A unique and interdisciplinary collection in which scholars from Philosophy join those from Film Studies, English, and Comparative Literature to explore the nature and limits of love through in-depth reflection on particular works of literature and film.

In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a course between incompatibilism, or the notion that freedom and responsibility require causal and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature, and compatibilism, or the notion that people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. Wolf argues that some of the forces which are beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it, enabling us to see the world for what it (...) is. The freedom we want is not independence from the world, but independence from the forces that prevent us from choosing how to live in the light of a sufficient appreciation of the world. (shrink)

For over thirty years Susan Wolf has been writing about moral and nonmoral values and the relation between them. This volume collects Wolf's most important essays on the topics of morality, love, and meaning, ranging from her classic essay "Moral Saints" to her most recent "The Importance of Love.".

This book examines current debates about the emergence of an international legal norm of democratic governance and also considers some of the wider theoretical issues to which those debates give rise. It asks; should international law seek to promote democratic political arrangements? If so, on what basis, and using which of the many competing conceptions of democracy?

This paper is the companion to “Assessment of Information on Public Health Law Best Practices for Obesity Prevention and Control,” and the fourth of four action papers produced as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control, convened June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society for Law, Medicine Ethics. The four action papers present options to address gaps in the four core elements of (...) public health legal preparedness as outlined in the relevant companion papers. The four core elements are: laws and legal authorities; legal competencies for public health professionals to apply those laws and authorities; coordination of law-based efforts across jurisdictions and sectors, and information on public health law best practices. (shrink)

This paper is the companion to “Assessment of Information on Public Health Law Best Practices for Obesity Prevention and Control,” and the fourth of four action papers produced as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control, convened June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society for Law, Medicine Ethics. The four action papers present options to address gaps in the four core elements of (...) public health legal preparedness as outlined in the relevant companion papers. The four core elements are: laws and legal authorities; legal competencies for public health professionals to apply those laws and authorities; coordination of law-based efforts across jurisdictions and sectors, and information on public health law best practices. (shrink)

Carpendale & Lewis's theoretical reconstruction of the “theory of mind” problem offers new hope but still has far to go. The study of atypical development may provide some useful insights for dealing with the work ahead. In particular I discuss three issues – the boundary problem, the question of end states, and the issue of the centrality of triadic interaction.

Race and Pedagogy identifies persistent, institutional racism as the cause of the lower rates of high school graduation among African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans in the United States. Adams and Buffington-Adams provide a retrospective look at their own and other teachers’ efforts to acknowledge the limitations of their own cultural lenses in order to identify, examine, and fix the failings of the current educational system.

Pickering & Garrod's (P&G's) theory of dialogue production cannot completely explain recent data showing that when interactants in referential communication tasks have different views of a physical space, they accommodate their language to their partner's view rather than mimicking their partner's expressions. Instead, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that interactants are taking the perspective of their conversational partners.

What does it mean to claim Jesus as Lord over the principalities and powers in a world where oppression, terror, and death so often seem to have the last word? Jesus' “answer” is not an intellectual explanation but a charge and a benediction, to guide believers and empower them to persevere.

In New Testament times, Job was considered a model of “steadfastness.” Job persevered by looking ahead to God's salvation. New Testament authors similarly portrayed Jesus as one who stood fast in time of trial, even unto death, thereby breaking the power of sin and strengthening Christians to standfast in their own trials.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LettersMaxwell J. Mehlman, Susan R. Massey, Ronald M. Green, and Fred RosnerPhysicians and the Allocation of Scarce ResourcesMadam: We read with interest Dr. Pellegrino's commentary on our article in the December 1994 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and commend him for pointing out so well the different ways that law and ethics approach the issue of physician allocation of scarce resources.We wish to make one (...) clarification. Dr. Pellegrino states that we propose that fiduciary duties be abolished. Quite the contrary, our position is that fiduciary obligations are essential to the maintenance of trust—which we believe to be an efficient as well as an ethical element of the patient-provider relationship. If fiduciary duties are undercut, as we pointed out they are by the Oregon Medicaid legislation, then some other method of promoting trust must be established, and, as we point out in the article, it is difficult to identify what that method could be.Maxwell J. MehlmanandSusan R. MasseyThe Law Medicine CenterArter & HaddenCase Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, OHSchool of LawCleveland, OHReport of the Human Embryo Research PanelMadam: In the December 1994 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, I reported on the controversy surrounding the work of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and the conclusions reached in its report, which was formally presented to NIH Director Harold Varmus on September 27, 1994. At that time, the report was to be reviewed by the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) until its next meeting in early December. I am writing to update your readers on the fate of the Panel's report.On the morning of December 2, 1994, following a previous afternoon of animated discussion, the ACD unanimously accepted the Report of the Human Embryo Research Panel. Panel members and members of the NIH staff who were present and had worked for nearly a year on the Report were gratified by this vote of confidence and by the strong support of NIH Director Harold Varmus.We had little time to enjoy this success. Within a matter of hours, the White House issued a press release in which President Clinton thanked the committee for its work and then, in a remark overruling one of the key recommendations in our report, stated: "I do not believe that federal funds should be used to support the creation of human embryos for research purposes, and I have directed that NIH not allocate any resources for such research." [End Page 83]As a Panel member and active participant in that day's events, my initial response was one of shock. I was particularly distressed that the President and his advisors chose a moment so late in the process to make their views known. Why had we worked for months, I asked, without a word of concern from the White House? Although Panel members were guided primarily by our perceptions of the ethical and scientific issues involved, some were close to the political realities of Washington and would have introduced these concerns into the Panel's deliberations.Within a matter of days, my own sense of outrage had diminished. First of all, it was clear that whatever the personal sources of the President's objections to the Panel's recommendations, this high level political intervention was inevitable. Less than a month before, on November 8, with the election of a majority House and Senate, the political environment for embryo research had changed dramatically. The previous June, 32 congressmen, most of them members of a minority Republican party, had signed a letter protesting the Panel's work. Now, one of the signers of that letter, Newt Gingrich, was destined to be Speaker of the House.Second, it became clear that the damage was not total. The President has forbidden NIH to support work involving the deliberate creation of embryos for research. Without exception, members of the Panel had come to the conclusion that some development of "research embryos" must be permitted to reduce the risks of new assisted reproductive technologies, to enhance scientific knowledge, and to develop new therapies for a range of serious diseases. All these... (shrink)

Patients with insufficient financial resources place physicians in a conflict of interest between the patients' needs and the financial interests of the physician, other patients, and society. Not only must physicians act ethically, but they must avoid liability for violating their legal duties to their patients. The traditional rules of contract and malpractice law that govern the patient-physician relationship do not provide satisfactory guidelines. Better answers are found in the rules of fiduciary law, but only with regard to direct conflicts (...) between patients and physicians and only at the risk of reducing patient access to care. Certain types of legislative action can resolve these conflicts by altering the traditional legal rules, but care must be taken to preserve patient-physician trust, which the legal rules were designed to enhance. (shrink)

Three and 4-year-old children were tested on matched versions of Zaitchik's (1990) photo task and Wimmer and Perner's (1983) false belief task. Although replicating Zaitchik's finding that false belief and photo task are of equal difficulty, this applied only to mean performance across subjects and no substantial correlation between the two tasks was found. This suggests that the two tasks tap different intellectual abilities. It was further discovered that children's performance can be improved by drawing their attention to the back (...) of the photo but not by drawing attention to the person holding the false belief. Results are interpreted as showing that children's difficulty with the photo task is due to referential confusion about which scene the question refers to (the picture or reality) while the hurdle in the false belief task is to understand that the believer misrepresents reality. (shrink)

This article ethnographically considers the experiences of Australian young people who were born deaf and who hear and listen through cochlear implants to explore the intersection between the sensory body, lived experience and technology. The article draws on phenomenology to examine how experiences of deafness are productive in analysing articulations of embodiment and the meanings embedded in a body that is valued as both deaf and hearing. Leaving aside binary conceptions of deaf versus hearing, and understandings of the cochlear implant (...) as a remedy for sensory deficits, we instead make a case for nuanced understandings of the device and embodied experiences through technology. This analysis identifies how a cochlear implanted body navigates connections to the world and to others in turning on and off engagement. We contend that the device has an intrinsic value for recipients through enabling their access to hearing while not removing their experiences of deafness. (shrink)

Advanced Cell Technology's Ethics Advisory Board has been called window dressing for a corporate marketing plan. But the scientists and managers have paid attention, and the lawyers have gone along.

The arguments offered by Jaswal & Akhtar to counter the social motivation theory do not appear to be directly related to the SMT tenets and predictions, seem to not be empirically testable, and are inconsistent with empirical evidence. To evaluate the merits and shortcomings of the SMT and identify scientifically testable alternatives, advances are needed on the conceptualization and operationalization of social motivation across diagnostic boundaries.

Why do black families own less than white families? Why does school segregation persist decades after Brown v. Board of Education? Why is it harder for black adults to vote than for white adults? Will addressing economic inequality solve racial and gender inequality as well? This book answers all of these questions and more by revealing the hidden rules of race that create barriers to inclusion today. While many Americans are familiar with the histories of slavery and Jim Crow, we (...) often don't understand how the rules of those eras undergird today's economy, reproducing the same racial inequities 150 years after the end of slavery and 50 years after the banning of Jim Crow segregation laws. This book shows how the fight for racial equity has been one of progress and retrenchment, a constant push and pull for inclusion over exclusion. By understanding how our economic and racial rules work together, we can write better rules to finally address inequality in America. (shrink)

In 2008, Representative John Read of Mississippi recently co-sponsored state legislation that would ban restaurants from serving obese customers. He later admitted that the bill was a publicity stunt,meant to “shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi.” Although controversial, Read’s bill exemplifies both the current perception of obesity as a national public health problem and the general sentiment underlying the types of interventions that are being considered to address this issue. The proposed legislation also demonstrates how (...) policymakers can use or, in this case misuse, information about obesity to generate significant discussion on an issue along with ill-conceived legal interventions.Information sharing and the methods used to share best practices are components of the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness. (shrink)

In 2008, Representative John Read of Mississippi recently co-sponsored state legislation that would ban restaurants from serving obese customers. He later admitted that the bill was a publicity stunt,meant to “shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi.” Although controversial, Read’s bill exemplifies both the current perception of obesity as a national public health problem and the general sentiment underlying the types of interventions that are being considered to address this issue. The proposed legislation also demonstrates how (...) policymakers can use or, in this case misuse, information about obesity to generate significant discussion on an issue along with ill-conceived legal interventions.Information sharing and the methods used to share best practices are components of the fourth core element of public health legal preparedness. (shrink)

Heroism is apparently nonadaptive in Darwinian terms, so why does it exist at all? Risk-taking and heroic behavior are predominantly male tendencies, and literature and legend reflect this. This study explores the possibility that heroism persists in many human cultures owing to a female preference for risk-prone rather than risk-averse males as sexual partners, and it suggests that such a preference may be exploited as a male mating strategy. It also attempts to quantify the relative influences of altruism and bravery (...) in the evolution of heroism. Our study found that females do prefer risk-prone brave males to risk-averse non-brave males, and that men are aware of this preference. Bravery in a male was shown to be the stronger factor influencing female choice of short-term partners, long-term partners, and male friends, with altruism playing a lesser part in their choice. Altruism was deemed important in long-term relationships and friendships, but for short-term liaisons, non-altruists were preferred to altruists. Heroism may therefore have evolved owing to a female preference for brave, risk-prone males because risk-taking acts as an honest cue for "good genes." Altruism was judged to be a less influential factor in the evolution of heroism than bravery and a demonstrated willingness to take risks. (shrink)

In this paper, we review two seemingly unrelated debates. In business ethics, the argument is about values: are they universal or emergent? In entrepreneurship, it is about opportunities – are they discovered or constructed? In reality, these debates are similar as they both overlook contingency. We draw insight from pragmatism to define contingency as possibility without necessity. We analyze real-life narratives and show how entrepreneurship and ethics emerge from our discussion as parallel streams of thought.