This volume brings together contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to take a critical, empirical look at bioethics around the globe, examining how it ...

I argue that there has been inadequate attention to and questioning of the dominance and normativity of whiteness in the cultural construction of bioethics in the United States. Therefore we risk reproducing white privilege and white supremacy in its theory, method, and practices. To make my argument, I define whiteness and trace its broader social and legal history in the United States. I then begin to mark whiteness in U.S. bioethics, recasting Renee Fox's sociological marking of its American-ness as an (...) important initial marking of its whiteness/WASP ethos. Furthermore, I consider the attempts of social scientists to highlight sociocultural diversity as a corrective in U.S. bioethics. I argue that because they fail to problematize white dominance and normativity and the white-other dualism when they describe the standpoints of African-American, Asian-American, and Native-American others, their work merely inoculates difference and creates or maintains minoritized spaces. Accordingly, the dominant white center of mainstream U.S. bioethics must be problematized and displaced for diversity research to make a difference. In conclusion, I give several examples of how we might advance the recommended endeavor of exploring our own ethnicity, class, and other social positioning and norms operating in U.S. bioethics, briefly highlighting "white talk" as one challenge. (shrink)

Recent law and ethics literature has been inundated with recommendations of the "best interests" criterion as the appropriate guide for neonatal and maternal-fetal decision-making. Increasingly, however, its adequacy is being questioned. In Chapter 1, I survey the arguments of "best interests" defenders and critics and suggest one problem is that the "best interests" criterion has yet to be subjected to a systematic conceptual and ethical analysis. In Chapter 2, therefore, I conduct such an analysis to evaluate more systematically its appropriateness (...) as a decision-making guide in neonatal and maternal-fetal medicine, concluding that the "best interests" criterion cannot assist us in seeing and addressing all that is at stake in neonatal and maternal-fetal decision-making because it excludes any consideration of the "interdependent" and other interests of family members. Therefore, I suggest that an ethical criterion or set of criteria which can explicitly consider and adequately balance the interests of infants or fetuses and family members would be a more helpful guide for neonatal and maternal-fetal decision-making. ;In Chapters 3-7, I attempt to move beyond the "best interests" criterion, drawing on fieldwork I conducted in the United States, Sweden, and India to point out some conceptual and normative gaps to be addressed in the development of a more adequate guide for neonatal and maternal-fetal decision-making. In Chapter 3, I describe this fieldwork and explain its purpose as illustrating the clinical ethical strategies employed in these countries to balance the interests of various parties in actual decision-making. In Chapters 4-6, I describe these strategies. Finally, in Chapter 7, I point out some conceptual and normative gaps in these decision-making strategies, noting that these gaps have also been unaddressed by the "best interests" critics reviewed in Chapters 1 and 2. I suggest that we must address these gaps to develop theoretical structures that will enable us to explicitly consider and adequately balance the "interdependent" and other interests of infants or fetuses, their family members, and even society in neonatal and maternal-fetal decision-making. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning and decision-making may be thought of as 9professional skills9, and in this sense are as relevant to efficient clinical practice as the biomedical and clinical sciences are to the diagnosis of a patient9s problem. Despite this, however, undergraduate medical programmes in ethics tend to focus on the teaching of bioethical theories, concepts and/or prominent ethical issues such as IVF and euthanasia, rather than the use of such ethics knowledge (theories, principles, concepts, rules) to clinical practice. Not surprisingly, many (...) students and clinicians experience considerable difficulty in using what they know about ethics to help them make competent ethical decisions in their day-to-day clinical practice. This paper describes the development of a seminar programme for teaching senior medical students a more systematic approach to ethical reasoning and analysis and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

Some claim that “global health is public health” but most regard global health as a new field, rapidly emerging mostly at North American academic institutions . The term was first incorporated into University of California, San Francisco’s Institute for Global Health in 1999 and UCSF also inaugurated the first North American master of science in global health in 2009. Global health is commonly acknowledged to have historical precedents in tropical medicine and international health. All three fields are regarded as having (...) some overlapping and some distinctive features . One overlapping feature of all three is retaining traces of European and/or North American conquest, imperialism, and colonialism that create a legacy of ongoing ethical challenges for global health . One touted distinctive feature of global health is its .. (shrink)

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the (...) presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

(2001). Whose History? Whose Future? Expanding the Exploration of Lived Experience in Ethics Consultation to Include Empirical Patient and Family and Community-Based Research. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 1-3.

How do bioethics gatekeepers located in wealthy nations treat bioethics workers from developing countries? Can the policies of leading international bioethics journals—based on a concern for profit that effectively restricts access for most researchers from developing countries—be ethically justified? We examined these policies focusing on the way they influence the ability of researchers in resource-poor countries to participate in the development of the field of bioethics. Eight of the fourteen leading bioethics journals are published by three transnational publishing houses, all (...) of which are based in wealthy nations. None of these eight journals participates in the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative of the World Health Organization, a program that provides free or very low-cost online access to the major journals by researchers in developing countries. Lack of access to these essential resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for bioethicists in developing countries to learn from, and engage in, the global bioethics dialogue. Thus, exclusionary practices of leading bioethics journals sustain the hegemony of Western bioethics, raising serious questions about professed aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. This phenomenon indicates lack of empathy and moral imagination of bioethicists in developed countries, raises serious questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need for creative solutions to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

Who are the gatekeepers in bioethics? Does editorial bias or institutional racism exist in leading bioethics journals? We analyzed the composition of the editorial boards of 14 leading bioethics journals by country. Categorizing these countries according to their Human Development Index (HDI), we discovered that approximately 95 percent of editorial board members are based in (very) high-HDI countries, less than 4 percent are from medium-HDI countries, and fewer than 1.5 percent are from low-HDI countries. Eight out of 14 leading bioethics (...) journals have no editorial board members from a medium- or low-HDI country. Eleven bioethics journals have no board members from low-HDI countries. This severe underrepresentation of bioethics scholars from developing countries on editorial boards suggests that bioethics may be affected by institutional racism, raising significant questions about the ethics of bioethics in a global context. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 44-45, May 2012.

Introduction: Platonic dramatology -- The political and philosophical problems. Using pre-Socratic philosophy to support political reform: the Athenian stranger ; Plato's Parmenides: Parmenides' critique of Socrates and Plato's critique of Parmenides ; Becoming Socrates ; Socrates interrogates his contemporaries about the noble and good -- Paradigms of philosophy. Socrates' positive teaching ; Timaeus-Critias: completing or challenging Socratic political philosophy? ; Socratic practice -- The trial and death of Socrates. The limits of human intelligence ; The Eleatic challenge ; The trial (...) and death of Socrates -- Conclusion: Why Plato made Socrates his hero. (shrink)

This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the (...) finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the period of the Scientific Revolution, when it displaced scholastic Aristotelianism. Both modern social contract theory and utilitarianism in ethics were grounded in its tenets. Catherine Wilson shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural and social worlds took hold in philosophy, and how it is an acknowledged, and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or "mechanical" philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the author makes a persuasive case for the significance of materialism in seventeenth-century philosophy without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this deeply-researched inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Science relies on models and idealizations that are known not to be true. Even so, science is epistemically reputable. To accommodate science, epistemology should focus on understanding rather than knowledge and should recognize that the understanding of a topic need not be factive. This requires reconfiguring the norms of epistemic acceptability. If epistemology has the resources to accommodate science, it will also have the resources to show that art too advances understanding.

Ethical reasoning and decision-making may be thought of as 'professional skills', and in this sense are as relevant to efficient clinical practice as the biomedical and clinical sciences are to the diagnosis of a patient's problem. Despite this, however, undergraduate medical programmes in ethics tend to focus on the teaching of bioethical theories, concepts and/or prominent ethical issues such as IVF and euthanasia, rather than the use of such ethics knowledge (theories, principles, concepts, rules) to clinical practice. Not surprisingly, many (...) students and clinicians experience considerable difficulty in using what they know about ethics to help them make competent ethical decisions in their day-to-day clinical practice. This paper describes the development of a seminar programme for teaching senior medical students a more systematic approach to ethical reasoning and analysis and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

The development of genomics has dramatically expanded the scope of genetic research, and collections of genetic biosamples have proliferated in countries with active genomics research programs. In this essay, we consider a particular kind of collection, national biobanks. National biobanks are often presented by advocates as an economic ‘‘resource’’ that will be used by both basic researchers and academic biologists, as well as by pharmaceutical diagnostic and clinical genomics companies. Although national biobanks have been the subject of intense interest in (...) recent social science literature, most prior work on this topic focuses either on bioethical issues related to biobanks, such as the question of informed consent, or on the possibilities for scientific citizenship that they make possible. We emphasize, by contrast, the economic aspect of biobanks, focusing specifically on the way in which national biobanks create biovalue. Our emphasis on the economic aspect of biobanks allows us to recognize the importance of what we call clinical labor—that is, the regularized, embodied work that members of the national population are expected to perform in their role as biobank participants—in the creation of biovalue through biobanks. Moreover, it allows us to understand how the technical way in which national biobanks link clinical labor to databases alters both medical and popular understandings of risk for common diseases and conditions. (shrink)

Confronting fundamentalism: the dangerous God of "control and condemn" -- 1967: What the cake said -- God-talk 101: The art that is Christianity -- The Copernican turn of Christian humanism -- Quantum theology: the symbolic character of God-talk -- Theological weirdness (1): the symbolic claim that God is a person -- Poets as theologians: the moral imagination of Christian Humanist tradition -- Moses debates with a burning bush -- I AM v. I WILL BE: translation and the authority of theologians (...) -- Theological weirdness (2): the symbolic claim that God is necessarily impersonal -- What, then, can be said about God? (shrink)

In this unconventional article, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg conduct a three-way ‘conversation’ in which they all take turns outlining how they understand the relationship among postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism. It begins with a short introduction, and then Ros, Sarah and Catherine each define the term they have become associated with. This is followed by another round in which they discuss the overlaps, similarities and disjunctures among the terms, and the article ends with how (...) each one understands the current mediated feminist landscape. (shrink)

The rapid growth of next-generation genetic sequencing has prompted debate about the responsibilities of researchers toward genetic incidental findings. Assuming there is a duty to disclose significant incidental findings, might there be an obligation for researchers to actively look for these findings? We present an ethical framework for analyzing whether there is a positive duty to look for genetic incidental findings. Using the ancillary care framework as a guide, we identify three main criteria that must be present to give rise (...) to an obligation to look: high benefit to participants, lack of alternative access for participants, and reasonable burden on researchers. Our analysis indicates that there is no obligation to look for incidental findings today, but during the ongoing translation of genomic analysis from research to clinical care, this obligation may arise. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers have argued that the capacity for perseverance or “grit” depends both on willpower and on a kind of epistemic resilience. But can a form of hopefulness in one’s future success also constitute a source of grit? I argue that substantial practical hopefulness, as a hope to bring about a desired outcome through exercises of one’s agency, can serve as a distinctive ground for the capacity for perseverance. Gritty agents’ “practical hope” centrally involves an attention-fuelled, risk-inclined weighting of (...) two competing concerns over action: when facing the decision of whether to persevere, hopeful gritty agents prioritize the aim of choosing a course of action which might go very well over that of choosing a course of action which is very likely to go fairly well. By relying on the notion of a “risk-inclined attentional pattern” as a dimension of gritty agents’ practical hope, we can explain that form of hope’s contribution to their motivation and practical rationality, especially on a risk-weighted expected utility framework. The upshot is a more pluralistic view of the sources of grit. (shrink)

Hope is often seen as at once valuable and dangerous: it can fuel our motivation in the face of challenges, but can also distract us from reality and lead us to irrationality. How can we learn to “hope well,” and what does “hoping well” involve? Contemporary philosophers disagree on such normative questions about hope and also on how to define hope as a mental state. This article explores recent philosophical debates surrounding the concept of hope and the norms governing hope. (...) It also underlies hope's significance for the philosophy of emotion and the ethics of interpersonal relations. (shrink)

This paper probes theories of justice underpinning the concept of equity to deconstruct the term and ascertain how best to equitably support refugee and asylum-seeking youth in U.S. schools. Building upon theories posited by John Rawls, Michael Sandel, and Amartya Sen, the paper aims to extend beyond ideal theory into a theoretical framework of equity with operationalizing potential. Recognizing refugee and asylum-seeking youth as part of the U.S. social contract and therefore bound to government support, the paper represents that equitable (...) education for these young people in our globalized world is essential from both a human rights and economic perspective. Such equitable education will only be achieved when universal minimum standards are offered to everyone and made inclusive, so that all are invited to fully participate as culturally respected learners and knowledge producers in academic spaces. (shrink)

Discussions of psychiatric nosology focus on a few popular examples of disorders, and on the validity of diagnostic criteria. Looking at Anorexia Nervosa, an example rarely mentioned in this literature, reveals a new problem: the DSM has a strict taxonomic structure, which assumes that disorders can only be located on one branch. This taxonomic assumption fails to fit the domain of psychopathology, resulting in obfuscation of cross-category connections. Poor outcomes for treatment of Anorexia may be due to it being pigeonholed (...) as an Eating Disorder, when a disturbance of body perception may be a more central symptom than food restriction. This paper explores the possibility of restructuring the DSM taxonomy to allow for a pluralist classification of disorders. This change could improve treatment and research without requiring any changes to diagnostic criteria. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that friendship can constitutively require epistemic irrationality against a recent, forceful challenge, raised by proponents of moral and pragmatic encroachment. Defenders of the “encroachment strategy” argue that exemplary friends who are especially slow to believe that their friends have acted wrongly are simply sensitive to the high prudential or moral costs of falsely believing in their friends’ guilt. Drawing on psychological work on epistemic motivation (and in particular on the notion of “need for closure”), I propose (...) a different picture of what friendship requires in the doxastic realm. I argue that contrary to what the encroachment strategy suggests, exemplary friends’ belief formation ought not be guided by a concern with accuracy or error avoidance, but instead by a need to avoid a “specific closure” – namely, a need to avoid concluding in their friends’ guilt. I propose that exemplary friendship often generates a defeasible, doxastic obligation to exemplify such a need, despite its inherent corrupting effects on exemplary friends’ epistemic faculties. (shrink)

The origins and development of community of philosophical inquiry -- The theoretical landscape -- Philosophising with five year olds -- Creating a community of philosophical inquiry (CoPI) with all ages -- Different methods of group philosophical discussion -- What you need to know to chair a CoPI with six to sixteen year olds -- Implementing CoPI in primary and secondary schools -- CoPI, citizenship, moral virtue, and academic performance with primary and secondary children.

Examining the ethics of long-term, career involvement by physicians in global health work is vital, given growing professional interest and potential health implications for communities abroad. However, current literature remains heavily focused on ethical considerations of short-term global health training experiences. A literature review informed our development of an ethics framework centered on two perspectives: the practitioner perspective, further subdivided into extrinsic and intrinsic factors, and community perspectives, specifically that of the host community and the physician’s home community. Some physician (...) factors included cultural/linguistic differences, power imbalances, and sustainable skills/competencies. Receiving community factors included resource limitations, standard of care disparities, and community autonomy. Home community factors focused on the opportunity cost of an unavailable physician who was trained and supported by the local community. Descriptive review permitted comparison with existing short-term literature, noting similarities and differences. Our framework provides a basis for further research and critical analysis of ethical implications of career-long physician global health work. (shrink)

This article argues that the study conducted by Facebook in conjunction with Cornell University did not have sufficient ethical oversight, and neglected in particular to obtain necessary informed consent from the participants in the study. It establishes the importance of informed consent in Internet research ethics and suggests that in Facebook’s case, a reasonable shift could be made from traditional medical ethics ‘effective consent’ to a ‘waiver of normative expectations’, although this would require much-needed change to the company’s standard practice. (...) Finally, it gives some practical recommendations for how to implement such consent strategies, and how the ethical oversight gap between university-led research and industry-led research can be bridged, potentially using emerging Responsible Research and Innovation frameworks which are currently gathering momentum in Europe. (shrink)

"Systematizes and develops in a comprehensive study Nelson Goodman's philosophy of language. The Goodman-Elgin point of view is important and sophisticated, and deals with a number of issues, such as metaphor, ignored by most other theories." --John R. Perry, Stanford University.

Stoic work on ambiguity represents one of the most innovative, sophisticated and rigorous contributions to philosophy and the study of language in western antiquity. This book is both a comprehensive survey of the often difficult and scattered sources, and an attempt to locate Stoic material in the rich array of contexts, ancient and modern, which alone can guarantee full appreciation of its subtlety, scope and complexity. The comparisons and contrasts which this book constructs will intrigue not just classical scholars, and (...) philosophers, but also logicians, theoretical linguists, communication theorists and historians of grammar and of literary theory. The Stoics on Ambiguity is designed to be intelligible to readers with no Greek or Latin. (shrink)

Catherine Zuckert examines the work of five key philosophical figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the lens of their own decidedly postmodern readings of Plato. She argues that Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, and Derrida, convinced that modern rationalism had exhausted its possibilities, all turned to Plato in order to rediscover the original character of philosophy and to reconceive the Western tradition as a whole. Zuckert's artful juxtaposition of these seemingly disparate bodies of thought furnishes a synoptic view, (...) not merely of these individual thinkers, but of the broad postmodern landscape as well. The result is a brilliantly conceived work that offers an innovative perspective on the relation between the Western philosophical tradition and the evolving postmodern enterprise. (shrink)