In Ghaidan v. Godin-Mendoza [2004] U.K.H.L. 30, the U.K. House of Lords upheld the right of a man to succeed to the tenancy of his deceased same-sex partner as if he had been the husband or wife of the deceased. This note examines the five judgements delivered by the court and considers the implications of the decision. It argues that, within the context of family law, Mendoza was a welcome decision but an evolutionary dead-end. The case signals a more promising (...) approach to the development of human rights, but the appropriate use and scope of s.3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 remain somewhat unclear. (shrink)

The recent decision of the House of Lords in Stack v. Dowden appears, at first sight, to endorse a new approach to the jointly owned family home. However, upon closer inspection, this proves to be something of an illusion: the new approach is remarkably similar to the traditional resulting trust in that it attaches more weight to financial payments than to other contributions. A further problem is that the disjunction between the reasoning of the judges and the actual result makes (...) it a difficult decision to apply to future cases. This case-note will consider the legal and social issues raised by the case and will argue that it has the potential to disadvantage women who do not make an equal financial contribution to the purchase of the home. (shrink)

Organisations increasingly use digital nudges to influence their workforces’ behaviour without coercion or incentives. This can expose employees to arbitrary domination by infringing on their autonomy through manipulation and indoctrination. Nudges might furthermore give rise to the phenomenon of “organised immaturity.” Adopting a balanced approach between overly optimistic and dystopian standpoints, I propose a framework for determining the moral permissibility of digital nudging in the workplace. In this regard, I argue that not only should organisations provide pre-discursive justification of nudges (...) but they should also ensure that employees can challenge their implementation whenever necessary through legitimation procedures. Building on Rainer Forst’s concept of the right to justification, this article offers a way to combine contract- and deliberation-based theories for addressing questions in business ethics. I further introduce the concept of meta-autonomy as a capacity that employees can acquire to counter threats of arbitrary domination and to mitigate organised immaturity. (shrink)

Games Studies reveals the performative nature of playing a character in a virtual-game-world (Nitsche 2008, p.205; Pearce 2006, p.1; Taylor 2002, p.48). Tbe Player/Character relationship is typically understood in terms of the player’s in-game “presence” (Boellstorff 2008, p.89; Schroeder 2002, p.6). This gives the appearance that living-into a game-world is an all-or- nothing affair: either the player is “present” in the game-world, or they are not. I argue that, in fact, a constitutive phenomenology reveals the Player/Character relationship to be a (...) multi-dimensional matter of empathy. I advance a broadly Schutzian framework, drawing on his 1932 discussions of “face-to-face encounters” and ”historical predecessors,” showing how at- tention to empathy reveals a variety of “presences” that different kinds of Player/Character relationships afford. The central determinants of empathetic affordances which I focus on here are (i) how much players know about a character (especially the character’s past) and (ii) how players learn this information.The purpose of this discussion will be to show that a phenomenological analysis reveals that the relationship between a player and their character is complex, highly variable, and inherently social. Furthermore, it will add to the growing body of scholarship that demonstrates that video games are rich social objects deserving of study. (shrink)

Some writers claim that ethicists involved in assessing future technologies like nanotechnology and human enhancement devote too much time to debating issues that may or may not arise, at the expense of addressing more urgent, current issues. This practice has been claimed to squander the scarce and valuable resource of ethical concern. I assess this view, and consider some alternatives to ‘speculative ethics’ that have been put forward. I argue that attempting to restrict ethical debate so as to avoid considering (...) unacceptably speculative scenarios would not only leave scientific progress devoid of ethical guidance, but would also rule out some of our most important ethical projects. I conclude that the issue of speculation is a red herring: what is most important is not that ethicists concentrate on current issues or those that are most likely to arise; but that ethicists, scientists, and others focus on maximising what is most valuable. (shrink)

The term “therapeutic misconception” was coined in 1982 by Paul Appelbaum, Loren Roth, and Charles Lidz. Appelbaum and his colleagues interviewed participants in several psychiatric studies, including a drug trial with a placebo control arm. Appelbaum's group found that many people were unaware of the differences between participating in a study and receiving treatment in the clinical setting. Rather than understanding these differences, study participants tended to believe that therapy and research were governed by the same primary goal: to advance (...) the individual patient's best interests. Appelbaum's group labeled this mistaken belief the therapeutic misconception. (shrink)

Many people are worried about developing dementia, fearing the losses and burdens that accompany the condition. Dementia‐specific advance directives are intended to address dementia's progressive effects, allowing individuals to express their treatment preferences for different stages of the condition. But enthusiasm for dementia‐specific advance directives should be tempered by recognition of the legal, ethical, and practical issues they raise. Dementia‐specific advance directives are a simplistic response to a complicated situation. Although they enable people to register their future care preferences, in (...) many cases, those preferences will not, and should not, determine their later care. (shrink)

We can safely infer that a proposition is possible if p is the case. But, I argue, this inference from the actual to the possible is merely explicative in nature, though we employ it at times as if it were ampliative. To make this inference ampliative, we need to include an inference to the best explanation. Specifically, we can draw a substantive conclusion as to whether p is possible from the fact that p is the case, if via our best (...) explanation we can explain how p could occur again in the complete and coherent set of propositions that describes the actual world. (shrink)

Some research is too risky to be conducted on anyone whose life expectancy is more than a few hours. Yet sometimes, the research can still be carried out using subjects who are brain dead or are soon to undergo a terminal wean, and who have articulated values that inclusion in the study can honor. So argues a team of ethicists and researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where such research was recently undertaken.

The important roles of prediction and prior experience are well established in music research and fit well with Clark's concept of unified perception, cognition, and action arising from hierarchical, bidirectional predictive processing. However, in order to fully account for human musical intelligence, Clark needs to further consider the powerful and variable role of affect in relation to prediction error.

Is it conceptually possible for one person to ‘remember’ the experiences of another person? Many philosophical discussions of personal identity suppose that this is possible. For example, some philosophers believe that our personal identity through time consists in the continuation of our mental lives, including the holding of memories over time. However, since a person’s memories are necessarily memories of her own experiences, a definition of personal identity in terms of memory risks circularity. To avoid this, we must invoke the (...) concept of ‘quasi-memory’. From my quasi-memory of doing x, I cannot infer that I did x; but I can infer that somebody did x. It is then a further question as to whether the person who did x is me, the answer to which will depend upon what we believe personal identity to consist in. Quasi-memory, then, allows us to separate the concept of memory from the concept of personal identity. (shrink)

I welcome the efforts described by Neal Dickert and his colleagues in “Partnering with Patients to Bridge Gaps in Consent for Acute Care Research” (Dickert et al. 2020). I am a long-time supporter...

It's not unusual to hear someone say, ‘I'd rather be dead than have Alzheimer's’. In ‘Alzheimer Disease and Preemptive Suicide’,1 Dena Davis explains why this is a reasonable position. People taking this position will welcome the discovery of biomarkers permitting very early AD diagnosis, Davis suggests, for this will enable more of them to end their lives while they remain motivated and able to do so. At the same time, Davis observes, people would have less reason to resort to the (...) drastic remedy of pre-emptive suicide if they had absolute authority over the medical treatment they received as patients with dementia; but the threat of pre-emptive suicide is not, in my view, a sufficient reason to grant competent individuals that authority.If preclinical diagnosis of AD becomes possible, some pre-emptive suicides will probably occur. There would be no ethical or practical way to ban such suicides, and it would be silly to try. Clinicians will undoubtedly try to discourage people seeking biomarker information in furtherance of a suicide plan, but savvy individuals will simply conceal their true motivation for having the tests. The real problem for people intent on self-destruction is that biomarkers are unlikely to deliver a clear suicide signal.First, as Davis notes, work on biomarkers remains in the research stage. No one yet knows whether biomarker tests will prove accurate enough to warrant clinical use. Second, even clinically accepted biomarker tests will generate imperfect information about future disease. Biomarkers may produce more accurate estimates of a person's risk of developing AD, but like all predictive tests, they will also yield false positive and negative results. The …. (shrink)

Henri Bergson's philosophy presents the relationship between life and matter in both dualistic and monistic terms. Life is duration, a rhythm of incalculable novelty that approaches pure creative activity. In stark contrast, matter is identified with the determinism of homogeneous space. After Time and Free Will, Bergson concedes some share of duration to matter. In this context, his dualism can be understood as a methodological step towards the articulation of a monistic metaphysics of duration. This article suggests that the distinction (...) between life and matter is also motivated by an unconscious imperative to establish a sexed hierarchy. Bergson repeatedly presents life as seminal, while matter is figured in terms of passivity. (shrink)

Most academics in philosophy departments accept that the discipline needs to change for the better. In this piece, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting offer several proposals for how to make philosophy a more inclusive place for everyone.

Qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) provides temporal understanding of the human response to health, illness, and the life course. However, little guidance is available for conducting QLR in the nursing literature. The purpose of this review is to describe the methodological status of QLR in nursing. With the assistance of a medical librarian, we conducted a thorough search circumscribed to qualitative, longitudinal nursing studies of patients’ and care‐givers’ experiences published between 2006 and 2016. The methodological quality of the 74 reviewed studies (...) varied tremendously; many reports lacked sufficient detail in reporting on sampling and attrition, retention strategies, and data collection and analysis, making it difficult for readers to evaluate the credibility and transferability of study findings. Based on the strengths and limitations of the studies reviewed and findings in the literature, we provide recommendations for enhancing the reporting of the research process as a supplement to the standards for qualitative research more broadly. These recommendations are offered in the spirit of encouraging dialogue among colleagues and assisting journal reviewers and editors in their evaluation of QLR. (shrink)

ArgumentThe Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was developed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the 1930s and 1940s. It became a highly successful and highly controversial psychometric tool. In professional terms, psychometric tools such as the MMPI transformed psychology and psychiatry. Psychometric instruments thus readily fit into the developmental history of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology; they were a significant part of the narrative of those fields’ advances in understanding, intervening, and treating people with mental illnesses. At the same time, (...) the advent of such tools also fits into a history of those disciplines that records the rise of obsessional observational and evaluative techniques and technologies in order to facilitate patterns of social control that became typical during the Progressive Era in the United States and after. It was those patterns that also nurtured the resistance to psychometrics that emerged during the Vietnam War and after. (shrink)

Body Worlds is a hugely popular exhibition that claims to offer a reverential and educational experience of the ‘real human body’ through the display of plastinated dead human bodies. However, because they are posed, staged, and composed of significant nonhuman artifice, plastinates are ambivalently ‘real’ as human bodies, let alone ‘real’ as humans. Plastinates are as much nonhuman as human, and neither category fully accounts for them. In this article, I discuss the consequences of this for feminist theory. Approaches in (...) feminist theory that reify, either implicitly or explicitly, a human/nonhuman binary framework are challenged by plastinates. I show that locating plastinates within either ontological category, though not fully accounting for them, enables feminist critiques of the exhibition; however, these categories also paradoxically permit forms of violence with which feminists are typically concerned. In this way, I argue that plastinates force feminist thought to the very interface of the human/nonhuman divide. When applied to Body Worlds, these concepts at best form a heuristic ontological hinge whose angle is determined by ethical and political commitments, illustrating the ways in which key ontologies should be seen as political strategies more or less amenable to feminist goals, but not more or less true. I argue that what lies at the crux of this hinge, in the case of plastinates, is death, and suggest that Body Worlds demands that the interface of death with life become a key feminist concern. (shrink)

Can films philosophize rather than simply represent philosophical ideas developed outside of the cinematic medium? Taking up this question crucial to the emergent field of film philosophy, this book argues that the films of the American avant-garde do "do" philosophy and illuminates the ethical and political stakes of their aesthetic interventions. The book traces the avant-garde's philosophy by developing a history and theory of its investment in dimensional, conceptual, and material in-betweens, clarifying how this cinema's reflections on the creation and (...) reception of images construct an ethics of perception itself, a responsibility to perpetuate thought in an enduring re-encounter with the world and with meaning's unfinished production. This entails the avant-garde's locating of cinema's-and thought's-ends or meanings in their means, and their advancement of an image of truth that is made rather than found that unites their films with the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ralph Waldo Emerson who believed the "journey's end is found in every step of the road" (Cavell). Rectifying film-philosophy's neglect of the American avant-garde, the book demonstrates how rather than showing their interest in the revelation of authoritative truths, the avant-garde's interest in the re-encounter and review of the seen and known emerges from an American Transcendentalist tradition that opposes such notions. Sheehan reads the avant-garde's interest in the contingencies of spectatorial experience as also an extension of Pragmatism's commitment to replacing the authority of a priori knowledge with that of individual experience. She also shows how Emerson's influence on Friedrich Nietzsche connects the American avant-garde's philosophies to Deleuze's time-image, premised largely upon Nietzsche's "powers of the false.". (shrink)

Ch. G. Bardili (1761-1808) ist der Begrunder des rationalen Realismus mit dem Ziel eines von der Materialitat ausgehenden Gottesbeweises. Heute nur noch als von den Zeitgenossen fast einhellig abgelehnter Denker bekannt, bietet sein Schaffen in der enormen Spannbreite von Wissenschaftsreflexionen, Ethik, Philosophiegeschichte und Logik doch ein interessantes, facettenreiches und in seiner Radikalitat anregendes Gesamtkonzept. Dieses Werk erstmals in vollem Umfang zu erschliessen, das ganze System Bardilis in seiner Entwicklung und seinen Inhalten nachzuzeichnen sowie in seinen Grundzugen, die fur die Debatten (...) der Zeit, etwa mit Fichte, Schelling und Reinhold, bedeutsam sind, aufzuweisen, ist die Absicht des vorliegenden Bandes.'Bislang liegt uber Bardili keine nennenswerte Literatur vor. [.] Diese Lucke schliesst nun die vorgelegte Monographie, [.] um so ein Werk vorzustellen, das zwar heute weitgehend in den Hintergrund geruckt oder oft schlicht vergessen ist, das es gleichwohl - wie die Vf. uberzeugend zu zeigen vermag - verdient hat, wieder starkere Beachtung zu finden, weil es zu zentralen Fragestellungen, wie sie im Bereich der klassischen deutschen Philosophie wichtig und bestimmend geworden sind, eine haufig zweifellos eigenwillige, aber trotzdem wegen seines hohen Grades an Originalitat und seiner radikalen, wenn auch bisweilen exzentrisch anmutenden, Alternativstellung bedenkenswerte Anstosse bietet. [.] Insgesamt leistet die Vf. mit ihrer Monographie Hervorragendes und Vorbildliches: Sie zeichnet den Denkweg und das System Bardilis in ihrer Entwicklung und ihren Inhalten nach. Die wesentlichen Grundzuge, die sich fur die Debatten, Streitgesprache und [.] philosophischen Konstellationen der Zeit als so bedeutsam erwiesen, werden pragnant aufgewiesen und mit denkerisch hochster Souveranitat durchdrungen.' Dirk Cursgen, Philosophische Rundschau. (shrink)

Levonorgestrel is widely used as emergency contraception, yet much confusion surrounds its use. Consensus statements and reviews typically attribute its efficacy to prefertilization mechanisms of action, such as suppression of ovulation and interference with cervical mucus or sperm function, yet studies do not rule out a postovulatory MOA. To yield greater clarity, the authors review recent scientific studies examining the MOAs of LNG-EC. They conclude that LNG-EC exerts minimal effects on cervical mucus and sperm function and that suppression of ovulation (...) is not the dominant MOA accounting for the contraceptive efficacy of LNG-EC. Luteal deficiencies and endometrial changes reported in the literature strongly suggest a postovulatory MOA when LNG-EC is given during the critical preovulatory period. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.4 : 677–716. (shrink)

A general framework by which dynamic interactions within a protein will promote the necessary series of structural changes, or “conformational cycle,” required for function is proposed. It is suggested that the free‐energy landscape of a protein is biased toward this conformational cycle. Fluctuations into higher energy, although thermally accessible, conformations drive the conformational cycle forward. The amino acid interaction network is defined as those intraprotein interactions that contribute most to the free‐energy landscape. Some network connections are consistent in every structural (...) state, while others periodically change their interaction strength according to the conformational cycle. It is reviewed here that structural transitions change these periodic network connections, which then predisposes the protein toward the next set of network changes, and hence the next structural change. These concepts are illustrated by recent work on tryptophan synthase. Disruption of these dynamic connections may lead to aberrant protein function and disease states. (shrink)

Parental age at offspring conception often influences offspring longevity, but the mechanisms underlying this link are poorly understood. One mechanism that may be important is telomeres, highly conserved, repetitive sections of non‐coding DNA that form protective caps at chromosome ends and are often positively associated with longevity. Here, the potential pathways by which the age of the parents at the time of conception may impact offspring telomeres are described first, including direct effects on parental gamete telomeres and indirect effects on (...) offspring telomere loss during pre‐ or post‐natal development. Then a surge of recent studies demonstrating the effects of parental age on offspring telomeres in diverse taxa are reviewed. In doing so, important areas for future research and experimental approaches that will enhance the understanding of how and when these effects likely occur are highlighted. It is concluded by considering the potential evolutionary consequences of parental age on offspring telomeres. (shrink)

In Tough Choices for Teachers: Ethical Challenges in Today's Schools and Classrooms, Infantino and Wilke help student teachers, new teachers, and experienced teachers think more deeply about ethical concerns. The case studies included by the authors involve ethical dilemmas dealing with honesty, integrity, and proper professional behavior.

Ethics & Behavior, Volume 21, Issue 5, Page 431-434, September-October 2011.

Der Artikel untersucht den originären Beitrag Simon Kronbergs zur deutschen Literatur des Expressionismus. Der zu den „vergessenen und verkannten Autoren der expressionistischen Generation” (Lützeler) gehörende Kronberg ist bis heute kaum untersucht. Als Sohn jüdisch-galizischer Zuwanderer 1891 in Wien geboren, studiert er 1913 bei Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, dessen Licht- und Bewegungschoreographien ihn nachhaltig prägen. Weitere Stationen sind Düsseldorf bei dem Schauspieler-Paar Lindemann/dumont, München und Berlin. 1934 emigriert er nach Palästina, wo er 1947 stirbt. Seine Texte entwerfen eine Sprache, deren sinnstiftende Bilder von (...) seiner biographischen Erfahrung geprägt sind und jüdische Mystik, Tanz und Rhythmus auf spezifische Weise integrieren. Im Zentrum steht Kronbergs Konzeption des Schattens als einer Möglichkeit der Wandlung des Menschen in einer Welt der Rationalität und der Entkopplung des täglichen Lebens von Körper und Sinnlichkeit hin zu einer Erfahrung des Lichts. Am Beispiel seiner Erzählung “Chamlam” zeigt der Beitrag, dass seine Schattenfiguren in einem beachtenswerten Spannungsverhältnis zum Diskurs der Gespenster im Expressionismus stehen. (shrink)

Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature's extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy.

In 1997, when Oregon became the first U.S. jurisdiction authorizing medical aid in dying (MAID), its law included a requirement that patients be legal residents of the state. Other U.S. jurisdictions legalizing MAID followed Oregon in adopting residency requirements. Recent litigation challenges the legality, as well as the justification, for such requirements. Facing such challenges, Oregon and Vermont eliminated their MAID residency requirements. More states could follow this move, for, in certain circumstances, the U.S. Constitution's privileges and immunities clause protects (...) citizens’ right to travel to secure medical care. Policy considerations could also motivate states to reexamine whether such requirements are justified in light of existing evidence of how MAID laws have been applied. (shrink)

Michael Dummett argued that, whilst we can imagine circumstances under which agents may rationally believe themselves capable of affecting the past, the attitude of such agents is bound to seem ‘paradoxical and unnatural to us’. Therefore, only agents very unlike us could intentionally affect the past. I argue that this is not the case. I outline circumstances in which the attitude of such agents is prudent, even by our own standards. Worlds in which backwards causation occurs could, then, contain agents (...) very much like us. (shrink)

When the term “postfeminism” entered the media lexicon in the 1990s, it was often accompanied by breathless headlines about the “death of feminism.” Those reports of feminism’s death may have been greatly exaggerated, and yet contemporary popular culture often conjures up a world in which feminism had never even been born, a fictional universe filled with suburban Stepford wives, maniacal career women, alluring amnesiacs, and other specimens of retro femininity. In _Feminism and Popular Culture_, Rebecca Munford and Melanie Waters (...) consider why the twenty-first century media landscape is so haunted by the ghosts of these traditional figures that feminism otherwise laid to rest. Why, over fifty years since Betty Friedan’s critique, does the feminine mystique exert such a strong spectral presence, and how has it been reimagined to speak to the concerns of a postfeminist audience? To answer these questions, Munford and Waters draw from a rich array of examples from contemporary film, fiction, music, and television, from the shadowy cityscapes of _Homeland _to the haunted houses of _American Horror Story_. Alongside this comprehensive analysis of today’s popular culture, they offer a vivid portrait of feminism’s social and intellectual history, as well as an innovative application of Jacques Derrida’s theories of “hauntology.” _Feminism and Popular Culture_ thus not only considers how contemporary media is being visited by the ghosts of feminism’s past, it raises vital questions about what this means for feminism’s future. (shrink)

Studies with humans have failed to produce evidence that any direct causal relation exists between the asymmetry of one function in an individual and the asymmetry of a different function in that individual. Without such evidence, factors external to an individual's nervous system, such as social interactions, may play crucial roles in explaining the directions of all asymmetries at all levels.