Jaswal & Akhtar challenge the notion that autistic people have diminished social motivation, prompted in part by a desire to take autistic testimony seriously. We applaud their analysis and go further to suggest that future research could be enhanced by involving autistic people directly in the research process.

Amid a global zeitgeist of impending catastrophe, this book explores the culture of fear so prevalent in today's politics, economic climate, and religious extremism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Solidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World by Rebecca Todd PetersDavid LilleySolidarity Ethics: Transformation in a Globalized World Rebecca Todd Peters minneapolis: fortress, 2014. 160 pp. $39.00.“But what do I do?” Addressing this frequent response to her well-received In Search of the Good Life (2004), Peters proposes an ethic of solidarity as a new strategy for privileged readers negotiating the “morally precarious waters of neoliberal globalization” (xiv). She (...) takes the novel step of using the methods and sources of liberationist, feminist thought while crafting a contextual ethic “that starts from the reality of life in the first world” (30).Economic redress done only for the benefit of the marginalized is critiqued. Peters insightfully details the problem of coupling unsustainable economic disparity with marked isolation and disinterest in the common good. The solution proposed thus begins with acknowledging human commonality and forging relationships across lines of privilege. This emphasis on mutuality enables Peters to address first-world readers without neglecting two-thirds world [End Page 211] agency, even when advocating top-down structural change. To “love your neighbour as yourself,” not as your children, is the foundation for an ethic of solidarity (40). Readers are called to pursue justice by transforming, not escaping, the global economy.The book finishes well, inspiring the creativity of readers by suggesting transformative strategies involving everyday matters such as food, investment portfolios, and relational networks. Eschewing technical jargon, this would benefit classroom or small-group discussion. Not all materials equally further this practical end, however. Chapter 1 deftly builds a bridge from liberation theology to contextual theology in situations of privilege and calls for understanding privilege as the starting point of first-world solidarity ethics. Not until chapter 4 (of five), though, does understanding privilege become central, leaving the impression that intervening materials, while interesting, do little to advance the argument. A theologically focused section feels particularly foreign. The life of Jesus is identified as this theology’s exemplary starting point, but principles—justice and sustainability—carry greater argumentative weight; without further explanation, Jesus’s instruction, “Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,” is rejected as naïve and ineffective (88).The proposed ethic is called “new” no less than ten times, but an unconvincing portrayal of differing approaches leaves this claim difficult to evaluate. Patronizing feelings of sympathy or responsibility for “others” are clearly rejected but perplexingly illustrated. Prayers of thanksgiving are connected with sympathy while boycotts and low-energy bulbs are said to instantiate benevolent responsibility for those less fortunate; the leap from light bulbs to paternalism is made in half a paragraph. Without substantive footnotes for support, the links between particular practices and ideas seem speculative and unconvincing, making it difficult to judge the relative merits of solidarity as an alternative.What is made eminently clear is the formative impact of solidarity on those who pursue it. Readers are guided to face oft-avoided questions about their place in a global economy and to pursue interconnection across lines of difference. A crucial recurring theme is the importance of metanoia, which requires first-world Christians to recognize and change that which is harmful. To move toward solidarity is to be continually confronted with personal privilege by listening to those without it—brilliantly illustrated by the scriptural example of Nehemiah listening to Israel. This calls forth greater depth of metanoia and guides one into solidarity afresh. The frequent failure involved in forging such relationships across lines of difference is insufficiently acknowledged, but the book’s hopefulness encourages readers to persevere when difficulties arise. Solidarity Ethics does not quite lead us to where we need to be, but it points toward the path, for which it is most welcome. [End Page 212]David LilleyUniversity of AberdeenCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Purpose– There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. Although the paper shares an interest in ending social discrimination, the paper is more circumspect about pronounced individualism and technological fixes. Despite its appeal, or perhaps because of it, the paper should not accept the claim at face value. The paper argues that social discrimination may not (...) disappear under smarter marketing; more overt forms may wane only to be replaced by more subtle forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– The paper compares the two most important techniques of “smarter” marketing – predictive analytics and Facebook's social graph – with current discriminatory practices of weblining and e-scoring. While noting advances against overt discrimination, the paper describes how smarter marketing allows for covert forms.Findings– Innovative strategies to record and mine users' tastes and social connectivity for marketing purposes open the way for covert social discrimination.Originality/value– The paper provides a critical assessment of two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry: by monitoring consumer web activity and collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. (shrink)

There has been an excellent series of formative articles centring on Bernard Stiegler (1952-2020) as an inspiration to pedagogical thought; this is a summative article written from the perspective of after his death. Stiegler argued that education is ontologically crucial to human development, wherein technics or the ‘not-experienced-condition(s)-necessary-for-experience’ are crucial to humanity’s ability to create its own existence. Technics make possible the technologies underpinning contemporary Anthropocentric existence. While entropy poses the cosmological threat of death to life, technics supports negentropy or (...) the collecting and marshalling of energy opposed to entropy. Education is a crucial means of social negentropy, however all human agency is characterized by the pharmakon of more entropy or increased negentropy. The tension is inevitable in the pharmakon between on the one side, care and cure; and on the other, poison and death. In this article, we ask: ‘Given his suicide, what sort of pharmakon was Stiegler for himself and for us?’1 The authorial “I,” ‘Bernard Stiegler’ is no longer a living critic of social entropy or of proletarization and ‘technoscience’; what do we now make of his oeuvre for education? We will point to his inversions and purposeful mis-interpretations of Heidegger and Derrida as crucial to his oeuvre. Stiegler’s phenomenal being has ended; what technics have been strengthened and specifically: ‘What now of education?’. (shrink)

PurposeFacebook users are both producers and consumers, in the sense that they produce the disclosures that allow for Facebook's business success and they consume services. The purpose of this paper is to examine how best to characterize the commercialized and compliant members. The authors question the Facebook assertion that members knowingly and willingly approve of personal and commercial transparency and argue, instead, that complicity is engineered.Design/methodology/approachA survey of Facebook users was conducted between December 2010 and April 2011 at one private (...) and four public universities. Respondents were questioned about: the level of their consumer activity on Facebook; their knowledge of Facebook advertiser data sharing practices and their attitude toward such; their use of sharing restrictions and the groups targeted; and their assessment of transparency benefits versus reputation and consumer risks.FindingsNo evidence was found to support the Facebook account of happy prosumers. Members reported that they avoided advertisements as much as possible and opposed data sharing/selling practices. However, many respondents were found to be relatively uneducated and passive prosumers, and those expressing a high concern for privacy were no exception.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the nonprobability sampling method, the results may lack generalizability.Practical implicationsTo avoid unwanted commercialization, users of social networking sites must become more aware of data mining and privacy protocols, demand more protections, or switch to more prosumer‐friendly platforms.Originality/valueThe paper reports empirical findings on Facebook members' prosumption patterns and attitudes. (shrink)

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive (...) to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, nevertheless, they face practical dilemmas in attempting to follow these principles and apply these ideals in the various Internet domains. The current oversight system is ill‐equipped to assist. A conservative response to this problem of fit might entail adjustments to the oversight system that, in the case of the American system, would entail modifications to the Common Rule and Institutional Review Boards. I will argue in this paper, instead, that re‐structuring is needed to allow more oversight authority for Internet researchers. I will utilize Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics in making this case. (shrink)

Pathology and laboratory medicine are a key component of a patient’s healthcare. From academic care centres, community hospitals, to clinics across the country, pathology data are a crucial component of patient care. But for much of the modern era, pathology and laboratory medicine have been absent from health policy conversations. Though select members in the field have advocated for an enhanced presence of these specialists in policy conversations, little work has been done to thoroughly evaluate the moral and ethical obligations (...) of the pathologist and the role they play in healthcare justice and access to care. In order to make any substantive improvements in access to care, pathology and laboratory medicine must have a seat at the table. Specifically, pathologists and laboratorians can assist in bringing about change through improving clinician test choice, continuing laboratory improvement programmes, promoting just advanced diagnostic distribution, triage testing and be good stewards of healthcare dollars, and recruiting a more robust laboratory workforce. In order to get to that point, much work has to be done in pathology education and the laboratory personnel training pipeline but there also needs to be adjustments at the system level to better involve this invaluable group of specialists in these policy conversations. (shrink)

That both parts of the sentence refer to the same person is now generally agreed; it is not so much that a change of subject would be, as the commentators are wont to say, ‘un-Sophoclean’, but simply that it would be awkward and clumsy. But to whom do the lines refer?D. B. Gregor argues for Clytaemnestra, but despite the apparent force of some of his arguments I cannot agree. He adds too that the reference to echoes the motif of Electra's (...) speech, but it is just as much the motif of Clytaemnestra's speech, in fact more so. Finally, the first part of the sentence, it is true, could be asserted by the chorus on the strength of some such gesture as the heaving of the bosom, but I cannot see how they could then deduce that Clytaemnestra ‘no longer cares whether justice is on her side’. (shrink)

That both parts of the sentence refer to the same person is now generally agreed; it is not so much that a change of subject would be, as the commentators are wont to say, ‘un-Sophoclean’, but simply that it would be awkward and clumsy. But to whom do the lines refer?D. B. Gregor argues for Clytaemnestra, but despite the apparent force of some of his arguments I cannot agree. He adds too that the reference to echoes the motif of Electra's (...) speech, but it is just as much the motif of Clytaemnestra's speech, in fact more so. Finally, the first part of the sentence, it is true, could be asserted by the chorus on the strength of some such gesture as the heaving of the bosom, but I cannot see how they could then deduce that Clytaemnestra ‘no longer cares whether justice is on her side’. (shrink)

In this paper, we challenge the conventional wisdom that high‐quality news reports of questionable corporate business practices will stimulate various marketplace negative responses, which in turn, will pressure management to undertake actions designed to protect the organization's reputation. Analysis is confined to a relatively brief period of bad news relating to Citigroup, Inc. We conclude that while none of the expected negative marketplace responses are evident in widely available news sources, the CEO did exhibit significant concern and instituted a targeted (...) reputation risk management program. In the absence of a concerned CEO, analysts should not, we suggest, expect a management team to respond with reputation‐enhancing corrective action solely as a reaction to negative publicity regarding questionable business practices. (shrink)

This book is framed as a dialogue, between Hugo Letiche's iconoclastic appeals to demontrate (as in a demo) for pedagogy/philosophy/politics of (re-)territoralization (as in the demos), and Jacques Rancière's call for dissensus and a new sensibility (le partage du sensible) that may lead to critical democratization. Writing here are: Asmund Born, Damian O'Doherty, Joanna Latimer, Hugo letiche, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley, Alphonso Lingis, Stephen Linstead, Garance Maréchal, Jean-Luc Moriceau, Rolland Munro, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Peter pelzer, Yvon Pesqueux, Burkard Sievers, (...) Isabelle Stengers, and Niels Thyge Thygesen. The authors explore learning and education, research and investigation, writing and practice, in the context of organization and of organizing. They champion, affect, hope, poetic narrative, slow science, justice, the commons, engagement and fairness. (shrink)