Trisomy 13 and 18 are rare chromosomal abnormalities associated with high morbidity and mortality. Improved survival rates and increased prevalence of aggressive medical intervention have resulted in families and physicians holding different perspectives regarding the appropriate management of children with T 13/18. Families were invited for open-ended interviews regarding their experiences with the medical care of a child with T 13/18 over the past 5 years. Seven of 33 invited families were surveyed; those who had spent more than 40 days (...) in the hospital were most likely to accept the invitation. Grounded theory technique was used to analyze the interviews. This method elicited four key themes regarding family perspectives on children with T 13/18: they are unique and significant, they transform the lives of others, their families can feel overwhelmed and powerless in the medical setting, their families are motivated to “carry the torch” and tell their story. Families also emphasized ways in which Internet support groups can provide both positive and negative perspectives. The ensuing discussion explores the difficulties of parents and physicians in forecasting the impact that T 13/18 will have on families and emphasizes a narrative approach to elicit a map of the things that matter to them. The paper concludes that while over-reliance on dire prognostic data can alienate families, examining the voice, character and plot of patient stories can be a powerful way for physicians to foster shared decision-making with families. (shrink)

Increasingly the body is a possession that does not belong to us. It is bought and sold, bartered and stolen, marketed wholesale or in parts. The professions - especially reproductive medicine, transplant surgery, and bioethics but also journalism and other cultural specialists - have been pliant partners in this accelerating commodification of live and dead human organisms. Under the guise of healing or research, they have contributed to a new 'ethic of parts' for which the divisible body is severed from (...) the self, torn from the social fabric, and thrust into commercial transactions -- as organs, secretions, reproductive capacities, and tissues -- responding to the dictates of an incipiently global marketplace. Breaking with established approaches which prioritize the body as 'text', the chapters in this book examine not only images of the body-turned-merchandise but actually existing organisms considered at once as material entities, semi-magical tokens, symbolic vectors and founts of lived experience. The topics covered range from the cultural disposal and media treatment of corpses, the biopolitics of cells, sperm banks and eugenics, to the international trafficking of kidneys, the development of 'transplant tourism', to the idioms of corporeal exploitation among prizefighters as a limiting case of fleshly commodity. This insightful and arresting volume combines perspectives from anthropology, law, medicine, and sociology to offer compelling analyses of the concrete ways in which the body is made into a commodity and how its marketization in turn remakes social relations and cultural meanings. (shrink)

Arthur Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half century. As an art critic for The Nation for 25 years and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and (...) reviews which have been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. The book includes 16 pages of color art reproductions. Danto is the author dozens of books on art, philosophy, the philosophy of art, and art criticism. He is a rare philosopher who is also a public intellectual. (shrink)

It seemed to happen overnight. Not long ago, we were all watching television, and now we are watching something else. Television stations have been replaced by streaming services. Well, not quite replaced, since we still have televisions, but somehow our television screens are not quite what they were. In Netflicks: Conceptual Television in the Streaming Era Tony Hughes-d'Aeth critically considers how our viewing habits, and television shows themselves, have changed over time. This book is about television in the streaming (...) age and it considers some of the continuities that contemporary streamed shows have to other narrative forms such as classic television and classic Hollywood. Long gone are the days when we had to wait a week for the next episode of a tv show to be aired -- now we can binge-watch whole series in one sitting! ABOUT VIGNETTES Series Editors: Sarah Collins and Tony Hughes-d'Aeth The Vignettes Series from UWAP is aimed at sharing the knowledges that are emerging in the contemporary university and which that consider the complexities of modern life. Each book provides an image, or a vignette, of a particular phenomenon and how this is being thought through by intellectual practitioners in today's academy. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of global child labor. The treatment is grounded in the classical economics of Adam smith and the more recent writings of human capital theorists. Using this framework, the universal problem of child labor in newly industrializing countries is investigated. Child labor is placed in its historical context with a brief review of practices in the United States and Great Britain at the time those countries were industrializing. Then, child labor is examined in its contemporary global (...) context. We argue that, as countries industrialize, they tend to follow predictable patterns of development – including use of and eventual abandonment of child labor. We argue that this convergence under the logic of industrial capitalism supports a universalist approach to human rights (that would condemn child labor) over a more tolerant cultural relativist approach. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

This essay argues that the affective component inherent in the enthymeme is the essence of aristotle's concept of the enthymeme as practical reasoning. 'affective component' refers to emotions and feelings. The three proofs of the thesis are the etymology of 'enthymeme', Aristotle's works on human action and practical wisdom, And aristotle's rhetoric. These sources show the inherent relation between enthymemes and phronesis, Or practical reasoning, Not nous, Or abstract intellect.

ABSTRACT Digital mental health interventions have emerged as a promising means of expanding access to mental healthcare. Prospective participants reporting severe symptoms or suicidal ideation are often excluded from DMHI trials and may struggle to access alternative treatments. However, evidence suggests that DMHIs are efficacious for people reporting these characteristics. We suggest that there are risks to both including and excluding people from DMHI trials, and we urge researchers to ensure that their eligibility criteria are designed in an evidence-based and (...) ethically conscious manner. We also make specific recommendations for those working in various other capacities within the academic community. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement among large segments of western society that we are living in a period of hard times. At first glance such a belief might seem exceedingly odd. After all, persons in western society find themselves living in a time of unprecedented material abundance. Hunger and disease, evils all too familiar to the members of earlier generations, although far from eradicated from modern life, are plainly on the wane. Persons alive today can look forward to healthier, longer, and (...) more comfortable lives than those of their grand parents. Nevertheless, the feeling that life today is especially difficult is rampant in government, in the media, in popular books, and in academic circles. Western society is perceived in many quarters as wracked by crises of all sorts-of faith, of power, of authority, of social turmoil, of declining quality in workmanship and products, and of a general intellectual malaise afflicting both those on the Left and the Right. A tone of crisis permeates the language of public life. Editorials in major newspapers are full of dire warnings about the dangers of unbridled egoism, avarice and greed, and the risks and horrors of pollution, overpopulation, the arms race, crime, and indulgent lifestyles. (shrink)

Let X be a set, and let $\hat{X} = \bigcup^\infty_{n = 0} X_n$ be the superstructure of X, where X 0 = X and X n + 1 = X n ∪ P(X n ) (P(X) is the power set of X) for n ∈ ω. The set X is called a flat set if and only if $X \neq \varnothing.\varnothing \not\in X.x \cap \hat X = \varnothing$ for each x ∈ X, and $x \cap \hat{y} = \varnothing$ for x.y (...) ∈ X such that x ≠ y, where $\hat{y} = \bigcup^\infty_{n = 0} y_n$ is the superstructure of y. In this article, it is shown that there exists a bijection of any nonempty set onto a flat set. Also, if W̃ is an ultrapower of X̂ (generated by any infinite set I and any nonprincipal ultrafilter on I), it is shown that W̃ is a nonstandard model of X: i.e., the Transfer Principle holds for X̂ and W̃, if X is a flat set. Indeed, it is obvious that W̃ is not a nonstandard model of X when X is an infinite ordinal number. The construction of flat sets only requires the ZF axioms of set theory. Therefore, the assumption that X is a set of individuals (i.e., $x \neq \varnothing$ and a ∈ x does not hold for x ∈ X and for any element a) is not needed for W̃ to be a nonstandard model of X. (shrink)