To clarify concerns that the public has with genetic technologies, the article presents the results of focus group interviews conducted in Denmark in 2000. The concerns of the public are divided into three ideal-typical categories: social, economic, and cultural. Following a general discussion of why it is important to take these discourses of concern seriously, each discursive category is discussed with examples taken from the focus group interviews.

Because of the overly market-oriented way in which technological development is carried out, there is a great amount of hubris in regard to how scientific and technological achievements are used in society. There is a tendency to exaggerate the potential commercial benefits and willfully neglect the social, cultural, and environmental consequences of most, if not all innovations, especially in new fields such as nanotechnology. At the same time, there are very few opportunities, or sites, for ensuring that nanotechnology is used (...) justly and fairly, or for that matter, contribute to alleviating any of the wide variety of injustices that exist in the world. Most of the public authorities responsible for the development and application of science and technology are uninterested and unwilling to “assess” the implications of nanotechnology, and there are few, if any spaces in the broader culture for assessment to take place. Within the various “social movements” that are, in one way or another, concerned with issues of global justice, there is as yet little interest in nanotechnology. By examining the relations between nanotechnology and the emerging movement for global justice this article attempts to understand the enormous gap between the potential for science and technology to do good and the actual ways in science and technology get developed, and what, if anything, might be done to help close the gap in relation to nanotechnology, so that it might better be able to contribute to global justice. (shrink)

John Evelyn (1620-1706) is best remembered for Sylva - his magnum opus - and his Diary . Alongside Pepys' diary, Evelyn's is as well known now as anything else written in their time. A connoisseur of architecture, painting, music, coins, and sermons, Evelyn was renowned for his practical knowledge on horticulture and arboriculture, and he was one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society. His Diary begins with an account of his early life and travels in (...) Europe. In addition to his own jottings of events, Evelyn drew on contemporary newspapers and pamphlets. (shrink)

This essay describes an instrumental advocate’s development, engagement, and accomplishments in transgender health at the intersection of law and medicine. Reflecting on the evolution of insurance policy reforms in conjunction with the need to increase the availability of clinicians who can understand and respectfully treat transgender patients, the author demonstrates how visibility, tenacity, and ingenuity can create far-reaching change.

Helen's "viewing" of the Greek heroes from the walls of Troy in "Iliad" 3 and its relation to the duel between Menelaos and Paris later in the same book are much-discussed episodes in Homeric criticism. Comparison with a cognate epic tradition, that of ancient India, produces insight on these problematic scenes. The illegal abduction and correct reabduction of Draupadī, the wife of the heroes of the Mahābhārata, show striking parallels to the sequence of the events in "Iliad" 3, and the (...) narrative pattern in both epics appears to reflect inherited Indo-European legal institutions that bear upon the legality and correct procedure of marriage by abduction. (shrink)

Embryo adoption is an act of artificial impregnation. Artificial impregnation is analogous to artificial insemination. The conditions under which artificial impregnation is ethically acceptable may therefore be the same as the conditions under which artificial insemination is ethically acceptable. But artificial insemination is ethically acceptable only when it assists conjugal union to attain its natural purpose. If artificial impregnation is likewise ethically acceptable only insofar as it assists and does not replace conjugal union, then the presence or absence of the (...) conjugal act itself is the fundamental moral criterion by which to judge whether to permit or exclude artificial impregnation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 111–122. (shrink)

Kleine Schriften. By Eva Tichy, edited by Axel Metzger. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2018. Pp. xviii + 698. €98.

Throughout Europe, science and technology policy within the environmental field is currently in a process of transformation, which has been characterised by many observers as ecological modernisation. Emphasis is being given to preventive principles and so-called cleaner technologies in the quest for a more sustainable development. Each European country has, however, adapted the new doctrines and practices in distinctive ways. The main aim of the paper is to show how contemporary policies have been shaped by history, more specifically, by institutional (...) and cognitive traditions, and by national policy styles. By comparing 'ecological modernisation ' in Sweden and Denmark, we attempt to indicate how such national cultural differences affect the ways in which science and technology policies in the environmental field are formulated and implemented. (shrink)

Michel Meyer offers a new beginning for philosophy rooted in a theory of questioning that he calls "problematology." Meyer argues that a new beginning is necessary in order to resituate philosophy, science, and linguistic analysis, and he proposes a global view of rationality by returning to the nature of questioning itself. For Meyer, philosophy does not solve problems or give answers but instead shows how propositions are related to a whole field of questions that give them meaning. Reason is identified (...) not with answers but with the question-answer process. Meyer pursues this new theory of reason and meaning in a critique of Western philosophy from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle through Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Foucault. He provides a detailed analysis of Descartes' notion of radical doubt and demonstrates its implications for the subsequent philosophical tradition that ignored the questioning process while pursuing an unshakable foundation for knowledge. Meyer argues that recent work in rhetoric points toward a theory of radical questioning and claims that the methods of rhetoric and argumentation must be turned back on philosophy itself in order to recover the original significance of metaphysics as the science of ultimate questions. (shrink)

In India it is a commonplace that the great epic, the Mahābhārata, is a dharma or legal text. It can also be demonstrated not only that there are explicit references to ritual in the epic narrative, but that the narrative sometimes covertly encodes ritual, allowing the audience to experience the narrative on several levels at once. I will suggest that it is possible to read the Odyssey both as a legal and a ritual text and that explicit reference to the (...) rich legal, ritual, and epic materials of ancient India clarifies much that is murky in the Odyssey, given the Indo-European heritage that they both share. The paper focuses on three issues: A legal point: the legal status of Penelope, particularly with regard to her remarriage. Should she remarry, and if so, who has the authority to arrange such a marriage? Both legal and epic materials in Sanskrit treat in detail the situation of a woman whose husband has gone abroad and disappeared. A legal institution: the marital self-choice and its relevance to Penelope and the suitors. The self-choice is a common type of marriage for kings' daughters in Sanskrit, in which the princess "chooses" a husband from a group of assembled suitors. Often the "choice" is governed by an act of strength and skill, just as Penelope's marriage contest was. A ritual: the consecration of the king and its relevance to Odysseus' return. Odysseus' return to Ithaka can be read as a covert encoding of a royal consecration ritual similar to the Sanskrit Rājasūya. In particular, the theme of the bow, the importance accorded to Eumaios' pigs, and the narrative of the boar hunt all find their counterparts in the Sanskrit ritual. (shrink)

“Persia beyond the Oxus.” Edited by M. Rahim Shayegan. Bulletin of the Asia Institute 21 : 147–96.

The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization. By Asko Parpola. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xviii + 363. $105 ; $38.95.

Selected Papers. By Colette Caillat. Bristol: Pali Text Society, 2011. Pp. lxxiv + 387.

Commercialization threatens to change the character of the university in ways that limit its freedom, sap its effectiveness, and lower its standing in society. [...] The problems come so gradually and silently that their link to commercialization may not even be perceived. Like individuals who experiment with drugs, therefore, campus officials may believe that they can proceed without serious risk.Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace, Princeton 2003.