BackgroundWhen conducting research with Indigenous populations consent should be sought from both individual participants and the local community. We aimed to search and summarise the literature about methods for seeking consent for research with Indigenous populations.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted for articles that describe or evaluate the process of seeking informed consent for research with Indigenous participants. Guidelines for ethical research and for seeking consent with Indigenous people are also included in our review.ResultsOf 1447 articles found 1391 were excluded (...) ; 56 were relevant and included. Articles were categorised into original research that evaluated the consent process or publications detailing the process of seeking consent and guidelines for ethical research. Guidelines were categorised into international ; national and state/regional/local guidelines. In five studies based in Australia, Canada and The United States of America the consent process with Indigenous people was objectively evaluated. In 13 other studies interpreters, voice recording, videos, pictures, flipcharts and “plain language” forms were used to assist in seeking consent but these processes were not evaluated. Some Indigenous organisations provide examples of community-designed resources for seeking consent and describe methods of community engagement, but none are evaluated. International, national and local ethical guidelines stress the importance of upholding Indigenous values but fail to specify methods for engaging communities or obtaining individual consent. In the ‘Grey literature’ concerns about the consent process are identified but no solutions are offered.ConclusionConsultation with Indigenous communities is needed to determine how consent should be sought from the community and the individual, and how to evaluate this process. (shrink)

The consent and community engagement process for research with Indigenous communities is rarely evaluated. Research protocols are not always collaborative, inclusive or culturally respectful. If participants do not trust or understand the research, selection bias may occur in recruitment, affecting study results potentially denying participants the opportunity to provide more knowledge and greater understanding about their community. Poorly informed consent can also harm the individual participant and the community as a whole. Invited by local Aboriginal community leaders of the Fitzroy (...) Valley, the Kimberley, Western Australia, The Picture Talk project explores the consent process for research. Focus groups of Aboriginal community members were conducted to establish preferences for methods of seeking individual consent. Transcripts were analysed through NVivo10 Qualitative software using grounded theory with inductive and deductive coding. Themes were synthesised with quotes highlighted. Focus groups with Aboriginal community members were facilitated by a Community Navigator as a cultural guide and interpreter and a researcher. Participants were recruited from all main language groups of the Fitzroy Valley – Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkatjungka, Bunuba and Nikinya. Participants were aged ≥18 years, with 5 female groups and one male group. Themes identified include: Reputation and trust is essential; The Community Navigator is key; Pictures give the words meaning – milli milli versus Pictures; Achieving consensus in circles; Signing for consent; and Research is needed in the Valley. Aboriginal communities of the Fitzroy Valley recommend that researchers collaborate with local leaders, develop trust and foster a good reputation in the community prior to research. Local Aboriginal researchers should be employed to provide cultural guidance throughout the research process and interpret local languages especially for elders. Pictures are preferred to written text to explain research information and most prefer to sign for consent. The Fitzroy Valley welcomes research when collaborative and for the benefit of the community. Future research could include exploring how to support young people, promote health screening and improve understanding of medical knowledge. (shrink)

Researchers are required to seek consent from Indigenous communities prior to conducting research but there is inadequate information about how Indigenous people understand and become fully engaged with this consent process. Few studies evaluate the preference or understanding of the consent process for research with Indigenous populations. Lack of informed consent can impact on research findings. The Picture Talk Project was initiated with senior Aboriginal leaders of the Fitzroy Valley community situated in the far north of Western Australia. Aboriginal people (...) were interviewed about their understanding and experiences of research and consent processes. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo10 software with an integrated method of inductive and deductive coding and based in grounded theory. Local Aboriginal interpreters validated coding. Major themes were defined and supporting quotes sourced. Interviews with Aboriginal leaders were facilitated by a local Aboriginal Community Navigator who could interpret if necessary and provide cultural guidance. Participants were from all four major local language groups of the Fitzroy Valley; aged 31 years and above; and half were male. Themes emerging from these discussions included Research—finding knowledge; Being respectful of Aboriginal people, Working on country, and Being flexible with time; Working together with good communication; Reciprocity—two-way learning; and Reaching consent. The project revealed how much more there is to be learned about how research with remote Aboriginal communities should be conducted such that it is both culturally respectful and, importantly, meaningful for participants. We identify important elements in community consultation about research and seeking consent. (shrink)

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...) little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of ‘culture’ and to become organized around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation. (shrink)

To what extent does payment method (managed care vs. out of pocket) influence the likelihood that an independent practitioner will assign a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis to a client? When a practitioner does diagnose, how does payment method influence the specific choice of a diagnostic category? Independent practitioners responded to a vignette describing a fictitious client with symptoms of depression or anxiety. In half of the vignettes, the fictitious client intended to pay (...) via managed care; in the other half, the fictitious client intended to pay out of pocket. Payment method had a very significant impact on diagnosis such that relative to out-of-pocket clients, managed care clients were much more likely to receive diagnoses and more likely to receive adjustment disorder diagnoses in particular. We discuss implications involving informed consent and other ethical issues. (shrink)

© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan pathogen in the phylum Apicomplexa that resides within an intracellular parasitophorous vacuole that is selectively permeable to small molecules through unidentified mechanisms. We have identified GRA17 as a Toxoplasma-secreted protein that localizes to the parasitophorous vacuole membrane and mediates passive transport of small molecules across the PVM. GRA17 is related to the putative Plasmodium translocon protein EXP2 and conserved across PV-residing Apicomplexa. The PVs of GRA17-deficient parasites have aberrant morphology, reduced permeability to (...) small molecules, and structural instability. GRA17-deficient parasites proliferate slowly and are avirulent in mice. These GRA17-deficient phenotypes are rescued by complementation with Plasmodium EXP2. GRA17 functions synergistically with a related protein, GRA23. Exogenous expression of GRA17 or GRA23 alters the membrane conductance properties of Xenopus oocytes in a manner consistent with a large non-selective pore. Thus, GRA17 and GRA23 provide a molecular basis for PVM permeability and nutrient access. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of bees in Dickinson’s work, most interpreters denigrate her nature poems. But following several recent scholars, I identify Nietzschean/Dionysian overtones in the bee poems and suggest the figure of bees/hive/queen illuminates as feminist key to her corpus. First, (a) the bee’s sting represents martyred death; (b) its gold, immortality; (c) its tongue, the “lesbian phallus”; (d) its wings, poetic power; (e) its buzz, poetic melody, and (f) its organism, a joyful Dionysian Susan (her sister-in-law and love interest) (...) to Emily’s flower. Second, the hive represents her individual poems (with slants/dashes as stingers, wings as hymn meter, honey as rhymes, variant words as exiled bees, and accompanying flowers their Darwinian coevolution with bees), constituting her writing persona as a multi-voiced self-swarm, as organized in the apiary of her letters and fascicles. And third, the queen represents her Western cultural and religious inheritance wherein bees are symbols of the soul, reincarnation, poetic-philosophical vocation, and a Nietzschean, trans-Dionysian naturalist ontology—symbolized by apiarian Artemis. (shrink)

Meeting of the Minds records the proceedings of the S.I.E.P.M. conference held in Boston from June 14-16, 1996. The conference participants centred their attention on the relationships between medieval and classical modern philosophy. These relationships have been painted in dramatically different ways by those who have presented overviews of the two eras. Hans Blumenberg, in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age and his subsequent works, discovers the seeds of modernity in the medieval authors themselves. Leo Strauss and his followers see (...) a radical difference between the classical world views of the ancients and medievals and the successive layers of modern thought. These general portraits demand specifics, and the strength of the conference, whose results are contained in this volume, was that it provided many specific examinations of concrete relations between the philosophical positions of celebrated medieval and modern thinkers. Our hope is that this collection of papers will suggest the direction for further cooperative efforts on the interplay of the philosophical views represented by these two eras, and that the issues commonly debated by the medieval and early modern thinkers represented in this volume will give renewed consideration to important philosophical points that have been ignored in more recent debates. The volume contains contributions from E. Jennifer Ashworth (Waterloo, Ontario), Allan Back (Kutztown, Pennsylvania), Jos Decorte (Leuven), Thomas Dewender (Bochum), Idit Dobbs-Weinstein (Nashville), John P.Doyle (St.Louis), Jeremiah Hackett (Columbia, South Carolina), Simo Knuuttila (Helsinki), James McEvoy (Maynooth), A.Stephen McGrade (Storrs), Edward P.Mahoney (Durham, North Carolina), James D.Maliszewski (Toronto), Emily Michael (New York), Woosuk Park (Taejon, Korea), Horacio Santiago-Otero(+) (Madrid), Alison Simmons (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Jean-Luc Solere (Paris), Jose MariSoto Rabanos (Madrid), and Eileen C. Swe. (shrink)

Some of the commentators on Intricate Ethics complain of my method. One finds the main ideas ‘Kammouflaged’ because the relevant causal distinctions are so fine-grained and the cases that illustrate them so numerous. Some say that they do not have the intuitions about many cases that I have, that I concoct dubious and ad hoc distinctions and invest them with moral significance; I am Ptolemaic in that new crystalline spheres and epicycles are constantly being added in an attempt to fix (...) the appearances. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed renewed attempts to regulate the conduct of transnational corporations. One way to do this is via global ethics codes. This paper examines seven such codes (the Sullivan Principles, UN Center for Transnational Corporations’ Draft Code, OECD Guidelines, ILO's Tripartite Declaration, the Caux Round Table Principles for Business, Global Compact, and the United Nations Norms) to determine their coverage of human rights and concludes that if these initiatives succeed, particularly the more recent codes, transnational corporations may (...) emerge as a major force in promoting human rights globally. (shrink)

The target article suggests inter-individual variability is a weakness of microbiota-gut-brain research, but we discuss why it is actually a strength. We comment on how accounting for individual differences can help researchers systematically understand the observed variance in microbiota composition, interpret null findings, and potentially improve the efficacy of therapeutic treatments in future clinical microbiome research.

This dissertation shows that Proclus provides a consistent reading of Plato's late dialogues, and develops a three level ontology which stands on its own. By augmenting the reserve of Platonist philosophy with Post Platonic developments of Greek mathematics and astronomy and physics, at points where Platonism ceased to provide operating principles, Proclus, reached for formulations which went beyond Plato. His own metaphysics, though sometimes obscured by theurgic allusions, grounds Being in an infinite One. ;One of the problems that Proclus attempts (...) to solve through the posit of three infinities, is that an iterative potential infinity, seen in the interval structure of the physical world, could divide to oblivion if uncolonized by Principle. The 'One Being', which brings Limit and noetic sameness, is itself entrapped in Self Reflexivity. An infinity of a third kind, one beyond all Limit and Unlimit is posed to solve this problem. This is Proclus' NeoPlatonic solution to the fact that Being alone, albeit under the rule of intellect, cannot guarantee itself. ;Platonism assumes a "universe" i.e. One grounding Many, which predetermines the place of all structure. $\rm A\nu\lambda o\gamma\iota\alpha$ is a principle of substitution which governs the visible cosmos and makes it comprehensible by mathematical formulations. Plato's emphasis on the self same as the epitome of Being, with circularity as the highest form for thought, helps Proclus provide a consistent account of: Creation ; Infinity as a Simultaneous Whole ; Soul and Nous, Dialectic is valorized over other forms of thought as most like $$ the eternal truth and a means to assimilation. Procession and reversion forms a circle which demonstrates a metaphysical successor of cosmic revolutions found to exist as the heavenly bodies carry out their noetic patterns. ;Finally Eternity encapsulates Time; but again its infinite circularity is only recouped by a One beyond all Limit which can carry out the Providence of a final cause. (shrink)

It is in the obscure terrain between the life-world of Greek science and technology and the language of its metaphysics that one sees the attempts of early navigators and map-makers to conceptualize what lies beyond the oikoumene. This interest later effects astronomy in terms of what is “beyond the heavens [ezo tes ouranos]” and then in metaphysics as a “Beyond Being [epekeina tes ousias],” an ideal Beyond proposed by Plato in Republic and one that is to eventually become a mainstay (...) of NeoPlatonism. Thus, the “fundamental act” that Romm describes in the above quote was not only taken up with geographical interest, but is one that can be seen as a preparatory gesture in a culture readying itself for the advent of metaphysics, a gesture that continued to make itself felt up until the last days of the Ancient Academy in the fifth century AD. The threads of the intellectual history of a Beyond Being find technological roots in the increasingly sophisticated acts of representation that one finds in early cartography, astronomy, and cosmology, one of which will be to mark boundaries around the heavens themselves and to call that Being. (shrink)

Bioethical Prescriptions collects F.M. Kamm's articles on bioethics -- revised for publication in book form -- which have appeared over the last 25 years and which have made her among the most widely-respected philosophers working in this field.

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it (...) is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible. (shrink)

I begin by reconsidering the arguments of John Taurek and Elizabeth Anscombe on whether the number of people we can help counts morally. I then consider arguments that numbers should count given by F. M. Kamm and Thomas Scanlon, and criticism of them by Michael Otsuka. I examine how different conceptions of the moral method known as pairwise comparison are at work in these different arguments and what the ideas of balancing and tie-breaking signify for decision-making in various types of (...) cases. I conclude by considering how another moral method that I call virtual divisibility functions and what it helps reveal about an argument by Otsuka against those who do not think numbers count. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. One of its aims is to decide whether and when it might make sense to not resist or bring about the end of one's life. To answer this question it considers views about meaning in life and what makes life worth living. It also evaluates recent attempts to help the general public plan in advance for the end of life. It also considers (...) whether or not physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible and if it should be legalized. (shrink)

The anthropogenic environmental change characteristic of the Anthropocene generates numerous threats and opportunities for the non-human beings who are intrinsic to forest and tree health. There are profound consequences for both humans and non-humans as a result of natural ecosystem disturbances, such as forest fires or invasive insects, and their accompanying environmental management responses. However, the consequences for non-humans as a result of either disturbance or management receive virtually no attention within environmental policy and practice. In this paper we argue (...) for the growth and transformation - the 'eclosion' - of the 'stakeholder' concept so as to provide a pragmatic basis for greater attentiveness to, and comprehension of, non-human interest. We explore the implications and feasibility of this, describing particular approaches to stakeholder analysis and representation that emanate from research methods including multispecies ethnography and studies in 'new animism', that can effectively enable non-human 'voices' to be heard and taken more seriously. We conclude there are solid methodological and conceptual foundations on which to build an effective understanding of non-human stakeholdership, particularly in the area of forest and tree health. (shrink)