While human genetic research promises to deliver a range of health benefits to the population, genetic research that takes place in Indigenous communities has proven controversial. Indigenous peoples have raised concerns, including a lack of benefit to their communities, a diversion of attention and resources from non-genetic causes of health disparities and racism in health care, a reinforcement of “victim-blaming” approaches to health inequalities, and possible misuse of blood and tissue samples. Drawing on the international literature, this article reviews the (...) ethical issues relevant to genetic research in Indigenous populations and considers how some of these have been negotiated in a genomic research project currently under way in a remote Aboriginal community. We consider how the different levels of Indigenous research governance operating in Australia impacted on the research project and discuss whether specific guidelines for the conduct of genetic research in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are warranted. (shrink)

Erratum to: Bioethical InquiryDOI 10.1007/s11673-012-9391-xLobna Rouhani, University of Melbourne, is a co-author of the article “Genetic Research and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians” (2012, 419–432) that was published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry’s 9(4) symposium “Cases and Culture.” Her name was omitted from the publication and she should be credited as the third author of this article.

Table of Contents Perspectives on Animal Cognition Chapter 1 The Myth of Anthropomorphism John Andrew Fisher Chapter 2 Gendered Knowledge? Examining Influences on Scientific and Ethological Inquiries Lori Gruen Chapter 3 Interpretive Cognitive Ethology Hugh Wilder Chapter 4 Concept Attribution in Nonhuman Animals: Theoretical and Methodological Problems in Ascribing Complex Mental Processes Colin Allen and Marc Hauser Cognitive and Evolutionary Explanations Chapter 5 On Aims and Methods of Cognitive Ethology Dale Jamieson and Marc Bekoff Chapter 6 Aspects of the (...) Cognitive Ethology of an Injury-Feigning Bird, The Piping Plover Carolyn Ristau Chapter 7 Tradition in Animals: Field Observations and Laboratory Analysis Bennett G. Galef Chapter 8 The Study of Adaptation Randy Thornhill Chapter 9 The Units of Behavior in Evolutionary Explanations Sandra D. Mitchell Chapter 10 Levels of Analysis and the Functional Significance of Helping Behavior Walter D. Koenig and Ron Mumme Recognition, Choice, Vigilance, and Play Chapter 11 The Ubiquitous Concept of Recognition with Special Reference to Kin Andrew R. Blaustein and Richard H. Porter Chapter 12 Do Animals Choose Habitats? Michael Rosenzweig Chapter 13 The Influence of Models on the Interpretation of Vigilance Steven L. Lima Chapter 14 Is There an Evolutionary Biology of Play? Alex Rosenberg Chapter 15 Intentionality, Social Play, and Definition Colin Allen and Marc Bekoff Communication and Language Chapter 16 Communication and Expectations: A Social Process and the Cognitive Operation It Depends upon and Influences W. John Smith Chapter 17 Animal Communication and Social Evolution Michael Philips and Steven Austad Chapter 18 Animal Language: Methodological and Interpretive Issues Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Karen E. Brakke Chapter 19 Knowledge Acquisition and Asymmetry between Language Comprehension and Production: Dolphins and Apes as General Models for Animals Louis M. Herman and Palmer Morrel-Samuels Animal Minds Chapter 20 Evolution and Psychological Unity Roger Crisp Chapter 21 The Mental Lives of Nonhuman Animals John Dupré Chapter 22 Inside the Mind of a Monkey Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney Chapter 23 Science and Our Inner Lives: Birds of Prey, Bats, and the Common Bi-ped Kathleen Akins Chapter 24 Afterword: Ethics and the Study of Animal Cognition. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays in appreciation, analysis and honor of Paul Ziff, one of the leading American philosophers of the post-World War II period. The essays address questions that loomed large in Ziff's own work. Essays by Zeno Vendler, Jay Rosenberg, and Tom Patton address topics in philosophy of language: understanding, misunderstanding, rules, regularities, and proper names. Michael Resnik examines the nature of numbers, Rita Nolan addresses `mutant predicates', and Peter Alexander discusses microscopes and corpuscles. Douglas C. (...) Long ruminates on Ziff's claim that machines can neither think nor feel. The essays of Dale Jamieson, Bill E. Lawson, Douglas Dempster, and Joseph Ullian address various questions in aesthetics: aesthetic appreciation and morality, expression, the scope of appreciation, and the aesthetics of sport. In the spirit of Ziff, Douglas Stalker criticizes some of the `mush' that looms large in our intellectual lives. The volume begins with a reminiscence by Paul Benacerraf, and ends with selections from an unpublished volume of plays by Paul Ziff. The volume should appeal to anyone whose work has been influenced by Ziff, or is interested in central philosophical problems concerning language, mind, and art. (shrink)

Il cambiamento climatico globale pone sfide senza precedenti ai nostri mo- di di concepire la morale e la politica. Siamo abituati a vedere un problema morale in situazioni in cui un individuo chiaramente identificabile inten- zionalmente ne danneggi un altro, a sua volta chiaramente identificabile; e in cui sia gli individui coinvolti, che il danno in questione, stiano fra loro in una relazione spazio-temporale di vicinanza. Il cambiamento climatico glo- bale danneggerà senz'altro milioni di persone, ma secondo modalità com- pletamente (...) diverse da queste. Dal punto di vista politico, d'altro canto, l'in- trattabilità del fenomeno è dovuta al fatto che siamo abituati a prendere de- cisioni pubbliche in base a preferenze momentanee, piuttosto che interessi a lungo termine e valori condivisi. Per affrontare il cambiamento climatico globale abbiamo dunque bisogno di riformare sia i nostri modi di concepire la problematicità morale, che il nostro stile di deliberazione politica. Per fare questo, è necessario partire dagli individui: fornendo una visione ideale di che tipo di carattere sia più adatto per vivere in un mondo globalizzato e altamente interconnesso come il nostro.Global climate change poses unprecedented challenges to our moral and political systems. We are used to see a situation as morally problematic when a clearly identifiable individual intentionally damages another, her- self clearly identifiable; and when these individuals, as well as the damage done, are close in space and time. Global climate change will certainly da- mage millions of people, but will do so in ways quite different from that. From the political point of view, the intractability of the problem is due to our often taking public decisions based on transitory preferences, rather than long-term interests and shared values. In order to face global climate change, we thus need to reform both our ways of conceiving moral pro- blems, and our style of political deliberation. To do so, we must begin from individuals: providing an ideal of character for what is required to live in a highly interconnected, globalized world. (shrink)

Il cambiamento climatico globale pone sfide senza precedenti ai nostri modi di concepire la morale e la politica. Siamo abituati a vedere un problema morale in situazioni in cui un individuo chiaramente identificabile intenzionalmente ne danneggi un altro, a sua volta chiaramente identificabile; e in cui sia gli individui coinvolti, sia il danno in questione, stiano tra loro in una relazione spazio-temporale di vicinanza. Il cambiamento climatico globale danneggerÀ senz'altro milioni di persone, ma secondo modalitÀ completamente diverse da queste. Dal (...) punto di vista politico, d'altro canto, l'intrattabilitÀ del fenomeno č dovuta al fatto che siamo abituati a prendere decisioni pubbliche in base a preferenze momentanee, piuttosto che a interessi a lungo termine e valori condivisi. Per affrontare il cambiamento climatico globale abbiamo dunque bisogno di riformare sia i nostri modi di concepire la problematicitÀ morale, sia il nostro stile di deliberazione politica. Per far questo, č necessario partire dagli individui: fornendo una visione ideale di che tipo di carattere sia piů adatto per vivere in un mondo globalizzato e altamente interconnesso come il nostro. (shrink)

This paper seeks to provide a literary review of advancements in climate change ethics, primarily concerning the issue of climate justice. Through a close examination of three recent books written on this topic, I intend to identify which author’s approach has been the most successful in analyzing the various moral problems associated with climate justice, before elucidating what weaknesses and shortcomings need to be addressed in moving forward. The books examined are The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty, (...) and Policy, by Darrel Moellendorf ; Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle against Climate Change Failed—and What It Means for Our Future, by Dale Jamieson ; and... (shrink)

In 1963 Niko Tinbergen published a paper, "On Aims and Methods of Ethology," dedicated to his friend Konrad Lorenz. Here Tinbergen defines ethology as "the biological study of behavior," and seeks to demonstrate "the close affinity between Ethology and the rest of Biology." Tinbergen identifies four major areas of ethology: causation, survival value, evolution, and ontogeny. Our goal is to attempt for cognitive ethology what Tinbergen succeeded in doing for ethology: to clarify its aims and methods, to distinguish some of (...) its varieties, and to defend the fruitfulness of the research strategies that it has spawned. (shrink)

The phenomenon of hypnosis provides a rich paradigm for those seeking to understand the processes that underlie consciousness. Understanding hypnosis tells us about a basic human capacity for altered experiences that is often overlooked in contemporary western societies. Throughout the 200 year history of psychology, hypnosis has been a major topic of investigation by some of the leading experimenters and theorists of each generation. Today hypnosis is emerging again as a lively area of research within cognitive neuroscience informing basic questions (...) about the structure and biological basis of conscious states. This book describes the latest advances in understanding hypnosis and similar trance states by researchers within the neuroscience of consciousness. It contains many new and exciting contributions from up and coming researchers and provides a lively debate on methodological and theoretical issues central to the development of emerging research paradigms in the neuroscience of conscious states. The book introduces and describes many of the recent new tools that have become available to researchers in this field. Academics, researchers, and clinicians wanting to develop their knowledge of the latest findings, theories and methods in the scientific study of hypnosis and related states of consciousness will find this an up to date guide to this rapidly advancing field. (shrink)

My question, which is central to the business of moral philosophy, is implicitly addressed by many philosophers, yet explicitly addressed by only a few. In this paper I address the question head-on, and propose a qualified affirmative answer.

Members of the astacin family of metalloproteinases such as human bone morphogenetic protein 1 (BMP‐1) have previously been linked to cell differentiation and pattern formation during development through a proposed role in the activation of latent growth factors of the TGF‐β superfamily. Recent finding(1) indicate that BMP‐1 is identical to pro‐collagen C‐proteinase, which is a metalloproteinase involved in extracellular matrix (ECM) formation. This observation suggests that a functional link may exist between astacin metalloproteinases, growth factors and cell differentiation and pattern (...) formation during development. Taken together, current studies indicate that BMP‐1 and possibly other astacin metalloproteinases are multifunctional enzymes that act directly on growth factors and the ECM. In combination, these dual actions would have profound effects on developmental processes. (shrink)

Looking at Paul B. Preciado’s relationship to psychoanalysis across texts, but especially the recent book Can the Monster Speak?: A Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts, I seek to disentangle a possible vision for a new psychoanalysis from Preciado’s concerns, ambivalence and disgust with the professional field. I call this a somato-militant psychoanalysis that leans on Freud’s notion of conversion as the creation of a parasitic traumatic kernel that insists on the side of the body and shows a potential for (...) mutuation, transference, amplified potentia gaudendi, surgical intervention and a radical exteriorization of the subject through access to desire. This somatic archival work runs against an idea of psychoanalysis as merely a privatization and interiorization of the subject, a site for upholding the colonial-patriarchal regime of gender norms and an attempt at therapeutic re-territorialization. In the end, the meeting between Preciado and psychoanalysis is given a name: terminal, meaning both at the very limit, the end point, and incurable. (shrink)

Excerpt from: Hull, D. L.. Review: Anthony O'Hear, Beyond Evolution:\nHuman Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford:\nClarendon Press. 1997. cloth 19.99. British Journal for the Philosophy\nof Science, 49, 511-14.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. This book is about what climate change is, why we failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do.

The body wall of Hydra is organized as an epithelial bilayer with an intervening extracellular matrix (ECM). Molecular and biochemical analyses of Hydra ECM have established that it contains components similar to those seen in more complicated vertebrates such as human. In terms of biophysical parameters, Hydra ECM is highly flexible; a property that facilitates continuous movements along the organism's longitudinal and radial axis. A more rigid ECM, as in vertebrates, would not be compatible with this degree of movement. The (...) flexible nature of Hydra ECM can now be explained in part by the unique structure of the organism's collagens. Interestingly, some aspects of the structural features of Hydra collagens mimic what is seen in Ehlers‐Danlos syndrome, an inherited condition in humans that results in an abnormally flexible ECM that can be debilitating in extreme cases. This review will focus on structure–function relationships of the ECM of Hydra. BioEssays 23:716–724, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The collection of very large text sources has revolutionized the study of natural language, leading to the development of several models of language learning and distributional semantics that extract sophisticated semantic representations of words based on the statistical redundancies contained within natural language. The models treat knowledge as an interaction of processing mechanisms and the structure of language experience. But language experience is often treated agnostically. We report a distributional semantic analysis that shows written language in fiction books varies appreciably (...) between books from the different genres, books from the same genre, and even books written by the same author. Given that current theories assume that word knowledge reflects an interaction between processing mechanisms and the language environment, the analysis shows the need for the field to engage in a more deliberate consideration and curation of the corpora used in computational studies of natural language processing. (shrink)

The contrast typically made between utilitarianism and virtue theory is overdrawn. Utilitarianism is a universal emulator: it implies that we should lie, cheat, steal, even appropriate Aristotle, when that is what brings about the best outcomes. In some cases and in some worlds it is best for us to focus as precisely as possible on individual acts. In other cases and worlds it is best for us to be concerned with character traits. Global environmental change leads to concerns about character (...) because the best results will be produced by generally uncoupling my behavior from that of others. Thus, in this case and in this world, utilitarians should be virtue theorists. (shrink)

This collection of 24 readings is the first comprehensive treatment of important topics by leading figures in the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of...

A collection of seminal articles in climate ethics and climate justice.

What is the environment, and how does it figure in an ethical life? This book is an introduction to the philosophical issues involved in this important question, focussing primarily on ethics but also encompassing questions in aesthetics and political philosophy. Topics discussed include the environment as an ethical question, human morality, meta-ethics, normative ethics, humans and other animals, the value of nature, and nature's future. The discussion is accessible and richly illustrated with examples. The book will be valuable for students (...) taking courses in environmental philosophy, and also for a wider audience in courses in ethics, practical ethics, and environmental studies. It will also appeal to general readers who want a reliable and sophisticated introduction to the field. (shrink)

I INTRODUCTION FIRST ORDER QUESTIONS AND SECOND ORDER QUESTIONS In this book I wish to discuss certain questions that are about ethics rather than in ethics ...

The first anthology to highlight the problems of environmental justice and sustainable development, Reflecting on Nature provides a multicultural perspective on questions of environmental concern, featuring contributions from feminist and minority scholars and scholars from developing countries. Selections examine immediate global needs, addressing some of the most crucial problems we now face: biodiversity loss, the meaning and significance of wilderness, population and overconsumption, and the human use of other animals. Spanning centuries of philosophical, naturalist, and environmental reflection, readings include the (...) work of Aristotle, Locke, Darwin, and Thoreau, as well as that of contemporary, mainstream figures like Bernard Williams, Thomas Hill, Jr., and Jonathan Glover. Works by Val Plumwood, Bill Devall, Murray Bookchin, and John Dryzek comprise a radical ecology section. Featuring insightful section introductions by the editors, this comprehensive and timely collection of philosophical and environmental writing will inform, enlighten, and encourage debate. (shrink)

In this paper I make the following claims. In order to see anthropogenic climate change as clearly involving moral wrongs and global injustices, we will have to revise some central concepts in these domains. Moreover, climate change threatens another value that cannot easily be taken up by concerns of global justice or moral responsibility.