The purpose of this article is to uncover the meaning of holy feigning in the late-antique Christian text the Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Desert Fathers [and Mothers]. Whereas stories in this text depict demonic feigning as a regular occurrence (demons often appearing in the guise of a fellow desert dweller), what I call ‘holy feigning’ depicts one desert Christian expressing empathy for the situation of another – and helping the other to change. By looking at two stories that (...) are paradigmatic of holy feigning, I show that exemplary deceptive behaviour, though explicitly defying the otherwise consistent rhetoric of ‘radical self-honesty’ in the Apophthegmata Patrum, paradoxically marks out the person who feigns as holy, discerning and imitative of Christ. In this article, I offer several suggestions for accounting for this seeming contradiction in the desert literature and propose how a spirituality of holy feigning might remain meaningful to readers of this literature today. (shrink)

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the 'model organism' in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology, and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing research. We focus on what makes model organisms an important type of model, (...) and how the use of these models has shaped biological knowledge, including how model organisms represent, how they are used as tools for intervention, and how the representational commitments linked to their use as models affect the research practices associated with them. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

In this study, we examine investor and firm response to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010. The CTSCA requires large retail and manufacturing firms to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains and is a rare example of mandated corporate social responsibility disclosure. Based on a sample of 105 retail companies subject to the CTSCA, we find a significant negative market reaction to the passing of the CTSCA. Furthermore, we find that the (...) reaction is significantly more negative for larger firms and companies facing greater supply chain risks, suggesting that investors place a negative value on exposure to legitimacy threats in the social domain. With respect to company disclosure response, we document relatively high compliance with the legislation, although we also find that the disclosure response appeared to be more symbolic than substantive in nature. Finally, our analysis indicates that both disclosure choice and disclosure extensiveness were significantly higher for the high-supply chain risk companies, suggesting that the response was influenced by concerns with strategic legitimation. Overall, the limited quality of disclosure suggests that, without additional rules and guidance, mandates alone may not lead to meaningful social disclosure. (shrink)

We discuss a case where medically optimal investigations of health problems in a donor-conceived child would require their egg donor to participate in genetic testing. We argue that it would be justified to contact the egg donor to ask whether she would consider this, despite her indicating on a historical consent form that she did not wish to take part in future research and that she did not wish to be informed if she was found to be a carrier of (...) a ‘harmful inherited condition’. We suggest that we cannot conjecture what her current answer might be if, by participating in clinical genetic testing, she might help reach a diagnosis for the donor-conceived child. At the point that she made choices regarding future contact, it was not yet evident that the interests of the donor-conceived child might be compromised by her answers, as it was not foreseen that the egg donor’s genome might one day have the potential to enable diagnosis for this child. Fertility consent forms tend to be conceptualised as representing incontrovertible historical boundaries, but we argue that rapid evolution in genomic practice means that consent in such cases is better seen as an ongoing and dynamic process. It cannot be possible to compel the donor to aid in the diagnosis of the donor-conceived child, but she should be given the opportunity to do so. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the recent creation of “iBlastoids,” which are 3-D structures that resemble early human embryos prior to implantation which formed via self-organization of reprogrammed ad...

The “public charge” rule is a long-standing immigration policy that seeks to determine the likelihood that a prospective immigrant will become dependent on the government for subsistence. When the Trump administration sought to expand the criteria that would count against an applicant for permanent residency to include public benefits historically excluded from the calculation, thousands of commenters wrote to oppose or support the proposed changes. This paper explores the moral and practical reasons commenters provided for their position on the public (...) charge rule and considers the value of the public comment process for immigration, health, and social policy. (shrink)

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with (...) the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education’s applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon’s observation that ‘Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there’s much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are’. However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts. (shrink)

Gyngell and colleagues consider that the recent Nuffield Council report does not go far enough: heritable genome editing is not just justifiable in a few rare cases; instead, there is a moral imperative to undertake it. We agree that there is a moral argument for this, but in the real world it is mitigated by the fact that it is not usually possible to ensure a better life. We suggest that a moral imperative for HGE can currently only be concluded (...) if one first buys into an overly deterministic view of a genome sequence, and the role of variation within in it, in the aetiology of the disease: most diseases cannot simply be attributed to specific genetic variants that we could edit away. Multiple, poorly understood genetic and environmental factors interact to influence the expression of diseases with a genetic component, even well understood ‘monogenic’ disorders. Population-level genome analyses are now demonstrating that many genetic ’mutations' are much less predictive than previously thought 1. Furthermore, HGE might introduce new risks just as it reduces old ones; or remove protections not yet clearly delineated. (shrink)

Focused correlation compares the degree of association within an evidence set to the degree of association in that evidence set given that some hypothesis is true. A difference between the confirmation lent to a hypothesis by one evidence set and the confirmation lent to that hypothesis by another evidence set is robustly tracked by a difference in focused correlations of those evidence sets on that hypothesis, provided that all the individual pieces of evidence are equally, positively relevant to that hypothesis. (...) However, that result depends on a very strong equal relevance condition on individual pieces of evidence. In this essay, we prove tracking results for focused correlation analogous to Wheeler and Scheines’s results but for cases involving unequal relevance. Our result is robust as well, and we retain conditions for bidirectional tracking between incremental confirmation measures and focused correlation. (shrink)

The “plant turn” in anthropology, while controversial, has led to a renewed focus on how humans relate to different species of plants. In this article, I aim to contribute to our knowledge of human-plant relationships by analyzing how historical actors used sacred plants in past ritual settings. I study criminal and civil cases involving shamans in late colonial Ecuador, with a focus on plant use. Legal records from 1782, 1793, 1800, and 1802 reveal information about the use of fragrant plants (...) believed to have transformative properties, the use of entheogens for non-visionary purposes, and even the incorporation of the sacred wanduc (Brugmansia sp) into the punishment of one shaman. This plant-focused approach to the reading of ethnohistorical documents provides a history of particular plants as they were used by individual actors in specific geographic and historical contexts, and sheds light on people’s understanding of human-plant-spirit relationships. (shrink)

This article employs Foucauldian and feminist analytics to advance a critical approach to wearable digital health- and activity-tracking devices. Following Foucault’s insight that the growth of individual capabilities coincides with the intensification of power relations, I argue that digital self-tracking devices (DSTDs) expand individuals’ capacity for self-knowledge and self-care at the same time that they facilitate unprecedented levels of biometric surveillance, extend the regulatory mechanisms of both public health and fashion/beauty authorities, and enable increasingly rigorous body projects devoted to the (...) attainment of normative femininity. These technologies of surveillance, normalization, and discipline thus function to augment, and facilitate the cooperation of, neoliberal-era biopower and post-feminist patriarchal power. My analysis of digital self-tracking devices’ instrumentality to biopower and patriarchy contributes to the emergent field of critical digital health studies and builds new connections between political, social, and feminist theories of embodiment; biopower studies; fat studies; and trans-disciplinary body studies. (shrink)

Because organic certification standards institutionalized a product-based rather than process-based definition, certified organic produce can be grown on large-scale industrial monocrop farms. Besides toxicity of inputs, these farms operate in much the same way as conventional production. Scholars emphasize the fact that labor rights have been left out of certification criteria, and because of that, organic farms reproduce the same labor relations as conventional. Empirical studies of organic farm labor, however, rely primarily on the perspective of farmers. In this study, (...) I ask the farmworkers themselves how harvesting on organic farms compares to conventional, and found that working in organic negatively impacts farmworker livelihoods. Qualitative interviews with 36 strawberry harvesters in Oxnard, California reveal that farmworkers make more money in conventional strawberry production because of the interaction between wage structure and size of the berry. Conventional strawberries are larger and therefore fewer of them fill up a box. Farmworkers routinely pick more boxes in conventional than in organic, thus earning more, since under the piece rate system, farmworkers are paid per box. With short-term economic survival rather than long-term occupational health concerns in mind, strawberry harvesters would rather work on conventional farms because “la fresa orgánica es más chiquita”. (shrink)

This paper explores the claims of recent research that suggests that more affective forms of environmental education, drawing upon the contributions of the arts (e.g. creative writing, poetry, art, music and photography), can engage with children's emotions more directly than can approaches based on scientific knowledge. This, in turn, may provide a better route for encouraging individuals to engage in more environmentally sustainable behaviours. The paper challenges some of these claims by considering the ways in which they draw upon socially (...) constructed notions of childhood and nature. The development of environmental education in the UK provides the primary context within which the influence of these social constructions on affective approaches to environmental education is illustrated. These findings suggest that further research and practice are required to develop approaches to environmental education that better reflect a range of children's own environmental experiences. (shrink)

This paper examines the practice implications of various state policies that provide publicly funded prenatal care to undocumented immigrants for health care workers who see undocumented patients. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with purposively sampled health care workers at safety net clinics in California, Maryland, Nebraska, and New York. Health care workers were asked about the process through which undocumented patients receive prenatal care in their health center and the ethical tensions and frustrations they encounter when providing or facilitating (...) this care under policy restrictions. Respondents discussed several professional practice norms as well as the ethical tensions they encountered when policy or institutional constraints prevented them from living up to professional norms. Using Nancy Berlinger's “workarounds” framework, this paper examines health care workers' responses to the misalignment of their professional norms and the policy restrictions in their state. These findings suggest that the prenatal policies in each state raise ethical and professional challenges for the health care workers who implement them. (shrink)

Strohminger gives a lively and accurate critique of McGinn’s book but is somewhat inaccurate herself in describing the current theoretical state of the science on disgust. My comment primarily focuses on the issues I have with McGinn’s and Strohminger’s discussions and briefly offers a possible unifying account of the function and meaning of disgust.

It is often said that the best system account of laws needs supplementing with a theory of perfectly natural properties. The ‘strength’ and ‘simplicity’ of a system is language-relative and without a fixed vocabulary it is impossible to compare rival systems. Recently a number of philosophers have attempted to reformulate the BSA in an effort to avoid commitment to natural properties. I assess these proposals and argue that they are problematic as they stand. Nonetheless, I agree with their aim, and (...) show that if simplicity is interpreted as ‘compression’, algorithmic information theory provides a framework for system comparison without the need for natural properties. (shrink)

What consciousness exactly is remains an unsettled issue among both philosophers and biologists. Three aspects of consciousness are generally recognized: awareness consciousness (through connection...

This article does not directly consider the feelings and emotions that occur in mental illness. Rather, it concerns a higher level methodological question: To what extent is an analysis of feelings and felt emotions of importance for psychiatric classification? Some claim that producing a phenomenologically informed descriptive psychopathology is a prerequisite for serious taxonomic endeavor. Others think that classifications of mental disorders may ignore subjective experience. A middle view holds that classification should at least map the contours of the phenomenology (...) of mental illness. This article examines these options. I conclude that it is not true that phenomenology is a logical prerequisite for classification, nor even that classification should necessarily respect phenomenological boundaries, but that detailed phenomenological examination can sometimes inform classification. (shrink)

No one knows yet how to organize, in a simple yet predictive form, the knowledge concerning the anatomical, biophysical, and molecular properties of neurons that are accumulating in thousands of publications every year. The situation is not dissimilar to the state of Chemistry prior to Mendeleev's tabulation of the elements. We propose that the patterns of presence or absence of axons and dendrites within known anatomical parcels may serve as the key principle to define neuron types. Just as the positions (...) of the elements in the periodic table indicate their potential to combine into molecules, axonal and dendritic distributions provide the blueprint for network connectivity. Furthermore, among the features commonly employed to describe neurons, morphology is considerably robust to experimental conditions. At the same time, this core classification scheme is suitable for aggregating biochemical, physiological, and synaptic information. (shrink)

The so-called "biometric-Mendelian controversy" has received much attention from science studies scholars. This paper focuses on one scientist involved in this debate, Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire, who performed a series of hybridization experiments with mice beginning in 1901. Previous historical work on Darbishire's experiments and his later attempt to reconcile Mendelian and biometric views describe Darbishire as eventually being "converted" to Mendelism. I provide a new analysis of this episode in the context of Darbishire's experimental results, his underlying epistemology, and his (...) influence on the broader debate surrounding the rediscovery and acceptance of Mendelism. I investigate various historiographical issues raised by this episode in order to reflect on the idea of "conversion" to a scientific theory. Darbishire was an influential figure who resisted strong forces compelling him to convert prematurely due to his requirements that the new theory account for particularly important anomalous facts and answer the most pressing questions in the field. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

According to “voluntarists,” voluntary control is a necessary precondition on being blameworthy. According to “non-voluntarists,” it isn’t. I argue here that we ought to take seriously a type of voluntary control that both camps have tended to overlook. In addition to “direct” control over our behavior, and “indirect” control over some of the consequences of our behavior, we also possess “constitutive” control: the capacity to govern some of our attitudes and character traits by making choices about what to do that (...) constitute those attitudes and traits. Taking this sort of control seriously, I argue, ultimately tips the scale towards voluntarism. First, I address a non-voluntarist case in which an agent is putatively made blameworthy by the reasons for which she acts, even though the particular reasons for which she acts aren’t up to her. I argue that this case looks compelling only if we overlook constitutive control, and thereby miss how the agent’s motivating reasons are under her voluntary control even though non-voluntarists think they are not. I then use the notion of constitutive control to diffuse some of the best putative counterexamples to voluntarism: cases in which subjects are blameworthy either for caring inadequately about others or for wishing them ill. (shrink)

In a recent paper (Haslanger 2016), Sally Haslanger argues for the importance of structural explanation. Roughly, a structural explana- tion of the behaviour of a given object appeals to features of the struc- tures—physical, social, or otherwise—the object is embedded in. It is opposed to individualistic explanations, where what is appealed to is just the object and its properties. For example, an individualistic explanation of why someone got the grade they did might appeal to features of the essay they wrote—its (...) being well-written, answering the set question, etc. But if the class is graded on a curve, then a better explanation will appeal to features of the class—of the social structure in which the student is embedded. That she wrote a better paper than 90% of the class explains better than that she wrote a well-argued paper. In this paper, I get clear as to various candidate concepts of structure that we might appeal to in structural explanations, argue that Haslanger’s preferred account is lacking, and present an alterna- tive that is more conducive to social structural explanation. (shrink)

Audrey Hepburn is one of cinema's most stylish and enduring icons, and has embodied an ideal of femininity for generations of women. Using textual analysis, archival research and audience accounts of ‘Doing the Hepburn Look’, I argue that Audrey Hepburn, as a star clearly addressing a female audience, offered a flexible image which was enabling to young women through dress in relation to exigencies of gender, class and national identity. The paper draws on research conducted as part of a larger (...) project investigating Hepburn's ongoing appeal for young British women from the 1950s to the 1990s. (shrink)

CRISPR, a recently developed gene-editing tool, has become synonymous with rapid biological advancement. While gene editing had been performed in life sciences research for decades, genetic engineering with CRISPR is much more straightforward, faster, and less expensive—and thus, the technology has been rapidly democratized. CRISPR was built on a natural mechanism, the method by which bacteria resist infections from viruses called bacteriophage. Once infected, bacteria may recognize specific genetic sequences of the invading bacteriophage virus and chop its genetic material into (...) pieces. This bacterial immune response, discovered through basic research, has been exploited by scientists to develop a gene-editing tool... (shrink)

This article develops and tests a refined feminist theory of rape. The author proposes that the short-term effect of gender equality is an increased rape rate via increased threats to the status quo, whereas the long-term effect of gender equality is reduced rape rates via an improved social climate toward women. Using panel data for 109 U.S. cities over three decades—1970, 1980, and 1990—the author's expectations are generally confirmed. Because measures of inequality are used, supportive cross-sectional coefficients are negative and (...) supportive lagged coefficients are positive. In the short term, gender inequality reduces the rape rate, whereas in the long term, higher levels of gender inequality are associated with higher levels of rape. Gender inequality in income, education, access to high-status occupations, and legal status are each positively associated with the change in rape in at least one change period. (shrink)

I consider a problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism if one construes it as a claim that human beings know from a particular, human perspective. Namely: ordinarily, when we speak someone seeing from a perspective, we understand other people to have other perspectives, and think that people can change their perspectives by moving away from them, to a different one. So one may recognize that one’s own perspective is a perspective: by comparing to others, by seeing a former perspective from a (...) new vantage point. But Kant denies such plurality and variability for his human cognitive perspective. Thus one may worry that Kant’s view is incoherent: Kant claims that we can know only from one perspective, yet, in order to recognize that perspective as such, he himself must stand "outside" of it. I consider a potential Kantian response to this charge, by way of interpreting the Dialectic of the first Critique. When one attempts to know things that lie beyond experience, one attempts to exit the human perspective; in the Dialectic, Kant argues that in doing so, one falls into contradictions and empty thinking. These failed attempts, I suggest, allow human knowers (and Kant describing them) to recognize the human perspective as such – by taking up a different vantage point, as it were – but also, as failures, do not constitute a true alternative to the universally shared, necessary human cognitive perpsective. So, I propose, can one interpret Kant’s claim in the B Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason that the Dialectic is a confirming result – a “splendid touchstone” -- in an a priori experiment: it is an experimental, failed attempt to exit the human perspective. (shrink)

Choice feminism is a popular form of contemporary feminism, encouraging women to embrace the opportunities they have in life and to see the choices they make as justified and always politically acceptable. Though this kind of feminism appears at first glance to be tolerant and inspiring, its narratives also bring about a political stagnation as discussion, debate and critical judgement of the actions of others are discouraged in the face of being deemed unsupportive and a ‘bad’ feminist. Choice feminism also (...) encourages neoliberal values of individualism and consumerism, while downplaying the need for political and collective action against systematic inequalities. Yet in order to succeed in creating change for women, debate needs to occur, and not all decisions can be supported if they act to further inequality and a patriarchal status quo. In this article, I would like to argue for the continued need to engage politically with other feminists and with the status of the movement as a whole, by critiquing choice feminism and looking empirically at how discussion and dissent can be silenced by the choice narrative. The empirical data in this article will focus on online discussions of naming on marriage to illustrate the wider theoretical argument. (shrink)

Motivation has been the subject of much research in the sport psychology literature, whereas athlete mental health has received limited attention. Motivational complexities in elite sport are somewhat reflected in the mental health literature, where there is evidence for both protective and risk factors for athletes. Notably, few studies have linked motivation to mental health. Therefore, the key objective of this study was to test four mental health outcomes in the motivational sequence posited by the Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and (...) Extrinsic Motivation: motivational climate  basic psychological needs  motivation  mental health outcomes. Elite team-sport athletes (140 females, 75 males) completed seven psychometric inventories of motivation-related and mental health variables. Overall, the athletes reported positive motivational patterns, with autonomous motivation and task climate being more prevalent than their less adaptive counterparts. Elevated depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality affected nearly half of the cohort. Structural equation modelling supported pathways between motivational climate, basic needs, motivation, and mood, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, and trait anxiety. Specifically, a task climate was positively associated with the three basic psychological needs, and an ego climate was positively associated with competence. Autonomy and relatedness had positive and negative associations with autonomous and controlled forms of motivation, respectively. Controlled motivation regulations were positively associated with the four mental health outcomes. Integrated regulation had a negative association with anxiety, and intrinsic regulation had a positive association with depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the complexities of and interrelations between motivation and mental health among athletes, and support the importance of considering mental health as an outcome of motivation. (shrink)

We share Jaswal & Akhtar's concerns about the unintended repercussions of assumed social disinterest in autism. We expand consideration of these consequences with discussion of the literature and our own work on loneliness, mental ill-health, and self-representation, which is a cornerstone to social and emotional health. Further study is needed with expansive, mixed methodologies and involvement of the autistic community.

Cet article reprend le dossier de la statue dite de la « déesse au serpent », découverte avec sa base non loin des Propylées du sanctuaire d’Apollon à Délos. Son propos est de remettre en cause, à travers l’examen de la base et de la technique de fixation, toutes deux exceptionnelles, l’hypothèse selon laquelle il s’agirait d’une copie ou d’une adaptation de l’Athéna Hygieia en bronze, réalisée par Pyrrhos et érigée devant les Propylées de l’Acropole d’Athènes dans les années 430 (...) av. J.‑C. C’est en fin de compte l’idée, largement acceptée aujourd’hui, d’un programme sculpté reproduisant à Délos l’aménagement de l’entrée de l’Acropole et destiné à manifester la domination athénienne sur le sanctuaire à l’époque classique, qui doit être revue. (shrink)