Inequity has been a hallmark of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, especially in the sharply disproportionate impacts among people of color. Recent studies have confirmed that t...

The present work posits that social motives, particularly status seeking in the form of moral grandstanding, are likely at least partially to blame for elevated levels of affective polarization and ideological extremism in the U.S. In Study 1, results from both undergraduates (N = 981; Mean age = 19.4; SD = 2.1; 69.7% women) and a cross-section of U.S. adults matched to 2010 census norms (N = 1,063; Mean age = 48.20, SD = 16.38; 49.8% women) indicated that prestige-motived grandstanding (...) was consistently and robustly related to more extreme ideological views on a variety of issues. In Study 2, results from a weighted, nationally-representative cross-section of U.S. adults (N = 2,519; Mean age = 47.5, SD = 17.8; 51.4% women) found that prestige motivated grandstanding was reliably related to both ideological extremism and affective polarization. (shrink)

We believe we know our bodies intimately—that their material reality is certain and that this certainty leads to an epistemological truth about sex, gender, and identity. By exploring and giving equal weight to transgendered subjectivities, however, Gayle Salamon upends these certainties. Considering questions of transgendered embodiment via phenomenology (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Paul Ferdinand Schilder), and queer theory, Salamon advances an alternative theory of normative and non-normative gender, proving the value and vitality of trans experience for thinking (...) about embodiment. Salamon suggests that the difference between transgendered and normatively gendered bodies is not, in the end, material. Rather, she argues that the production of gender itself relies on a disjunction between the "felt sense" of the body and an understanding of the body's corporeal contours, and that this process need not be viewed as pathological in nature. Examining the relationship between material and phantasmatic accounts of bodily being, Salamon emphasizes the productive tensions that make the body both present and absent in our consciousness and work to confirm and unsettle gendered certainties. She questions traditional theories that explain how the body comes to be—and comes to be made one's own—and she offers a new framework for thinking about what "counts" as a body. The result is a groundbreaking investigation into the phenomenological life of gender. (shrink)

This essay considers what is critical in critical phenomenology, and asks what features critical and phenomenological methods share. I suggest three fundamentally significant resonances between the critical and phenomenological enterprises. First is the suggestion that critique, like phenomenology, is an attempt to move beyond a dualism of inside and outside in order to extend into outer regions of what is known. Second is the insistence that what at first appears to be a purely negative endeavor, a finding of limit, is (...) incomplete if, upon finding that limit, it comes to a stop. Just as the reduction is not a means to banish or negate the world, but rather the condition through which it can more fully emerge, critique cannot be merely a cataloguing of the limitations of the present situation. Third is the openness to the possibilities of the world, a wonder or curiosity, that is revealed through the work of description in phenomenology, or Foucault’s characterization of philosophy not as an unmasking, but a making visible of what is visible. Finally I consider critical phenomenology’s futures: How is a newly enlivened kind of scholarship emerging from these two forms of thinking, both of which have been dismissed as outmoded or irrelevant? The new work currently emerging in phenomenology, with its emphasis on its own reflexive self-consideration and decolonization, offers hope that it might yet be capacious enough to simultaneously encompass the revelation of its limitations as well as the expansion of its reach. (shrink)

Part Two of the Ethical and Religious Directives outlines the responsibility to care for the spiritual needs of patients and residents, following the example of Christ who both healed the sick and forgave them their sins. The proposed revisions to the introduction add a more explicit focus on the dignity of the sick, the redemptive value of suffering, and the potential evangelization that takes place through institutional health care. The proposed revisions to the directives emphasize that patients and residents have (...) a right to receive spiritual and sacramental care. Likewise, Catholic healthcare institutions, medical staff, and pastoral care personnel have an obligation to arrange and provide adequate spiritual and sacramental care. (shrink)

Yarkoni has argued that psychology is facing a generalizability crisis, but the real cost of this crisis is obscured by a focus on topics from psychology's most academic subfields. Psychology is also filled with applied subfields, and it is within those subfields – especially clinical science – where the cost of a generalizability crisis will be most severe.

This paper charts the concepts of grip and the bodily auxiliary in Maurice Merleau-Ponty to consider how they find expression in disability narratives. Arguing against the notion of “maximal grip” that some commentators have used to explicate intentionality in Merleau-Ponty, I argue that grip in his texts functions instead as a compensatory effort to stave off uncertainty, lack of mastery, and ambiguity. Nearly without exception in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, the mobilisation of “grip” is a signal of impending loss and (...) is offered as a strategy for managing failure rather than as an example of sure-footed mastery. I read Merleau-Ponty alongside Mary Felstiner’s Out of Joint: A Public and Private Story of Arthritis to explore these other, attenuated dimensions of grip as an example of a way of thinking disabled embodiment otherwise. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years the breast cancer movement has worked to make breast cancer a national priority, raise awareness and funds, galvanize social support, and impact the direction of research. Women have been at the forefront of information sharing, activism, and patient empowerment. Treatments have improved incrementally and mortality rates have declined overall. By these indicators, the movement is a success. Yet, 70 percent of those diagnosed with breast cancer have none of the known risk factors, making causation and (...) prevention uncertain; approximately 40,000 women die from metastatic breast cancer each year, a number that hasn’t changed for decades; corporate and political agendas stand in the way of patients’ rights and access to quality care; profit motives and disease branding supersede efforts to provide meaningful support and accurate health information; and breast cancer is popularized to the degree that “pink consumption” has become more of a trendy pastime than a rallying call for social change. Tenacious activists and a growing number of citizens, though divergent in the problems they tackle and methods they use, share a critical stance that fosters new thinking about breast cancer and calls for transparency, accountability, and alternatives to the pink ribbon. (shrink)

Background: In prevalence studies of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), investigators often provide syndromic management for symptomatic participants, but may not provide specific treatment for asymptomatic individuals with positive laboratory test results due to the delays between sample collection and availability of results as well as logistical constraints in recontacting study participants. Methods: To characterize the extent of this issue, 80 prevalence studies from the World Health Organization’s Report on global sexually transmitted infection surveillance, 2018, were reviewed. Studies were classified as (...) to whether clinically relevant positive results were returned or if this was not specified. Results: More than half (56%) of the cited studies did not specify if participants were notified of clinically relevant positive STI test results. The percentages were similar for low- and middle-income country populations (57%) and high-income country populations (53%). Conclusions: The absence of documentation of the provision of test results raises the possibility that in some instances, results may not have been communicated, with potential negative effects for participants, their sexual partners, and newborns. From an ethical perspective, clinically relevant results should be returned to study participants and treating clinicians in a timely fashion to ensure appropriate management of identified infections. Study authors should document if they returned test results to study participants and report on numbers lost to follow-up. (shrink)

This book, written by leading authors in the field, takes a completely new approach to objectivity and subjectivity, no longer treating them as opposed - as many existing texts do - but as logically and methodologically related in social research. The authors explain complex arguments with great clarity for social science students, while also providing the detail and comprehensiveness required to meet the needs of practicing researchers and scholars.

AIDS is a debilitating and fatal disease that was first identified as an infectious disease syndrome in the 1970s. The discovery of a nearly universally fatal infectious and rapidly spreading disease in the post–antibiotics era created apprehension in the medical community and alarm in the general population. Questions about how patients should be handled in medical and nonmedical settings resulted in the ostracizing of many AIDS patients and inappropriate patient management. Scientific investigation into modes of disease transmission and control helped (...) to shape the management of AIDS patient care in such a way that ethical and protective practices could be developed. In this article I discuss some of the ethical questions that were addressed by appropriate scientific inquiry. (shrink)

We have never been so aware of masks. They were in short supply in the early days of COVID-19, resulting in significant risk to health care workers. Now they are highly politicized with battles about mask-wearing protocols breaking out in public. Although masks have obtained a new urgency and ubiquity in the context of COVID-19, people have thought about both the literal and metaphorical role of masks in medicine for generations. In this paper, we discuss three such metaphors—the masks of (...) objectivity, of infallibility, and of benevolence—and their powerful role in medicine. These masks can be viewed as inflexible barriers to communication, contributing to the traditional authoritarian relationship between doctor and patient and concealing the authenticity and vulnerability of physicians. COVID masks, by contrast, offer a more nuanced and morally complex metaphor for thinking about protecting people from harm, authentic and trustworthy communication, and attention to potential inequities both in and beyond medical settings. We highlight the morally relevant challenges and opportunities that masks evoke and suggest that there is much to be gained from rethinking the mask metaphor in medicine. (shrink)

This paper charts the concepts of grip and the bodily auxiliary in Maurice Merleau-Ponty to consider how they find expression in disability narratives. Arguing against the notion of “maximal grip” that some commentators have used to explicate intentionality in Merleau-Ponty, I argue that grip in his texts functions instead as a compensatory effort to stave off uncertainty, lack of mastery, and ambiguity. Nearly without exception in Phenomenology of Perception, the mobilization of “grip” is a signal of impending loss, and is (...) offered as a strategy for managing failure rather than as an example of sure-footed mastery. I read Merleau-Ponty alongside Mary Felstiner's Out of Joint: A Public and Private Story of Arthritis to explore these other, attenuated dimensions of grip. Finally, the paper turns to Harriet McBryde Johnson's memoir Too Late to Die Young as an example of a way of thinking disabled embodiment otherwise. (shrink)

Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social (...) status. For the present work, we conducted six studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); a sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5, Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296), and a large, one-week YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Baseline N = 2,519, follow-up n = 1,776). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding motivation was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life. (shrink)

Western aesthetics attends to its art as a symbohsm-statement created by an artist with a signature-statement. Accompanying every piece is a unique set of informative signs, symbols and techniques which allow for interpretive readings from an individual expression within the Western cultural context. Does an art form from another culture, specifically the Tibetan thanka as selfless art in a selfless culture, retain its aflfectivity and integrity when attended to by Western perusal outside its cultural context? And when the thanka travels, (...) does it come with all its baggage? (shrink)

Transplantation is becoming an increasingly more common approach to treatment of diseases of organ failure, making organ donation an important means of saving lives. Most world religions find organ donation for the purpose of transplantation to be acceptable, and some even encourage members to donate their organs as a gift of love to others. Recent developments, including artificial organs, transplants from nonhuman species, use of stem cells, and cloning, are impacting the field of transplantation. These new approaches should be discussed (...) with bioethical considerations in mind, particularly the notion of human beings as a unity of body and spirit. (shrink)

Abstract.Arthur Peacocke was one of the most important scholars to contribute to the modern dialogue on science and religion, and for this he is remembered in the science‐religion community. Many people, however, are unaware of his exceptional career as a biochemist prior to his decision to pursue a life working as a clergyman in the Church of England. His contributions to studies of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) structure, effects of radiation damage on DNA, and on the interactions of DNA and proteins (...) are among the most important in the field at the time and have had a lasting scientific impact that is still felt today. Peacocke's arguments with Jacques Monod over stochastic (chance) and deterministic (necessity) processes driving evolution became important independently for both the science and the religion communities and appear to have contributed significantly to his decision to become involved in science‐religion dialogue rather than continuing his work exclusively in the field of science. Nevertheless, although Peacocke took on an active church life and ceased his experimental work, he never left science but continued to read the scientific literature and published a scientific review on different approaches in defining DNA structure as recently as 2005. (shrink)

This ‘story from the field’ emerges from qualitative research conducted with relatives of patients admitted to intensive care. A disturbing feature of researching the needs of family members of critically ill patients is the intense emotion that is often generated during the course of interviewing. For some the opportunity to talk about the experience of having a loved one in an intensive care unit was therapeutic; for others it meant anguish and despair as they relived the event that resulted in (...) a life‐threatening illness. Despite being a reasonably experienced educator and critical care nurse, I was unprepared for the intensity of feelings shown by many of the participants. I found that exposure to this kind of suffering was emotionally draining, experiencing the various roles of confidante, nurse, counsellor and researcher. It became important to share my thoughts and feelings and unwind with an independent friend and colleague as a way of debriefing. Methodological and ethical issues that arose included: generating a situation that potentially required therapeutic intervention; the impact on the ‘purity’ of data of becoming emotionally enmeshed; and the level of investigator preparedness when researching sensitive topics. The issue of walking away from an intensely emotional and intimate interview often leaves one with a sense of ‘unfinished business’. (shrink)

Sterilisation has been increasing in the United States in recent decades. Using the National Survey of Families and Households, this paper examines sterilisation among married couples using event history techniques, viewing husband and wife sterilisation as competing risks. Wives are more likely to experience sterilisation and at shorter durations of marriage. Number of children has a curvilinear effect on sterilisation, increasing and then decreasing its likelihood. Wives who are older than their husbands are more likely to get sterilised themselves. Black (...) and Hispanic husbands are more likely to undergo sterilisation. (shrink)

The major statements of the leading figures in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and French hermeneutic traditions.

The persistence of sexual harassment in the workplace, despite the general abhorrence for the behavior and programs designed to eradicate it, is puzzling. This paper proposes that gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment and power differentials in the workplace which permit men to legitimize and institutionalize their perspective are implicated. These two phenomena combine to result in blaming the victim of sexual harassment for her own plight. Shifting attention to the target of sexual harassment facilitates the persistence of sexual (...) harassment because the institutionalized responses to the problem remain unquestioned. (shrink)

This article discusses views of leadership in the light of the financial crisis. Giving attention to views such as Plato and modern technocratic views, the paper is structured around a discussion of a specific organisation; Manchester: Knowledge Capital (M:KC), an organisation that seems to me to exemplify in practice the ideas about leadership that I am proposing as being a valuable way forward.

Steroid use in professional sports continues to receive much media attention in the United States. The predominant response to the use of steroids in professional sports is negative. Much of the opposition to steroid use focuses on the critical importance of fair play in American society. To the degree that steroids provide some players with an unfair advantage, the use of steroids is said to undermine fair play. This paper provides an analogical analysis of SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) coaching services, (...) and the manner in which these services similarly undermine ?fair play? in college admissions competition. Ultimately, our national commitment to fair play is context?specific. If one looks closely, it further reveals the troubling possibility that fair play as a core value is not a core value at all, but little more than an empty mantra. (shrink)