This essay argues that reflection on sexual selection can be theologically generative, and that it presents needed counteremphases to some of the discussions about theological anthropology that have been fueled by theological reflection on natural selection. It introduces sexual selection and provides an overview of different approaches to sexual selection found within evolutionary biology today, before transitioning to a reflection on one theologically relevant insight from sexual selection—namely, the importance of play. It argues that the mating and play behaviors of (...) animals reveal the noncompetitive relationship between necessity and gratuity, and thus provide theologians with an example of grace building upon, and not destroying, nature. While play is sometimes depicted in philosophical and theological accounts as the achievement of culture that supersedes the mundane necessities of nature, sexual selection can also help to illuminate the ways in which culture is dependent upon nature, and play is a thoroughly natural phenomenon that provides resources for human cultural elaboration. (shrink)

This article examines Teresa of Avila's understanding of the relationship between spiritual dryness, intellectual frustration, and shame. It argues that Teresa presents these experiences as interconnected, as well as spiritually and intellectually valuable. This aspect of Teresa's thought provides important resources for theologians in the contemporary age in its insistence on the necessarily dynamic relationship between the spiritual and the intellectual in the life of the theologian. The article concludes with an examination of shame and its impact on theological developments (...) in our time, as well as the possibilities for integrating shame productively. (shrink)

Les études sur l’Obéissance à l’Autorité (OtA) de Milgram ont depuis longtemps été comprises comme démontrant que les gens ont une tendance à suivre aveuglément les ordres de l’autorité. Plus récemment, nous avons proposé un modèle d’obéissance basé sur le suivisme engagé (engaged followership), qui suggère que la décision d’une personne d’accepter les requêtes d’une figure d’autorité est basée sur son identification avec cette personne et/ou la cause qu’elle représente. Dans cet article, nous présentons nos raisons de soutenir cette perspective (...) et faisons le point sur les éléments empiriques dont nous disposons actuellement pour la soutenir. Nous indiquons également quelles questions restent posées, et posons ainsi les bases d’un programme pour des recherches futures. (shrink)

Discussion of supported decision making has been dominated by legal scholars, philosophers, and advocates for persons with disabilities. Peterson et al.’s primary contribution is introducing...

For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, “Mending Wall,” which ends with the ironic line, “good fences make good neighbors.” The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process (...) and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories among Native Americans and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of U.S. farmland owners, operators, and workers by race, ethnicity, and gender. We first review the intersection between racialized and gendered capitalism and farmland ownership and farming in the United States. Then we analyze data from the 2014 Tenure and Ownership Agricultural Land survey, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, and the 2013–2014 National Agricultural Worker Survey to demonstrate that significant nation-wide disparities in farming by race, ethnicity and gender persist in the U.S. In 2012–2014, White (...) people owned 98% and operated 94% of all farmland. They generated 98% of all farm-related income from land ownership and 97% of income from farm owner-operatorship. Meanwhile, People of Color farmers were more likely to be tenants rather than owners, owned less land, and generated less farm-related wealth per person than their White counterparts. Hispanic farmers were also disproportionately farm laborers. In addition to racial and ethnic disparities, there were disparities by gender. About 63% of non-operating landowners, 86% of farm operators, and 87% of tenant farmers were male, and female farmers tended to generate less income per farmer than men. This data provides evidence of ongoing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in agriculture in the United States. We conclude with a call to address the structural drivers of the disparities and with recommendations for better data collection. (shrink)

Pickering, Newton-Howes, and Young assert that the traditional view of decisional capacity, premised on assessing patients’ abilities to communicate, understand, appreciate,...

In this paper, we examine clothing and material fibers as affective elements that function as witnesses to a structure of power. Specifically, we consider them as material bystanders of the human’s...

McCarthy and Howard (2023) advocate for supported decision making for patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Departing from the “mental prosthesis” model of supported deci...

This article examines the issues that are at stake in the current resurgence of interest in the subject of habit. We focus on the role that habit has played in conceptions of the relations between body and society, and the respects in which such conceptions have been implicated in processes of governance. We argue that habit has typically constituted a point of leverage for regulatory practices that seek to effect some realignment of the relations between different components of personhood – (...) will, character, memory and instinct, for example – in order to bring about a specific end. In reviewing its functioning in this regard across a range of modern disciplines – philosophy, psychology, sociology – we explore the tensions between its use and interpretation in different lineages: in particular, the Cartesian–Kantian/ravaisson–bergson–deleuze lineages. The article then identifies how these questions are addressed across the contributions collected in this special issue. (shrink)

Bringing to light new facets in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and William James, Megan Craig explores intersections between French phenomenology and American pragmatism.

Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023) describe fatal problems in current definitions and measurement of moral distress and injury (MD/I) in medical professionals, which impede development of genuine atte...

As members of the fetal surgery advisory board at a large tertiary care center, we read with great interest Hendriks’ et al. target article proposing a new ethical framework for fetal therap...

A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that emission quotas should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis. In this paper I aim to show that a number of arguments in favour of equal shares are based on a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. I argue that a correct understanding of the way in which climate change results from the (...) overuse of a global commons shows those who defend equal shares using commons arguments to be harbouring more controversial commitments than might at first appear. I then discuss two options for equal shares theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of my critique, and attempt to show that one approach holds more promise than the other. (shrink)

An ethical dilemma exists regarding client referral. Standards 2.01(b) (Boundaries of Competence) and 3.01 (Unfair Discrimination) of the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists Code of Conduct provide psychologists with contradictory reasons to take possibly conflicting and incompatible courses of action when considering whether to refer a client. The professional literature that has explored the benefits of referring clients when the psychologist does not believe that he or she is able to work with the client's presenting concern, however, has (...) failed to examine the times in which referring may not be appropriate and, more specifically, may be an act of discrimination. This article seeks to initiate the discussion around this issue. (shrink)

BackgroundCommunity engagement within biomedical research is broadly defined as a collaborative relationship between a research team and a group of individuals targeted for research. A Community Advisory Board is one mechanism of engaging the community. Within genomics research CABs may be particularly relevant due to the potential implications of research findings drawn from individual participants on the larger communities they represent. Within such research, CABs seek to meet instrumental goals such as protecting research participants and their community from research-related risks, (...) as well as intrinsic goals such as promoting the respect of participants and their community. However, successful community engagement depends on the degree to which CABs legitimately represent and engage with communities targeted for research. Currently, there is little literature describing the use of CABs in genomics research taking place in developing countries, and even less in the field of genomics research relating to mental illness. The aim of this article is to describe and consider the contributions made by a researcher-driven, population-specific CAB in a genomics of schizophrenia research project taking place in South Africa, from the perspective of the research team.DiscussionFour broad discussion topics emerged during the CAB meetings namely: 1) informed consent procedures, 2) recruitment strategies, 3) patient illness beliefs and stigma experiences, and 4) specific ethical concerns relating to the project. The authors consider these discussions in terms of their contributions to instrumental and intrinsic goals of community engagement.SummaryThe CAB gave valuable input on the consent processes and materials, recruitment strategies and suggested ways of minimizing the potential for stigma and discrimination. All of these contributions were of an instrumental nature, and helped improve the way in which the research took place. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, the CAB made a unique and important contribution relating to intrinsic functions such as promoting the respect and dignity of research participants and their community. This was particularly evident in ensuring sensitivity and respect of the community’s traditional beliefs about schizophrenia and its treatment, and in this way promoting a respectful relationship between the research team and the participants. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

En el siguiente artículo se recoge una singular mirada del lenguaje, desde una dimensión pragmática que sintetiza aportes relativos a la eficacia del lenguaje en la obra agustiniana. Desde un enfoque centrado en la responsabilidad y la autoapropiación de la acción lingüística, Agustín de Hipona se vierte a la detección de mecanismos volitivos y cognitivos que intervienen en los modos de uso e intercambio verbal para elaborar una singular y compleja reflexión sobre responsabilidad lingüística. Entre las relaciones y consecuencias más (...) visibles de cada acto de habla en específico, expone cómo en la enunciación se conjugan múltiples variables de raíces profundas, que no solo están conectadas con la dimensión del ethos, sino que contribuyen a su constitución y determinación cotidiana para una reflexión comunitaria. Por lo que el siguiente análisis ético-discursivo a los escritos del filósofo de Hipona conjugará estos aspectos y habilitará la apreciación de una noción de responsabilidad verbal basada en fundamentos de performatividad del lenguaje y sentido de transmisión en sus obras. (shrink)

Developmental origins of health and disease and epigenetics have expanded understanding of how the environment affects the health of women before and during pregnancy—with lifelong health consequences for the fetus. This has translated to a narrow focus on women’s lifestyle during pregnancy, especially for women classified as obese. In this study, we show that psychosocial harms such as distress or shame felt by pregnant women are rarely countenanced in these endeavors. To demonstrate this, we examine published documents about a large (...) set of trials of lifestyle interventions united through an international consortium. Yet there is now a literature in which pregnant women with large bodies report feeling humiliated and a wider literature on the stigma of obesity. We argue that shame is produced and reproduced through the discursive and material knowledge-making scientific practices of DOHaD translation. Interventions that intensify the shame of large body size in pregnancy may be stressful, and neurophysiological stress pathways are well-known within DOHaD to have consequences for fetal development, so these interventions potentially undermine the very processes they set out to protect. A feminist response may protect women from shame and redirect attention to the social and structural determinants of health. (shrink)

Elizabeth Lanphier and Uchenna E. Anani provide a powerful argument for the value of a trauma-informed approach to the ethics consultation, which acknowledges the perspectives of all stakeho...

In January 2016, Medicare began reimbursing clinicians for time spent engaging in advance care planning with their patients or patients’ surrogates. Such planning involves discussions of the care an individual would want to receive should he or she one day lose the capacity to make health care decisions or have conversations with a surrogate about, for example, end‐of‐life wishes. Clinicians can be reimbursed for face‐to‐face explanation and discussion of care and advance directives and for the completion of advance care planning (...) forms. Although it seems that political barriers to reimbursement for such planning have largely faded, the Medicare policy's impact on provider billing practices appears to be limited, suggesting other barriers to clinician engagement in advance care planning. Additionally, the effects of this policy on patient behavior and the clinician‐patient relationship are not yet known. (shrink)

Land is becoming increasingly scarce relative to the demands of the global economy; a problem significantly exacerbated by climate change. In response, some have suggested that land should be conceptualised as a global commons. This framing might seem like an appealing way to promote sustainable and equitable land use. However, it is a poor fit for the worldʼs land because global commons are generally understood as resources located beyond state borders. I argue that land can be seen to fit the (...) definition of a global commons, if viewed in a particular way; namely, as a biogeochemical resource system that sequesters carbon emissions. The question then arises whether land should be conceptualised as a global commons. I consider this question by reference to three contemporary problems of land justice (land grabbing, forced displacement, and unfairness in land-based climate mitigation); arguing that the global-commons framing will not be conducive to understanding or responding to these problems. I leave the question of how the global community should conceptualise land in the context of climate change open, claiming that any answer must include the voices and perspectives of those whose livelihoods and identities are closely connected to the land. (shrink)

According to many accounts, propaganda is a variety of politically significant signal with a distinctive connection to irrationality. This irrationality may be theoretical, or practical; it may be supposed that propaganda characteristically elicits this irrationality anew, or else that it exploits its prior existence. The view that encompasses such accounts we will call irrationalism. This essay presents two classes of propaganda that do not bear the sort of connection to irrationality posited by the irrationalist: hard propaganda and propaganda by the (...) deed. Faced with these counterexamples, some irrationalists will offer their account of propaganda as a refinement of the folk concept rather than as an attempt to capture all of its applications. The author argues that any refinement of the concept of propaganda must allow the concept to remain essentially political, and that the irrationalist refinement fails to meet this condition. (shrink)

In this target article by Morain and Largent (2023), the authors focus on an investigator’s duty to patient-subjects specifically regarding incidental or collateral findings within the context of e...

Dynamic Consent is both a model and a specific web-based tool that enables clear, granular communication and recording of participant consent choices over time. The DC model enables individuals to know and to decide how personal research information is being used and provides a way in which to exercise legal rights provided in privacy and data protection law. The DC tool is flexible and responsive, enabling legal and ethical requirements in research data sharing to be met and for online health (...) information to be maintained. DC has been used in rare diseases and genomics, to enable people to control and express their preferences regarding their own data. However, DC has never been explored in relationship to historical collections of bioscientific and genetic heritage or to contexts involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.In response to the growing interest by First Peoples throughout Australia in genetic and genomic research, and the increasing number of invitations from researchers to participate in community health and wellbeing projects, this article examines the legal and ethical attributes and challenges of DC in these contexts. It also explores opportunities for including First Peoples' cultural perspectives, governance, and leadership as a method for defining DC on cultural terms that engage best practice research and data analysis as well as respect for meaningful and longitudinal individual and family participation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Is Enough, Enough?Megan HomsyThis was a case that stuck with many members of our transplant team for a long time. The patient was a 44-year-old Caucasian male evaluated for a liver transplant with a diagnosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV), originally diagnosed 11 years before the transplant evaluation. The patient met the criteria for the following substance use diagnoses: alcohol use disorder moderate in sustained remission, in (...) a controlled environment, opioid use disorder, severe, in sustained remission, on maintenance therapy, in a controlled environment, stimulant use disorder, amphetamine-type, severe, in early remission, in a controlled environment and stimulant use disorder, cocaine-type, severe in early remission, in a controlled environment.The patient had been living in a sober living housing program for approximately ten months prior to his transplant evaluation with me, his social worker. He had also been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder. He had been intermittently linked with mental health services and had participated in numerous detox and substance abuse programs over the last ten years, with varying degrees of success. He was in dual diagnosis treatment (i.e., treatment for co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders) through his Suboxone clinic and was completing toxicology screenings on a biweekly basis.After concluding the minimum three months of drug and alcohol treatment set forth by the state's Organ Transplantation Consortium, the patient graduated from his sober living program, moved in with his sister, and was listed for a liver transplant.The patient was transplanted five months after his clinic evaluation. At the time of the surgery, the patient's Suboxone was abruptly discontinued and replaced with IV Dilaudid. Within days of his transplant, the patient frequently expressed concerns about his pain. Several medical services attempted to manage the pain medications, resulting in his pain management plan being changed repeatedly and much confusion over his current medication regimen. During his liver transplant hospitalization, the RN found the patient with a needle in his arm, and after a search of the patient's hospital room, the hospital police found drug paraphernalia and illicit substances. The patient was eventually discharged to an inpatient substance abuse program, which he left before completing the program and against medical advice.During his first year post-transplant, I attempted to arrange other various treatment programs for him (most of which he did not follow through with) and to find housing for him (as he had been forced to leave his sister's home after his relapse). Eventually, the patient was incarcerated on drug-related charges. Numerous times, the patient missed completing his labs and his post-transplant appointments. He did not refill his immunosuppressant medications, and for lengthy periods of time, he was unreachable by the transplant care team, which resulted in my team members and I calling the patient's family, other providers, and the police for safety checks.In the aftermath of these issues, my colleagues and I had to reckon with the realization that we had failed the patient. As a team, our transplant center created a task force to review this case and what to do in the future to prevent such breakdowns in patient care. We created protocols for managing patients who, at the time of their transplant, are on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) such as Suboxone and methadone. Staff across the multidisciplinary team attended trainings regarding addiction, pain management, and best practices for MAT services. Additionally, our transplant center collaborated with our hospital's addiction treatment program for a streamlined referral process for transplant patients to addiction services.This patient's case and its sensational nature resulted in many conversations, both professional and unprofessional. Members of the social worker department became aware that personnel within transplant, though not involved in patient care, were inappropriately discussing this patient's case and engaging in unprofessional behavior. Said actions led to the termination of a member of the transplant team. I was placed in the unenviable [End Page E3] position of having to report this behavior to hospital management and legal teams to protect a vulnerable patient.The ethical challenge behind this case really stems from the transplant team attempting to balance two... (shrink)

Here are two widely held positions on the ethics of dating: First, people are generally morally justified in excluding people they don’t find attractive from their dating pool. Second, people are not justified in maintaining a dating pool that is racially exclusive, even on grounds like attraction. In this paper, we demonstrate how these positions are consistent. To do so we differentiate our attitudes in dating and our dating behavior. Then we show how existing criticisms of racialized attitudes in dating (...) are incomplete as practical criticisms of our behavior. Finally, we give our account of the moral reasons whites have to change their dating preferences when they exclude people of color. In doing so, we supplement existing discussions of race-based discrimination in dating. (shrink)

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to the (...) possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation. (shrink)

Some claim that a commitment to egalitarianism is in tension with support for reparations for historical injustice. This tension appears to arise insofar as egalitarianism is a forward-looking approach to justice: an approach that tells us what kind of world we should aim to build, where that world is not defined in terms of the decisions or actions of previous generations. Some have claimed that egalitarianism thereby renders reparations redundant. One popular option for egalitarians who aim to reject this thesis (...) is to insist that historical injustices demand reparations when they have caused present-day inequality. A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Alasia Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices stand in need of repair when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are in fact the same injustice. In this paper, I assess these egalitarian responses to the redundancy thesis. I find that Nuti’s account is equipped to reject this thesis, but that the same lines of reply can be adopted by proponents of the causal approach. I suggest that both approaches therefore be viewed as potential ways to conceptualise the relationship between historical injustice and our present normative circumstances; and that in choosing between them, we should understand ourselves to be engaged in an ameliorative project – a project that is guided by, and designed to help us to achieve, our legitimate purposes. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a popular position in the climate justice literature concerning historical accountability for climate change. According to this view, historical high-emitters of greenhouse gases—or currently existing individuals that are appropriately related to them—are in possession of some form of emission debt, owed to certain of those who are now burdened by climate change. It is frequently claimed that such debts were originally incurred by historical emissions that violated a principle of fair shares for the world’s natural (...) resources. Thus, a suitable principle of natural resource justice is required to render this interpretation of historical accountability complete. I argue that the need for such a principle poses a significant challenge for the historical emission debt view, because there doesn’t appear to be any determinate answer to the question what a fair share of climate sink capacity would have been historically. This leaves the historical emission debt view incomplete and thus unable to explain a powerful intuition that appears to motivate the view: namely, that there is something unjust about how the climate sink has historically been used. I suggest an alternative explanation of this common intuition according to which historically unequal consumption of climate sink capacity, whether or not wrongful in and of itself, is a symptom of broader global injustice concerning control over and access to the world’s natural resources. This broader historical injustice will be harder to quantify and harder to repair than that which the historical emission debt purports to identify. (shrink)