Institutional review boards, tasked with facilitating ethical research, are often pulled in competing directions. In what we call the protection-inclusion dilemma, we acknowledge the tensions IRBs face in aiming to both protect potential research participants from harm and include under-represented populations in research. In this manuscript, we examine the history of protectionism that has dominated research ethics oversight in the United States, as well as two responses to such protectionism: inclusion initiatives and critiques of the term vulnerability. We look at (...) what we know about IRB decision-making in relation to protecting and including “vulnerable” groups in research and examine the lack of regulatory guidance related to this dilemma, which encourages protection over inclusion within IRB practice. Finally, we offer recommendations related to how IRBs might strike a better balance between inclusion and protection in research ethics oversight. (shrink)

This paper argues against incorporating assessments of individual responsibility into healthcare policies by expanding an existing argument and offering a rebuttal to an argument in favour of such policies. First, it is argued that what primarily underlies discussions surrounding personal responsibility and healthcare is not causal responsibility, moral responsibility or culpability, as one might expect, but biases towards particular highly stigmatised behaviours. A challenge is posed for proponents of taking personal responsibility into account within health policy to either expand the (...) debate to also include socially accepted behaviours or to provide an alternative explanation of the narrowly focused discussion. Second, a critical response is offered to arguments that claim that policies based on personal responsibility would lead to several positive outcomes including healthy behaviour change, better health outcomes and decreases in healthcare spending. It is argued that using individual responsibility as a basis for resource allocation in healthcare is unlikely to motivate positive behaviour changes, and is likely to increase inequality which may lead to worse health outcomes overall. Finally, the case of West Virginia's Medicaid reform is examined, which raises a worry that policies focused on personal responsibility have the potential to lead to increases in medical spending overall. (shrink)

This article reflects on the relevance and applicability of the Belmont Report nearly four decades after its original publication. In an exploration of criticisms that have been raised in response to the report and of significant changes that have occurred within the context of biomedical research, five primary themes arise. These themes include the increasingly vague boundary between research and practice, unique harms to communities that are not addressed by the principle of respect for persons, and how growing complexity and (...) commodification in research have shed light on the importance of transparency. The repercussions of Belmont's emphasis on the protection of vulnerable populations is also explored, as is the relationship between the report's ethical principles and their applications. It is concluded that while the Belmont Report was an impressive response to the ethical issues of its day, the field of research ethics involving human subjects may have outgrown it. (shrink)

As participatory research practices are increasingly taken up in health research, claims related to experiential authority and expertise are frequently made. Here, in an exploration of what grounds such claims, we consider how feminist standpoint theory might apply to the psy sciences (psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and so on). Standpoint theory claims that experiences of marginalization and critical engagement can lead to a standpoint that offers an epistemic advantage within a domain of knowledge. We examine experiences of marginalization and critical (...) engagement in the mental health system, as well as evidence for epistemic advantages resulting from these experiences. This evidence, found in the identification of problematic assumptions and the development of new tools and theories in the field, grounds our argument that standpoint theory is indeed relevant to the psy sciences and that many of those who have experienced marginalization and have engaged critically have an epistemic advantage when it comes to knowledge-production. The implications of this argument are significant: those who have attained a standpoint within the psy sciences ought to be included in research and given both tools and funding to develop research programs. However, we must be wary of the risks of tokenization, cooptation, and essentialization that are likely to accompany such a transformation. (shrink)

Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind's specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins (...) Aristotle's inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that 'the soul in a way is all beings'. This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio, or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed. (shrink)

It is argued here that the practice of medical students performing pelvic exams on women who are under anesthetic and have not consented is immoral and indefensible. This argument begins by laying out the ethical justification for the practice of informed consent, which can be found in autonomy and basic rights. Foregoing the process of consent within medicine can result in violations of both autonomy and basic rights, as well as trust, forming the basis of the wrong of unauthorized pelvic (...) examinations. Several objections to this argument are considered, all of which stem from the idea that this practice constitutes an exception to the general requirement of informed consent. These objections suggest that nonconsensual pelvic examinations on women under anesthetic are ethically acceptable on utilitarian grounds, in that they offer benefits either to the patient or to society, or on the grounds of triviality, in that consent is already presumed, or the practice is insignificant. Each of these objections is rejected and the practice is deemed indefensible. (shrink)

The practice of medically assisted dying has long been contentious, and the question of what to call it has become increasingly contentious as well. Particularly among U.S. proponents of legalizing the practice, there has been a growing push away from calling it “physician‐assisted suicide,” with assertions that medically assisted dying is fundamentally different from suicide. Digging deeper into this claim about difference leads to an examination of the difference between two kinds of suffering—suffering from physical conditions and suffering from psychological (...) conditions—and therefore leads also toward an examination of whether requests for medical assistance in dying by those suffering from psychological conditions and those suffering from physical conditions should be painted with the same brush. In this article, I aim both to illuminate some of the considerations that ought to be included in discussions related to medically assisted dying and to shed light on what the indirect effects of such discussions can be. I consider some of the reasons commonly given for holding that suicide and medically assisted dying differ fundamentally and then whether the conclusion that medically assisted dying should not be called “suicide” follows from the premises. I ask what else might justify the conclusion that the two acts ought to be called by different names, and I examine possible justifications for accepting this premise, as well as what justifications might exist for emphasizing how the acts are alike. Finally, I argue that we should be cautious before concluding that medically assisted dying should not be called “suicide.” We need more evidence either that the two acts are fundamentally different or that emphasizing differences between them is not likely to do more harm than good. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of several accounts of the placebo effect that have been put forward. While the placebo effect is most often thought of as a control in research and as a deceptive tool in practice, a growing body of research suggests that it ought to be thought of as a powerful phenomenon in its own right. Several accounts that aim to draw boundaries around the placebo effect are evaluated in relation to current evidence and it is (...) argued that none of them adequately capture the variability and potency of the phenomenon. Two accounts, however, that point towards the underlying mechanisms of the placebo effect, are shown to offer promise in terms of developing a more comprehensive account of the placebo effect. (shrink)

As the prevalence of conflict and fragility continue to rise around the world, research is increasingly heralded as a solution. However, current ethical guidelines for working in areas suffering from institutional and social fragility, insecurity or violent conflict have been heavily critiqued as highly abstract; focussed only on data collection; detached from the realities of academia in the Global South; and potentially extractive. This article seeks to respond to that assessment by spotlighting some of the most prevalent challenges researchers face (...) in the pursuit of ethical working practices. It explores the material and epistemic injustices that often shape and underpin research structures and relationships in these contexts. The paper draws on the authors’ experiences of research in conflict-affected and fragile contexts over the last fifteen years and on workshop discussions with researchers based in fragile and conflict-affected contexts conducted in Amman, Bogotá and Dhaka in 2019-2020. The paper works from the premise that achieving ethical research in fragile spaces is not dependent solely on activity at the site of research, but also on decisions made across the entire ecosystem of a research project. It therefore interrogates the full research landscape, from funding models, to research design (including research topics, partnerships, methods, participant selection, and researcher positionality), to dissemination plans and ethical gatekeeping. The paper critically reflects on inequities in the processes of knowledge production about conflict and fragility and the key ethical challenges that researchers encounter. It highlights the need for further guidance, support and accountability to ensure ethical research practices. (shrink)

Among all their sensations, agents need to distinguish between those caused by themselves and those caused by external causes. The ability to infer agency is particularly challenging under conditions of uncertainty. Within the predictive processing framework, this should happen through active control of prediction error that closes the action-perception loop. Here we use a novel, temporally-sensitive, behavioural proxy for prediction error to show that it is minimised most quickly when volatility is high and when participants report agency, regardless of the (...) accuracy of the judgement. We demonstrate broad effects of uncertainty on accuracy of agency judgements, movement, policy selection, and hypothesis switching. Measuring autism traits, we find differences in policy selection, sensitivity to uncertainty and hypothesis switching despite no difference in overall accuracy. (shrink)

The authors of the feature article argue against implied consent in all episiotomy cases, but allow that opt-out consent might be appropriate in limited circumstances.1 However, they do not indicate how clinicians should assess whether the pregnant person is capable of consenting in this way during an obstetric emergency. This commentary will focus on how capacity should be determined during these circumstances, suggest next steps for clinicians if capacity is deemed uncertain or absent, and discuss the appropriate role for opt-out (...) consent in labour. Previous studies investigating the extent to which pregnant persons retain decision-making capacity during labour have shown poor recall, a component of capacity, about consent processes during obstetric emergency procedures in 14%–49% of cases.1 2 As the feature article acknowledges, this does not mean that pregnant persons should be assumed to lack decision-making capacity during labour. Although pain, labour intensity, exhaustion and medications can make consenting processes during labour more difficult and it is possible that these factors will result in the impaired ability of the pregnant person to make informed and voluntary decisions about treatment options, this possibility of impaired capacity should not be taken as the expected outcome nor should it be used as an excuse to skip consenting procedures.1 2 The default to treat labouring patients as able to make their own decisions still stands, although signs that a person lacks …. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 28-31, January/February 2022.

Musical life became disrupted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many musicians and venues turned to online alternatives, such as livestreaming. In this study, three livestreamed concerts were organized to examine separate, yet interconnected concepts—agency, presence, and social context—to ascertain which components of livestreamed concerts facilitate social connectedness. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling was conducted on 83 complete responses to examine the effects of the manipulations on feelings of social connectedness with the artist and the audience. Results showed that in concert (...) 1, where half of the participants were allowed to vote for the final song to be played, this option did not result in the experience of more agency. Instead, if their preferred song was played (regardless of voting ability) participants experienced greater connectedness to the artist. In concert 2, participants who attended the concert with virtual reality headsets experienced greater feelings of physical presence, as well as greater feelings of connectedness with the artist, than those that viewed a normal YouTube livestream. In concert 3, attendance through Zoom led to greater experience of social presence, but predicted less connectedness with the artist, compared to a normal YouTube livestream. Crucially, a greater negative impact of COVID-19 (e.g., loneliness) predicted feelings of connectedness with the artist, possibly because participants fulfilled their social needs with this parasocial interaction. Examining data from all concerts suggested that physical presence was a predictor of connectedness with both the artist and the audience, while social presence only predicted connectedness with the audience. Correlational analyses revealed that reductions in loneliness and isolation were associated with feelings of shared agency, physical and social presence, and connectedness to the audience. Overall, the findings suggest that in order to reduce feelings of loneliness and increase connectedness, concert organizers and musicians could tune elements of their livestreams to facilitate feelings of physical and social presence. (shrink)

Many are calling for concrete mechanisms of oversight for health research involving artificial intelligence (AI). In response, institutional review boards (IRBs) are being turned to as a familiar model of governance. Here, we examine the IRB model as a form of ethics oversight for health research that uses AI. We consider the model's origins, analyze the challenges IRBs are facing in the contexts of both industry and academia, and offer concrete recommendations for how these committees might be adapted in order (...) to provide an effective mechanism of oversight for health‐related AI research. (shrink)

While a significant body of bioethical literature considers how the placebo effect might introduce a conflict between autonomy and beneficence, the link between justice and the placebo effect has been neglected. Here, we bring together disparate evidence from the field of placebo studies and research on health inequalities related to race and ethnicity, and argue that, collectively, this evidence may provide the basis for an unacknowledged route by which health disparities are exacerbated. This route is constituted by an uneven distribution (...) of placebo effects, resulting from differences in expressions of physician warmth and empathy, as well as support and patient engagement, across racial and ethnic lines. In a discussion of the ethical implications of this connection, we argue that this contribution to health disparities is a source of injustice, consider ways in which these disparities might be ameliorated and suggest that this conclusion is likely to extend to other realms of inequality as well. (shrink)

A comprehensive overview of Slavoj Zizek's thought, including all of his published works to date. Provides a solid basis in the work of an engaging thinker and teacher whose ideas will continue to inform philosophical, psychological, political, and cultural discourses well into the future Identifies the major currents in Zizek's thought, discussing all of his works and providing a background in continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory necessary to its understanding Explores Zizek's growing popularity through his engagement in current events, politics, (...) and cultural studies Pertains to a variety of fields, including contemporary philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, political science, esthetics, literary theory, film theory, and theology. (shrink)

In the introduction to a recent anthology of contemporary issues in philosophy of psychiatry, editors Jeffrey Poland and Şerife Tekin declare this to be a moment of crisis within the field. They suggest that the state of psychiatry today reflects Thomas Kuhn's conception of a period of extraordinary science, which occurs when anomalies begin to build up, confidence in the dominant paradigm is shook, competing theories arise, and philosophical questions come to the fore. Although perhaps not all would agree that (...) the field is in crisis, there is certainly an abundance of pessimism. Within the realm of research, a mood of explanatory pessimism has been growing, characterized by a... (shrink)

In their target article, Zamina Mithani, Jane Cooper, and J. Wesley Boyd make a compelling case for the importance of “counter storytelling” in bioethics. They obse...

A wide range of countries decided to go into lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020, a setting separating people and restricting their movements. We investigated how musicians dealt with this sudden restriction in mobility. Responses of 234 people were collected. The majority of respondents (95%) resided in Belgium or the Netherlands. Results indicated a decrease of 79% of live music making in social settings during lockdown compared with before lockdown. In contrast, an increase of 264% was (...) demonstrated for online joint music making. However, results showed that most respondents were largely or even completely unaccustomed with specialized platforms for online joint music making (e.g., JamKazam, Jamulus). Respondents reported to mostly use well-known video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype when playing together virtually. However, when such video-conferencing platforms were used, they were often not employed for synchronized playing and were generally reported to insufficiently deal with latency issues. Furthermore, respondents depending on music making as their main source of income explored online real-time methods significantly more than those relying on other income sources. Results also demonstrated an increase of 93% in the use of alternative remote joint music-making methods (e.g., recording parts separately and subsequently circulating these digital recordings). All in all, results of this study provide a more in-depth view on joint music making during the first weeks of lockdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, and demonstrate users’ perceptions of performance and usability of online real-time platforms as well as alternative methods for musical interaction. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 2, pp 209 - 210 Aristotle says that it is in the nature of color to impart movement to transparent media. Typically this is interpreted as implying that these media must be transparent before color moves them. I argue that this is a mistake.

Why are the fundamentals of education apparently so little changed in our era of digital technology? Is their obstinate persistence evidence of resilience or obsolescence? Such questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech future, but by examining a well-documented past--a history of instruction and media that extends from Gilgamesh to Google. Norm Friesen looks to the combination and reconfiguration of oral, textual, and more recent media forms to understand the longevity of so many educational arrangements (...) and practices. Friesen examines the interrelationship of reading, writing, and pedagogy in the case of the lecture and the textbook--from their premodern to their postmodern incarnations. Over hundreds of years, these two forms have integrated textual, oral, and (more recently) digital media and connected them with changing pedagogical and cultural priorities. The Textbook and the Lecture opens new possibilities for understanding not only mediated pedagogical practices and their reform but also gradual changes in our conceptions of the knowing subject and of knowledge itself. Drawing on wide-ranging scholarship in fields as diverse as media ecology and German-language media studies, Foucauldian historiography, and even archaeological research, The Textbook and the Lecture is a fascinating investigation of educational media. (shrink)

Racial disparities in pain treatment are well documented. Such disparities are explained with reference to factors related to providers, health care structures, and patient behaviors. Racial differences in pain experiences, although well documented, are less well understood. Explanations for such differences usually involve genetic or psychological factors. Here, we argue that racial differences in pain experiences might also be explained by disparities in pain treatment. Based on what we know about the nature of pain, particularly the cognitive and affective aspects (...) of the phenomenon, it is likely that disparities in the treatment of racialized patients can lead to significant racial differences in pain experience that show up at the population level. We argue that the failure of research programs to consider this causal factor is an example of white ignorance. We also consider several implications of the link between racial disparities in pain treatment and racial differences in pain experience. (shrink)

Kelsey Lucyk analyzes how the media and the institution of sport have entrenched certain ideals about masculinity meanwhile reinforcing homophobic attitudes towards gender roles in sports. This article focusses primarily on analyzing Canadian sports and makes use of the concept of muscular Christianity to explain hegemonic masculinity as found in the Canadian institution of sport.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Democratizing Psychiatric ResearchRecognizing the Potential and the Limits of Experiential ExpertiseThe author reports no conflict of interests.First, I want to express my gratitude for such thoughtful and generative responses to the manuscript "Why Democratize Psychiatric Research?," which has been in development for several years and is the product of much reflection that has taken place in academic, advocacy, and interpersonal contexts. I am delighted to see such insightful engagement (...) with the piece and to have a chance to respond to both Drs. David Crepaz-Keay and Sam Fellowes here. Given that the authors raise such different questions within their commentaries, I consider each in turn.In his illuminating commentary, Crepaz-Keay makes three important points in response to the epistemic and ethical reasons I lay out as justifications for democratizing efforts in mental health research. First of all, Crepaz-Keay warns that there is "more subjectivity across much of medicine" than in the picture I've painted, and that we might do better to focus on this shared territory, taking up the goal of democratization across all of medicine, rather than risk "othering" psychiatry as uniquely subjective. In this way, Crepaz-Keay emphasizes, mental health service user researchers might "become leaders in progressive medical thinking."I appreciate this call to emphasize the ways in which the importance of subjective experiences cuts across all of medicine and to learn broad lessons from the pioneering participatory work that has been accomplished in the domain of mental health. I agree that much of medicine suffers from a focus on the objective to the neglect of the subjective, and wonder if this focus can sometimes create a distinct kind of worry in territories in which objective measures are widely available. Consider the focus on reducing the size of a tumor at all costs that can sometimes obscure important considerations related to what a good end of life might look like (Gawande, 2014). Particularly [End Page 143] within the process of determining what is worth measuring within research (and what is worth treating within clinical contexts), patient voices are essential to making an informed and beneficial decision. I agree with Crepaz-Keay here—this point applies to all realms of medicine.In contrast, I think other kinds of risks arise in domains in which objective measures are not widely available and therefore subjective reports of patients make up an essential part of any diagnosis or assessment. Another area I often think about is placebo studies, and in this space, stereotypes related to 'real' suffering and 'real' healing circulate widely (Friesen, 2019b). Largely, these stereotypes tend to support the importance and reality of that which occurs at the level of the physical or biological and take much less seriously suffering or healing which is thought to be located 'all in the head' (Friesen & Dionne, 2022). These biases also cut across medicine, influencing which patients are seen as trustworthy, dramatic, or worthy of one's compassion. I would argue that they show up especially in the setting of mental health care and research, in part because of the lack of objective measures and physiological explanations. A psychiatrized patient often has nothing physical or objective to point to with regard to their suffering, and so may be at the whim of a provider in relation to whether they are likely to be believed or discredited. As such, we must be especially alert to the unique risks that arise when evidence for suffering comes in a subjective form, and how efforts toward democratization might help reduce such risks.Second, Crepaz-Keay offers an essential intervention in relation to the importance of anti-racism within participatory practices in psychiatry. Although I do make mention of the lack of representation of racialized communities in participatory psychiatric research in discussing the important role that values play in the development of psychiatric knowledge, Crepaz-Keay accurately points out that this point related to representation is cross-cutting, and highly relevant to several of the other reasons I offer for why psychiatry research ought to be democratized. I am grateful for this invitation to look more broadly at how the exclusion of some voices from participatory efforts might apply across... (shrink)

What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam-Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific “model for teaching” (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a “pedagogy of the oppressed”). In this paper, Norm Friesen and Hanno Su follow the Continental pedagogical tradition in giving pedagogy a general but (...) explicit definition. They do so by looking at how pedagogy arises both in everyday life and in school as unavoidably ethical activity undertaken primarily for the sake of the young person or child. Such activities, the authors maintain, are structured not so much by processes, methods, and outcomes, but by irresolvable oppositions and the tensions between them. They illustrate this inductively through a series of images and examples — moving gradually from ones involving parenting and early childhood to ones from elementary and secondary schooling. In this way, Friesen and Su show that pedagogy is not so much one or more ideologically focused or evidence-based instructional or psychological approaches to be mastered by a professional or teaching specialist. It is instead an independent but ethically informed practical perspective — one that can (and has) been extended to form a distinctively pedagogical theory and discipline. As such, it is something that is not only a part of our everyday life and culture, but arguably of all human cultures. (shrink)

The increasing use of online simulations as replacements for animal dissection in the classroom or lab raises important questions about the nature of simulation itself and its relationship to embodied educational experience. This paper addresses these questions first by presenting a comparative hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation of online and offline dissection. It then interprets the results of this study in terms of Borgmann’s (1992) notion of the intentional “transparency” and “pliability” of simulated hyperreality. It makes the case that it is precisely encumbrance (...) and disruption—elements that are by definition excluded from simulations and interfaces—which give dissection its educational value. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several hospitals implemented “birthing alone” policies, banning companions from accompanying individuals giving birth. We offer an ethical analysis of these policies. First, we examine them through a consequentialist framework of risks and benefits. Second, we consider the significance of birth, highlighting the unique ways in which risks, relationships, and rights are understood in the context of obstetrics. We conclude that birthing alone policies are largely unjustified, as the harm they are certain to cause outweighs their possible (...) benefits and because they fail to take into account what matters to mothers. (shrink)

Aristotle's thesis in Physics I 8 is that a certain old and familiar problem about coming to be can only be solved with the help of the new account of the "principles" he has developed in Physics I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not quite do it justice; specifically, as things now stand we are left wondering why Aristotle should have found this problem so compelling in the first place. In this paper (...) I develop an interpretation which will help to remedy this.I believe that Aristotle's problem about coming to be depends on a certain principle to the effect that "nothing can become what it already is" . The main innovation of the interpretation developed here is its suggestion that we understand this principle as a principle about kinds. So understood, the principle does not make the comparatively trivial point that nothing can become any individual it already is, but rather the more powerful and substantive point that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a point which Aristotle himself accepts and that this is why the problem about coming to be raises serious difficulties for him. I also discuss Aristotle's proposed solutions to this problem, explaining how each draws on his new account of the principles and why each is required for any full resolution of the difficulties the problem raises. In this way I hope to show how the interpretation developed here does justice to the very strong thesis with which Aristotle begins Physics I 8. I conclude brie fly and somewhat speculatively with a suggestion as to why Aristotle might accept the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:129 Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race BY GENEVIEVE CARPIO Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2019 REVIEWED BY JARED FRIESEN In Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race, Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies Genevieve Carpio systematically uncovers several of the insidious forms that power takes in order to construct racial inequality. Settlement, mobility, and immobility have served to draw (...) distinctions between Latino/a, Indigenous, Asian, African Americans and white populations in the inland Southern California region. Carpio produced abundant evidence to bolster these statements through interdisciplinary methodological practices, such as “reinterpreting and recovering history” through archival research, analysis of oral history projects, and the examination of both photographic records and the built environment (14). Collisions at the Crossroads begins with a recent example of how mobility and the social construction of place, or “place making” were used to exclude Latino/a residents from participating in the celebration of the Route 66 heritage of the area. In an effort to protect the authenticity of the event, organizers of the Rendezvous festival implemented a ban on lowriders, thus sanitizing the event of Mexican cruising culture that has been a part of the complex multiracial history of the region. This moment is only one of the latest in the history of inland Southern California reaching back to the arrival of white migrants in the form of the Riverside colony to a region composed of Indigenous and Mexican Book Reviews ENVIRONMENT, SPACE, PLACE / VOLUME 13 / ISSUE 2 / 2021 130 American communities. The book lays bare how “the concept of mobility particularly applies to the everyday channels of movement in a community, especially for Indigenous people and people of color” (3–­4). Mobility is conceptualized as physical movement, the shared meaning of the physical movement, and the policies that enable or constrict movement.Throughthisanalyticlens,Carpio tracesthe “Anglo Fantasy Past” to illuminate how white populations created history that places them at the center and either erases non-­white populations or reduces themtoperpetualoutsiders.Thishistoryincludeswhitesettlement,the rise of the citrus industry, and the role of religion. For example, Indigenous people were immobilized in off-­ reservation boarding schools for AmericanIndianchildren,andcapitalist-­orientedpolicieswereenacted such as the Geary Act (1892) in order to control the mobility of Chinese immigrants. The latter is an excellent example of how race continually shaped the experiences of nonwhite migrants. Mobility is encouraged when a source of low cost labor is needed, but then controlled or even criminalized in order to maintain a racialized hierarchy. Throughout the book, Carpio reinforces the precarious situation of mobilityforpeopleofcolor.“Workersweresupposedtomoveinparticu­ lar ways, at specific times, in and to predetermined spaces” (66). This was deftly accomplished in a way that expresses the subtle processes through which power is used, indeed in ways that appear normative and even natural. Without globalized labor migration, the rise of industries such as large-­ scale citrus agriculture would not have been possible. Alternatively, deterring regional labor migration and desegregated housing were critical to maintaining the white supremacist status quo. Collisions at the Crossroads connects readers to the current turmoil and fear around immigration and racism by looking back at the exploita­ tive incentivizing and coercion of Mexican migrant workers. Mexican immigrants are attracted to work in agricultural communities, then their mobility is pathologized to limit movement through public policy. Ultimately, Mexican immigrants are constructed as “birds of passage” who prefer not to be rooted to a place. Geographer Doreen Massey refers to these processes as “differentiated mobility”: “some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving-­end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it.”1 Book Reviews 131 This racialization of labor created a low-­ cost workforce that was immobilized by the threat of arrest but later seen as preferable to Puerto Rican or Filipino migrants who had rights to permanent settlement. The claim was that because Mexicans preferred to migrate to worksites, they should therefore return to Mexico in the ebbs of citrus production in the inland Southern California region. Mexican migrants were considered a natural option for filling the workforce needs of the local citrus industry while... (shrink)

In Transcendent Love: Dostoevsky and the Search for a Global Ethic, Leonard G. Friesen ranges widely across Dostoevsky's stories, novels, journalism, notebooks, and correspondence to demonstrate how Dostoevsky engaged with ethical issues in his times and how those same issues continue to be relevant to today's ethical debates. Friesen contends that the Russian ethical voice, in particular Dostoevsky's voice, deserves careful consideration in an increasingly global discussion of moral philosophy and the ethical life. Friesen challenges the view (...) that contemporary liberalism provides a religiously neutral foundation for a global ethic. He argues instead that Dostoevsky has much to offer when it comes to the search for a global ethic, an ethic that for Dostoevsky was necessarily grounded in a Christian concept of an active, extravagant, and transcendent love. Friesen also investigates Dostoevsky's response to those who claimed that contemporary European trends, most evident in the rising secularization of nineteenth-century society, provided a more viable foundation for a global ethic than one grounded in the One, whom Doestoevsky called simply "the Russian Christ." Throughout, Friesen captures a sense of the depth and sheer loveliness of Dostoevsky's canon. Dostoevsky was, after all, someone who believed that the ethical life was sublimely beautiful, even as it recklessly embraced suffering and unreasonably forgave others. The book will appeal to both students and scholars of Russian literature and history, comparative ethics, global ethics, and cultural studies, and togeneral readers with an interest in Dostoevsky. "Others have written about Dostoevsky's ethics, but I am not aware of any single-authored, sustained attempt to make the case for Dostoevsky's 'transcendent love' as part of a larger discussion of a global ethic. Moreover, Leonard Friesen presents his case in an engaging and highly accessible form. He believes passionately that Dostoevsky is deeply relevant to the discussion; his commitment rings through the pages and draws the reader in. In this way, his essay makes an original contribution to Dostoevsky studies that will appeal to scholars in a variety of disciplines and to educated lay readers with ethical concerns about the path of modernity, as well as to the many fans of Dostoevsky's work." --Russell Hillier, Providence College. (shrink)

Life-saving health resources like organs for transplant and experimental medications are persistently scarce. How ought we, morally speaking, to ration these resources? Many hold that, in any morally acceptable allocation scheme, the young should to some extent be prioritized over the old. Govind Persad, Alan Wertheimer and Ezekiel Emanuel propose a multi-principle allocation scheme called the Complete Lives System, according to which persons roughly between 15 and 40 years old get priority over younger children and older adults, other things being (...) equal. They defend this ‘modified youngest first’ principle in part by appealing to the greater social investment that has been made in 15-year-olds than in younger children. Ruth Tallman has proposed a distinctive defense of modified youngest first, one that appeals not at all to social investment. We find this defense wanting. Tallman’s argument depends on the idea, which we try to show to be implausible, that allocations should maximize the number of people in the midst of a possibly complete life who actually complete their lives. Moreover, Tallman does not justify the priority modified youngest first gives 15-year-olds over, for example, 5-year-olds. Tallman fails to dispel a serious shortcoming with modified youngest first: its fundamental unfairness to pre-adolescents. (shrink)

Aristotle's thesis in "Physics" I 8 is that a certain old and familiar problem about coming to be can only be solved with the help of the new account of the "principles" he has developed in "Physics" I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not quite do it justice; specifically, as things now stand we are left wondering why Aristotle should have found this problem so compelling in the first place. In this paper (...) I develop an interpretation which (I hope) will help to remedy this. I believe that Aristotle's problem about coming to be depends on a certain principle to the effect that "nothing can become what it already is" (it is this that is supposed to explain why τὸ ὄν cannot come to be ἐξ ὄντος -- cf. 191a30). The main innovation of the interpretation developed here is its suggestion that we understand this principle as a principle about kinds. So understood, the principle does not make the comparatively trivial point that nothing can become any individual it already is, but rather the more powerful and substantive point that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a point which Aristotle himself accepts and that this is why the problem about coming to be raises serious difficulties for him. I also discuss Aristotle's proposed solutions to this problem, explaining how each draws on his new account of the principles and why each is required for any full resolution of the difficulties the problem raises. In this way I hope to show how the interpretation developed here does justice to the very strong thesis with which Aristotle begins "Physics" I 8. I conclude briefly and somewhat speculatively with a suggestion as to why Aristotle might accept the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns. (shrink)

Since the fourteenth century, Eastern Woodlands tribes have used delicate purple and white shells called “wampum” to form intricately woven belts. These wampum belts depict significant moments in the lives of the people who make up the tribes, portraying everything from weddings to treaties. Wampum belts can be used as a form of currency, but they are primarily used as a means to record significant oral narratives for future generations. In Reading the Wampum, Kelsey provides the first academic consideration (...) of the ways in which these sacred belts are reinterpreted into current Haudenosaunee tradition. While Kelsey explores the aesthetic appeal of the belts, she also provides insightful analysis of how readings of wampum belts can change our understanding of specific treaty rights and land exchanges. Kelsey shows how contemporary Iroquois intellectuals and artists adapt and reconsider these traditional belts in new and innovative ways. Reading the Wampum conveys the vitality and continuance of wampum traditions in Iroquois art, literature, and community, suggesting that wampum narratives pervade and reappear in new guises with each new generation. (shrink)

We conducted a set of experiments to compare the effect of ambiguity in single-person decisions and games. Our results suggest that ambiguity has a bigger impact in games than in ball and urn problems. We find that ambiguity has the opposite effect in games of strategic substitutes and complements. This confirms a theoretical prediction made by Eichberger and Kelsey. In addition, we note that subjects’ ambiguity attitudes appear to be context dependent: ambiguity loving in single-person decisions and ambiguity averse (...) in games. This is consistent with the findings of Kelsey and le Roux. (shrink)

This paper addresses a dichotomy in the attitudes of some clinicians and bioethicists regarding whether there is a moral difference between deactivating a cardiac pacemaker in a highly dependent patient at the end of life, as opposed to standard cases of withdrawal of treatment. Although many clinicians hold that there is a difference, some bioethicists maintain that the two sorts of cases are morally equivalent. The author explores one potential morally significant point of difference between pacemakers and certain other life-sustaining (...) treatments: specifically, that the former are biofixtures, which become part of the patient in a way that the latter do not. The concept of the pacemaker as biofixture grants pacemakers a unique moral status that gives reason to treat a pacemaker the same as other parts of the patient that are necessary to sustain life. The author employs this biofixture analysis to affirm the intuition that deactivating a pacemaker in a highly dependent patient at the end of life is, in moral terms, more analogous to active euthanasia than it is to standard cases of withdrawal of treatment. The paper concludes with consideration of potential implications for further implantable medical technologies, such as ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts. (shrink)

Aristotle maintains that defining nous requires first defining its activity, which requires first having considered its objects, intelligible beings. This chapter is about the nature of these objects: what about them makes them intelligible? My principal proposals will be that what makes them intelligible is that they are separate or unmixed, and that because, insofar as they are intelligible, they are, in their essence, activity. I am not unaware that this makes it sound as though Aristotle takes intelligibility to consist (...) in some kind of nous. But he himself virtually says as much, when he claims that nous is the form of its objects (lit. εἶδος εἰδῶν); besides it is a result he is committed to by the doctrines that nous is intelligible and that there is something that intelligible objects all are in common; for the alternative, as he himself says, is to suppose that nous “will have something mixed-in, which makes it intelligible just like the rest.” The challenge, then, is not to steer clear of this result, but to make sense of it. My proposal will be that the key lies in realizing that and why Aristotle thinks intelligibility is a creature of nous. (shrink)