In eukaryotes, RNA trans‐splicing is an important RNA‐processing form for the end‐to‐end ligation of primary transcripts that are derived from separately transcribed exons. So far, three different categories of RNA trans‐splicing have been found in organisms as diverse as algae to man. Here, we review one of these categories: the trans‐splicing of discontinuous group II introns, which occurs in chloroplasts and mitochondria of lower eukaryotes and plants. Trans‐spliced exons can be predicted from DNA sequences derived from a large number of (...) sequenced organelle genomes. Further molecular genetic analysis of mutants has unravelled proteins, some of which being part of high‐molecular‐weight complexes that promote the splicing process. Based on data derived from the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a model is provided which defines the composition of an organelle spliceosome. This will have a general relevance for understanding the function of RNA‐processing machineries in eukaryotic organelles. (shrink)

The ethics of care has flourished in recent decades yet we remain without a succinct statement of its core theoretical commitment. This book uses the methods of analytic philosophy to argue for a simple care ethical slogan: dependency relationships generate responsibilities. It uses this slogan to unify, specify and justify the wide range of views found within the care ethical literature.

In these essays, we are concerned with virtue in journalism and the media but are mindful of the tension between the commercial foundations of publishing and broadcasting, on the one hand, and journalism's democratic obligations on the other. Adam outlines, first, a moral vision of journalism focusing on individualistic concepts of authorship and craft. Next, Craft attempts to bridge individual and organizational concerns by examining the obligations of organizations to the individuals working within them. Finally, Cohen discusses the importance of (...) resisting the powerful corporate logic that pervades the news media in the United States and calls on journalists to be courageous. (shrink)

When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical (...) and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines. (shrink)

A standard objection to socioeconomic human rights is that they are not claimable as human rights: their correlative duties are not owed to each human, independently of specific institutional arrangements, in an enforceable manner. I consider recent responses to this ‘claimability objection,’ and argue that none succeeds. There are no human rights to socioeconomic goods. But all is not lost: there are, I suggest, human rights to ‘socioeconomic consideration’. I propose a detailed structure for these rights and their correlative duties, (...) while remaining neutral on substantive moral debates. I argue that socioeconomic-consideration human rights are satisfactorily claimable and sufficiently practical. (shrink)

David Estlund has recently asked: how can structural injustice warrant resentment and indignation, given that it cannot fully be traced to culpable conduct? This article answers Estlund’s question. I propose that a social structure is an object that persists through time and is materially constituted by humans in relation. I use accounts of the point of blame to vindicate attitudes of resentment and indignation that target social structures themselves, without necessarily targeting their human constituents.

In order for states to fulfil their moral duties, costs must be passed to individual citizens. This paper asks how these costs should be distributed. I advocate the common-sense answer: the distribution of costs should, insofar as possible, track the reasons behind the state’s duty. This answer faces a number of problems, which I attempt to solve.

Individuals sometimes pass their duties on to collectives, which is one way in which collectives can come to have duties. The collective discharges its duties by acting through its members, which involves distributing duties back out to individuals. Individuals put duties in and get (transformed) duties out. In this paper we consider whether (and if so, to what extent) this general account can make sense of states' duties. Do some of the duties we typically take states to have come from (...) individuals having passed on certain individual duties? There are complications: states can discharge their duties by contracting fulfilment out to non-members; states seem able to dissolve the duties of non-members; and some of states' duties are not derived in this way. We demonstrate that these complicate, but do not undermine, the general account and its application to states. And the application has an interesting upshot: by asking which individuals robustly participate in this process of duty transfer-and-transformation with a given state, we can begin to get a grip on who counts as a member of that state. (shrink)

Why, morally speaking, ought we do more for our family and friends than for strangers? In other words, what is the justification of special duties? According to partialists, the answer to this question cannot be reduced to impartial moral principles. According to impartialists, it can. This paper briefly argues in favour of impartialism, before drawing out an implication of the impartialist view: in addition to justifying some currently recognised special duties, impartialism also generates new special duties that are not yet (...) widely recognised. Specifically, in certain situations, impartial principles generate duties to take actions and adopt attitudes in our personal lives that increase the chance of new or different special relationships being formed—new or different friendships, family-like relationships, relationships akin to co-nationality, and so on. In fact, even if one thinks partialism is the best justification of the duties we have once in special relationships, impartialist justifications for taking steps to form such relationships should have some sway. Moreover, a little reflection shows that these duties are not as demanding or counterintuitive as one might expect. (shrink)

Vices are often attributed to corporations. We hear that casinos are ‘greedy,’ mining companies are ‘ruthless,’ or tobacco companies are ‘dishonest.’ This chapter addresses two questions. First, are such corporate vices reducible to the vices of individual role-bearers? Second, which traits of corporations are properly labelled ‘vices’? The chapter argues that corporate vice is sometimes irreducible to the vices of role-bearers: corporations can be vicious ‘over and above’ the traits of role-bearers. It further argues that different corporations should be held (...) to different standards: what it means for a casino to be ‘vicious’ is different from what it means for a mining company to be ‘vicious,’ for example. (shrink)

Il est convenu de considérer dans la littérature scientifique que Delphes a eu, comme Délos, « Apollon pour rempart ». De l’arrivée des Amphictions, au plus tard au moment de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler la Première Guerre sacrée (début du vie s. av. J.‑C.), jusqu’à la fin du paganisme, le sanctuaire et la cité de Delphes ont en effet été protégés par l’interdit religieux que les membres de l’Association internationale étaient chargés de faire respecter. Cette configuration politico-religieuse a évité (...) à la petite cité des Delphiens d’avoir à assumer la charge de défendre le riche sanctuaire. De cet idéal antique a résulté un vide scientifique et bibliographique, alors même que les études sur les fortifications ou, plus largement, sur les systèmes défensifs, ont été nombreuses ces dernières décennies. Les fouilles menées en 2017 et 2018 ont cependant permis en quelques semaines de renouveler entièrement le questionnement sur les fortifications de Delphes dans l'Antiquité. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Assistance Principle is common currency to a wide range of moral theories. Roughly, this principle states: if you can fulfil important interests, at not too high a cost, then you have a moral duty to do so. I argue that, in determining whether the ‘not too high a cost’ clause of this principle is met, we must consider three distinct costs: ‘agent-relative costs’, ‘recipient-relative costs’ and ‘ideal-relative costs’.

This chapter asks whether there is a human right to close personal relationships. It begins by providing a prima facie argument in favour of such a right: humans’ interests in close personal relationships are important, universal, and fundamental. It then explains that there are problems with the distribution, demandingness, and motivation of the correlative duties. The result is that each individual bears a human right only to ‘intimacy consideration’, not to close personal relationships themselves. The chapter then argues that things (...) are different if we conceptualize the right as belonging to groups, rather than to individuals. It is argued that groups of co-intimates have rights that others respect, protect, and promote the group’s intimacy. The duties correlative to such group-held rights do not face the problems of distribution, demandingness, and motivation that plague the individually-held right. Group-held rights in this arena are an important moral and political tool. (shrink)

Many roles are situated within organizations. The occupants of these roles often confront a dilemma between (i) the occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and functions of the role, as bestowed upon the role by the organization’s decision-making procedures, and (ii) the occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and function that the role should ideally have. This chapter argues that this dilemma should be resolved in favour of (ii). Yet this does not require forgoing role-based considerations in favour of extra-role considerations. Instead, we should (...) conceptualize organizationally specified roles as being one token of an underlying role-type. The underlying role-type provides the organizational role-token with its fundamental occupancy conditions, performance conditions, and function. When the token is a poor instance of its type, organizational role-occupants have obligations—grounded in the fundamental aspects of the role—to challenge this. These are role obligations that call upon one to alter one’s role obligations. (shrink)

When an organisation does wrong, each of the members is part of the entity that authored that wrong—or so I shall assume. But it does not follow that each of the members has herself done wrong. Doing wrong, I will assume, results from the combination of two conditions: first, authoring (or being part of the entity that authored) a harm; and second, lacking an excuse for that (part-) authorship. To answer my title question, then, we have to know which members (...) of an organisation have excuses for their part-authorship of an organisation’s wrong. I will argue that members gain excuses for their part-authorship only by using their role in the organisation to signal their disavowal of the organisation’s wrongdoing. The answer to the title question, then, is “all those members who don’t use their role to signal their disavowal of the organisation’s wrongdoing.” In the final section, I apply my proposal to citizens of liberal democratic states. This supports the common-sense intuition that, when such states do wrong, wrong is done by those citizens who support or acquiesce in the wrongful policy. (shrink)

Theorists of democratic multiculturalism have long-defended individuals’ religious exemptions from generally-applicable laws. Examples include Sikhs being exempt from motorcycle helmet laws, or Jews and Muslims being exempt from humane animal slaughter laws. This paper investigates religious exemptions for organisations. Should organisations ever be granted exemptions from generally-applicable laws in democratic societies, where those exemptions are justified by the organisation’s religion? The paper considers four arguments for this, which respectively rely on: the ‘transferring up’ to organisations of individuals’ claims to autonomy (...) or recognition; organisations’ own claims to autonomy or recognition; organisations’ status in the accountability-community; and organisations’ procedural constraints. The paper concludes that only the last argument works—and then, only with caveats. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the question of who has duties regarding poverty and what those duties demand, from within the perspective of contemporary analytic normative philosophy. The chapter is structured in three sections. Section 1 considers the duties of those living in poverty, which might be either self-regarding or other-regarding duties, and which must be tempered by concerns of overdemandingness. Section 2 considers the duties of affluent individuals. These are imperfect duties grounded in affluent individuals’ relations to the structures that (...) produce poverty: relations of contribution, benefit, and ability to change. Section 3 considers duties of collective agents – including states, for-profits, charities, and civil society groups. The poverty-related duties of these collective agents are sometimes perfect and sometimes imperfect, and include both primary and secondary duties, and both positive and negative duties. (shrink)

In a diversity course for pre-service teachers, we explored coursework by students of color to uncover instances in which they resisted the existence systemic oppression in K12 schools. First, we examined the written responses from three students of color (Asian-Indian, Asian immigrant, and Latina) who were largely agreeable to the existence of different forms of oppression presented in the course content. Our work illuminated instances of what we have described as narrative-based resistance. Students initially referred to narratives of rugged individualism (...) or the American Dream to resist the existence of systemic barriers. As the course progressed, students shifted to deeply entrenched responses that rejected the course content to refute systemic oppression. Secondly, we developed a case study for one student, a biracial female that self-identified as White who consistently rejected systemic oppression during class interactions to the point of displaying openly defiant behaviors. The examples of resistance we encountered served as a reminder that students of color along with their White peers must be able to critically examine and understand systems of oppression that are pervasive throughout education. Furthermore, the underlying sources of the resistance were closely associated with indoctrination in Whiteness, limited understanding of systemic oppression, deeply held beliefs and understandings and the lived experiences of individuals. While we agree that teacher education must recruit and retain more teachers of color for an increasingly diverse US K12 student population, we add that preparation that meets the needs of teachers of color is essential. -/- . (shrink)

In this reply to an article of Toni Erskine's, I argue that coalitions of the willing are moral agents. They can therefore bear responsibility in their own right.

Solving poverty is a laudable public policy goal. While there are many approaches, one that has gained popularity is the conditional cash transfer that requires recipients to satisfy conditions imposed on them such as requiring regular medical checkups. Another approach, which is gaining interest is unconditional cash transfers that do not impose conditions. The question we ask in this paper is: what do these past and current attempts tell us about the implications for gender? To answer this question, we explore (...) two programs using a gendered framework: Brazil's Bolsa Familia,which is a conditional cash transfer, and Manitoba's Mincome experiment, which was an unconditional cash transfer in Canada. We then consider how this information might be used by states, particularly as it relates to ending social marginalization. Broadly, this research contributes to academic discussions of public policy, income, gender and social vulnerability. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 77-90.

Également auteure de Quand l’esprit vient aux plantes. Botanique sensible et subversion libertine (XVIe-XVIIIe s.), publié en 2015, Dominique Brancher, professeure de littérature à l’université de Bâle, étudie les rapprochements entre littérature et savoir à la Renaissance et met au jour la difficulté à classer les plantes dans une catégorie spécifique du vivant à l’époque moderne. Les Équivoques de la pudeur est le résultat de son travail d’habilitation. Écrit dans une langue érudite qui rév...

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag ist Teil des Forums COVID-19: Perspektiven in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Mit Blick auf die sozialwissenschaftliche Katastrophenforschung des Kalten Krieges als Herkunftsort und als historisches Vergleichsmoment beschäftigt sich der Artikel mit der bisherigen sozialwissenschaftlichen Auseinandersetzung mit der COVID-19-Krise. Er behandelt erstens, wie die Rolle von sozialer Ungleichheit erörtert wird, zweitens die Idee der Katastrophe als „große Enthüllerin“ und drittens das Verhältnis von Katastrophenwissenschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Politik.This paper is part of Forum COVID-19: Perspectives in the Humanities and Social Sciences.The (...) article connects and juxtaposes current day discussions on the social effects of the COVID-crisis with the history of social science disaster research during the Cold War. It elaborates on statements regarding the role of social inequalities in disaster, the idea of the “revealing” nature of disaster and crisis, and the relationship between disaster science, public and politics. (shrink)

Scientific data‐sharing and open science initiatives are increasingly important mechanisms for advancing the impact of genomic research. These mechanisms are being implemented as growing attention is paid to the need to improve the inclusion of research participants from marginalized and underrepresented groups. Together, these efforts aim to promote equitable advancements in genomic medicine. However, if not guided by community‐informed protections, these efforts may harm the very participants and communities they aim to benefit. This essay examines potential benefits and harms of (...) open science and explores how to advance a more just vision of open science in genomics. Drawing on relational ethics frameworks, we argue that researchers should consider their obligations to participants as well as the broader communities that are impacted by their research. We propose eight strategies to provide a foundation of practical steps for researchers to reduce the possibility of harms stemming from open science and to work toward genomic justice. (shrink)

In this single industry study, the authors examine relationships between forest products companies in Maine and their stakeholders. The research question, why do firms work with stakeholders, is examined from both instrumental and normative perspectives. Specifically, it is hypothesized that stakeholder power and corporate social responsiveness affect the degree to which firms have working relationships with stakeholders. The study found support for the impact of the firm’s perception of stakeholder power on the strength of its relationships with stakeholders. Most notably, (...) it also found support for the firm’s corporate social responsiveness on the strength of its stakeholder relations, indicating that firms do work with stakeholders from both instrumental and normative bases. (shrink)

Noninvasive, prenatal whole genome sequencing may be a technological reality in the near future, making available a vast array of genetic information early in pregnancy at no risk to the fetus or mother. Many worry that the timing, safety, and ease of the test will lead to informational overload and reproductive consumerism. The prevailing response among commentators has been to restrict conditions eligible for testing based on medical severity, which imposes disputed value judgments and devalues those living with eligible conditions. (...) To avoid these difficulties, we propose an unrestricted testing policy, under which prospective parents could obtain information on any variant of known significance after a careful informed consent process that uses an interactive decision aid to deliver a mandatory presentation on the purposes, techniques, and limitations of genomic testing, as well as optional resources for reflection and consultation. This process would encourage thoughtful, informed deliberation... (shrink)

With the growth of precision medicine research on health data and biospecimens, research institutions will need to build and maintain long-term, trusting relationships with patient-participants. While trust is important for all research relationships, the longitudinal nature of precision medicine research raises particular challenges for facilitating trust when the specifics of future studies are unknown. Based on focus groups with racially and ethnically diverse patients, we describe several factors that influence patient trust and potential institutional approaches to building trustworthiness. Drawing on (...) these findings, we suggest several considerations for research institutions seeking to cultivate long-term, trusting relationships with patients: Address the role of history and experience on trust, engage concerns about potential group harm, address cultural values and communication barriers, and integrate patient values and expectations into oversight and governance structures. (shrink)

This study examines employee perceptions on the effective adoption of artificial intelligence principles in their organizations. 49 interviews were conducted with employees of 24 organizations across 11 countries. Participants worked directly with AI across a range of positions, from junior data scientist to Chief Analytics Officer. The study found that there are eleven components that could impact the effective adoption of AI principles in organizations: communication, management support, training, an ethics office, a reporting mechanism, enforcement, measurement, accompanying technical processes, a (...) sufficient technical infrastructure, organizational structure, and an interdisciplinary approach. The components are discussed in the context of business code adoption theory. The findings offer a first step in understanding potential methods for the effective adoption of AI principles in organizations. (shrink)

A memoir of one womanÆs struggle against breast cancer reveals how she channeled her energy to transform her life, even as she was dying.

It is well established that beliefs provide powerful cues that influence reasoning. Over the last decade research has revealed that judgments based upon logical structure may also pre-empt deliberative reasoning. Evidence for ‘intuitive logic’ has been claimed using a range of measures (i.e. confidence ratings or latency of response on conflict problems). However, it is unclear how well such measures genuinely reflect logical intuition. In this paper we introduce a new method designed to test for evidence of intuitive logic. In (...) two experiments participants were asked to make random judgments about the logical validity of a series of simple and complex syllogistic arguments. For simple arguments there was an effect of logical validity on random responding, which was absent for complex arguments. These findings provide a novel demonstration that people are intuitively sensitive to logical structure. (shrink)