resources and capacities from your most authentic self. In five parts, Lynne Twist shows how to make and keep commitments, engage in individual and collective action, and discover ways to connect and collaborate to make a difference. By sharing stories and perspectives from her life, Twist reveals her unique experience as a thought leader and activist in multiple causes, from ending world hunger and protecting the Amazon rainforest to empowering women's leadership. The book presents the guiding principles that have enabled her own success and that turn inspiration into action for everyone. (shrink)

The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has the potential to eliminate or severely restrict access to legal abortion care in the United States. We a...

Scholars have proposed a number of courses and programs intended to improve the ethical behavior of scientists in an attempt to maintain the integrity of the scientific enterprise. In the present study, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on 26 previous ethics program evaluation efforts, and the results showed that the overall effectiveness of ethics instruction was modest. The effects of ethics instruction, however, were related to a number of instructional program factors, such as course content and delivery methods, in (...) addition to factors of the evaluation study itself, such as the field of investigator and criterion measure utilized. An examination of the characteristics contributing to the relative effectiveness of instructional programs revealed that more successful programs were conducted as seminars separate from the standard curricula rather than being embedded in existing courses. Furthermore, more successful programs were case based and interactive, and they allowed participants to learn and practice the application of real-world ethical decision-making skills. The implications of these findings for future course development and evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

According to the Constitution View of persons, a human person is wholly constituted by (but not identical to) a human organism. This view does justice both to our similarities to other animals and to our uniqueness. As a proponent of the Constitution View, I defend the thesis that the coming-into-existence of a human person is not simply a matter of the coming-into-existence of an organism, even if that organism ultimately comes to constitute a person. Marshalling some support from developmental psychology, (...) I give a broadly materialistic account of the coming-into-existence of a human person. I argue for the metaphysical superiority of the Constitution View to Biological Animalism, Thomistic Animalism, and other forms of Substance Dualism. I conclude by discussing the single implication of the Constitution View for thinking about abortion. Footnotesa Thanks to Gareth Matthews and Catherine E. Rudder for comments. I am also grateful to other contributors to this volume, especially Robert A. Wilson, Marya Schechtman, David Oderberg, Stephen Braude, and John Finnis. (shrink)

The book asks how we can make sense of career paths for PhD graduates, something that has rarely been systematically studied. It offers a coherent synthesis of the empirically-based insights that arose from the experiences of 48 early career researchers, who were participants in a 10-year qualitative longitudinal research program. The book has the power to inform other researchers’ conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of post-PhD career trajectories. The authors draw on the conceptual lens of ‘identity-trajectory’, which emerged (...) from their research program, to examine the decision-making processes underpinning the careers of PhD graduates, whether contingent researchers and teachers, assistant professors within the academy or professionals elsewhere. The book highlights the role of personal agency in negotiating academic and non-academic work and careers within broader personal lives. It will be compelling reading for researchers and students working in the areas of Education and Sociology, particularly those with an interest in examining career development and decision-making. (shrink)

Dealing with situations where parents’ views about treatment for their child are strongly opposed to doctors’ views is one major area of ethical challenge in paediatric health care. The traditional approach focuses on the child’s best interests, but this is problematic for a number of reasons. The Harm Principle test is regarded by many ethicists as more appropriate than the best interests test. Despite this, use of the best interests test for intervening in parental decisions is still very common in (...) clinical settings and can lead to confusion. In this paper, I propose the Zone of Parental Discretion as a means of putting into practice the key ideas of the Harm Principle, in a clear, step-by-step process. The Zone of Parental Discretion provides a tool for ethical deliberation by clinicians and ethicists about all situations in which parents and doctors disagree about treatment of a child, whether parents are refusing medically recommended treatment, or requesting non-recommended treatment. (shrink)