This is the first book to explore the role of quotation in modern Jewish thought. It shows how quotation is the binding tissue that links language and thought, modernity and tradition, religion and secularism as a way of being in the world.

This chapter explores how Friedrich Nietzsche’s work The Anti-Christ inspired not only an unexpected charitable reading of Jesus’s life and thought in the New Testament, but also an unlikely sense of “holy envy.” The topic of Jesus is very tricky for Jews. The legacy of Christian anti-Judaism provides the hermeneutical lens for how Jews may interpret the life and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Incorporating aspects of Jesus’s life and teachings into a Jewish religious way of engaging the (...) world, or even just appreciating them, can be an anathema to classical and many forms of modern Jewish thought. Sax explores the irony and power of how Nietzsche’s Jesus could inspire a contemporary Jewish thinker to admire and connect to the Jesus of the New Testament. (shrink)

The current system of organ procurement which relies on donation is inadequate to the current and future need for transplantable kidneys. The growing disparity between demand and supply is accompanied by a steep human cost. I argue that a regulated market in organs from living vendors is the only plausible solution, and that objections common to opponents of organ markets are defeasible. I argue that a morally defensible market in kidneys from living vendors includes four characteristics: (1) the priority of (...) safety for both vendors and recipients, (2) transparency regarding the risks to vendors and recipients, (3) institutional integrity regarding guidelines for cooperating with kidney vendors, and (4) operation under a rule of law. I conclude with some remarks on remaining problems with this account, and offer some suggestions as to how these problems might be addressed. (shrink)

Gigerenzer and Brighton (2009) have argued for a “Homo heuristicus” view of judgment and decision making, claiming that there is evidence for a majority of individuals using fast and frugal heuristics. In this vein, they criticize previous studies that tested the descriptive adequacy of some of these heuristics. In addition, they provide a reanalysis of experimental data on the recognition heuristic that allegedly supports Gigerenzer and Brighton’s view of pervasive reliance on heuristics. However, their arguments and reanalyses are both conceptually (...) and methodologically problematic. We provide counterarguments and a reanalysis of the data considered by Gigerenzer and Brighton. Results clearly replicate previous findings, which are at odds with the claim that simple heuristics provide a general description of inferences for a majority of decision makers. (shrink)

The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur. Edited by F. Stanley Jones. History of Biblical Studies, vol. 5. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. Pp. xii + 248. $33.95.

Previous research (e.g., Horiuchi, Goldsmith, and Inoguchi, 2005) has shown some intriguing patterns of effects of several variables on international public opinion about US foreign policy. But results for the theoretically appealing effects of regime type and post-materialist values have been weak or inconsistent. This paper takes a closer look at the relationship between these two variables and international public opinion about US foreign policy. In particular, international reaction to the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) are examined using (...) two major multinational surveys. The conclusions of previous research are largely reinforced: neither regime type nor post-materialist values appears to robustly influence global opinion on these events. Rather, some central interests, including levels of trade with the US and NATO membership, and key socialized factors, including a Muslim population, experience with terrorism, and the exceptional experiences of two states (Israel, Albania) emerge as the most important factors in the models. There is also a consistent backlash effect of security cooperation with the US outside of NATO. A discussion of these preliminary results points to their theoretical implications and their significance for further investigation into the transnational dynamics of public opinion and foreign policy. (shrink)

Despite Australia's increasing economic ties with Asia, little is known about how it is perceived by the typical citizen in the region. This paper seeks to contribute to the Australian discussion on , as well as to a general understanding of the structure of foreign policy beliefs, by examining perceptions of Australia's influence among the mass publics of 14 Asian polities. Despite some anxiety in Australia on national op-ed pages and among political leaders over how the country is perceived, we (...) find that the average person in Asia probably does not have a strong or meaningful opinion about Australia's foreign policy. Using survey data covering the years 2006 through 2008 from the AsiaBarometer project, we find that, on average, far more people view Australia's influence on their country favorably (40.5%) than view it unfavorably (6.1%). A similar percentage (41.5%), however, have neutral views of Australia's influence, and 12% of people in Asian nations express no opinion on the topic. We suggest these high frequencies of neutral perceptions and non-response are evidence of considerable indifference towards Australia. Furthermore, we investigate the correlates of perceptions of Australia's influence and find that in almost all cases citizens general internationalist sentiment or perceptions of major powers. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to analyze, clarify, and reconstruct the concept of class consciousness by developing a dialectical account of political agency at work in the concept. I defend a dialectical account of agency, that includes both the way in which individuals come together to form groups, but also the capacity of a collective to transform social conditions. I argue that this account of political agency is necessary in order to understand the possibility of social transformation or change. I trace the (...) development of the relationship between consciousness and agency in the early tradition of Western Marxism, focusing primarily on the account of class consciousness given by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Against his account of the world historical agency of a unified proletariat, however, I defend Theodor Adorno’s insistence on nonidentity, and the importance of unreconciled groups in capitalist society. In order to understand these groups, such as the vanguard, party, or proletariat, we must understand the way in which individuals form groups, as well as their inherent collectivity. -/- My account of the political agency at work in the concept of class consciousness is broadly speaking pluralist. I argue that a multiplicity of methodologies is needed in order to arrive at a complete picture of the concept. I defend an account of class consciousness that is neither reductive nor deflationary with respect to other dimensions of social domination. This class forward approach seeks to build intersectional political coalitions in order to undertake revolutionary action. Successful revolutionary social transformation is never guaranteed in advance; however, the concept of class consciousness, reconstructed through the lens of political agency, offers conceptual resources to address the problems of today, for the sake of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

There can be some direct clinical value to receiving valid incidental findings of XXY for most individuals with Klinefelter’s syndrome. The severity of Klinefelter’s and the magnitude of benefit fr...

New fetal therapies offer important prospects for improving health. However, having to consider both the fetus and the pregnant woman makes the risk–benefit analysis of fetal therapy trials challenging. Regulatory guidance is limited, and proposed ethical frameworks are overly restrictive or permissive. We propose a new ethical framework for fetal therapy research. First, we argue that considering only biomedical benefits fails to capture all relevant interests. Thus, we endorse expanding the considered benefits to include evidence-based psychosocial effects of fetal therapies. (...) Second, we reject the commonly proposed categorical risk and/or benefit thresholds for assessing fetal therapy research. Instead, we propose that the individual risks for the pregnant woman and the fetus should be justified by the benefits for them and the study’s social value. Studies that meet this overall proportionality criterion but have mildly unfavorable risk–benefit ratios for pregnant women and/or fetuses may be acceptable. (shrink)

Prenatal genetic testing is becoming available for an increasingly broad set of diseases, and it is only a matter of time before parents can choose to test for hundreds, if not thousands, of genetic conditions in their fetuses. Should access to certain kinds of fetal genetic information be limited, and if so, on what basis? We evaluate a range of considerations including reproductive autonomy, parental rights, disability rights, and the rights and interests of the fetus as a potential future child. (...) We conclude that parents should be able to access information that could be useful during pregnancy, but that testing for non-medical information should be limited. Next, we argue that the government lacks a compelling state interest in regulating prenatal genetic testing and propose that regulation should occur through medical professional organizations. Finally, we present a framework for determining what testing physicians should recommend, offer neutrally, or not offer at all. (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)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 8, August 2022.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 6, Page 56-58, June 2012.

Aiming to further explore possible underlying causes of the recent remarkable stagnation and relative decline in American heights, this paper describes the result of analysis of the commercial US Sizing Survey (2002). Heights are correlated positively with income and education among both white males and females while Body Mass Index (BMI) is correlated negatively among females, as in other samples. In contrast to much of the literature, this paper considers geographic correlates of height such as local poverty rate, median income (...) and population density at the zip code level of resolution. After adjusting for confounding factors that influence height such as income and education, population density is found to be strongly and negatively correlated with height among white men, but less so among white women. The effect on BMIs less convincing. Other ethnic groups are not analysed in detail because of the small number of observations available. Local economic conditions as measured by median income, unemployment and poverty rate do not have a strong correlation with height or BMI after adjusting for individual income and education. (shrink)

Evolutionary algorithms typically use direct encodings, where each element of the phenotype is specified independently in the genotype. Because direct encodings have difficulty evolving modular and symmetric phenotypes, some researchers use indirect encodings, wherein one genomic element can influence multiple parts of a phenotype. We have previously shown that Hyper- NEAT, an indirect encoding, outperforms FT-NEAT, a direct-encoding control, on many problems, especially as the regularity of the problem increases. However, HyperNEAT is no panacea; it had difficulty accounting for irregularities (...) in problems. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, a Hybridized Indirect and Direct encoding (HybrID), which discovers the regularity of a problem with an indirect encoding and accounts for irregularities via a direct encoding. In three different problem domains, HybrID outperforms HyperNEAT in most situations, with performance improvements as large as 40%. Our work suggests that hybridizing indirect and direct encodings can be an effective way to improve the performance of evolutionary algorithms. (shrink)

The authors of the target article briefly discuss the issue of “sample ownership” when scientists collaborate with citizen science partners (Wiggins and Wilbanks 2019). This is an important issue,...

In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins (1976) proposed the existence of a unit of cultural inheritance that he called the meme. Some examples of memes are clothing fashions, tool designs, and architectural designs. Like genes, memes must share three properties: longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. Longevity refers to the lifespan of a meme, fecundity to the rate of spread of a meme, and copying-fidelity to how accurately a meme is replicated. In other work (Hardisty and Cassill, in preparation), we hypothesized that successful (...) memes should share a fourth property with successful genes: memes should affect an organism’s lifetime fitness by improving survival or reproduction. Sterelny (2006) argued that high-fitness memes include tools or artifacts that are physically enduring, made from easy to find materials, and easy to reverse-engineer. Here, we argue that another way to link memes to individual fitness is to think of tools as part of an organism’s ecological niche. Each tool or artifact an organism makes that extends its evolutionary lifespan or increases its reproductive output is thus a meme that is directly contributing to that organism’s fitness. (shrink)

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 was passed to encourage patients to seek genetic testing that could improve health outcomes and provide opportunities for preventive measures. GINA protects individuals from discrimination based upon genetic information, but not upon manifested diseases and conditions. Because the manifestation of a disease establishes a threshold of protection for individuals under GINA, the definition of manifestation is crucial to understanding the scope of the bill. This paper examines the range of possible legal definitions of (...) disease manifestation and explores the historical struggle that courts have faced when trying to apply these different definitions. Specifically, the paper examines three frameworks that courts have used in the past to interpret the manifestation of a disease; “manifestation as apparent symptoms,”“manifestation as patient action,” and “manifestation as physician action.” We argue that the “manifestation as physician action” is the best framework to utilize in this law generally, but that the definition of manifestation should be read in the light most favorable to a plaintiff in order to achieve the underlying goals of GINA. (shrink)