In a recent paper in this journal, Kosso ([2000]) discussed the observational status of continuous symmetries of physics. While we are in broad agreement with his approach, we disagree with his analysis. In the discussion of the status of gauge symmetry, a set of examples offered by 't Hooft ([1980]) has influenced several philosophers, including Kosso; in all cases the interpretation of the examples is mistaken. In this paper, we present our preferred approach to the empirical significance of symmetries, re-analysing (...) the cases of gauge symmetry and general covariance. Direct and indirect empirical significance Global and local continuous symmetries Gauge symmetry 3.1 Local gauge symmetry 3.1.1 Discussion of the first claim 3.1.2 Discussion of the second claim 3.2 Global gauge symmetry Space-time symmetries Direct and indirect empirical significance again Conclusion. (shrink)

Analysis of Emmy Noether's 1918 theorems provides an illuminating method for testing the consequences of coordinate generality, and for exploring what else must be added to this requirement in order to give general covariance its far-reaching physical significance. The discussion takes us through Noether's first and second theorems, and then a third related theorem due originally to F. Klein. Contact will also be made with the contributions of, principally, J.L. Anderson, A. Trautman, P.A.M. Dirac, R. Torretti and the father of (...) the whole business, A. Einstein. (shrink)

The Cambridge Quarterly has a history of presenting multidisciplinary perspectives in bioethics, welcoming a lively dialogue between clinicians, philosophers, theologians, social scientists, lawyers, and others on a range of bioethics concerns. This special issue of the journal focuses explicitly on contributions from anthropologists to the field.

The shortage of organs for transplantation by its nature prompts ethical dilemmas. For example, although there is an imperative to save human life and reduce suffering by maximising the supply of vital organs, there is an equally important obligation to ensure that the process by which we increase the supply respects the rights of all stakeholders. In a relatively unexamined practice in the USA, organs are procured from unrepresented decedents without their express consent. Unrepresented decedents have no known healthcare wishes (...) or advance care planning document; they also lack a surrogate. The Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 2006 sends a mixed message about the procurement of organs from this patient population and there are hospitals that authorise donation. In addition, in adopting the RUAGA, some states included provisions that clearly allow organ procurement from unrepresented decedents. An important unanswered question is whether this practice meets the canons of ethical permissibility. The current Brief Report presents two principled approaches to the topic as a way of highlighting some of the complexities involved. Concluding remarks offer suggestions for future research and discussion. (shrink)

Working women in the Caribbean and Latin America are more active in the labor market than their counterparts in most other regions of the world. Yet, they remain much less economically mobile than working men. Using research from a long-term study in Martinique, this article offers a new view of the cross-class construction of women's economic immobility. Research results suggest that irrespective of a woman's socioeconomic status, household structure, education, skills, or freedom from domestic chores, the organization of her work (...) is patterned in ways that preclude economic growth. When women try to “get ahead,” they invest more of their own time; men, by contrast, put others to work. I argue that these and other gender-based patterns of work organization and network management express a hidden but enduring legacy of a patriarchal value system. (shrink)

An eighteen‐year‐old with sickle cell disease was admitted to the pediatric hematology service at his local children's hospital for management of an acute pain crisis, one of many such admissions. He had a good relationship with his primary hematologist and primary nurse, but with other health care providers, there was evident friction. Sometimes, he was simply rude, rolling over and pretending to sleep in response to questions about his symptoms. When frustrated or convinced that his pain was not being addressed (...) appropriately, he was prone to yelling and cursing at his nurses. After members of the health care team complained, their supervisor decided to transfer the patient to an adult general medicine service. Reasons cited for the transition included the stressful work environment created by the patient's actions, his refusal to follow directives from staff (although he was generally adherent to treatment), and the hypothetical harm to other young patients who might witness his behavior. Was this a just outcome? Is it ever permissible to deny access to pediatric care to a patient whose best interests would be served by it? Can access be withheld for “bad” behavior, and can transfer of care be wielded as a punishment? (shrink)

Analysis of Emmy Noether’s 1918 theorems provides an illuminating method for testing the consequences of “coordinate generality”, and for exploring what else must be added to this requirement in order to give general covariance its far-reaching physical significance. The discussion takes us through Noether’s first and second theorems, and then a third related theorem due originally to F. Klein. Contact will also be made with the contributions of, principally, J.L. Anderson, A. Trautman, P.A.M. Dirac, R. Torretti and the father of (...) the whole business, A. Einstein (an apparent shift in Einstein’s thinking on the significance of general covariance between 1916 and 1918 is highlighted). (shrink)

Initial writings and moral distress research focused on nursing, however, it soon became clear that others in healthcare also experienced moral distress. The narratives discussed in this commentary show this variation not only in the authors’ multiplicity of disciplines (psychologists, nurses, an ethicist, and physicians), but also in their workplace environments (prisons, hospitals, and homecare) and their roles, from students to well accomplished professionals. In other words no one is immune. By looking through the lens of time the author shows (...) that the experience of moral distress is not isolated in time, but in fact continues to be lived over time. Other important themes drawn out here are: isolation, powerlessness, failure, regret, undermined potential and the way feelings are experienced. It is also noted that despite the pain and angst, there is a sense of gratitude in these stories. They touch our own woundedness, remind us of our own resiliency and give us hope for the redemptive power of the experience and reflection. (shrink)

This reflection draws upon two recent ‘moments’ in British sexuality politics—a series of Parliamentary debates on Global LGBT rights and Brighton Pride’s campaign to ‘Highlight Global LGBT Communities’. It contrasts these two moments in order to demonstrate how, at a time when LGBT rights have ostensibly been ‘won’ in the UK, there is an increasing tendency to shift focus to the persecution of SOGI minorities elsewhere in the world. This shift in focus sets up a binary of here versus there (...) that is politically persuasive but ultimately limited and limiting. By reflecting on the way that this growing trend of creating sexual politics elsewhere occurs in two very different locations in British politics and activism, we seek to begin a conversation about the relational affects of placing sexual politics ‘elsewhere’. (shrink)

This manuscript proposes a proactive framework for preventing or mitigating disruptive ethical conflicts that often result from delayed or avoided conversations about the ethics of care. Four components of the framework are explained and illustrated with evidenced-based actions. Clinical implications of adopting a prevention-based, system-wide ethics framework are discussed. While some aspects of ethically-difficult situations are unique, system patterns allow some issues to occur repeatedly—often with lingering effects such as healthcare providers’ disengagement and moral distress (McAndrew et al. Journal of (...) Trauma Nursing 18(4):221–230, 2011), compromised inter-professional relationships (Rosenstein and O’Daniel American Journal of Nursing, 105(1):54–64, 2005), weakened ethical climates (Pauly et al. HEC Forum 24:1–11, 2012), and patient safety concerns (Cimiotti et al. American Journal of Infection Control 40:486–490, 2012). This work offers healthcare providers and clinical ethicists a framework for developing a comprehensive set of proactive, ethics-specific, and evidence-based strategies for mitigating ethical conflicts. Furthermore, the framework aims to encourage innovative research and novel ways of collaborating to reduce such conflicts and the moral distress that often results. (shrink)

This research project investigated the extent to which nurses engage in two important kinds of ethical behaviours: ethical activism (where they try to make hospitals more receptive to nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations) and ethical assertiveness (where they participate in ethics deliberations even when not formally invited). This research probed not only the extent to which nurses engage in these ethical behaviours but also whether this is influenced by professional, training and organizational factors. A random sample of 165 nurses from (...) three major hospitals in Los Angeles provided the data. Regression analyses indicate that both ethical activism and ethical assertiveness are strongly influenced by nurses’ perceptions of the receptivity of hospitals to their inclusion in ethics deliberations. In addition, nurses’ education in ethics is a significant predictor of ethical activism. The findings have important implications for the content of nurses’ ethics training as well as for expanding the boundaries of nurses’ participation in ethics deliberations. The authors define ethics deliberations as specific meetings of a number of people to discuss an ethical issue, such as one regarding the care of a patient. (shrink)

Experiential education produces numerous benefits to students in terms of higher order thinking skills such as the ability to evaluate, analyze, and synthesizeinformation , engagement , and work-readiness . Partnering with community organizations provides a means to create experiential education opportunities for students. In this symposium, we discussed three examples of experiential education to promote learning around themes of sustainability, providing a brief outline of the activities, the intended outcomes, and the lessons learned from our experiences. We concluded with a (...) meditation on the importance of working with community partners and managing expectations so that students, the community, and the institutions gain the best possible outcomes when creating town-gown partnerships for sustainability education. (shrink)

Agriculture is a serious contributor to pollution and other environmental harms, making it an important site of action for the development of environmentally friendly products and practices. However, farmer adoption of such options is varied and dependent on a wide range of factors including the visual appeal of sustainable farming. Recent studies have shown that negative aesthetics related to more environmentally friendly ways of farming can delay or prevent adoption of such practices. Drawing on the concepts of good farming, cultural (...) capital, and the aesthetics of waste, this paper aims to assess the status of biodegradable plastic mulch in relation to a range of alternative and conventional specialty crop growers’ aesthetic perceptions. BDM has the potential to significantly reduce non-biodegradable polyethylene mulch waste, thus addressing serious environmental and human health concerns. However, the aesthetics of BDM may present a challenge. BDM looks identical to PE plastic, and its degradation throughout the season results in scraps in the soil. To investigate aesthetics as a possible barrier to BDM adoption, we conducted five photo-elicitation focus groups with specialty crop growers in Washington State. Results indicate that alternative growers are slightly more adverse to the aesthetics of BDM, especially because of its ‘plastic’ appearance. Conventional growers had higher rates of BDM adoption, even though they felt a strong aesthetic aversion to the messy nature of BDM degradation. Confidence in the product, particularly as a result of education and experience, was believed to be the key to overcoming this negative aesthetic. Study participants offered a variety of ways to enhance the acceptability of BDM, such as making the mulch brown instead of black. These findings have wider implications for the acceptance and adoption of practices that, although environmentally friendly, have an unattractive visual element. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Living with Blindness and Fibromyalgia while Occupying AgingKatherine SchneiderI’m blind from birth and in middle age developed fibromyalgia. I’ve retired from a thirty year career as a clinical psychologist and am working on my third book tentatively titled “Occupying Aging: Delights, Disabilities and Daily Life.” My relationship with medical professionals includes gratitude (without good care I would not be alive) and also frustration for assumptions often made about my (...) abilities. I write from the perspectives of an impatient patient, woman living in the United States, former provider of mental health services, person with both invisible and visible disabilities, and boomer moving into the world of the aged. My stories are mine of course, but when I swap medical stories with blind friends, similar happenings abound.When my mom fell down the stairs at a friend’s house, five months pregnant with me, she was told to go to bed for the next four months to save the pregnancy. Thus began the impact of health care professionals on me. I was born a month premature and spent my first month in an incubator. In 1949 it wasn’t known that the enriched oxygen atmosphere in an incubator would cause blindness. At least one lawsuit was filed against physicians and a hospital by a person blinded in this way. A large out–of–court settlement was received. The way I look at it, the health care community did the best they knew and without enough oxygen, I would have died.Early in my life, my parents took me to several ophthalmologists to see what could be done for my vision. Family folklore has it that I could smell a hospital as we entered and would begin howling. These early traumatic experiences may have led to my current healthy lifestyle so I don’t have to go to doctors much now. By about age five, it was clear that nothing could be done about my vision. For the next twenty years my forays into the health care system were for tonsillitis, sprains, and the usual childhood ills.In my early twenties, I developed acute glaucoma in one eye—caused, I’m convinced, by birth control pills. In seeking treatment for this condition, I encountered the first truly insensitive physician I’d met, who said, “Your eyes aren’t doing you any good; let’s take them out.” I was horrified! They were my eyes. I was attached to them, psychologically as well as physically. It turned out that a simple operation relieved the pressure and allowed me to keep my eyes. True, they are not the best looking big brown eyes around, but they did come with the package.Life with blindness seemed quite straightforward until my early forties, when I developed extreme fatigue and pain all over. I was worried. I knew a blind woman who had developed multiple sclerosis and I admired her, but I did not want to walk in her brave footsteps. Then a college student came to see me with the same symptoms and said that she had recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I am often very empathetic with people’s concerns, but this time she complimented me by saying, “You’re great! You seem to know just how I feel.” I sagely counseled her about portioning out her energy carefully, prioritizing, using short cuts, and taking elevators when possible. Being an adult [End Page 216] student used to overachieving, she did not like what I was saying, but said she’d try to follow my advice because she could no longer do it all.What finally broke through my own denial was the day coiling up a hose and dragging it to the basement for the winter took me an hour. It left me totally exhausted and I figured that even being middle aged couldn’t account for feeling that awful.After a thorough physical and plenty of blood work to rule out Lyme disease and multiple sclerosis, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and placed on low doses of antidepressants to help me sleep through the night. The medication worked and I began to feel like myself again. My battle to accept that... (shrink)

The Ancrene Wisse, a guide for female recluses written in the West Midlands in the early thirteenth century, and the closely related religious works of the `Katherine Group', offer a vivid insight into the religious life of the time, and their rich and varied prose style blends Latin and native English stylistic traditions with remarkable skill and assurance. The difficulty of their language, however, has made them largely inaccessible except to experts in Middle English, and this edition is designed (...) to introduce them to a wider audience, including undergraduates with limited experience of Middle English and specialists in other disciplines, particularly history, theology, and women's studies. It provides a representative selection in new and readable critical texts, with a general introduction, notes, a select glossary, and interleaved translations. (shrink)

This narrative symposium illuminates the problem of clinician moral distress. NIB editorial staff and narrative symposium editors, Cynda Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN and Renee Boss, MD, MHS, developed a call for stories, which was sent to several list serves and posted on Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics’ website. The request for personal stories from inter–professional healthcare providers asked them to: identify specific clinical situations that give rise to moral distress; discuss the sources of this distress; reflect on how they experienced moral (...) distress—physically, psychologically, socially, or spiritually; assess how they managed their situations; and offer suggestions for avoiding future problems of a similar nature. Twelve stories are found in the print version of the journal and an additional eight supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. The clinicians describe a wide range of experiences with patients, other clinicians, and their own professional and personal identities. Embedded in each of the narratives are deeply felt emotions that accompany their experiences of moral distress. Katherine Brown-Saltzman (a nurse), Alisa Carse (a philosopher), Zhanna Bagdasarov and Shane Connelly (industrial–organizational psychologists), and Nancy Berlinger (a bioethicist) provided commentaries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1 (2000) v [Access article in PDF] Editorial Announcement The editors wish to announce the departure of Pierre Kerszberg, who has joined the Departement de Philosophie, Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail. We wish him the very best and are grateful for his editorial services. We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Richard A. Lee Jr., a specialist in the history of philosophy, as co-editor of (...) Philosophy and Rhetoric.Stephen H. Browne... (shrink)

Tools and technologies expand our capacities, including our cognitive capacities. Microscopes extend our perceptual capacities. Notebooks extend the natural limits of memory. These facts are important, for all that they are obvious. The extended cognition hypothesis wants more. Some external devices and processes are literal parts of cognitive processes themselves. When there is fast and reliable access to external data or processes, then the cognitive processes that occur uncontroversially inside the brain literally and controversially extend out into the world to (...) incorporate external structures or processes. Retrieval of an address from memory and retrieval of the same information from a notebook can both be fully cognitive processes involving fully cognitive representations. So say the proponents of extended cognition.It is an attractive metaphor. But is there any good reason to take it as literal truth? Adams and Aizawa argue that the debate on extended cognition implicates an …. (shrink)

This pioneering anthology of Middle English prologues and other excerpts from texts written between 1280 and 1520 is one of the largest collections of vernacular literary theory from the Middle Ages yet published and the first to focus attention on English literary theory before the sixteenth century. It edits, introduces, and glosses some sixty excerpts, all of which reflect on the problems and opportunities associated with writing in the "mother tongue" during a period of revolutionary change for the English language. (...) The excerpts fall into three groups, illustrating the strategies used by medieval writers to establish their cultural authority, the ways they constructed audiences and readerships, and the models they offered for the process of reading. Taken together, the excerpts show how vernacular texts reflected and contributed to the formation of class, gender, professional, and national identity. They open windows onto late medieval debates on women's and popular literacy, on the use of the vernacular for religious instruction or Bible translation, on the complex metaphorical associations contained within the idea of the vernacular, and on the cultural and political role of the "courtly" writing associated with Chaucer and his successors. Besides the excerpts, the book contains five essays that propose new definitions of medieval literary theory, discuss the politics of Middle English writing, the relation of medieval book production to notions of authorship, and the status of the prologue as a genre, and compare the role of the medieval vernacular to that of postcolonial literatures. The book includes a substantial glossary that constitutes the first mapping of the language and terms of Middle English literary theory. _The Idea of the Vernacular_ will be an invaluable asset not only to Middle English survey courses but to courses in English literary and cultural history and courses on the history of literary theory. (shrink)

Structural Injustice has become a hugely important concept in the field of political theory with the work of Iris Marion Young central to debates on what it is, what motivates it and how it should be addressed. In this article, I focus on a particular thread in Young’s account of structural injustice which I argue is all too often overlooked - the untraceability of structural injustice. This is not only a constant theme in Young’s account of structural injustice, it is, (...) in fact, a defining feature. By ‘untraceable’, Young means that structural injustice is distinct from other sorts of injustices for which there is a traceable agent at fault – these sorts of faut-based injustices fall under what Young calls the ‘liability model of injustice’. For the purposes of exploring the concept of structural injustice, I follow the logic of the claim that structural injustice is untraceable to see where it takes us in conversation with Young’s critics. I conclude that Young’s account is not only defensible with some clarification and development but vital politically. That said, I also find Young’s account of political responsibility for structural injustice wanting and accordingly I propose a way of understanding what I see as a dynamic transition from structural to fault-based injustices which I argue Young’s more ‘static’ account fails to accommodate. This is important, I suggest, for thinking about the ways in which responsibility for different forms of injustice operate and change. _Contemporary Political Theory_ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-023-00634-4. (shrink)

The academic journey to a widely acknowledged Machine Consciousness is anticipated to be an emotional one. Both in terms of the active debate provoked by the subject and a hypothesized need to encapsulate an analogue of emotions in an artificial system in order to progress towards machine consciousness. This paper considers the inspiration that the concepts related to emotion may contribute to cognitive systems when approaching conscious-like behavior. Specifically, emotions can set goals including balancing explore versus exploit, facilitate action in (...) unknown domains and modify existing behaviors, which are explored in cognitive robotics experiments. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a view of groups, things like teams, committees, clubs and courts. I begin by examining features all groups seem to share. I formulate a list of six features of groups that serve as criteria any adequate theory of groups must capture. Next, I examine four of the most prominent views of groups currently on offer—that groups are non-singular pluralities, fusions, aggregates and sets. I argue that each fails to capture one or more of the (...) criteria. Last, I develop a view of groups as realizations of structures. The view has two components. First, groups are entities with structure. Second, since groups are concreta, they exist only when a group structure is realized. A structure is realized when each of its functionally defined nodes or places are occupied. I show how such a view captures the six criteria for groups, which no other view of groups adequately does, while offering a substantive answer to the question, “What are groups?”. (shrink)

At times of crisis, existing institutional arrangements of societies are thrown into question. Crises that occur in multiple societies simultaneously present rare opportunities for comparative empirical analysis. Social theory can reveal the framing conditions of the responses to crises and the sources of variations between them. This paper compares the immediate responses of the Australian, UK and US governments to the global COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regard to financing lockdowns, and points out significant differences between the three approaches. Drawing on (...) Polanyi’s method of institutional analysis, we compare the responses of these same national groups to an earlier crisis, the Japanese prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, to show similar patterns of integration recurring eight decades apart. This analysis shows that aspects of moral economies that are not usually apparent can become pronounced during crises, and points to the importance of enduring social imaginaries. (shrink)

The information contained in this teaching module and the accompanying PowerPoint slides is appropriate for use in a survey public health law course or seminar. The purpose of this lesson is two-fold. The first objective is to provide law students with an overview of the authority public health agencies have to set and enforce policies necessary to keep the population healthy. The second objective is to inform law students about the legal constraints courts have placed upon the actions of those (...) agencies. The module ends with a project designed to give law students the opportunity to apply the law to a “real world” situation. (shrink)

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we (...) all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis. (shrink)

Immanent critique has been a defining feature of the programme of critical social theory. It is a methodology that underpins theoretical diagnoses of contemporary society, based on its linking normative and empirical modes of analysis. Immanent critique distinctively seeks to discern emancipatory or democratizing tendencies. However, the viability of immanent critique is currently in question. Habermas argued that it was necessary to revise the normative foundations of critical social theory, late-capitalist developments tended to undermine immanent critique. Although there is a (...) need for critical social theory to incorporate aspects of alternative interpretations of the contemporary period, the logics of influential theoretical perspectives on the present, especially postmodernism, the risk society and globalization, will be shown to be inconsistent with some of immanent critique's presuppositions. The synthetic aspirations of critical social theory nevertheless persist in recent attempts to reconcile positive liberty and social justice. (shrink)

Over three decades, Gillian Howie wrote at the forefront of philosophy and critical theory, before her untimely death in 2013. This interdisciplinary collection uses her writings to explore the productive, yet often resistant, interrelationship between feminism and critical theory, examining the potential of Howie's particular form of materialism. The contributors also bring to this debate a serious engagement with Howie's late turn towards philosophies of mortality, therapy and 'living with dying'. The volume considers how differently embodied subjects are positioned within (...) public institutions, discourses and spaces, and the role of philosophy, art, film, photography, and literature, in facing situations such as sexual oppression and life-limiting illness. (shrink)

Two of the most poignant decisions in pediatrics concern disagreements between physicians and families over imperiled newborns. When can the family demand more life-sustaining treatment than physicians want to provide? When can it properly ask for less? The author looks at these questions from the point of view of decision theory, and first argues that insofar as the family acts in the child’s best interest, its choices cannot be constrained, and that the maximax and minimax strategies are equally in the (...) child’s best interest. He then proposes a guideline according to which the family can demand LST if it is physiologically possible to preserve a life the child can be expected to welcome, and refuse such treatment if it causes suffering that is “more than can be borne” even if an uncompromised life is expected to emerge. (shrink)

Social Theory and the Political Imaginary: Practice, Critique and History is an innovative work of synthesis, critique, and analysis. It presages a social theory perspective that recognises the constitutive significance of the political imaginary in modernity. Social theory's current dilemmas are explored through a series of interlinked asssessments of some of its recent substantial strands, specifically, Luc Boltanski's pragmatism and the wider 'practical turn', the perspectives of multiple modernities and global modernity, the outlook of social and political imaginaries, and critical (...) social theory. The political imaginary's reconfigurations are evident in the tensions of global modernity and original social theory interpretations are advanced of landmark instances of twenty-first century social contestation: the Hong Kong protests conditioned by threats to civil freedoms and a lack of self-determination, the radical democratic practices of anti-austerity movements contesting capitalist globalisation's injustices, and the inverted cosmopolitanism of the 2005 French Riots challenging the oppression and inequalities experienced by immigrant communities and marginalised youth. These incisive applications of social theory and complementary conceptual innovations illuminate the vicissitudes of social struggles, political forms, and theoretical perspectives. Similarly, reflection on the political imaginary is found to enable a necessary rethinking of the interrelationship of practice, critique and history. (shrink)

Only a few studies have disaggregated homicide rates by relationship type or gender, with little investigation of homicide trends in adult marital and other intimate relationships. The current study documents patterns of homicide between opposite gender relational partners for the twelve years of 1976 through 1987 based on Supplementary Homicide Report Data, comparing rates between couples in marital and nonmarital relationships. Analyses reveal that the homicide rate for married couples declined somewhat during this period, although the drop in the rate (...) of wives killing husbands was greater than the drop in the rate of husbands killing wives. However, homicides involving unmarried couples followed a very different pattern. Whereas the lethal victimization rate for men in unmarried relationships varied unsystematically over time from 1976 through 1987, the rate of unmarried women being killed by their male partners increased significantly. Findings demonstrate the importance of disaggregating homicide data by gender and relationship type so that crucial differences can be detected. (shrink)

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the criminal law prohibiting physician assisted death in Canada. In 2016, Parliament passed legislation to allow what it called ‘medical assistance in dying.’ The authors first describe the arguments the Court used to strike down the law, and then argue that MAID as legalized in Bill C-14 is based on principles that are incompatible with a free and democratic society, prohibits assistance in dying that should be permitted, and makes access to (...) medically-assisted death unnecessarily difficult. They then propose a version of MAID legislation that gives proponents and opponents of MAID everything they can legitimately want, contend that it is the only way to legalize MAID that is compatible with a free and democratic society, and conclude that it is the way to legalize MAID in Canada and other similarly free and democratic societies. (shrink)

In ‘Parental Genetic Shaping and Parental Environmental Shaping’, Anca Gheaus argues there is a normative difference between parents using genetic means to influence the development of their child, and parents using environmental means to achieve the same ends. Genetic shaping but not environmental shaping, it is claimed, introduces a negative asymmetry in the child–caregiver relationship. In this paper, we argue that Gheaus’ argument fails as a critique of genetic shaping, and does not establish a moral difference between genetic and environmental (...) shaping. Contrary to Gheaus’ arguments in both ‘Parental Genetic Shaping and Parental Environmental Shaping’ and ‘Parental Enhancement and Symmetry of Power in the Parent–Child Relationship’, we also argue that even if genetic or prebirth shaping introduces further inequality in the parent–child relationship, this is not necessarily a bad thing, and it is not clear how a parent refraining from taking up the availability of such technology leaves the child better off. (shrink)

"Charles Taylor is one of the most influential contemporary philosophers, arguably the most important living political philosopher writing in English. Taylor and Politics assesses Taylor's thought and its relevance to contemporary political challenges, especially religion and secularity, multicultural diversity, political alienation and demands for greater democracy. Craig Browne and Andrew Lynch outline Taylor's key concepts and highlight the substantive applications of his ideas. They explain the substantial differences between Taylor's conception of social imaginaries and that of Cornelius Castoriadis, and (...) contrast Taylor's account of the political form of modernity with Claude Lefortäs."--. (shrink)

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that can have a significant and persistent physical impact, especially for those who are not treated early in their disease trajectory. Although many persons w...