Background A significant number of women experience childbirth as traumatic. These experiences are often characterised by a loss of control coupled with a perceived lack of support and inadequate communication with health care professionals. Little is known about the choices women make in subsequent pregnancy(s) and birth(s), or why they make these choices. This study aimed to understand these choices and explore the reasons behind them. Methods A longitudinal Grounded Theory Methods (GTM) study involving 9 women was conducted. Over half (...) of the participants had a formal diagnosis of PTSD and/or PND related to the previous birth. Interviews were carried out at 3 timepoints perinatally. These findings are from the first interviews at 12-20 weeks. Results From the first days of pregnancy, this cohort of women were focused on concerns that this birth would be a repeated traumatic experience. The women were deliberately searching out and analysing information about their choices in this pregnancy and birth, and making plans which had two aims; firstly to avoid a repeat of their previous birth experience, and secondly to avoid a loss of control to other people during the birth. The women considered a range of birth choices, from elective caesareans to freebirth. Some women felt well supported by those around them, including health care professionals, partners, friends and family. Others did not, and were anticipating conflict in trying to assert their birth choices. Many early relationships with health care professionals were characterised by fear and mistrust. Discussion Women who have previously experienced a traumatic birth become pregnant again, have a strong desire to avoid a repeat experience and to feel in control of their birth choices. Access to robust information appears to help reduce uncertainty and arm women in their discussions with professionals. Similarly making plans and seeking to have them agreed with health care professionals at an early stage is used a way to reduce the risk of having a further traumatic experience. Implications for practice include supporting women in formulating and confirming pregnancy and birth plans at an early stage to reduce uncertainty and foster a sense of control. (shrink)

Glover postulates that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), along with the frontal lobes and basal ganglia, mediates planning, while the superior parietal lobule (SPL), coupled with motor processes in the cerebellum, regulates the control process. We demonstrate that the control process extends beyond the cerebellum and SPL into regions hypothesized to represent planning.

A leader in the modern commentary on ethics and philosophy, Mary Warnock casts a critical eye over her life and times.

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto (...) Laclau. A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

Nature and Mortality is a challenging look at some of the major public issues of our time through the eyes of one of our most influential and probing liberal humanists. It is a frank account on where we stand today on such controversial matters as human embryology, genetic engineering, euthanasia and abortion. Warnock's views may seem like a red rag to a bull to some, but her contribution to the debate is always stimulating. Enlivened by autobiographical anecdote and some delicious (...) side-swipes, Nature and Mortality is Mary Warnock at her most perceptive, wise and entertaining. (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) ranged from the early _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ to _The Female Reader_, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft’s great work came out of an (...) earlier and much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft’s “other vindication.” It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)

The unity of aesthetic and teleological judgment, the third and earlier Critiques, is based on Kant′s discovery of a “heuristic method” for applying judgments regarding sense phenomena to abstract thought, a “second attention” which enables an “idea of the whole”. Synthetic judgment, basis for cognition and human action, depends on efficacy of non-empirical insights: the transcendental standpoint, “regulative” ideas, consciousness of “ought” and the reality of freedom, universality of natural mechanism, the principle of “fortuitous” purposiveness. The activity of reflective judgment (...) in the encounter with the beautiful, sublime, living, and two paradigmatic types of explanation, inspired by Spinoza′s distinction of extensio and cogitatio, permit Kant to bridge the gap between freedom and necessity, theoretical knowledge and morality. (shrink)

All religion and much philosophy has been concerned with the contrast between the ephemeral and the eternal. Human beings have always sought ways to overcome time, and to prove that death is not the end. This book consists then in an exploration of certain closely related ideas: personal identity, time, history and our commitment to the future, and the role of imagination in life.

This book presents an analysis of masculinity construction in a large corpus of women’s magazines, adopting a feminist Critical Stylistic approach to reveal how men are talked about and ‘sold’ to women as part of a successful performance of hegemonic femininity. This novel approach identifies women’s magazines as sites of ‘lad culture’ that perpetuate ideologies more commonly associated with the ‘laddism’ of male-targeted media. It examines how stereotypical images of men as naturally aggressive and obsessed with sex are promoted, as (...) well as considering some of the ways in which women’s magazines contribute to the social construction of normative understandings of gender and sexuality more broadly. This engaging work will offer fresh insights to students and scholars of Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Stylistics, and Gender and Communication Studies. (shrink)

The case of a dying baby with is one of the most difficult in pediatric ethics. I have been involved in several such cases and they are extremely challenging for all parties, especially the parents. With the luxury of being an I will comment on this case from the perspective of when it first began and at the end point described in the narrative.

It is a terrible thing to let a child die against the deeply held and clearly expressed view of the child's parents. Yet it could be claimed that there are some conditions so burdensome that it may also be a terrible thing to deny a child the escape of death. The focus of this piece is on three ethical issues relating to withholding and withdrawal of treatment in a neonatal and paediatric context. The first is whether there are other interests (...) that should be considered as well as those of the child. The second is how we should think about the interests of the child. The third is a set of issues raised by cases where the medical team and the family reach different conclusions about what it is best to do. Reference is made to the recent cases of Charlotte Wyatt and Luke Winston-Jones. (shrink)

Scientific culture in Europe and the refugee generation -- Germany and Weimar Berlin as the City of Science -- Origins of a social perspective: doing physical chemistry in Weimar Berlin -- Chemical dynamics and social dynamics in Berlin and Manchester -- Liberalism and the economic foundations of the "Republic of Science" -- Scientific freedom and the social functions of science -- Political foundations of the philosophies of science of Popper, Kuhn, and Polanyi -- Personal knowledge: argument, audiences, and sociological engagement (...) -- Epilogue: SSK, scientific constructivism, and the paradoxical legacy of Polanyi and the 1930s generation. (shrink)

Since 1998, several attempts have been made to reform the existing mental health legislation - the Mental Health Act 1983. However, all efforts thus far have been resoundingly rejected by mental health charities, psychiatrists and related professions. Following the Government's decision to abandon the draft Mental Health Bill in March 2006, plans to introduce new legislation designed to amend the existing 1983 Act have been published. This shorter bill was introduced before Parliament in November 2006. The amendments focused on six (...) key policy areas including supervised community treatment, the nearest relative, the definition of mental disorder and detention criteria. It is also intended that the Mental Capacity Act 2005 will be amended to bridge the present 'Bournewood' gap. (shrink)

Discussion of the ethics of forgoing medically provided nutrition and hydration tends to focus on adults rather than infants and children. Many appellate court decisions address the legal propriety of forgoing medically provided nutritional support of adults, but only a few have ruled on pediatric cases that pose the same issue.The cessation of nutritional support is implemented most commonly for patients in apermanent vegetative state(often referred to aspersistent vegetative state(hereinafter “PVS”)). An estimated 4,000 to 10,000 American children are in the (...) permanent vegetative state, compared to 10,000 to 25,000 adults. Yet the dearth of literature, case reports, and court decisions suggests that physicians and families of pediatric patients stop medically provided nutrition or seek court orders much less frequently. (shrink)

‘Contract cheating’ has recently emerged as a form of academic dishonesty. It involves students contracting out their coursework to writers in order to submit the purchased assignments as their own work, usually via the internet. This form of cheating involves epistemic and ethical problems that are continuous with older forms of cheating, but which it also casts in a new form. It is a concern to educators because it is very difficult to detect, because it is arguably more fraudulent than (...) some other forms of plagiarism, and because it appears to be connected to a range of systemic problems within modern higher education. This paper provides an overview of the information and literature thus far available on the topic, including its definition, the problems it involves, its causal factors, and the ways in which educators might respond. We argue that while contract cheating is a concern, some of the suggested responses are themselves problematic, and that best practice responses to the issue should avoid moral panic and remain focussed on supporting honest students and good academic practice. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine recent critiques of the debate about defining disease, which claim that its use of conceptual analysis embeds the problematic assumption that the concept is classically structured. These critiques suggest, instead, developing plural stipulative definitions. Although we substantially agree with these critiques, we resist their implication that no general definition of “disease” is possible. We offer an alternative, inductive argument that disease cannot be classically defined and that the best explanation for this is that the concept (...) is structured as a cluster. We further argue that we do not need to reject the possibility of defining the general concept “disease” to legitimate developing stipulative definitions of disease that are relative to particular purposes. A cluster definition of disease is compatible with contextually motivated definitions, which may be considered précisifications of the more general cluster concept. (shrink)

This is the earliest critical discussion in the context of modern/contemporary philosophy in the analytical tradition arguing that somebody with a reasonably stable character and the company of the right people would be able to enjoy eternity.

Renowned moral philosopher Jonathan Glover confronts the brutal history of the twentieth century to unravel the mystery of why so many atrocities occurred. In a new preface, Glover brings the book through the post-September 11 era and into our own time—and asks whether humankind can "weaken the grip war has on us." _Praise for the first edition:_ “It is hard to imagine a more important book. Glover makes an overwhelming case for the need to understand our own (...) inhumanity, and reduce or eliminate the ways in which it can express itself—and he then begins the task himself. _Humanity _is_ _an extraordinary achievement.”—Peter Singer, Princeton University “This is an extraordinary book: brilliant, haunting and uniquely important. Almost 40 years ago a president read a best seller and avoided a holocaust. I like to think that some of the leaders and followers of tomorrow will read _Humanity._”_—_Steven Pinker, _New York Times Book Review_. (shrink)

Mamardašvili’s ‘classical’ paradigm of knowledge is seen to be minimally based on extrapolations from Descartes’ classical philosophy to which Mamardašvili attributes features that rather anticipate his own post-classical ontology. The latter is oriented towards the primacy of perception as a subjective process, in which the self-conscious subject constructs the world, not as illusion, but as a ‘picture’ or ‘model’ (Wittgenstein’s Bild). By examining Mamardašvili’s definition of the ‘phenomenon’ against the␣background of Husserl’s ‘reduction’, Wittgenstein’s ‘object’ and the Freudian and post-structuralist psychoanalytic (...) model of subjectivity, the paper arrives at the inference that Mamardašvili is essentially a post-Structuralist thinker who appropriates concepts from various critical and philosophical disciplines to construct his own multi-disciplinary theory of consciousness and perception. (shrink)

Recently, concerns have been raised about the phenomenon of ‘overdiagnosis’, the diagnosis of a condition that is not causing harm, and will not come to cause harm. Along with practical, ethical, and scientific questions, overdiagnosis raises questions about our concept of disease. In this paper, we analyse overdiagnosis as an epistemic problem and show how it challenges many existing accounts of disease. In particular, it raises ques- tions about conceptual links drawn between disease and dysfunction, harm, and risk. We argue (...) that ‘disease’ should be considered a vague concept with a non-classical structure. On this view, overdiagnosed cases are ‘borderline’ cases of disease, falling in the zone between cases that are clearly disease, and cases that are clearly not disease. We then develop a pre ́cising definition of disease designed to provide practical help in preventing and limiting overdiagnosis. We argue that for this purpose, we can define disease as dysfunction that has a significant risk of causing severe harm to the patient. (shrink)

Bathos - remarque -- Pt. 1. Le champ de bataille -- Pt. 2. Kant et ses juges -- Pt. 3. Traité de bathologie.

Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which (...) it leads. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Glover examines the emotive idea of 'eugenics', and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere? This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights and wrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about our human future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversial but always humane and sympathetic manner. (shrink)

This study compares the neural substrate of moral decision making processes between Korean and American participants. By comparison with Americans, Korean participants showed increased activity in the right putamen associated with socio-intuitive processes and right superior frontal gyrus associated with cognitive control processes under a moral-personal condition, and in the right postcentral sulcus associated with mental calculation in familiar contexts under a moral-impersonal condition. On the other hand, American participants showed a significantly higher degree of activity in the bilateral anterior (...) cingulate cortex (ACC) associated with conflict resolution under the moral-personal condition, and in the right medial frontal gyrus (MFG) associated with simple cognitive branching in non-familiar contexts under the moral-impersonal condition when a more lenient threshold was applied, than Korean participants. These findings support the ideas of the interactions between the cultural background, education, and brain development, proposed in the field of cultural psychology and educational psychology. The study introduces educational implications relevant to moral psychologists and educators. (shrink)

Personalised medicine has been discussed as a medical paradigm shift that will improve health while reducing inefficiency and waste. At the same time, it raises new practical, regulatory, and ethical challenges. In this paper, we examine PM strategies epistemologically in order to develop capacities to address these challenges, focusing on a recently proposed strategy for developing patient-specific models from induced pluripotent stem cells so as to make individualised treatment predictions. We compare this strategy to two main PM strategies—stratified medicine and (...) computational models. Drawing on epistemological work in the philosophy of medicine, we explain why these two methods, while powerful, are neither truly personalised nor, epistemologically speaking, novel strategies. Both are forms of correlational black box. We then argue that the iPSC models would count as a new kind of black box. They would not rely entirely on mechanistic knowledge, and they would utilise correlational evidence in a different way from other strategies—a way that would enable personalised predictions. In arguing that the iPSC models would present a novel method of gaining evidence for clinical practice, we provide an epistemic analysis that can help to inform the practical, regulatory, and ethical challenges of developing an iPSC system. (shrink)

Recently, concerns have been raised about the phenomenon of 'overdiagnosis', the diagnosis of a condition that is not causing harm, and will not come to cause harm. Along with practical, ethical, and scientific questions, overdiagnosis raises questions about our concept of disease. In this paper, we analyse overdiagnosis as an epistemic problem and show how it challenges many existing accounts of disease. In particular, it raises questions about conceptual links drawn between disease and dysfunction, harm, and risk. We argue that (...) "disease" should be considered a vague concept with a nonclassical structure. On this view, overdiagnosed cases are 'borderline' cases of disease, falling in the zone between cases that are clearly disease, and cases that are clearly not disease. We then develop a précising definition of disease designed to provide practical help in preventing and limiting overdiagnosis. We argue that for this purpose, we can define disease as dysfunction that has a significant risk of causing severe harm to the patient. (shrink)

Known as the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism” and the “Mother of Knowledge,” Yeshe Tsogyal built upon indigenous Bön philosophy and Mahāyāna Buddhism to bring about a Buddhism that is identifiably Tibetan. I report on her life, her works and teaching. Then summarize her significance as a philosopher of Tibetan Buddhist metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Lastly, I append portions of several writings attributed to her.

Neil Levy argues that while addicts who believe they are not addicts are self-deceived, addicts who believe they are addicts are just as self-deceived. Such persons accept a false belief that their addictive behaviour involves a loss of control. This paper examines two implications of Levy's discussion: that accurate self-knowledge may be particularly difficult for addicts; and that an addict's self-deceived belief that they cannot control themselves may aid their attempts at self-control. I argue that the self-deceived beliefs of addicts (...) in denial and of self-described addicts differ in kind. Unlike the self-deception of an addict in denial, that of the self-described addict allows them to acknowledge their behaviour. As such, it may aid an addict to develop more self-control. A paradoxical implication is that this self-deception may allow an addict more self-knowledge. (shrink)

This book relates work in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry to questions about what a person is and the nature of a persons unity across a lifetime. The neuropsychiatry is now dated. The philosophy has three themes still perhaps of interest. The first is a response to Derek Parfits powerful and influential work on personal identity, which, like many other people, I discussed with him as he worked it out. I accept his view that there is no ego that owns the (...) stream of our experiences, and the unity of a person over time is constructed out of continuities in our mental life. But I argue against Parfits view that personal unity thereby becomes less deep or less morally important. The second theme is an emphasis on the importance of self-creation and an attempt to work out how far it is possible. The third theme is about the way self-creation is linked to recognition by other people, and the importance of this for understanding the role of tribalism in human life. "This book is about what it is to be a person, to think of oneself as an "I". It is about the ways people think of themselves, and how they use these ideas in shaping their own distinctive characteristics. It is about how far we create ourslves." "When a way of life does not fit with what you think you are really like, you can feel like a plant away from the light, distorted by having to twist and grope towards the sun. This analogy suggests that we might have a genetic programme to unfold, in the way plants do. But no doubt it is too simple to think that "the real me" is genetically laid down. These strong affinities we have for some kinds of life, and the sense of drowning that others give us, are likely to have been created by the interaction of our genetic make-up with thigs we have come across and responded to... We care a bit like trees would be, if they were conscious and could partly choose their direction of growth. Perhaps oaks could not become beeches, and stunted trees could not become giants, but they could influence the angle and direction of their branches. Trees thinking about determinism and free will might find it impossible to assess their own contribution to their final shape.". (shrink)