This essay defends the asymmetry between the badness of spontaneous and induced abortions in order to explain why anti-abortionists prioritize stopping induced abortions over preventing spontaneous abortions. Specifically, it argues (1) the distinction between killing and letting-die is of more limited use in explaining the asymmetry than has sometimes been presumed, and (2) that accounting for intentions in moral agency does not render performances morally inert. Instead, anti-abortionists adopt a pluralist, nonreductive account of moral analysis which is situated against a (...) backdrop that sees the limits of our ability to control the process of fertility as themselves valuable. Although this view is complex, the paper concludes by arguing that it has the advantage of explaining features of the anti-abortion outlook that have sometimes been overlooked. First, it accounts for why the pre-Roe regime of abortion restrictions primarily imposed penalties on doctors who induced abortions rather than the women who seek them. Second, it explains why the advent of ectogestation will not prompt anti-abortionists to compromise on ‘disconnect abortions,’ which putatively let the embryo die by extracting it from the mother’s womb. (shrink)

This essay explores the theological and anthropological significance of birth, in order to discern what might be lost with the adoption of complete ectogestation (“artificial wombs”). Specifically, it considers both Saint Augustine and Karl Barth’s respective accounts of humanity’s whence—that is, their theological answer to the question of the nature and significance of our origins as individuals. I suggest that Augustine’s account of his origins emphasizes both his epistemic and biological dependency on his mother and nurses, while Barth’s stresses the (...) individual’s immediate derivation from God. Those disparate answers affect how they construe the relationships of parents and children and work themselves throughout their theological visions and imaginations. I conclude that careful consideration of humanity’s whence cannot answer whether we ought to pursue ectogestation; but it does help us account for how our understanding of God and ourselves might be altered if we gestate human life outside the womb. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders Paul Ramsey’s “medical indications” policy and argues that his reconstruction of the case of Joseph Saikewicz demonstrates that there is more room for caretakers to decline treatments for “voiceless dependents” than his interlocutors have sometimes thought. It furthermore draws on Ramsey’s earlier work to propose ways that Ramsey might have improved his policy, and argues that the shortcomings of Ramsey’s view arise from his bracketing of age in making determinations about what form of medical care is owed. (...) The reading of Ramsey set forth here suggests Cathleen Kaveny’s depiction of the ‘medical indications’ policy in Ethics at the Edges of Law is too rigid and inflexible, even while it affirms other aspects of her critique. (shrink)

Examines what it means to question well, in a purposeful manner, and to what end, discussing both the philosophy of questioning and its practice as well as how to develop a sense of purpose-driven inquiry.

Minkoff et al.’s contention that Dobbs threatens pregnant women’s right to refuse medical treatments that would risk the embryo’s life offers a bracing set of challenges to ethicists who affirm the...

This essay argues that gratitude for one's own life is an intelligible attitude to have. It does so by arguing that reducing pro-attitudes in response to unintentional benefits to “appreciation” is too broad. Instead, such “appreciation” can be understood as gratitude if such benefits satisfy a number of conditions that track or are analogous to why we care about interpersonally bestowed benefits. One's own life satisfies those four conditions, which can make gratitude for it intelligible—when it is perceived as a (...) benefit. (shrink)

This introduction surveys the contributions to this issue, which were originally delivered at Oxford University in 2018. By exploring the interconnections and shared motifs, this article suggests that the answer to this symposium is a tentative ‘yes’, but that the sources of those threats arise from the background culture within which these papers are situated.

This paper offers a Thomistic defense of gossip as a licit means of protecting third parties from harm by known offenders. After first clarifying what constitutes gossip, it draws from Thomas Aquinas to identify the narrow set of conditions under which gossip might be both permissible and obligatory. It concludes by specifying how the duty to gossip might work in Christian institutions, and especially within institutions where there are weak systems of formal accountability.

This essay criticises ‘modest’ one‐child policies, which would impose sanctions upon parents who create multiple children. Specifically, this article considers what the state owes individuals who would be born (illegally) beneath restrictive procreative policies and argues that such policies would fail to show due respect to second‐ or third‐born individuals created beneath them. First, I argue that modest procreative restrictions (like sanctions) are likely to generate only modest compliance. I then suggest it is reasonable to think a one‐child policy fails (...) to demonstrate due respect to existing second and third children. I argue that such a policy generates an undue burden on any second or third children who would be born beneath them, before concluding by considering whether the state might be able to avoid effectively reinscribing ‘bastardy’ into its law by locating responsibility for the effects of such a policy entirely on the parents, rather than on children. (shrink)

The current study evaluated the degree to which nature-based physical activity influenced two distinct types of psychological wellbeing: hedonic wellbeing and eudaimonic wellbeing. The type of motivation an individual experiences for physical activity, and the extent to which individuals have a sense of relatedness with nature, have been shown to influence the specific type of psychological wellbeing that is experienced as a result of NPA. However, the role of these two variables in the relationship between NPA and psychological wellbeing has (...) not been examined. Thus, this study assessed the potential mediating influence of motivational quality and nature relatedness on the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, respectively. Participants completed an online survey assessing hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, NPA, intrinsic motivation, autonomous extrinsic motivation, and nature relatedness. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. Results showed that motivational quality and nature relatedness both fully mediated the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Specifically, intrinsic motivation positively mediated the relationship between NPA and hedonic wellbeing. Autonomous extrinsic motivation and nature relatedness positively mediated the relationship between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing. These findings suggest that the associations between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing and hedonic wellbeing, respectively, are driven by different mechanisms relating to an individual’s underlying motivation and sense of connection to nature. These findings suggest that promoting distinct types of wellbeing through NPA requires distinct approaches. Emphasising enjoyment, pleasure, and positive kinaesthetic experiences within NPA may be more conducive to hedonic wellbeing, while highlighting opportunities for connecting with nature or experiencing valued outcomes of NPA may be more conducive to eudaimonic wellbeing. (shrink)

Credal reductivism is the view that outright belief is reducible to degrees of confidence or ‘credence’. The most popular versions of credal reductivism all have the consequence that if you are near-maximally confident that p in a low-stakes situation, then you outright believe p. This paper addresses a recent objection to this consequence—the Correctness Objection— introduced by Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath and further developed by Jacob Ross and Mark Schroeder. The objection is that near-maximal confidence cannot entail outright (...) belief because when you believe a false proposition, you are wrong or incorrect, whereas you can be highly confident of a false proposition in a low-stakes situation without being incorrect. Both Fantl and McGrath’s and Ross and Schoeder’s versions of the Correctness Objection admit of multiple interpretations. But it is argued that even on the most charitable interpretations the objection fails. (shrink)

A response to a declaration in 'Le Monde', 'Luttons efficacement contre les théories du complot' by Gérald Bronner, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Karen Douglas, Nicolas Gauvrit, Anthony Lantian, and Pascal Wagner-Egger, published on June the 6th, 2016.

BackgroundAssisted dying has wide support among the general population but there is evidence that those providing care for the dying may be less supportive. Senior doctors would be involved in implementing the proposed change in the law. We aimed to measure support for legalising physician assisted dying in a representative sample of senior doctors in England and Wales, and to assess any association between doctors' characteristics and level of support for a change in the law.MethodsWe conducted a postal survey of (...) 1000 consultants and general practitioners randomly selected from a commercially available database. The main outcome of interest was level of agreement with any change in the law to allow physician assisted suicide.ResultsThe corrected participation rate was 50%. We analysed 372 questionnaires. Respondents' views were divided: 39% were in favour of a change to the law to allow assisted suicide, 49% opposed a change and 12% neither agreed nor disagreed. Doctors who reported caring for the dying were less likely to support a change in the law. Religious belief was also associated with opposition. Gender, specialty and years in post had no significant effect.ConclusionMore senior doctors in England and Wales oppose any step towards the legalisation of assisted dying than support this. Doctors who care for the dying were more opposed. This has implications for the ease of implementation of recently proposed legislation. (shrink)

Inductive generalization, where people go beyond the data provided, is a basic cognitive capability, and it underpins theoretical accounts of learning, categorization, and decision making. To complete the inductive leap needed for generalization, people must make a key ‘‘sampling’’ assumption about how the available data were generated. Previous models have considered two extreme possibilities, known as strong and weak sampling. In strong sampling, data are assumed to have been deliberately generated as positive examples of a concept, whereas in weak sampling, (...) data are assumed to have been generated without any restrictions. We develop a more general account of sampling that allows for an intermediate mixture of these two extremes, and we test its usefulness. In two experiments, we show that most people complete simple one-dimensional generalization tasks in a way that is consistent with their believing in some mixture of strong and weak sampling, but that there are large individual differences in the relative emphasis different people give to each type of sampling. We also show experimentally that the relative emphasis of the mixture is influenced by the structure of the available information. We discuss the psychological meaning of mixing strong and weak sampling, and possible extensions of our modeling approach to richer problems of inductive generalization. (shrink)

A Lockean metaphysics of belief that understands outright belief as a determinable with degrees of confidence as determinates is supposed to effect a unification of traditional coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected phenomenon of “mistuned (...) knowledge” – knowledge in the absence of rational confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured, even without token identity, given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Proponents of the ‘Threshold View’ have held that to believe a proposition is to be sufficiently confident of the proposition’s truth, but that there is no sharp cutoff between degrees of confidence that constitute belief and degrees of confidence that do not. Brian Weatherson has objected that no plausible account of vagueness can support this view. In this paper, I reply to Weatherson’s objection. Along the way, I identify a way in which one might hope to maintain the Threshold (...) View without a fuzzy threshold, and I reformulate the Threshold View to accommodate fuzzy thresholds without begging substantive questions about vagueness. -/- RÉSUMÉ : D’après la «théorie du seuil», croire une proposition, c’est être suffisamment sûr de la vérité de cette proposition, bien qu’il n’y ait pas de limite nette entre les degrés de certitude qui constituent une croyance et ceux qui n’en constituent pas une. Pour Brian Weatherson, cette thèse ne peut être appuyée sur aucune théorie plausible du vague. Dans cet article, je réponds à Weatherson et propose une reformulation de la théorie du seuil qui contient des seuils flous sans engager des présupposés controversables en théorie du vague. J’identifie également une façon de conserver la théorie sans avoir un seuil flou. (shrink)

I defend Conciliationism: rationality requires belief revision of epistemic peers who find themselves in disagreement and lack dispute-independent reason to suspect each other of error. (Kelly 2010) argues that Conciliationists are committed to the Uniqueness Thesis: a given body of evidence rationalizes a unique degree of confidence for a given proposition. (Ballantyne & Coffman 2012) cogently critique Kelly's argument and propose an improved version. I contend that their version of the argument is unsound, and I offer some friendly amendments. But (...) I show that even this amended argument threatens only extreme versions of Conciliationism. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of doubt in philosophy since Descartes, the published philosophical literature includes no extended treatment of the nature of doubt. In this paper, I summarize the main contributions that have been made to the subject and then develop a commonsense functionalist account of doubt by specifying the functional role of doubt that something is the case. After adding two further wrinkles, I show how the resulting account can be used to address the questions of how doubt is related (...) to belief and whether suspension of judgment can be identified with doubt. Although the account is partisan, it should hold interest for those who favor other positions in the philosophy of mind, since much of the account can be taken on board by those in other camps, and the paper demonstrates how a sufficiently detailed account of doubt can be put to work addressing longstanding questions of interest across philosophical sub-disciplines. (shrink)

[This is a paper that was originally written in 2017 and doesn't represent Silva's current thinking about degrees of confidence, conviction, and rationality.] Can there be knowledge and rational belief in the absence of a rational degree of confidence? Yes, and cases of "mistuned knowledge" demonstrate this. In this paper we leverage this normative possibility in support of advancing our understanding of the metaphysical relation between belief and credence. It is generally assumed that a Lockean metaphysics of belief that reduces (...) outright belief to degrees of confidence would immediately effect a unification of coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. Scott Sturgeon has suggested that the unification is effected by understanding the relation between outright belief and confidence as an instance of the determinable-determinate relation. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge”—knowledge and rational belief in the absence of rational confidence. We contend that there are genuine cases of mistuned knowledge and that, therefore, epistemological unification must forego token identity of belief and high confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence even without token-identity. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification. (shrink)

With over 2 billion people lacking medicines for treatable diseases and 14 million people dying annually from infectious disease, there is undeniable need for increased access to medicines. There has been an increasing trend to benchmark the pharmaceutical industry on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in access to medicines. Benchmarking creates a competitive inter-business environment and acts as incentive for improving CSR. This article investigates the corporate feedback discourses pharmaceutical companies make in response to criticisms from benchmarking reports. It (...) determines whether these responses are part of a healthy process in increasing access to medicines or a barrier to improvement. A qualitative analysis on the feedback the industry provided was performed, and the responses seen in these statements were grouped by analysing the language used, the ideas portrayed and attitudes of the companies. Increasing transparency through benchmarking is a powerful tool which reveals the industry's shortfalls to the public, affects the decisions of socially responsible investors, and is a risk to their financial bottom line. This article demonstrates the importance of benchmarking and transparency in creating inter-business competition and the translation of these responses to actual access to medicine practices. (shrink)

Business and love appear to have little to do with each other. We hold the opposite to be true if the concept of love in business draws from two corresponding grammars. This paper contributes to the ‘agenda for growth and affirmation of people and the environment’ in business. By focusing on the grammars of love and business we operationalize the concept of love in ways that business executives, managers and employees can understand, adopt, and implement. With references to the theory (...) and practice of management and organizations, we aim to contribute to expanding the theory and practice of responsible organizations and their leaders caring for others. (shrink)

This essay is a response to the article “Some Foundational Factors for Promoting Human Flourishing.” It offers a broader discussion of flourishing beyond foundational concerns and involves an integration of social science and the humanities.

Following previous work that shows engineering students possess different levels of understanding of ethics—implicit and explicit—this study focuses on how students’ implicit understanding of engineering ethics influences their team discussion process, in cases where there is significant divergence between their explicit and implicit understanding. We observed student teams during group discussions of the ethical issues involved in their engineering design projects. Through the micro-scale discourse analysis based on cognitive ethnography, we found two possible ways in which implicit understanding influenced the (...) discussion. In one case, implicit understanding played the role of intuitive ethics—an intuitive judgment followed by reasoning. In the other case, implicit understanding played the role of ethical insight, emotionally guiding the direction of the discussion. In either case, however, implicit understanding did not have a strong influence, and the conclusion of the discussion reflected students’ explicit understanding. Because students’ implicit understanding represented broader social implication of engineering design in both cases, we suggest to take account of students’ relevant implicit understanding in engineering education, to help students become more socially responsible engineers. (shrink)

This study explores how peer advising affects student project teams’ discussions of engineering ethics. Peer ethics advisors from non-engineering disciplines are expected to provide diverse perspectives and to help engineering student teams engage and sustain ethics discussions. To investigate how peer advising helps engineering student teams’ ethics discussions, three student teams in different peer advising conditions were closely observed: without any advisor, with a single volunteer advisor, and with an advising team working on the ethics advising project. Micro-scale discourse analysis (...) based on cognitive ethnography was conducted to find each team’s cultural model of understanding of engineering ethics. Cultural-historical activity theory analysis was also conducted to see what influenced each team’s cultural model. In cultural model, the engineering team with an ethics advising team showed broader understanding in social implications of engineering. The results of CHAT analysis indicated that differences in rules, community, and division of labor among three teams influenced the teams’ cultural models. The CHAT analysis also indicated that the peer advisors working on the ethics advising project and the engineering team working on engineering design project created a collaborative environment. The findings indicated that collaborative environment supported peer ethics advising to facilitate team discussions of engineering ethics. (shrink)

Covid-19 lockdown restrictions constitute a population-wide “life-change event” disrupting normal daily routines. It was proposed that as a result of these lockdown restrictions, physical activity levels would likely decline. However, it could also be argued that lifestyle disruption may result in the formation of increased physical activity habits. Using a longitudinal design, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in physical activity of different intensities, across individuals who differed in activity levels prior to lockdown restrictions being imposed, and (...) across three time periods: pre-, during- and post-lockdown. This study also examined the extent to which the experience of daily hassles explained any changes in physical activity. A convenience sample recruited through social media, provided data from an online survey administered during weeks 2–3 of a 5-week lockdown and 231 participants provided complete data again 6 weeks post-lockdown. Participants completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire–Short Form and the Daily Hassles Scale. Results showed that vigorous and moderate intensity PA were significantly lower during- and post-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown in those individuals who had been highly active pre-lockdown. In contrast, for moderately active individuals pre-lockdown, vigorous and moderate intensity PA was significantly higher during-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown, and these increased levels of vigorous PA were maintained post-lockdown. Participants experienced daily hassles due to inner concerns, time pressures, family, and financial concerns to the same extent during- and post-lockdown. Those daily hassles had a small negative predictive effect on post-lockdown PA. It appears that to understand the effect of COVID-19 restrictions on PA, the activity status of individuals pre-lockdown needs to be taken into account. The daily hassles appeared to play a role in post-lockdown PA behavior, but future research should investigate why these results occurred. (shrink)

With over 2 billion people lacking medicines for treatable diseases and 14 million people dying annually from infectious disease, there is undeniable need for increased access to medicines. There has been an increasing trend to benchmark the pharmaceutical industry on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in access to medicines. Benchmarking creates a competitive inter-business environment and acts as incentive for improving CSR. This article investigates the corporate feedback discourses pharmaceutical companies make in response to criticisms from benchmarking reports. It (...) determines whether these responses are part of a healthy process in increasing access to medicines or a barrier to improvement. A qualitative analysis on the feedback the industry provided was performed, and the responses seen in these statements were grouped by analysing the language used, the ideas portrayed and atti- tudes of the companies. Increasing transparency through benchmarking is a powerful tool which reveals the industry’s shortfalls to the public, affects the decisions of socially responsible investors, and is a risk to their financial bottom line. This article demonstrates the importance of benchmarking and transparency in creating inter-business competition and the translation of these responses to actual access to medicine practices. (shrink)

The “wisdom of the crowd” phenomenon refers to the finding that the aggregate of a set of proposed solutions from a group of individuals performs better than the majority of individual solutions. Most often, wisdom of the crowd effects have been investigated for problems that require single numerical estimates. We investigate whether the effect can also be observed for problems where the answer requires the coordination of multiple pieces of information. We focus on combinatorial problems such as the planar Euclidean (...) traveling salesperson problem, minimum spanning tree problem, and a spanning tree memory task. We develop aggregation methods that combine common solution fragments into a global solution and demonstrate that these aggregate solutions outperform the majority of individual solutions. These case studies suggest that the wisdom of the crowd phenomenon might be broadly applicable to problem-solving and decision-making situations that go beyond the estimation of single numbers. (shrink)

Meat is a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on people performing risky physical work inside meat-processing facilities over long shifts in close proximity. These workers are socially disempowered, and many are members of groups beset by historic and ongoing structural discrimination. The combination of working conditions and worker characteristics facilitate the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Workers have been expected to put their health and lives at risk during the pandemic because of government and industry pressures to keep (...) this “essential industry” producing. Numerous interventions can significantly reduce the risks to workers and their communities; however, the industry’s implementation has been sporadic and inconsistent. With a focus on the U.S. context, this paper offers an ethical framework for infection prevention and control recommendations grounded in public health values of health and safety, interdependence and solidarity, and health equity and justice, with particular attention to considerations of reciprocity, equitable burden sharing, harm reduction, and health promotion. Meat-processing workers are owed an approach that protects their health relative to the risks of harms to them, their families, and their communities. Sacrifices from businesses benefitting financially from essential industry status are ethically warranted and should acknowledge the risks assumed by workers in the context of existing structural inequities. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a measure of complete well-being. The framework is derived from the theoretical model of human flourishing understood as a state in which all aspects of a human life are favorable. The approach extends beyond psychological well-being and reflects the World Health Organization definition of health that not only considers the health of body and mind but also embraces the wholeness of the person. The Well-Being Assessment is a comprehensive instrument designed to assess holistic well-being in (...) six domains: emotional health, physical health, meaning and purpose, character strengths, social connectedness, and financial security. Although each of these domains is distinct, all of them are nearly universally desired, and all but financial security constitute ends in themselves. Data were collected from a representative sample of working adults. A sample of 276 employees participated in the pilot, 2,370 participated in the first wave and 1,209 in the second wave of the survey. The WBA showed a good fitting, satisfactory reliability, test–retest correlation, and convergent/discriminant validity in relation to stability over time and relevant health measures, as well as a good fit to the data that were invariant over time, gender, age, education, and marital status. The instrument can be of use for scientists, practitioners, clinicians, public health officials, and patients. Adoption of more holistic measures of well-being that go beyond psychological well-being may help to shift the focus from health deficiencies to health and well-being promotion. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The fact that genes and environment contribute differentially to variation in human behaviors, traits and attitudes is central to the field of behavior genetics. Perceptions about these differential contributions may affect ideas about human agency. We surveyed two independent samples (N = 301 and N = 740) to assess beliefs about free will, determinism, political orientation, and the relative contribution of genes and environment to 21 human traits. We find that lay estimates of genetic influence on these traits cluster into (...) four distinct groups, which differentially predict beliefs about human agency, political orientation, and religiosity. Despite apparent ideological associations with these beliefs, the correspondence between mean lay estimates and published heritability estimates for the surveyed traits is large (r = .77). Belief in genetic determinism emerges as a modest predictor of accuracy in these lay estimates. Additionally, educated mothers with multiple children emerge as particularly accurate in their estimates of the genetic contribution to these traits. (shrink)

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.