Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.

Obviously enough the tongue, the spelling, the typography, the verbosity of a description reflect no parallel features in the world. Coherence is a characteristic of descriptions, not of the world: the significant question is not whether the world is coherent, but whether our account of it is. And what we call the simplicity of the world is merely the simplicity we are able to achieve in describing it.

In this article I explore partial ectogenesis through the lens of choice in childbirth, framing it as a mode of delivery. In doing so, I refocus discussion about partial ectogenesis, ensuring that this centers upon the autonomy and rights of the birthing person—as the procedure required to facilitate external gestation will be performed upon their body. By drawing a critical comparison between “delivery by partial ectogenesis” and request cesarean sections, I argue that delivery by partial ectogenesis ought to be available (...) on the basis of the pregnant person’s request alone. (shrink)

To better understand the available publications addressing ethical issues in rural health care we sought to identify the ethics literature that specifically focuses on rural America. We wanted to determine the extent to which the rural ethics literature was distributed between general commentaries, descriptive summaries of research, and original research publications. We identified 55 publications that specifically and substantively addressed rural health care ethics, published between 1966 and 2004. Only 7 (13%) of these publications were original research articles while (12) (...) 22% were descriptive summaries of research and 36 (65%) were general commentaries. The majority of publications examined (55%) were clinically focused while 27% addressed organizational ethics and 18% addressed ethical ramifications of rural health care policy at a national or community level. Our findings indicate that there are a limited number of publications focusing on rural health care ethics, suggesting a need for scholars and researchers to more rigorously address rural ethics issues. (shrink)

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, (...) and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

BackgroundThe return of genetics and genomics research results has been a subject of ongoing global debate. Such feedback is ethically desirable to update participants on research findings particularly those deemed clinically significant. Although there is limited literature, debate continues in African on what constitutes appropriate practice regarding the return of results for genetics and genomics research. This study explored perspectives and ethical considerations of Ugandan genomics researchers regarding the return of genetics and genomics research results.MethodsThis was a qualitative study that (...) employed in-depth interviews. Thirty participants were purposively selected based on their expertise as genomics researchers in Uganda. Data were analysed through content analysis along the main themes of the study using a comprehensive thematic matrix, to identify common patterns arising from the narratives. NVivo software 12 was used to support data analysis.ResultsThe return of genetics and genomics research results was generally acceptable to researchers, and some indicated that they had previously returned individual or aggregate results to participants and communities. The main reasons cited for sharing research results with participants included their clinical utility, actionability and overall benefit to society. Ethical considerations for appropriate return of results included a need for effective community engagement, genetic counselling prior to disclosure of the results, adequate informed consent, and proper assessment of the implications of, or consequences of returning of results. However, the approaches to return of results were perceived as unstandardized due to the lack of appropriate regulatory frameworks.ConclusionsThe return of genetic and genomic research results is generally acceptable to researchers despite the lack of appropriate regulatory frameworks. Ethical considerations for return of genetics and genomics research results are highly divergent, hence the need for national ethical guidelines to appropriately regulate the practice. (shrink)

The field of management has had difficulty embracing the concept of Machiavellianism despite the myriad of studies produced by other fields of social science. It appears that Machiavellianism as a unitary personality construct has limited efficacy in the complex world of organizations. The authors suggest a multidimensional approach to understanding the impact of an individual's threat to organizational functioning. Viewing the construct as discontinuous with two manifestations, predatory and benign, suggestions are made as to the location within organizations where such (...) individuals may be found. A research approach is also suggested. (shrink)

Work done within the realm of what is sometimes called ‘descriptive ethics’ brings two questions readily to mind: How can empirical findings, in general, inform normative debates? and How can these empirical findings, in particular, inform the normative debate at hand? Brick et al 1 confront these questions in their novel investigation of public views about lives worth living and the permissibility of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from critically ill infants. Mindful of the is-ought gap, the authors suggest modestly that their (...) data ‘may be useful when constructing guidelines for clinical practice’. In this commentary, I consider some potential limitations on the generalisability of these data in the context of policy and clinical practice, limitations which may in turn serve as directions for future empirical research. The authors’ study presented participants six case scenarios, five of which involved the possibility of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from critically ill infants. The results revealed that “[a]lmost all respondents agreed that at some level of quality of life, life may be of no benefit or worse than death for an infant” and that “participants significantly favoured withdrawal of treatment for the most severe cases.” One salient detail in these scenarios …. (shrink)

Can work be done for pay, and still be loving? While many feminists believe that marketization inevitably leads to a degradation of social connections, we suggest that markets are themselves forms of social organization, and that even relationships of unequal power can sometimes include mutual respect. We call for increased attention to specific causes of suffering, such as greed, poverty, and subordination. We conclude with a summary of contributions to this Special Issue.

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 66-68.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education of June 30, 1993, reported, “Two decades after it began redefining debates” in many other disciplines, “feminist thinking seems suddenly to have arrived in economics.” Many economists, of course, did not happen to be in the station when this train arrived, belated as it might be. Many who might have heard rumor of its coming have not yet learned just what arguments are involved or what it promises for the refinement of the (...) profession. The purpose of this essay is to provide a low-cost way of gaining some familiarity. (shrink)

The rise of private standards, including those involving multi-stakeholder processes, raises questions about whose interests are served and the kind of power that is exerted to maintain these interests. This paper critically examines the battle for ideas—the way competing factions assert their own narratives about value chain relations, the role of standards and related multi-stakeholder processes. Drawing on empirical research on the horticulture and floriculture value chains linking Kenya and the United Kingdom, the analysis explores the framing of sustainability issues, (...) especially around labor issues and good agricultural practice, and the choice of response with respect to private standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives since the late 1990s. We identify four competing narratives currently in play: a dominant global sourcing narrative, a pragmatic development narrative, a broader development narrative and a narrative we term potentially transformative. This last narrative is currently emerging through the unpacking of narratives in relation to the framing of sustainability problems and solutions, and in terms of legislative, executive and judicial governance. The paper contributes to emerging understanding of power in value chains, moving beyond material power to a consideration of how ideational power is exerted and resisted. (shrink)

This book is a wide-ranging examination of rationalist thought in philosophy from ancient times to the present day. Written by a superbly qualified cast of philosophers Critically analyses the concept of rationalism Focuses principally on the golden age of rationalism in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Also covers ancient rationalism, nineteenth-century rationalism, and rationalist themes in recent thought Organised chronologically Various philosophical methods and viewpoints are represented.

One of the more perplexing terms to appear across Claude Lefort’s later oeuvre, ‘wild’ or ‘savage’ democracy has proved a difficult and divisive facet of Lefort’s political phi...

Talk given at a memorial meeting for C. I. Lewis at Harvard University, April 23, 1964.

Though there are good arguments against physician participation in executions, physicians should be allowed to make their own decisions about whether they will participate, and professional medical organizations should not flatly destroy the careers of those who do.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 42-50, January/February 2022.

Objective: To determine whether bioethicists are distributed along a rural-to-urban continuum in a way that reflects potential need of those resources as determined by the general population, hospital facilities and hospital beds.Methods: US members of a large, multidisciplinary professional society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities , the US population, hospital facilities and hospital beds were classified across a four-tier rural-to-urban continuum. The proportion of each group in rural settings was compared with that in urban settings, and odds ratios (...) were calculated with 95% confidence intervals.Results: Although 91% of ASBH members live or work in urban settings, only 66% of the US population did so. In contrast, 2% of ASBH members live or work in rural settings compared with 13% of the population. ASBH members were 10.7 times as likely to be represented in urban than in rural settings when compared with the general population, 25.6 times and 6.9 times as likely with regard to hospital facilities and hospital beds, respectively.Conclusions: Using various comparisons it was found that ASBH members are under-represented in rural as compared with urban settings. Although not all bioethicists are ASBH members, these findings suggest that the availability of professional bioethical resources may be inadequate in rural America. The disparities that were found may have considerable effect on ethics scholarship, research, ethical committees and education, and adds to the argument that rural American communities are under-served. (shrink)

Let me first explain what I am not attacking in this paper. I am not attacking, for instance, the right of free speech or any of the other specific rights listed in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights or the United Nations' Charter. I am, rather, attacking any specific right's being called a ‘human right’. I mean to show that any such designation is not only fraudulent but, in case anyone might want to say that there can be noble lies, (...) grossly wicked, amounting indeed to genocide. (shrink)

Students who enroll in my environmental ethics courses often come with a background in ecology and natural resources. Moreover, they often point to this background when they express their frustration with, or outright rejection of, individualistic or atomistic moral theories that simply strive to include individual living things within the purview of a moral community. They ultimately evoke the concept of holism as the source of their frustration. Addressing this concern requires trying to make sense of both the concept of (...) holism gener­ally and the supposed connection students sense between their training as young scientists and the attempt to ground a worthy environmental ethic. Many theories within the field of environmental ethics either evoke or rest upon the concept of holism. To date, however, the concept of holism has not been unpacked in any detail. To begin such an unpacking teachers need (1) to demonstrate how and when holism appears within the field of environmental ethics, (2) to explain the core idea underpinning holism and compare it to reductionism, and (3) to provide a general classification of how holism is employed in both a metaphysical and ethical sense within environmental ethics. (shrink)

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

: The President's Council on Bioethics has tried to make a distinctive contribution to the methodology of such public bodies in developing what it has styled a "richer bioethics." The Council's procedure contrasts with more modest methods of public bioethical deliberation employed by the United Kingdom's Warnock Committee. The practices of both bodies are held up against a backdrop of concerns about moral and political alienation, prompted by the limitations of moral reasoning and by moral dissent from state policy under (...) even the most democratic of governments. Although the President's Council's rhetoric is often scrupulously conciliatory, recurring features of its argumentative practice are regrettably divisive. They order these things better in Britain. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasing trend by nursing scholars such as Patricia Benner to conceptualize ethics as a contextual and embodied ‘way of knowing’, embedded in nursing expertise. The intellectual origins of this development and its debt to neo‐Aristotelian thinkers such as philosopher Charles Taylor are discussed. It will be argued that rather than revealing a truth about ethical expertise, the emergence of the ‘expert’ nurse as a moral and ethical category is the result of the elaboration of neo‐Thomist discourses (...) in the educational and professional shaping of nurses. These discourses act on and are enacted by the individual nurse through his or her participation in specific ethical exercises that result in the constitution of the desired subjectivity – or ‘expertise’. Central to this shaping are particular notions of ‘the good’ and its relationship to knowledge, skill and practice. Critiques of these neo‐Aristotelian perspectives are discussed and applied to the notion of moral expertise in nursing, and the claims made by its proponents concerning the ‘ethical’ distinction between experienced and expert nurses. Finally, a call is made for a more pluralistic approach to ethics. (shrink)