Disputes regarding the ethics of work by children have intensified in recent years, with little resolution. The impasses stem from failure to recognize the diverse forms of child work and a lack of empirical research regarding its causes and consequences. We report on data gathered in Brazil’s export-oriented shoe industry, which is notorious for the employment of children. Central findings are: 1) the causes of child work have less to do with backwardness and more to do with how shoe workers (...) are integrated into the global order; 2) local employers and children regard this work as benign, but the U.S. government sees it as hazardous to children and unfair to U.S. producers; 3) efforts to remove children from the shoe industry have been frustrated by local resistance and raise ethical questions; and 4) in certain circumstances, efforts to eliminate hazards from the workplace are morally superior to campaigns to remove childworkers from employment. (shrink)

The large numbers of children working in developing countries continue to provoke calls for an end to such employment. However, many reformers argue that efforts should focus on ending the exploitation of children rather than depriving them of all opportunities to work. This posture reflects recognition of the multiplicity of needs children have and the diversity of situations in which they work. Unfortunately, research typically neglects these complexities and fails to distinguish between types of labor market jobs, dismisses household chores (...) as irrelevant, and conceptualizes children’s needs largely in terms of the education they require for successful careers. Based on data collected in schools in Franca, Brazil, where children often combine school with work in the shoe industry, this study first examined the implications of labor market jobs and household work for their health, life satisfaction, and education. Analyses suggested that both forms of work negatively affected children’s welfare, but the effects of household work were more extensive, especially for girls. The second part focused on children with labor market jobs and examined how facets of their jobs as well as their after-work household duties affected their welfare. A lack of discretion on the job undermined the health of both boys and girls, higher pay adversely affected boys’ education, and housework had detrimental effects on all indicators of girls’ welfare. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for further research and suggests the needs for attention to different forms of work activities within families. It concludes with suggestions for multinationals sourcing in developing areas that go beyond the usual calls for ridding their facilities and supply networks of child workers. (shrink)

Disputes regarding the ethics of work by children have intensified in recent years, with little resolution. The impasses stem from failure to recognize the diverse forms of child work and a lack of empirical research regarding its causes and consequences. We report on data gathered in Brazil’s export-oriented shoe industry, which is notorious for the employment of children. Central findings are: 1) the causes of child work have less to do with backwardness and more to do with how shoe workers (...) are integrated into the global order; 2) local employers and children regard this work as benign, but the U.S. government sees it as hazardous to children and unfair to U.S. producers; 3) efforts to remove children from the shoe industry have been frustrated by local resistance and raise ethical questions; and 4) in certain circumstances, efforts to eliminate hazards from the workplace are morally superior to campaigns to remove childworkers from employment. (shrink)

The large numbers of children working in developing countries continue to provoke calls for an end to such employment. However, many reformers argue that efforts should focus on ending the exploitation of children rather than depriving them of all opportunities to work. This posture reflects recognition of the multiplicity of needs children have and the diversity of situations in which they work. Unfortunately, research typically neglects these complexities and fails to distinguish between types of labor market jobs, dismisses household chores (...) as irrelevant, and conceptualizes children’s needs largely in terms of the education they require for successful careers. Based on data collected in schools in Franca, Brazil, where children often combine school with work in the shoe industry, this study first examined the implications of labor market jobs and household work for their health, life satisfaction, and education. Analyses suggested that both forms of work negatively affected children’s welfare, but the effects of household work were more extensive, especially for girls. The second part focused on children with labor market jobs and examined how facets of their jobs as well as their after-work household duties affected their welfare. A lack of discretion on the job undermined the health of both boys and girls, higher pay adversely affected boys’ education, and housework had detrimental effects on all indicators of girls’ welfare. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for further research and suggests the needs for attention to different forms of work activities within families. It concludes with suggestions for multinationals sourcing in developing areas that go beyond the usual calls for ridding their facilities and supply networks of child workers. (shrink)

Neurodegenerative diseases are becoming increasingly common as life expectancy increases. Recent years have seen tremendous progress in the identification of genes that cause these diseases. While mutations have been found and cellular processes defined that are altered in the disease state, the identification of treatments and cures has proven more elusive. The process of finding drugs and therapies to treat human diseases can be slow, expensive and frustrating. Can model organisms such as Drosophila speed the process of finding cures and (...) treatments for human neurodegenerative diseases? We pose three questions, (1) can one mimic the essential features of human diseases in an organism like Drosophila, (2) can one cure a model organisms of human disease and (3) will these efforts accelerate the identification of useful therapies for testing in mice and ultimately humans? Here we focus on the use of Drosophila to identify potential treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's and we discuss how well these therapies translate into mammalian systems. BioEssays 26:485–496, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Activating the ERK pathway (extracellular signal‐regulated kinase pathway) has proven beneficial in several models of Huntington's disease (HD), and drugs that are protective in HD models have recently been found to activate ERK. Thus, the ERK cascade may be a potential target for therapeutic intervention in this currently untreatable disorder. HD is caused by an expanded polyglutamine repeat in the huntingtin (Htt) protein that actuates a diverse set of pathogenic mechanisms. In response to mutant Htt, ERK is activated and directs (...) a protective transcriptional response and inhibits caspase activation. Paradoxically, Htt also interferes with several signaling events of the ERK pathway. Mutant Htt compromises the ERK‐dependent transcriptional response to corticostriatal BDNF signaling. Mutant Htt also hinders glutamate uptake from the synaptic cleft by down‐regulating ERK‐dependent expression of glutamate transporters, leaving cells vulnerable to excitotoxicity. Some of this cellular complexity can be capitalized on to achieve selective activation of ERK, which can be protective. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to a special issue of Body & Society that explores the surveillance--embodiment nexus. It accentuates both the prevalence and consequence of bodies being increasingly converted into ‘objects of information’ by surveillance technologies and systems. We begin by regarding the normalcy of body monitoring in contemporary life, illustrating how a plurality of biometric scanners operate to intermediate the physical surfaces and subjective depths of bodies in accordance with various concerns. We focus on everyday experiences of bodily (...) intermediation by surveillant dispositifs, and consider the broader political, epistemological, and ontological significance of these processes. We then point to the substantive intersections and divergences existing between body and surveillance studies. We conclude with an overview of the five articles appearing in this special issue. We describe how each contribution creates a template for imagining what a body is, and what a body might become, in a culture defined by proliferating data sharing behaviours, systems of codification, and practices of intermediation. (shrink)

Shows how Simone Weil developed a penetrating critique of Marxism and a powerful political philosophy which serves as an alternative to liberalism and Marxism.

In western philosophy today, the three leading approaches to normative ethics are those of Kantian ethics, virtue ethics and utilitarianism. In recent years the debate between Kantian ethicists and virtue ethicists has assumed an especially prominent position. The twelve newly commissioned essays in this volume, by leading scholars in both traditions, explore key aspects of each approach as related to the debate, and identify new common ground but also real and lasting differences between these approaches. The volume provides a rich (...) overview of the continuing debate between two powerful forms of enquiry, and will be valuable for a wide range of students and scholars working in these fields. (shrink)

This volume marks the first English translation of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness.

This is a comprehensive study of the philosophy of Maimonides by the noted 20th-century rabbinic scholar and thinker, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Based on a complete set of notes on Rabbi Soloveitchik's lectures, it constitutes a major contribution to our knowledge of both Maimonides and Soloveitchik.

The report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, addresses the central ethical, political, and policy issue in human embryonic stem cell research: the moral status of extracorporeal human embryos. The Council members were in sharp disagreement on this issue and essentially failed to adequately engage and respectfully acknowledge each others' deepest moral concerns, despite their stated commitment to do so. This essay provides a detailed critique of the two extreme views on the Council (i.e., embryos (...) have full moral status or they have none at all) and then gives theoretical grounding for our judgment about the intermediate moral status of embryos. It also supplies an account of how to address profound moral disagreements in the public arena, especially by way of constructing a middle ground that deliberately pays sincere respect to the views of those with whom it has deep disagreements. (shrink)

It probably should not be surprising, in this time of soaring medical costs and proliferating technology, that an intense debate has arisen over the concept of medical futility. Should doctors be doing all the things they are doing? In particular, should they be attempting treatments that have little likelihood of achieving the goals of medicine? What are the goals of medicine? Can we agree when medical treatment fails to achieve such goals? What should the physician do and not do under (...) such circumstances? Exploring these issues has forced us to revisit the doctor-patient relationship and the relationship of the medical profession to society in a most fundamental way. Medical futility has both a quantitative and qualitative component. I maintain that medical futility is the unacceptable likelihood of achieving an effect that the patient has the capacity to appreciate as a benefit. Both emphasized terms are important. A patient is neither a collection of organs nor merely an individual with desires. Rather, a patient (from the word to suffer ) is a person who seeks the healing (meaning to make whole ) powers of the physician. The relationship between the two is central to the healing process and the goals of medicine. Medicine today has the capacity to achieve a multitude of effects, raising and lowering blood pressure, speeding, slowing, and even removing and replacing the heart, to name but a minuscule few. But none of these effects is a benefit unless the patient has at the very least the capacity to appreciate it. Sadly, in the futility debate wherein some critics have failed or refused to define medical futility an important area of medicine has in large part been neglected, not only in treatment decisions at the bedside, but in public discussions—comfort care—the physician’s obligation to alleviate suffering, enhance well being and support the dignity of the patient in the last few days of life. (shrink)

This book explores what anyone interested in ethics can draw from Heidegger's thinking. Heidegger argues for the radical finitude of being. But finitude is not only an ontological matter; it is also located in ethical life. Moral matters are responses to finite limit-conditions, and ethics itself is finite in its modes of disclosure, appropriation, and performance. With Heidegger's help, Lawrence Hatab argues that ethics should be understood as the contingent engagement of basic practical questions, such as how should human (...) beings live? (shrink)

This paper reports data and scholarly opinion that support the perception of systemic flaws in the management of scientific professions and the research enterprise; explores the responsibility that professional status places on the scientific professions, and elaborates the concept of the responsible conduct of research (RCR). Data are presented on research misconduct, availability of research guidelines, and perceived research quality.

In this book, Lawrence Hatab provides an accessible and provocative exploration of one of the best-known and still most puzzling aspects of Nietzsche's thought: eternal recurrence, the claim that life endlessly repeats itself identically in every detail. Hatab argues that eternal recurrence can and should be read literally, in just the way Nietzsche described it in the texts. The book offers a readable treatment of most of the core topics in Nietzsche's philosophy, all discussed in the light of the (...) consummating effect of eternal recurrence. Although Nietzsche called eternal recurrence his most fundamental idea, most interpreters have found it problematic or needful of redescription in other terms. For this reason, Hatab's book is an important and challenging contribution to Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

U.S. politicians and policymakers have been preoccupied with how to pay for health care. Hardly any thought has been given to what should be paid for—as though health care is a commodity that needs no examination—or what health outcomes should receive priority in a just society, i.e., rationing. I present a rationing proposal, consistent with U.S. culture and traditions, that deals not with “health care,” the terminology used in the current debate, but with the more modest and limited topic of (...) medical care. Integral to this rationing proposal—which allows scope to individual choice and at the same time recognizes the interdependence of the individual and society—is a definition of a “decent minimum,” the basic package of medical treatments everyone should have access to in a just society. I apply it to a specific example, diabetes mellitus, and track it through a person's life span. (shrink)

How is it that sounds from the mouth or marks on a page—which by themselves are nothing like things or events in the world—can be world-disclosive in an automatic manner? In this fascinating and important book, Lawrence J. Hatab presents a new vocabulary for Heidegger’s early phenomenology of being-in-the-world and applies it to the question of language. He takes language to be a mode of dwelling, in which there is an immediate, direct disclosure of meanings, and sketches an extensive (...) picture of proto-phenomenology, how it revises the posture of philosophy, and how this posture applies to the nature of language. Representational theories are not rejected but subordinated to a presentational account of immediate disclosure in concrete embodied life. The book critically addresses standard theories of language, such that typical questions in the philosophy of language are revised in a manner that avoids binary separations of language and world, speech and cognition, theory and practise, realism and idealism, internalism and externalism. (shrink)

Vedānta Deśika produced his monumental poetic biography of Kṛṣṇa in a time when Kṛṣṇa-centered devotionalism was expanding to become perhaps the dominant mode of bhakti across South Asia. Central to this phenomenon is the growing popularity of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, and especially of its exploration of Kṛṣṇa’s erotic play with the gopīs in his youth. Troubled by the unrestrained and seemingly adharmic sexuality of Kṛṣṇa, Deśika used the literary techniques and narrative paradigms of the mahākāvya to assimilate but also domesticate this (...) increasingly important Bhāgavata episode: Kṛṣṇa’s eroticism remains central but confined within more conventional marital norms and is thus made dharmically and theologically acceptable. Once he has resolved these dharmic problems, however, Deśika is happy to explore the soteriological, devotional, and paradoxical dimensions of erotic love with Kṛṣṇa. (shrink)

This volume marks the first English translation of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness.

Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality is a forceful, perplexing, important book, radical in its own time and profoundly influential ever since. This introductory textbook offers a comprehensive, close reading of the entire work, with a section-by-section analysis that also aims to show how the Genealogy holds together as an integrated whole. The Genealogy is helpfully situated within Nietzsche's wider philosophy, and occasional interludes examine supplementary topics that further enhance the reader's understanding of the text. Two chapters examine how the (...) Genealogy relates to standard questions in moral and political philosophy. Written in a clear, accessible style, this book will appeal to students at every level coming to read the Genealogy for the first time, and a wider range of readers will also benefit from nuanced interpretations of controversial elements in Nietzsche's work. (shrink)

Discussion of the ethics of forgoing medically provided nutrition and hydration tends to focus on adults rather than infants and children. Many appellate court decisions address the legal propriety of forgoing medically provided nutritional support of adults, but only a few have ruled on pediatric cases that pose the same issue.The cessation of nutritional support is implemented most commonly for patients in a permanent vegetative state ). An estimated 4,000 to 10,000 American children are in the permanent vegetative state, compared (...) to 10,000 to 25,000 adults. Yet the dearth of literature, case reports, and court decisions suggests that physicians and families of pediatric patients stop medically provided nutrition or seek court orders much less frequently. (shrink)

Should the nation provide expensive care and scarce organs to convicted felons? We distinguish between two fields of justice: Medical Justice and Societal Justice. Although there is general acceptance within the medical profession that physicians may distribute limited treatments based solely on potential medical benefits without regard to nonmedical factors, that does not mean that society cannot impose limits based on societal factors. If a society considers the convicted felon to be a full member, then that person would be entitled (...) to at least a decent minimum level of care — which might include access to scarce life-saving organs. However, if criminals forfeit their entitlement to the same level of medical care afforded to all members of society, they still would be entitled to a kind of rudimentary decent minimum granted to all persons on simple humanitarian grounds. Almost certainly this entitlement would not include access to organ transplants. (shrink)

ABSTRACT By means of the high ratings that they awarded to subprime mortgage‐backed bonds, the three major rating agencies—Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch—played a central role in the current financial crisis. Without these ratings, it is doubtful that subprime mortgages would have been issued in such huge amounts, since a major reason for the subprime lending boom was investor demand for high‐rated bonds—much of it generated by regulations that made such bonds mandatory for large institutional investors. And it is (...) even less likely that such bonds would have become concentrated on the balance sheets of the banks, for which they were rewarded by capital regulations that tilted toward high‐rated securities. Why, then, were the agencies excessively optimistic in their ratings of subprime mortgage‐backed securities? A combination of their fee structure, the complexity of the bonds that they were rating, insufficient historical data, some carelessness, and market pressures proved to be a potent brew. This combination was enabled, however, by seven decades of financial regulation that, beginning in the 1930s, had conferred the force of law upon these agencies' judgments about the creditworthiness of bonds and that, since 1975, had protected the three agencies from competition. (shrink)

Ras proteins function as critical relay switches that regulate diverse signaling pathways between cell surface receptors and the nucleus. Over the past 2‐3 years researchers have identified many components of these pathways that mediate Ras activation and effector function. Among these proteins are several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs), which are responsible for directly interacting with and activating Ras in response to extracellular stimuli. Analogous GEFs regulate Ras‐related proteins that serve other diverse cellular functions. In particular, a growing family of (...) proteins (Dbl homology proteins) has recently been identified, which may function as GEFs for the Rho family of Ras‐related proteins. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structure, biochemistry and biology of Ras and Rho family GEFs. Additionally, we describe mechanisms of GEF activation of Ras in signal transduction and address the potential that deregulated GEFs might contribute to malignant transformation through chronic Ras protein activation. (shrink)

The placement of hydrogen in the periodic table has unique implications for fundamental questions of chemical behavior. Recent arguments in favor of placing hydrogen either separately at the top of the table or as a member of the carbon family are shown to have serious defects. A Coulombic model, in which all compounds of hydrogen are treated as hydrides, places hydrogen exclusively as the first member of the halogen family and forms the basis for reconsideration of fundamental concepts in bonding (...) and structures. The model provides excellent descriptive and predictive ability for structures and reactivities of a wide range of substances. (shrink)

Through his innovative study of language, noted Heidegger scholar Lawrence Hatab offers a proto-phenomenological account of the lived world, the “first” world of factical life, where pre-reflective, immediate disclosiveness precedes and makes possible representational models of language. Common distinctions between mind and world, fact and value, cognition and affect miss the meaning-laden dimension of embodied, practical existence, where language and life are a matter of “dwelling in speech.” In this second volume, Hatab supplements and fortifies his initial analysis by (...) offering a detailed treatment of child development and language acquisition, which exhibit a proto-phenomenological world in the making. He then takes up an in-depth study of the differences between oral and written language (particularly in the ancient Greek world) and how the history of alphabetic literacy shows why Western philosophy came to emphasize objective, representational models of cognition and language, which conceal and pass over the presentational domain of dwelling in speech. Such a study offers significant new angles on the nature of philosophy and language. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Physician's Covenant: Images of the Healer in Medical Ethics. By William F. May.

Howard Brody expresses concern that citing the “two cases that put futility on the map,” namely Helga Wanglie and Baby K, may be providing ammunition to the opponents of the concept of medical futility. He in fact joins well-known opponents of the concept of medical futility in arguing that it is one thing for the physician to say whether a particular intervention will promote an identified goal, quite another to say whether a goal is worth pursuing. In the latter instance, (...) physicians are laying themselves open “to the criticism of taking on basic value judgments that are more appropriately left to patients and their surrogates.” Brody states that in both the Wanglie and Baby K cases, the “basic value judgments” had to do with the worthiness of maintaining unconscious life via medical technology. He classifies this as “a question of professional integrity—but not a question of futility,” adding that “more than semantics hinges on this distinction.” The “more than semantics” factor is a pragmatic, even political one. Failure to make this distinction renders physicians “that much more suspect and less trustworthy in the public debate.”. (shrink)

I critically explore various forms of the language of thought (LOT) hypothesis. Many considerations, including the complexity of representational content and the systematicity of language understanding, support the view that some, but not all, of our mental representations occur in a language. I examine several arguments concerning sententialism and the propositional attitudes, Fodor's arguments concerning infant and animal thought, and Fodor's argument for radical concept nativism and show that none of these considerations require us to postulate a LOT that is (...) innate or otherwise distinct from spoken languages. Instead, I suggest that we maintain the more conservative hypothesis, supported by introspection, that some of our thoughts occur in the languages that we speak. (shrink)