The Moral Psychology of Anger is the first comprehensive study of the moral psychology of anger from a philosophical perspective. The collection provides an inclusive view of anger from a variety of philosophical perspectives.

Twenty-four U.S. states have enacted HIV exposure laws that prohibit HIV-positive persons from engaging in sexual activities with partners to whom they have not disclosed their HIV-status. From a public health perspective, HIV serostatus exposure laws can be viewed as structural interventions that seek to limit the spread of HIV by acting at the policy level. A central premise of these laws is that informed partners are more likely to protect themselves by declining sex, by substituting less risky activities for (...) higher-risk ones, or by using condoms, than are uninformed partners. However, the effectiveness of these laws at preventing HIV transmission is not known.There is little standardization among existing HIV exposure laws, which vary substantially with respect to the sexual activities that are prohibited without prior serostatus disclosure. Among the strictest laws are those in Arkansas, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio which mandate disclosure prior to almost any type of sexual contact. (shrink)

Criminal law and the proceedings surrounding it work, at least in theory, much like an author works when writing a play or a novel. Both the lawyer and the writer follow traditional formulae that allow them to create and express a vision of reality. When done well, the reality created is virtually seamless. This, however, is the point at which law and literary works diverge. Although we embrace creativity in literary endeavors, we would prefer that the foundation of our legal (...) system be something more substantial. Unfortunately, where US. criminal HIV exposure statutes are concerned, there appears to be little if any concrete connection between proscribed behaviors and what we know about HIV transmission risk. Twenty-four states in the U.S. make it a criminal offense for a person who has HIV to expose another to the virus through consensual sexual activities. The relationship between the activities prohibited by these laws and actual risk of virus transmission is tenuous at best. (shrink)

Twenty-four U.S. states have enacted HIV exposure laws that prohibit HIV-positive persons from engaging in sexual activities with partners to whom they have not disclosed their HIV status. There is little standardization among existing HIV exposure laws, which vary substantially with respect to the sexual activities that are prohibited without prior serostatus disclosure. Logical analysis and mathematical modeling were used to explore the HIV prevention effectiveness of two types of HIV exposure laws: “strict” laws that require HIV-positive persons to disclose (...) their serostatus to prospective partners prior to any sexual activity and “flexible” laws that require seropositive status disclosure only prior to high-risk sex . These laws were compared relative to each other and to a no-law alternative. The results of these analyses indicate that, under most circumstances, both strict and flexible exposure laws can be expected to reduce HIV transmission risk relative to the no-law alternative, with flexible exposure laws producing the greater reduction in risk. This study demonstrates how logical analysis and mathematical modeling techniques can make an important contribution to the construction of a rational basis for decisions about a highly contested public health policy issue. (shrink)

In this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Aristotle and Plato about the practice, study, and above all, the purpose of politics.

In Roper v. Simmons (2005) the United States Supreme Court announced a paradigm shift in jurisprudence. Drawing specifically on mounting scientific evidence that adolescents are qualitatively different from adults in their decision-making capacities, the Supreme Court recognized that adolescents are not adults in all but age. The Court concluded that the overwhelming weight of the psychological and neurophysiological data regarding brain maturation supports the conclusion that adolescents are qualitatively different types of agents than adult persons. The Supreme Court further solidified (...) its position regarding adolescents as less than fully mature and responsible decisionmakers in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012). In each case, the Court concluded that the scientific evidence does not support the conclusion that children under 18 years of age possess adult capacities for personal agency, rationality, and mature choice. This study explores the implications of the Supreme Court decisions in Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, and Miller v. Alabama for the “mature minor” standard for medical decision making. It argues that the Supreme Court’s holdings in Roper, Graham, and Miller require no less than a radical reassessment of how healthcare institutions, courts of law, and public policy are obliged to regard minors as medical decisionmakers. The “mature minor” standard for medical decision making must be abandoned. (shrink)

Criminal law and the proceedings surrounding it work, at least in theory, much like an author works when writing a play or a novel. Both the lawyer and the writer follow traditional formulae that allow them to create and express a vision of reality. When done well, the reality created is virtually seamless. This, however, is the point at which law and literary works diverge. Although we embrace creativity in literary endeavors, we would prefer that the foundation of our legal (...) system be something more substantial. Unfortunately, where US. criminal HIV exposure statutes are concerned, there appears to be little if any concrete connection between proscribed behaviors and what we know about HIV transmission risk. Twenty-four states in the U.S. make it a criminal offense for a person who has HIV to expose another to the virus through consensual sexual activities. The relationship between the activities prohibited by these laws and actual risk of virus transmission is tenuous at best. (shrink)

When it comes to injustice, especially racial injustice, rage isn't just an acceptable response-it's crucial in order to fuel the fight for change. Anger has a bad reputation. Many people think that it is counterproductive, distracting, and destructive. It is a negative emotion, many believe, because it can lead so quickly to violence or an overwhelming fury. And coming from people of color, it takes on connotations that are even more sinister, stirring up stereotypes, making white people fear what an (...) angry other might be capable of doing, when angry, and leading them to turn to hatred or violence in turn, to squelch an anger that might upset the racial status quo. According to philosopher Myisha Cherry, anger does not deserve its bad reputation. It is powerful, but its power can be a force for good. And not only is it something we don't have to discourage, it's something we ought to cultivate actively. People fear anger because they paint it in broad strokes, but we can't dismiss all anger, especially not now. There is a form of anger that in fact is crucial in the anti-racist struggle today. This anti-racist anger, what Cherry calls Lordean rage, can use its mighty force to challenge racism: it aims for change, motivates productive action, builds resistance, and is informed by an inclusive and liberating perspective. People can, and should, harness Lordean rage and tap into its unique anti-racist potential. We should not suppress it or seek to replace it with friendly emotions. If we want to effect change, and take down racist structures and systems, we must manage it in the sense of cultivating it, and keeping it focused and strong. Cherry makes her argument for anti-racist anger by putting Aristotle in conversation with Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin in conversation with Joseph Butler. The Case for Rage not only uses the tools of philosophy to articulate its arguments, but it sharpens them with the help of social psychology and history. The book is philosophically rich and yet highly accessible beyond philosophical spheres, issuing an urgent call to all politically and socially engaged readers looking for new, deeply effective tools for changing the world. Its message will resonate with the enraged and those witnessing such anger, wondering whether it can help or harm. Above all, this book is a resource for the activist coming to grips with a seemingly everyday emotion that she may feel rising up within her and not know what to do with. It shows how to make sure anger doesn't go to waste, but instead leads to lasting, long-awaited change. (shrink)

To comprehend pain, disease, death and suffering as being meaningful - beyond the firing of synapses, the collapse of human abilities, and the mere end of life - requires a context in which to evaluate essential connotations, as well as to place and integrate understandings. If pain and suffering are to have enduring significance, they must be situated within a nest of ontological background assumptions, standards of inquiry, and epistemological foundations. Where secular bioethics fails to give deep meaning to suffering, (...) Christian bioethics succeeds. This essay analyzes the divergent meanings of suffering endorsed by the various Christian religions as conceptualized through the different metaphysical, epistemological, and sociological assumptions of each religion. (shrink)

Qu’est-ce que la circulation mondialisée des biens et des personnes fait à la musique? Deux choses apparemment contradictoires : l’uniformisation des styles et des moyens se conjugue avec leur renouvellement constant, les effets de contagion planétaire avec la multiplication des réappropriations locales. Autrement dit ce qui uniformise peut être aussi ce qui singularise. Ce paradoxe nous conduit à dérouler quelques fils, à suivre de proche en proche des « objets » circulants – un appareil numérique, un style musical, un groupe (...) de pratiques – de manière à saisir les modalités concrètes de leur circulation. Pour que ça circule, il faut que ça se connecte, ce qui ne va pas sans heurts, disputes, larsens, frottements, qui tous affectent voire transforment l’« objet » circulant. Point de circulation sans frictions et boucles de rétroaction et sans une multitude d’agents qui font que ça passe : nous croisons en cheminant des musiciens noise, mais aussi des benders, des shifters, des makers, des repairers. Ces figures de l’interconnexion globale sont également celles qui se glissent dans ses failles et amplifient ses différences. (shrink)

Despite the well-documented social, economic, and adaptive advantages for young children, adolescents, and adults, the traditional family in the West is in decline. A growing percentage of men and women choose not to be bound by the traditional moral and social expectations of marriage and family life. Adults are much more likely than in the past to live as sexually active singles, with a concomitant increase in forms of social isolation as well as in the number of children born outside (...) of marriage. These social shifts are also connected to public policies that provide incentives for individuals to exit the family, leaving behind its social, capital, and economic resources. The individualistic character of the social-democratic egalitarian ideology that underlies the current dominant approaches to health care financing in Western Europe and much of North America, for example, is associated with a decline in family stability. Welfare entitlements, including state-based health care, have made it easier to exit the family, undermining the centrality of the family’s core human relationships. This essay argues for the importance of recognizing the cardinal role and reality of the family and for the importance of family-based health care savings accounts for preserving family integrity, while also providing for sustainable long-term health care reform. (shrink)

IT SEEMS PLAUSIBLE TO DIVIDE ALLEGEDLY EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS, "SECULAR" OR OTHERWISE, INTO TWO BROAD CATEGORIES. THE FIRST CATEGORY COMPRISES EVENTS WHICH APPEAR TO BE EXTENSIONS OF THE FAMILIAR, SINCE THEIR CHARACTERIZATION APPARENTLY INCORPORATE A REFERENCE TO EVENTS WHICH ARE SCIENTIFICALLY COMMONPLACE. THE SECOND COMPRISES EVENTS WHICH APPEAR TO BE TOTAL BREAKS WITH THE FAMILIAR, SINCE APPARENTLY NO SUCH REFERENCES CAN BE ELICITED. THE WRITER EXAMINES IN DETAIL POSSIBLE BASES FOR THE DISTINCTION, IN CONNECTION, ESPECIALLY, WITH THE NOTION OF THE DEFEASIBILITY (...) OF AN ACTION. HE CONCLUDES THAT ALTHOUGH THE DISTINCTION CANNOT IN THE END BE SUSTAINED, ANY ATTEMPT TO PROVIDE A COHERENT LOGIC OF THE MIRACULOUS MUST TAKE ACCOUNT OF A NUMBER OF POINTS ARISING FROM THE EXAMINATION. (shrink)

Réexamen d'une statuette trouvée en 1946 dans le dépôt sacré de l'Artémision. Les statuettes trouvées en Egée datent, semble-t-il, de la dernière époque mycénienne (HR III B-C). C'est de la côte syro-palestinienne que leur type a été introduit dans le monde créto-mycénien, via Chypre. Très nombreuses en Orient,· elles sont exceptionnelles en Egée, où elles sont étrangères à l'iconographie. Dans leurs pays d'origine, ce sont des effigies divines et il est vraisemblable qu'elles ont conservé cette signification en Egée. Le bronze (...) de Délos représente, comme les autres, une divinité et date d'environ 1200 ou du XIIe s. Conclusions : 1) Présence d'une idole (masculine) à l'Artémision ; 2) Cette présence n'est pas incompatible avec celle d'une divinité féminine prééminente ; 3) La notion de continuité des cultes est renforcée ; 4) Les récentes études mettent en valeur la diversité des cultes et des symboles et incitent à distinguer des variantes locales en fonction de chaque sanctuaire à la fin de l'âge du Bronze en Egée. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Organizational Ethics and Health Care: Expanding Bioethics to the Institutional Arena **Laura Jane Bishop (bio), M. Nichelle Cherry (bio), and Martina Darragh* (bio)In 1995, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) expanded its patient rights standards to include requirements for assuring that hospital business practices would be ethical. Renamed “Patient Rights and Organization Ethics,” these standards are based on the realization that a hospital’s obligation to its (...) patients is derived from two relationships: the patient-provider relationship governed by “clinical ethics,” and the customer-supplier relationship governed by “business ethics.” “[This] boundary between ‘clinical’ ethics and ‘business’ ethics is not clear and in many cases is nonexistent. While marketing and admission practices are seen as issues related to ‘business’ ethics, they can lead to unneeded admissions or demand for unneeded services, both of which can unnecessarily expose the patient to the risk of side effects or complications. Likewise, underutilization of needed services is likely to lead to less than optimal health outcomes” (I. Schyve 1996, p. 17). “These new standards arose out of well-publicized concerns about abuses in which patients were admitted to hospitals unnecessarily and were discharged or transferred only after their insurance expired” (I. Schyve 1996, pp. 15–16).These abuses also sparked eloquent protests against threats to patient well-being and to the nature of the patient-provider relationship in the bioethics literature. The fiduciary responsibility of the provider to inform and to protect the patient was fragmented by insurer business practices such as gag clauses and economic credentialing of providers (VII. Scope Note 31, 1996). The background role that the institution plays, though poorly articulated historically, has been brought sharply into focus by the explosive growth of the managed practice of medicine. The context of medical ethics is no longer limited to the resolution of individual cases, but instead encompasses the adoption of institutional structures to protect and promote patient welfare (IV. Emanuel 1995, p. 335). In this new configuration, the institution and the providers are co-fiduciaries for populations [End Page 189] of patients, and the medicine that is practiced is “appropriately economically disciplined.” The expression “My patient always comes first” is no longer “... intellectually serious or morally responsible.” But, “... to be sure, both conceptually and in practice, being an economically disciplined fiduciary professional or institution is ethically unstable.... The task is to identify the boundaries outside of which institutional policy and behavior will not count as an ethically defensible form of being... [a] fiduciary.” (IV. McCullough 1997, pp. 143–44). This process of delimiting and enforcing boundaries requires the development of “... a language for talking about the ethical values of the organization. If such a language does not exist, discussions about ethics become cumbersome and unlikely to occur” (IV. Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1998, p. 2).As with bioethics generally, the literature addressing organizational ethics is multidisciplinary. JCAHO’s compliance guide for its revised standards, Ethical Issues and Patient Rights, draws on a wealth of ideas from both clinical ethics and business ethics. This is often an awkward alliance. “Because the study of organizational ethics is in its infancy compared to other areas of healthcare ethics, discussions about it often seem like hot air with no palpable payoff” (I. Boyle 1998, p. 2). The fact that “... there is an ancient history that reflects widespread doubt about the moral probity of business” (II. Frederick 1995, p. 209) does not help. To begin, “Aristotle had rude things to say about business” (II. Jackson 1998, p. 401). A brief review of introductions to several of the business ethics textbooks cited in this bibliography reveals that a rebuttal of “business ethics as an oxymoron” is the standard opening paragraph. This stigma is unfounded, and “increased stability” has characterized the state of business ethics literature during the 1990s (II. Beauchamp and Bowie 1997, p. ix). Significant attention has been given to elaborating two often overlapping theories—stakeholder and social contractarian.Originating in the 1960s as a pun on “stockholder,” proponents of stakeholder theory claim that a corporation’s fiduciary responsibility extends beyond increasing its profitability to protecting the rights of individuals or groups affected by its actions. Popular as a strategic planning tool in the... (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a view beyond that which would narrowly reduce the role of parents in medical decision making to acting as custodians of the best interests of children and toward an account of family authority and family autonomy. As a fundamental social unit, the good of the family is usually appreciated, at least in part, in terms of its ability successfully to instantiate its core moral and cultural understandings as well as to pass on such commitments to (...) future generations. The putative rights of children to expression, information, freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and to freedom of association with others are, in this essay, assessed from the perspective of those conditions necessary for the family to function as a moral community. In so doing, I respond to the move to liberate children from parental authority and to effect the transformation of the family as implied by the United Nations’ "Convention on the Rights of the Child" and the pediatric bioethics it supports. (shrink)

Accounts of natural law moral philosophy and theology sought principles and precepts for morality, law, and other forms of social authority, whose prescriptive force was not dependent for validity on human decision, social influence, past tradition, or cultural convention, but through natural reason itself. This volume critically explores and assesses our contemporary culture wars in terms of: the possibility of natural law moral philosophy and theology to provide a unique, content-full, canonical morality; the character and nature of moral pluralism; the (...) limits of justifiable national and international policy seeking to produce and preserve human happiness, social justice, and the common good; the ways in which morality, moral epistemology, and social political reform must be set within the broader context of an appropriately philosophically and theologically anchored anthropology. This work will be of interest to philosophers, theologians, bioethicists, ethicists and political scientists. (shrink)

Commentators routinely urge that it is morally permissible forcibly to treat psychiatric patients (1) to preserve the patient's best interests and (2) to restore the patient's autonomy. Such arguments specify duties of beneficence toward others, while appreciating personal autonomy as a positive value to be weighted against other factors. Varying by jurisdiction, legal statutes usually require, in addition, at least (3) that there exists the threat of harm to self or others. In this paper, I argue against embracing the first (...) two elements of this prevailing view. I also argue for a very restricted reading of the third element, based on the moral limits of permissible state action. (shrink)