To become fully aware of the original and radical character of his transcendental phenomenology Edmund Husserl must be located within the historical tradition of Western philosophy. Although he was not a historian of philosophy, Husserl's his torical reflections convinced him that phenomenology is the necessary culmination of a centuries-old endeavor and the solution to the contemporary crisis in European science and European humanity itself.l This teleological viewpoint re quires the commentator to consider the tradition of Western philosophy from Husserl's own (...) perspective. Husserl maintained that the Cartesian tum to the "Cogito" represents the crucial breakthrough in the historical advance of Western thought toward philosophy as rigorous science. Hence 2 he concentrated almost exclusively on the modem era. Much has been written of Husserl's relationship to Descartes, Kant, and the neo-Kantians. His connections with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume have not been examined as closely despite his fre quent allusions to these British empiricists. Among these thinkers David Hume gained from Husserl the more extensive considera tion. Commentators have pointed out correctly that Husserl always criticized unsparingly Hume's sheer empiricistic approach to the problem of cognition. Such an approach, in Husserl's view, can only result in the "naturalization of consciousness" from which stem that "psychologism" and "sensualism" which lead Hume inevitably into the contradictory impasse of solipsism 3 and skepticism. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay explores recent trends and major issues related to gay and lesbian philosophy in ethics (including issues concerning the morality of homosexuality, the natural function of sex, and outing and coming out); religion (covering past and present debates about the status of homosexuality and how biblical and qur'anic passages have been interpreted by both sides of the debate); the law (especially a discussion of the debates surrounding sodomy laws, same-sex marriage and its impact on transsexuals, and whether the (...) law should be used to enforce morality); scientific research into the origins of homosexuality (including discussion of arguments against such research); and metaphysics (especially the question of whether homosexuality is socially constructed during particular times and in particular cultures, or whether sexual orientation is an essential trait cutting across times and cultures). (shrink)

Antinatalist commentators recommend that humanity bring itself to a close, on the theory that pain and suffering override the value of any possible life. Other commentators do not require the voluntary extinction of human beings, but they defend that outcome if people were to choose against having children. Against such views, Richard Kraut has defended a general moral obligation to people the future with human beings until the workings of the universe render such efforts impossible. Kraut advances this view (...) on the grounds that we are obliged to exercise beneficence toward others and on the grounds that the goods available in human lives are morally compelling. This account ultimately succeeds in making no more than a prima facie defense of human perpetuation because considerations of beneficence could override – in some cases probably should – override any duty to perpetuate human beings. While the goods of human life may be distinctive, they cannot serve as reason-giving in regard to their own perpetuation. Ironically, the exercise of beneficence may authorize the extinction of human beings, if it becomes possible to enhance the goods available to human descendants in a way that moves them away from human nature as now given. The defense of a morally obligatory and strictly human future remains elusive, even as it becomes morally desirable to work against Fateful Catastrophes, those human-caused events that threaten to extinguish existing lives already good and enriching for their bearers. (shrink)

“Public health legal preparedness” is a term born in the ferment, beginning in the late 1990s, that has led to unprecedented recognition of the essential role law plays in public health and, even more recently, in protecting the public from terrorism and other potentially catastrophic health threats.The initial articulation of public health has not kept pace with rapid evolution in the concept and in practical development of public health preparedness itself. This poses the risk that legal preparedness may fall behind (...) construction of general readiness in the public health system—and may, in fact, undercut achievement of comprehensive public health preparedness for massive threats to health in both the United States and world-wide. Inadvertent results might include both negative health impacts and infringement on individual rights. (shrink)

“Public health legal preparedness” is a term born in the ferment, beginning in the late 1990s, that has led to unprecedented recognition of the essential role law plays in public health and, even more recently, in protecting the public from terrorism and other potentially catastrophic health threats.The initial articulation of public health has not kept pace with rapid evolution in the concept and in practical development of public health preparedness itself. This poses the risk that legal preparedness may fall behind (...) construction of general readiness in the public health system—and may, in fact, undercut achievement of comprehensive public health preparedness for massive threats to health in both the United States and world-wide. Inadvertent results might include both negative health impacts and infringement on individual rights. (shrink)

Reviews evidence which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Ss are sometimes unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, unaware of the existence of the response, and unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do (...) so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes. (shrink)

This study examined whether having attended a public, private or religious affiliated grade and/or high school influenced a college student’s ethical decision making process. We also examined whether having taken an ethics course in college influences a student’s ethical decision making process. Our sample included 508 accounting students (237 men and 271 women) from Albania, Ecuador, Ireland and the United States. Our analyses indicated no differences in ethical decision making that associated with either grade-or-high-school education. While our data showed no (...) difference in the reported attitudes between students from Ecuador and the United States after controlling for social desirability response bias, we found significant differences between the attitudes students from the United States and students from both Albania and Ireland. While gender was also significant for six of our seven scenarios, social desirability response bias was significant in all of our scenarios. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this essay the argument set forth by Michael Levin regarding the abnormality of homosexual behaviour is reviewed and criticized. Against his argument which holds that homosexual behaviour is abnormal because it constitutes an evolutionary aberration, I argue that Levin's and all similarly constructed arguments fail to show that evolutionary origins of sexual behaviour have any significant normative force. I contend that his notion of homosexuality is confused and that he fails to consider alternative methods of how homosexuality might (...) have indeed served evolutionary adaptive purposes or been the result of surplus adaptations. I argue, too, that Levin's linking of unhappiness with homosexual behaviour is spurious and ill‐supported. Consequently, I reject Levin's claims that public policy ought to do what it can to minimize the incidence of such behaviour. I argue by contrast that if happiness is the end of public policy decisions, then society ought to take what measures it can to protect persons in respect of their homosexual behaviour and identities. (shrink)

Reports about possible genetic bases of homoerotic sexual orientation in adults have received a kind of schizophrenic social reception. On the one hand, these reports have been welcomed by some gay men and lesbians as biological confirmation of the commonly held view that sexual orientation is an involuntary trait, that sexual orientation is not in any meaningful sense chosen. Simon LeVay has received mail from thankful correspondents who welcomed his 1991 report about the possible neuroanatomical basis for male homoerotic sexual (...) orientation, and some legal analysts see important implications of biological studies for the ways in which civil rights are recognized, especially those that depend on an immutable characteristic like race or gender. (shrink)

Medical residency—specialty training after the completion of medical school—is an essential component of medical education and is required in order to be a licensed, independent medical practitioner in most jurisdictions. As things currently stand in the United States, the match between medical school graduates and residency programs is governed by a match between rank-order lists prepared by candidates and residencies alike. An applicant picks a number of residency programs and ranks them according to order of interest. The residency program prepares (...) a similar list, ranking the candidates it most wants in its program. A computer program compares the rankings and makes assignments according to a certain algorithm. Using these lists, the match system assigns approximately 24,000 applicants to approximately 21,000 training positions in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, and the rest. These assignments are then announced to all parties on specific days. The system has been in place since 1952 and is overseen by the National Residency Match Program, a nonprofit organization. This system has several advantages. First of all, it standardizes the timetable for decisions, and applicants are in no position to tie up offers while waiting to hear from other institutions. Institutions are not held captive, either, in making assignments while waiting to hear from particular parties. (shrink)

Carson Strong has argued that if human cloning were safe it should be available to some infertile couples as a matter of ethics and law. He holds that cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer should be available as a reproductive option for infertile couples who could not otherwise have a child genetically related to one member of the couple. In this analysis, Strong overlooks an important category of people to whom his argument might apply, couples he has not failed to (...) consider elsewhere. In this discussion, however, Strong refers exclusively to opposite sex couples facing obstacles such as surgically removed ovaries and the inability to produce sperm. In fact, however, there are many adult couples who, while fertile in and of themselves, are not fertile as couples. This group includes not only opposite sex couples but coupled same sex partners as well. I believe the defenses Strong offers regarding the use of SCNT by opposite sex infertile couples would extend to same sex couples for two reasons. First, some same sex couples might face the inability to have a genetically related child, and second, Strong's arguments ultimately ground a general defense of SCNT independent of the question of a couple's fertility. (shrink)

For many commentators in bioethics and the law, safety is the fulcrum for evaluating the ethics of human reproductive cloning. Carson Strong has argued that if cloning were effective and safe it should be available to married couples who have tried to have children through various assisted reproductive technologies but been unable to do so. On his view, cloning should be available only as reproductive last resort. I challenged that limited use by trying to show that the arguments Strong adduces (...) in favor of reproductive somatic nuclear transfer for married couples extend to same-sex couples as well, who face a different kind of infertility. I also went on to argue that his justifications would in fact extend the legitimate use of SNT to any couples regardless of whether they had fertility difficulties or not. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Birth certificates typically designate parents as "mothers" or "fathers," although some US states offer nongendered designations. The authors argue that gendered characterizations offer scant legal or moral value and that states should move to degender parental status on birth certificates but retain that information in registrations of birth. Registrations of birth identify the person giving birth to a child, when, and where, and they report demographic and health information useful for civic and public health purposes. Birth certificates typically report a (...) child's name, sex, date and location of birth, and parentage so far as known. As documents establishing parents' standing in relation to children and vice versa, as well as age and presumptive citizenship, birth certificates add no legal or moral value by gendering parents. Gendering parents on birth certificates obliges the state to rely on exclusionary criteria of "mother" and "father." By contrast, degendering parental status withdraws the need for such criteria and confers benefits on people with transgender and nonbinary identities, as well as undercutting any problematic presumption that parents have responsibilities to their children qua mother or qua father. (shrink)

Staged 2 different videotaped interviews with the same individual—a college instructor who spoke English with a European accent. In one of the interviews the instructor was warm and friendly, in the other, cold and distant. 118 undergraduates were asked to evaluate the instructor. Ss who saw the warm instructor rated his appearance, mannerisms, and accent as appealing, whereas those who saw the cold instructor rated these attributes as irritating. Results indicate that global evaluations of a person can induce altered evaluations (...) of the person's attributes, even when there is sufficient information to allow for independent assessments of them. Furthermore, Ss were unaware of this influence of global evaluations on ratings of attributes. In fact, Ss who saw the cold instructor actually believed that the direction of influence was opposite to the true direction. They reported that their dislike of the instructor had no effect on their rating of his attributes but that their dislike of his attributes had lowered their global evaluations of him. (shrink)

Robinson argues that by certain threshold criteria, pregnant women qualify for a higher moral status by reason of their pregnancies. While her intention is to make this a status upgrade for women, we worry that it may result in a status downgrade for women as a class, by presupposing and reinforcing women’s value in relation to their reproductive labour. Historically, central to feminist analysis is resistance to reductive accounts of women in relation to their reproductivity. For example, de Beauvoir addressed (...) men’s transcendence and contrasted it with women’s immanence, a status distinction possible because women are mired in expectations that they will marry, produce children and remain in the domestic realm; and for her part, Firestone argued that biological reproduction underlies women’s inferiority to men and that ‘The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both (should) be replaced by...artificial reproduction’ 1 2 shrink)

Has moral relativism run its course? The threat of 9/11, terrorism, reproductive technology, and globalization has forced us to ask anew whether there are universal moral truths upon which to base ethical and political judgments. In this timely edited collection, distinguished scholars present and test the best answers to this question. These insightful responses temper the strong antithesis between universalism and relativism and retain sensitivity to how language and history shape the context of our moral decisions. This important and relevant (...) work of contemporary political and social thought is ideal for use in the classroom across many disciplines, including political science, philosophy, ethics, law, and theology. (shrink)

Some commentators have criticized bioethics as failing to engage religion both as a matter of theory and practice. Bioethics should work toward understanding the influence of religion as it represents people's beliefs and practices, but bioethics should nevertheless observe limits in regard to religion as it does its normative work. Irreligious skepticism toward religious views about health, healthcare practices and institutions, and responses to biomedical innovations can yield important benefits to the field. Irreligious skepticism makes it possible to raise questions (...) that otherwise go unasked and to protect against the overreach of religion. In this sense, bioethics needs a vigorous irreligious outlook every bit as much as it needs descriptive understandings of religion. (shrink)

In the thirty years since its discovery by Terje Lomo and Tim Bliss, Long Term Potentiation has become one of the most extensively studied topics in contemporary neuroscience. In LTP the strength of synapses between neurons is potentiated following brief but intense activation. LTP is thought to play a central role in learning and memory, though the exact nature of its role is less clear. In spite of years of research, there are many questions about LTP regarding its functional relevance (...) that remain unanswered - for example, is it a model of memory formation, or is the actual neural mechanism used by the brain to store information? This volume presents a state of the art account of LTP. It begins with lively accounts, by the scientists most closely involved, of the discovery of LTP and of the experiments that established its basic properties and induction mechanisms. Later contributions contain reviews and new research that cover the range of molecular, cellular, physiological and behavioural approaches to the study of LTP. Provocative, accessible, and authoritative, this book makes it clear why LTP continues in equal measure to puzzle and beguile neuroscientists today. Advance praise for Long Term Potentiation: 'This book provides a definitive overview of the development of ideas about synaptic plasticity and about the wide range of current research in this fascinating field.' Colin Blakemore, University of OxfordReadership: Neuroscientists from postgraduate level upwards. (shrink)

Some commentators indirectly challenge the ethics of using synthetic gametes as a way for same-sex couples to have children with shared genetics. These commentators typically impose a moral burden of proof on same-sex couples they do not impose on opposite-sex couples in terms of their eligibility to have children. Other commentators directly raise objections to parenthood by same-sex couples on the grounds that it compromises the rights and/or welfare of children. Ironically, the prospect of synthetic gametes neutralises certain of these (...) objections, insofar as they would ensure that children have parents whom they can know as their genetic parents, which outcome is not always possible when same-sex couples involve third parties as the source of gametes or embryos. Not all commentators in bioethics throw the use of synthetic gametes into doubt as far as same-sex couples are concerned, but even these commentators put parenting by gay men and lesbians at the conclusion of an argument rather than presupposing parental legitimacy from the outset. Synthetic gametes do raise questions of ethics in regard to parenthood for gay men and lesbians, but these are largely questions of access and equity, not questions of parental fitness and/or child welfare. (shrink)

This Introduction presents the seven closely interlinked papers that explore the theme of this Special Issue, and one of the enduring existential questions for International Relations: the nuclear...

For a fixed set A, the number of queries to A needed in order to decide a set S is a measure of S's complexity. We consider the complexity of certain sets defined in terms of A: $ODD^A_n = \{(x_1, \dots ,x_n): {\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots, x_n) \text{is odd}\}$ and, for m ≥ 2, $\text{MOD}m^A_n = \{(x_1, \dots ,x_n):{\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots ,x_n) \not\equiv 0 (\text{mod} m)\},$ where ${\tt\#}^A_n(x_1, \dots ,x_n) = A(x_1)+\cdots+A(x_n)$ . (We identify A(x) with χ A (x), where χ A is (...) the characteristic function of A.) If A is a nonrecursive semirecursive set or if A is a jump, we give tight bounds on the number of queries needed in order to decide ODD A n and $\text{MOD}m^A_n: \bullet\text{ODD}^A_n$ can be decided with n parallel queries to A, but not with n - 1. $\bullet \text{ODD}^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil log(n + 1)\rceil$ sequential queries to A but not with $\lceil log(n + 1)\rceil - 1. \bullet\text{MOD}m^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor$ parallel queries to A but not with $\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor - 1. \bullet\text{MOD}m^A_n$ can be decided with $\lceil log(\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor + 1)\rceil$ sequential queries to A but not with $\lceil log(\lceil n/m\rceil + \lfloor n/m\rfloor + 1)\rceil - 1$ . The lower bounds above hold for nonrecursive recursively enumerable sets A as well. (Interestingly, the lower bounds for recursively enumerable sets follow by a general result from the lower bounds for semirecursive sets.) In particular, every nonzero truth-table degree contains a set A such that ODD A n cannot be decided with n - 1 parallel queries to A. Since every truth-table degree also contains a set B such that ODD B n can be decided with one query to B, a set's query complexity depends more on its structure than on its degree. For a fixed set A, $Q(n,A) = \{S: S \text{can be decided with n sequential queries to} A\},\\Q_\parallel(n, A) = \{S: S \text{can be decided with n parallel queries to} A\}.$ We show that if A is semirecursive or recursively enumerable, but is not recursive, then these classes form non-collapsing hierarchies: $\bullet Q(0,A) \subset Q(1,A) \subset Q(2,A) \subset\cdots\\ \bullet Q_\parallel(0, A) \subset Q_\parallel(1, A) \subset Q_\parallel(2,A) \subset\cdots$ The same is true if A is a jump. (shrink)

According to the biopsychosocial model, developed by the late Dr. George Engel, how physicians approach patients and the problems they present is very much ...

H. Tristram Engelhardt has said that “in the 1960s and 1970s... religious bioethics fell into the shadow of established secular bioethics. I don't think that religious bioethics has ever really...

Some commentators object to the use of embryonic and fetal diagnostic technologies by parents who wish to avoid disabilities in their children. In particular, they say this use is hurtful in the meaning it expresses, namely that the lives of people with disabilities are not valuable or are less valuable than the lives of others. Other commentators have tried to show that this meaning does not necessarily belong to parents' choices and is not therefore credible as a general moral objection. (...) However, this analysis overlooks the way in which the use of these technologies can be legitimately interpreted as hurtful. Once we admit to these hurtful effects felt by people with disabilities and those who hold them dear, it becomes important to ask whether that hurt can justify limits on parents' choices. Because the use of these technologies does not hurt people with disabilities directly and because there is no requirement that people having children work to ensure the continued existence of people with disabilities, no justification for limiting parents' choices is to be found in the hurt some people experience in steps taken to avoid disabilities in children. (shrink)

D. Micah Hester thinks the residency match system helps sustain the divide between the haves and the have-nots in healthcare. He believes that the match system channels talent away from the have-nots in a more or less systematic way, damaging moral values in physicians as it goes. As a way of making inroads against these effects, he has asked whether assigning medical school graduates to residencies at random would distribute talent and educational opportunity more broadly and promote desirable moral values. (...) I pointed out what I think are serious limitations of this proposal, and Hester has extended me the courtesy of a reply. Yet with that reply, I find that he has made it even more difficult to defend a lottery approach to residency assignment. (shrink)

Professional standards in medicine and psychology treat concurrent sexual relationships with patients as violations of fiduciary trust, and they sometimes rule out sexual relationships even after a clinical relationship is over. These standards also rule out sex with research subjects who are also patients, but what about nonclinical relationships where there are not always parallels to the standards of clinical medicine? One way to treat sex in nonclinical research relationships is to treat it as sex is treated elsewhere among adults, (...) as a matter of individual choice and responsibility. Alternately, one could ask oversight bodies to draw lines between research that can safely accommodate sexual relationships and research that cannot. One could even ask researchers to avoid all concurrent sexual relationships with their research participants, as happens in clinical medicine. Each of these options has drawbacks that undermine its value as a definitive solution. The deficiencies of these options highlight the need for a professional code of conduct for nonclinical researchers. (shrink)

The book includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis, Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans Küng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs,...

Developments in uterus transplant put assisted gestation within meaningful range of clinical success for women with uterine infertility who want to gestate children. Should this kind of transplantation prove routine and effective for those women, would there be any morally significant reason why men or transgender women should not be eligible for the same opportunity for gestation? Getting to the point of safe and effective uterus transplantation for those parties would require a focused line of research, over and above the (...) study of uterus transplantation for non-transgender women. Some commentators object to the idea that the state has any duty to sponsor research of this kind. They would limit all publicly-funded fertility research to sex-typical ways of having children, which they construe as the basis of reproductive rights. This objection has no force against privately-funded research, of course, and in any case not all social expenditures are responses to ‘rights’ properly speaking. Another possible objection raised against gestation by transgender women is that it could alter the social meaning of sexed bodies. This line of argument fails, however, to substantiate a meaningful objection to gestation by transgender women because social meanings of sexed bodies do not remain constant and because the change in this case would not elicit social effects significant enough to justify closing off gestation to transgender women as a class. (shrink)

An overview of the key debates in biomedical researchethics, presented through a wide-ranging selection of casestudies.

The law ordinarily recognises the woman who gives birth as the mother of a child, but in certain jurisdictions, it will recognise the commissioning couple as the legal parents of a child born to a commercial surrogate. Some commissioning parents have, however, effectively abandoned the children they commission, and in such cases, commercial surrogates may find themselves facing unexpected maternal responsibility for children they had fully intended to give up. Any assumption that commercial surrogates ought to assume maternal responsibility for (...) abandoned children runs contrary to the moral suppositions that typically govern contract surrogacy, in particular, assumptions that gestational carriers are not ‘mothers’ in any morally significant sense. In general, commercial gestational surrogates are almost entirely conceptualised as ‘vessels’. In a moral sense, it is deeply inconsistent to expect commercial surrogates to assume maternal responsibility simply because commissioning parents abandon children for one reason or another. We identify several instances of child abandonment and discuss their implications with regard to the moral conceptualisation of commercial gestational surrogates. We conclude that if gestational surrogates are to remain conceptualised as mere vessels, they should not be expected to assume responsibility for children abandoned by commissioning parents, not even the limited responsibility of giving them up for adoption or surrendering them to the state. (shrink)

Researchers are pursuing various ways to synthesise human male and female gametes, which would be useful for people facing infertility. Some people are unable to conceive children with their partner because one of them is infertile in the sense of having an anatomical or physiological deficit. Other people—in same sex couples—may not be individually infertile but situationally infertile in relation to one another. Segers et al have described a pathway towards synthetic gametes that would rely on embryonic stem cells, rather (...) than somatic cells. This pathway would be advantageous, they say, for same-sex couples even though it would not offer those couples 50%–50% shared genetics in their children but only 50%–25%. It is unclear, however, why this approach should be preferred morally speaking since it represents a falling off from the kind of shared genetics in children that are functionally a gold standard in parents' expectations generally. Despite raising concerns about whether genetic relatedness is necessary or sufficient as a condition of parental interest in children, Segers et al cede the sociocultural importance of that standard. If so, same-sex couples seem entitled to press a case for some measure of research priority that would offer the same level of access to that social good as everyone else. (shrink)