What role does the wild duck play in Ibsen's famous drama? I argue that, besides mirroring the fate of the human cast members, the duck is (...) class='Hi'>acting as animal subject in a quasi-experiment, conducted in a private setting. Analysed from this perspective, the play allows us to discern the epistemological and ethical dimensions of the new scientific animal practice emerging precesely at that time. Ibsen's play stages the clash between a scientific and a romantic understanding of animals that still constitutes the backdrop of most contemporary debates over animals in research. Whereas the scientific understanding reduces the animal's behaviour, as well as its environment, to discrete and modifiable elements, the romantic view regards animals as being at one with their natural surroundings. (shrink)
A certain familiar but “deep” joke, which might be called “The Tattletale’s Paradox,” embodies a logical confusion that figures crucially in some discussions of substantive philosophical (...) class='Hi'>issues. “I can’t tell you the secret,” it runs, “because if I did it wouldn’t be a secret.” It is easy enough to detect the trick involved here: to tell a secret is not to make known a piece of information that is a secret at the time that it is revealed, but rather to tell a story which was a secret but ceases to be one in the telling. The air of paradox arises insofar as we confuse the two claims. (shrink)
Are restrictive measures and duties to care ethically reasonably acceptable to faith-based organizations? This study describes the perceptions of individually interviewed spiritual leaders of the disease (...) class='Hi'>control measures used during the recent SARS outbreak in Toronto. Four central themes were identified: the relationship between religious obligation and civic responsibilities; the role of faith-based organizations in supporting public health restrictive measures; the reciprocal obligations of public health and religious communities during restrictions; and justifiable limits to duties to care. We conclude that, within certain constraints, spiritual leaders find restrictive measures ethically reasonable and that spiritual leaders can play an important role during pandemic and epidemic control planning. Public health officials should therefore include them in the early and ongoing deliberations of the criteria and logistics for implementation during public health emergencies. (shrink)
In the cases of Goodwin v. U.K.and I. v. U.K. the European Court of Human Rights held the U.K. Government to be in breach (...) class='Hi'>of Articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention for denying certain rights and entitlements, particularly the right to marry, to post-operative transsexuals. This article argues that although on some level these are welcome decisions, they are also conservative and recuperative in that they seek to shore up traditional binarist ideas of gender and sexuality. The article concludes, however, that the Court's conservatism is problematic in a number of ways; and that it may be most profitable to read these cases as an invitation to imagine further and more profound challenges to the old order. (shrink)
