This chapter argues that ethics plays an extremely important role in decision making and lawmaking in bioethics issues. These decisions are not simple case-by-case judgments; rather, they rest upon deeply considered ethical opinions. It also discusses the implications of this epistemic grounding for bioethics and its use of case law materials as an ethical resource. Finally, since many people base their moral judgments on religious beliefs, the religious implications of this legal-moral relationship are considered.

This chapter argues that ethics plays an extremely important role in decision making and lawmaking in bioethics issues. These decisions are not simple case-by-case judgments; rather, they rest upon deeply considered ethical opinions. It also discusses the implications of this epistemic grounding for bioethics and its use of case law materials as an ethical resource. Finally, since many people base their moral judgments on religious beliefs, the religious implications of this legal-moral relationship are considered.

William Connolly, one of the best-known and most important political theorists writing today, is a principal architect of the “new pluralism.” In this volume, leading thinkers in contemporary political theory and international relations provide a comprehensive investigation of the new pluralism, Connolly’s contributions to it, and its influence on the fields of political theory and international relations. Together they trace the evolution of Connolly’s ideas, illuminating his challenges to the “old,” conventional pluralist theory that dominated American and British political science (...) and sociology in the second half of the twentieth century. The contributors show how Connolly has continually revised his ideas about pluralism to take into account radical changes in global politics, incorporate new theories of cognition, and reflect on the centrality of religion in political conflict. They engage his arguments for an agonistic democracy in which all fundamentalisms become the objects of politicization, so that differences are not just tolerated but are productive of debate and the creative source of a politics of becoming. They also explore the implications of his work, often challenging his views to widen the reach of even his most recently developed theories. Connolly’s new pluralism will provoke all citizens who refuse to subordinate their thinking to the regimes in which they reside, to religious authorities tied to the state, or to corporate interests tied to either. _The New Pluralism_ concludes with an interview with Connolly in which he reflects on the evolution of his ideas and expands on his current work. _Contributors_: Roland Bleiker, Wendy Brown, David Campbell, William Connolly, James Der Derian, Thomas L. Dumm, Kathy E. Ferguson, Bonnie Honig, George Kateb, Morton Schoolman Michael J. Shapiro, Stephen K. White. (shrink)

I discuss Quine's claim that anyone denying what we now take to be a logical truth would be using logical words in a novel way. I trace this to a confusions between outright denial and failure to assert, and assertion of a negation. (This abstract is written from memory decades after the article.).

We conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies that tested for an association between grandparental survival and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Using two different methodologies, we found that the survival of the maternal grandmother and grandfather, but not the paternal grandmother and grandfather, was associated with decreased grandoffspring mortality. These results are consistent with the findings of psychological studies in developed countries (Coall and Hertwig Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:1-59, 2010). When tested against the predictions of five hypotheses (confidence of (...) paternity; grandmothering, kin proximity, grandparental senescence, and local resource competition), our meta-analysis results are most in line with the local resource competition hypothesis. In patrilineal and predominantly patrilocal societies, the grandparents who are most likely to live with the grandchildren have a less beneficial association than those who do not. We consider the extent to which these results may be influenced by the methodological limitations of the source studies, including the use of retrospective designs and inadequate controls for confounding variables such as wealth. (shrink)

A criticism of Dorothy Edgington's attempt to make Gibbard's problem for indicative conditionals apply to counterfactuals.

To study Earth’s climate, scientists now use a variety of computer simulation models. These models disagree in some of their assumptions about the climate system, yet they are used together as complementary resources for investigating future climatic change. This paper examines and defends this use of incompatible models. I argue that climate model pluralism results both from uncertainty concerning how to best represent the climate system and from difficulties faced in evaluating the relative merits of complex models. I describe how (...) incompatible climate models are used together in ‘multi-model ensembles’ and explain why this practice is reasonable, given scientists’ inability to identify a ‘best’ model for predicting future climate. Finally, I characterize climate model pluralism as involving both an ontic competitive pluralism and a pragmatic integrative pluralism. (shrink)

Informal political representation—the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others although one has not been elected or selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure—plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups. Sometimes, those who emerge as informal political representatives (IPRs) do so willingly (voluntary representatives). But, often, people end up being IPRs, either in their private lives or in more public political forums, over their own protests (unwilling representatives) or even (...) without their knowledge (unwitting representatives)—that is, they are conscripted. None of the few theories of informal political representation extant accommodate conscripted IPRs. The account detailed here introduces the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation and explains its place in a complete theory of informal political representation. Conscripted IPRs can, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have significant power to influence how various audiences regard those for whom the conscripted IPRs speak or act. Upon attaining such power to influence, conscripted IPRs, like their voluntary counterparts, come to have pro tanto duties to those they represent—duties that arise despite IPRs’ unwittingness or unwillingness. Understanding the phenomenon of conscripted informal political representation allows us to surface essential normative questions about informal political representation that are otherwise occluded. (shrink)

Bioethics is a practically oriented discipline that developed to address pressing ethical issues arising from developments in the life sciences. Given this inherent practical bent, some form of advocacy or activism seems inherent to the nature of bioethics. However, there are potential tensions between being a bioethics activist, and academic ideals. In academic bioethics, scholarship involves reflection, rigour and the embrace of complexity and uncertainty. These values of scholarship seem to be in tension with being an activist, which requires pragmatism, (...) simplicity, certainty and, above all, action. In this paper I explore this apparent dichotomy, using the case example of my own involvement in international efforts to end forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China. I conclude that these tensions can be managed and that academic bioethics requires a willingness to be activist. (shrink)

I give a simplified model of Boltanski & Thévenot's account of justice, which no doubt omits some important aspects of what they say. Using this model I explain how some properties of their account can be accounted for, and suggest that it is not clear that some others really are features of justice as described by them. My negative claims should not be taken as criticisms of their account, but rather as challenges to specify the features that are ignored by (...) my simple model. (shrink)

Edited by Richard Grusin of the Center for 21st Century Studies, this is the first book to name and characterize—and therefore consolidate—a wide array of current critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches to the humanities and social sciences under the concept of the nonhuman turn. Each of these approaches is engaged in decentering the human in favor of a concern for the nonhuman, understood by contributors in a variety of ways—in terms of animals, affectivity, bodies, materiality, technologies, and organic and geophysical (...) systems. The nonhuman turn in twenty-first-century studies can be traced to multiple intellectual and theoretical developments from the last decades of the twentieth century: actor-network theory, affect theory, animal studies, assemblage theory, cognitive sciences, new materialism, new media theory, speculative realism, and systems theory. Such varied analytical and theoretical formations obviously diverge and disagree in many of their assumptions, objects, and methodologies. However, they all take up aspects of the nonhuman as critical to the future of twenty-first-century studies in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Unlike the posthuman turn, the nonhuman turn does not make a claim about teleology or progress in which we begin with the human and see a transformation from the human to the posthuman. Rather, the nonhuman turn insists (paraphrasing Bruno Latour) that “we have never been human,” that the human has always coevolved, coexisted, or collaborated with the nonhuman—and that the human is identified precisely by this indistinction from the nonhuman. Contributors: Jane Bennett, Johns Hopkins U; Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Brown U; Mark B. N. Hansen, Duke U; Erin Manning, Concordia U, Montreal; Brian Massumi, U of Montreal; Timothy Morton, Rice U; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State U; Rebekah Sheldon, Indiana U. (shrink)

No provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has proven to be more contentious than the so-called “individual mandate.” Starting in 2014, the mandate will impose a penalty on non-exempt individuals who lack health insurance. According to Congress, the mandate is essential to ensuring near universal coverage. Without it, PPACA’s insurance reforms will lead healthy individuals to delay purchasing health insurance until they require medical care, resulting in risk pools with a disproportionate share of high-risk people. The price (...) of insurance will then climb, causing more and more not-so-sick people to forego health insurance. The resulting “death spiral” will make insurance unaffordable to many more Americans. (shrink)

When infectious disease outbreaks strike, health facilities acquire labels such as “war zones” and “battlefields” and healthcare professionals become “heroes” on the “front line.” But unlike soldiers, healthcare professionals often take on these dangerous roles without any prior intention or explicit expectation that their work will place them in grave personal danger. This inevitably raises questions about their role-related obligations and whether they should be free to choose not to endanger themselves. In this article, I argue that it is helpful (...) to view this situation not only through the lens of “professional duty” but also through the lens of “role-related conflicts.” Doing so has the advantage of avoiding exceptionalism and allowing us to draw lessons not only from previous epidemics but also from a wide range of far more common role-related dilemmas in healthcare. (shrink)

Gelfand quantales are complete unital quantales with an involution, *, satisfying the property that for any element a, if a b a for all b, then a a* a = a. A Hilbert-style axiom system is given for a propositional logic, called Gelfand Logic, which is sound and complete with respect to Gelfand quantales. A Kripke semantics is presented for which the soundness and completeness of Gelfand logic is shown. The completeness theorem relies on a Stone style representation theorem for (...) complete lattices. A Rasiowa/Sikorski style semantic tableau system is also presented with the property that if all branches of a tableau are closed, then the formula in question is a theorem of Gelfand Logic. An open branch in a completed tableaux guarantees the existence of an Kripke model in which the formula is not valid; hence it is not a theorem of Gelfand Logic. (shrink)

The most remarkable thing about the U.S. Supreme Court's 1998 decision in Bragdon v. Abbott was that it was necessary at all. Seventeen years into the epidemic of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, the Supreme Court, by a mere 5-4 majority, finally affirmed what most public health officials, health providers, and lawyers working with people with human immunodeficiency virus believed all along: that individuals with HIV infection are entitled to the protections of antidiscrimination law, and that health care providers must respond (...) to a patient's infection based on reason and science, not fear and prejudice. For individuals with HIV, and for those with other disabilities, the Court's ruling was a critical victory. But the very fact that the issues had to be decided by the Supreme Court and that only five justices joined the majority, shows the fragility of legal rights pertaining to HIV as well as the wide gulf between the perspectives of public health and those of public law. (shrink)

This pedagogical essay explores the tendency of undergraduate media ethics students to do what Bernard Gert calls “morality by slogans” and their tendency to misuse Aristotle's golden mean slogan. While not solving the dilemma of morality by slogans, the essay suggests some ways of rectifying the misuse of the golden mean and encouraging its more authentic application.

Over the last decade, scandals within the UK Financial Service sector have impacted their legitimacy and raised questions whether a compliance culture exists or not. Several institutional changes at the regulatory and normative levels have targeted stakeholders’ concerns regarding compliance culture and led to changes in the legitimation process. This paper attempts to address a gap in the literature by asking the following question: How is the UK financial institutions’ compliance culture shaped by the institutional environment and changing legitimacy claims? (...) Towards achieving this objective, the paper draws on the institutional theory and pays attention to the various configurations of the legitimacy notion :451–478; 2017). The paper utilises a longitudinal interpretive design and undertakes a qualitative content analysis of fines issued by the UK regulator and the communicated response of violating firms as well as non-sanctioned firms. Our findings indicate that there is a cyclical ‘evolutionary compliance’ rather than the more widely recognised state of ‘compliance culture’. This culture is fuelled by interchangeable isomorphic forces where the majority of violating firms are seen to issue similar responses to the regulators sanction to maintain their reputation and legitimacy in the market. Notably, legitimacy is now defined within an interactive process between the regulator and firms rather than being static and achieved by ticking the box. (shrink)

The phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper in Britain has prompted international debate about media practices and regulation. It is timely to broaden the discussion about journalistic ethics and conduct to include consideration of the impact of media practices upon the population's health. Many commercial organisations cultivate relationships with journalists and news organisations with the aim of influencing the content of health-related news and information communicated through the media. Given the significant influence (...) of the media on the health of individuals and populations, we should be alert to the potential impact of industry–journalist relationships on health care, health policy and public health. The approach taken by the medical profession to its interactions with the pharmaceutical industry provides a useful model for management of industry influence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper we argue that sex‐selective abortion (SSA) cannot be morally justified and that it should be prohibited. We present two main arguments against SSA. First, we present reasons why the decision for a woman to seek SSA in cultures with strong son‐preference cannot be regarded as autonomous on either a narrow or a broad account of autonomy. Second, we identify serious harms associated with SSA including perpetuation of discrimination against women, disruption to social and familial networks, and (...) increased violence against women. For these reasons, SSA should be prohibited by law, and such laws should be enforced. Finally, we describe additional strategies for decreasing son‐preference. Some of these strategies rely upon highlighting the disadvantages of women becoming scarce, such as lack of brides and daughters‐in‐law to care for elderly parents. We should, however, be cautious not to perpetuate the view that the purpose of women is to be the consorts for, and carers of, men, and the providers of children. Arguments against SSA should be located within a concerted effort to ensure greater, deeper social and cultural equality between the sexes. (shrink)

Science education in the early years is vital in assisting young children to come to know about and understand the world around them. Science in Early Childhood covers the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of teaching science in early childhood settings in way that is engaging and accessible. It is a comprehensive resource for students, as well as early childhood teachers and carers and provides up-to-date coverage of the Early Years Learning Framework. This text explores the current issues and debates (...) in early childhood science education from an Australian perspective, whilst recognising the links to international practice and research. A summary at the start of each chapter helps students identify the key themes and ideas in early science education and application boxes throughout the text illustrate how theories relate to practice. Written by experts in the field, Science in Early Childhood is essential reading for pre-service teachers. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century the tropes of messianism, apocalypse and redemption, which had been so central to the West's religious formation, seemed spent forces in Germany. Nietzsche had pronounced God as dead and theology seemed to be travelling the same secular route as philosophy. But World War I changed that. This book introduces some of Germany's key thinkers in theology, philosophy, literature and social and political thought through their engagement with these previously discarded concepts. They initiated a (...) new and urgent dialogue between philosophy and theology. This imaginative and innovative collection brings together essays by established scholars on Messiamism, Redemption and Apocalypse in twentieth century German thought. Major theologians such as Barth, Buber, Bonhoeffer, Rahner, Pannenberg and Moltmann are discussed alongside leading intellectuals such as Adorno, Benjamin, Bloch, Heiddeger and Rosenzweig. Literary figures, such as Kafka and George, are also included. The interfaces imply a different way of reading theology and challenge the reader to think what the implications of immanence in a specific philosophical culture are for the theological project. Some of the essays introduce thinkers who are little known to English speaking readers. Others cast new light on more familiar figures. The collection as a whole contextualises German religious and philosophical thought on these crucial topics in very useful ways. The dialogue at work in these pages is a very important one and should be carried further. (shrink)

This revised version of the author’s 1985 article “Contra Copyright” includes a new, introductory section explaining the background of the author’s path to copyright abolitionism. The main article surveys various libertarian debates on this issue, including the anti-intellectual property views of Benjamin Tucker and the pro-IP views of Lysander Spooner. McElroy argues that the issue of copyright hinges on the question: can ideas be property? Because only scarce goods can be property, and ideas are not scarce, copyright must be rejected (...) as unjustified. (shrink)

We assert that one of the examples used by Keller & Miller (K&M), namely, autism, is indeed common, and heritable, but we question whether it is harmful. We provide a brief review of cognitive science literature in which autistics perform superiorly to non-autistics in perceptual, reasoning, and comprehension tasks; however, these superiorities are often occluded and are instead described as dysfunctions. (Published Online November 9 2006).

Public health professionals recognize the critical role the law plays in determining the success of public health measures. Even before September 11, 2001, public health experience with tobacco use, HIV, industrial pollution and other potent threats to the health of the public demonstrated that laws can assist or thwart public health efforts. The new focus on infectious threats and bioterrorism, starting with the anthrax attacks through the mail and continuing with SARS, has highlighted the important role of law.For lawyers to (...) serve as effective partners in public health, they should have a basic familiarity with public health: how public health professionals see the world and the key issues they tackle. A practical grasp of public health can be acquired, and often is acquired, “on the job.”. (shrink)

Unnecessary health care is a tremendous problem that negatively impacts individuals and also increases health care costs across the system. While much scholarly attention has been paid to the role of patients and providers, payors' role in contributing to the problem is underexplored. The article recommends that payors should nudge providers away from unnecessary care by requiring electronic alerts intended to deter unnecessary care.

On April 7,2000 a Florida jury ordered the tobacco industry to pay $12.7 million in compensatory damages to three former smokers who were chosen to represent hundreds of thousands of Florida residents in an unprecedented class action lawsuit. The decision not only marks the first time that a jury has found on behalf of smokers in a class action lawsuit, it also sets the stage for a huge punitive damage award against the industry. The awards followed a finding by the (...) same jury last July that the cigarette manufacturers have “acted with reckless disregard” and “engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct” while conspiring to mislead the public about the health risks of smoking. These previous findings make it likely that there will be punitive damages levied against the tobacco companies when the jury reconvenes in May. (shrink)

Intellectual property law tends to be viewed as the only (or most significant) mechanism for achieving policy goals relating to innovation assets. Yet more creative and effective solutions are often available. When analysed from a transdisciplinary perspective, relying on the cooperative efforts of researchers from fields other than law, innovation governance is characterized not simply as the product of legal rules, but as a function of the interaction of legal rules, practices and institutions. When policy-makers seek to identify conditions under (...) which the creation, use and exchange of innovation assets flourishes, care should be taken to focus on this combination of factors. This article describes the development of an ontology—a computerized method of representing knowledge as concepts and relations between concepts—to convey such understanding. Policy makers (and researchers) are provided with an organized, accessible representation of innovation governance that enriches their understanding and improves their decision-making. (shrink)

Children's rights, lone motherhood and the breakdown of families are all issues at the forefront of current social debate in the West, with little agreement on what constitutes good parenting, or how the needs of both mother and child are best met. The feminist contribution to this debate is particularly important in keeping in view the diverse identities of all those who provide mothering. The psychoanalytic contribution is often undervalued and misunderstood. _Mothering and Ambivalence_ brings together authors from therapeutic, academic (...) and social work backgrounds to discuss dependency, anxiety and gender relations within families. Drawing on extensive professional experience the contributors combine a psychoanalytic and feminist approach to mothering which transcends the polarized and simplistic political debate about women's and children's needs. They also show how such an approach can inform and improve professional practice. (shrink)

Stylometry can be defined as the use of numerical methods for the solution of literary problems, most often problems of authorship, integrity, and chronology. As stylometry has been described it seems hardly more than the application of common sense to a literary situation. For example: It consists in collecting as many peculiarities of style and grammar as possible from these works [the dialogues of Plato], particularly the Laws, which are known, or for good reasons supposed to belong to the author's (...) latest period, and observing the frequency with which these occur in other dialogues. If it is then found, e.g., that one dialogue uses commonly 100 of these, another but 60, it is reasonable to suppose the former to be nearer in time to the Laws, i.e. later. (shrink)