Two aspects of mothering—using drugs during pregnancy and giving up the rearing of one's children—are the focus of this analysis of 58 addicted Chicana mothers who spent their adolescent years in barrio gangs. From a traditional stance, such women were doubly deviant, since they violated gender-role prescriptions by joining a barrio gang and by becoming involved in heroin and street life. Half of these women added to this deviance by using heroin during pregnancy, and 40 percent relinquished at least one (...) of their children. This article explores what distinguishes these classically “bad mothers” from addicts who maintain some degree of conventionality in their mothering. We found that Mexican gender-role traditionalism is not the only influence on these women. Many came from cholo or underclass families with a tradition of street involvement. In addition, their involvement in gang and heroin worlds may influence their behavior as mothers. We found that women who used drugs during pregnancy were more likely than abstainers to be cholas and to reject traditional gender-role values. However, those who gave up their children were more likely than those who kept their children to be from traditional families. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on deviance and the underclass among Hispanic women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wonder, Imagination, and the Matter of Theatre in The TempestMary MooreAriel occurs. Recounting his performance of "the tempest" in Act I, scene 1 of The Tempest, he presents himself as being and action, fracturing grammar, spatial and temporal logic in ways that amaze and confound:I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement. Sometime I'd divide, And (...) burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join...(1.2.195–201) 1"I flamed" means that Ariel emits or is flames, which in the normal order of things would consume him. His very narration, however, proves his survival, evoking wonder through the utterance itself. Forceful and compacted syntax, a recognized source of wonder in Classical and Renaissance accounts of style (Biester, pp. 14; 35–40), magnifies this effect. 2 Shakespeare's transitive use of the usually intransitive verb flame reflects a not uncommon practice, as E. A. Abbott shows; 3 but this syntactic device also reflects The Tempest's own logic. Ariel crosses boundaries between [End Page 496] deed and being, verb and noun, subject and object, matter and spirit: he both is and does flames. What could be more jarring to syntax and semantics than a singular subject whose utterance claims that he can flame, divide, meet and join? Just as "a" fire consists of many flames yet functions grammatically as a singular substance in English, just as the Christian Trinity is both singular and multiple, Ariel burns in many places at once. Meanwhile, this extraordinary language seems belied by the actor's very embodiment. Ariel cannot have done what he claims; yet the prior scene has represented the very storm in which Ariel flamed. In that sense, the actor's embodiment represents what we imagine to be matter's intractability, while Ariel's claims, coupled with the storm we have just witnessed, reveal matter's fluidity and permeability to imagination. Fluidity and intractability co-exist, another source of wonder. Sound mimics these paradoxes: the assonance and consonance in flame and amazement create a near rhyme that echoes the near identity of fire and human amazement. If, as Gurr and Ichikawa observe, a Renaissance audience expected to hear more than see a play, this echo calls attention to Ariel's marvelous powers. 4 Lest the noises and pleasures of the Renaissance theatre, which recent scholarship deems to be considerable, distract audience members from this bit of language, similar moments reinforce Ariel's play in and with language and matter throughout the play. Marvelous poetic language is of a piece with a "fever" that is of "the mind," with music that "creeps," actors who vanish, new found goddesses who speak the discoverers' own language.Amazement provides our cue: it and its cognates name the appropriate response to Ariel, his language, and to The Tempest itself. Attention to Ariel's poetic language reveals that it, like the plot, conforms to the marvels of the play and to the period's well documented love for marvels in several ways. Wonder, an aesthetic "'object of desire'" in itself, and a response to the inexplicable in classical and early modern views, may be evoked by the unexpected in style (and through other strategies that the era's handbooks taught). 5 The clause "I flamed amazement" epitomizes the unexpected in syntax as well as differing from one of the few sources found for The Tempest, William Strachey's 1610 letter, which describes just such a storm. 6 While St. Elmo's fire itself may elicit wonder, Shakespeare's syntax and diction reinforce that marvel. And no wonder: rhetoric and theatre alike depend upon audience attention, and wonders naturally evoke it. Jarring language also harmonizes with The Tempest's structural marvels—loose ends, disrupted actions, unforeseen futures—issues several critics explore. 7 [End Page 497]The wonders of The Tempest, however, also involve imagination—in early modern psychology, the human faculty that permits perception of the world and invention of images. 8 Wonder responds to how the perceived differs from the expected, how the imagined supplants the usual, how an... (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) has contested meanings, and perspectives vary within and across societies. Emphases can range dramatically from recycling advocacy to eradication of poverty. Assumptions and approaches to sustainable development inherently contain many ethical considerations, yet U.S. students often have a limited understanding of ethical considerations in non-Western and global contexts. This paper describes an academic program on sustainable development we ran to Morocco and Spain. We describe the program’s pedagogy and assess learning related to ethics. The largest impact on (...) students’ awareness of ethics resulted from their observations and experiences with socioeconomic inequities and unequal access to infrastructure. However, without explicitly teaching ethical frameworks to sustainability students, they tend to equate sustainability with morality, imputing their own normative presuppositions of right versus wrong onto the concept of sustainable development. Therefore, we conclude with a discussion on how ethics could be more systematically integrated into education for sustainable development abroad. (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) has contested meanings, and perspectives vary within and across societies. Emphases can range dramatically from recycling advocacy to eradication of poverty. Assumptions and approaches to sustainable development inherently contain many ethical considerations, yet U.S. students often have a limited understanding of ethical considerations in non-Western and global contexts. This paper describes an academic program on sustainable development we ran to Morocco and Spain. We describe the program’s pedagogy and assess learning related to ethics. The largest impact on (...) students’ awareness of ethics resulted from their observations and experiences with socioeconomic inequities and unequal access to infrastructure. However, without explicitly teaching ethical frameworks to sustainability students, they tend to equate sustainability with morality, imputing their own normative presuppositions of right versus wrong onto the concept of sustainable development. Therefore, we conclude with a discussion on how ethics could be more systematically integrated into education for sustainable development abroad. (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers (PUs) have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week (24/7). Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent (73/80) (...) of residents identified as being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent (25/73) died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent (58/80) of residents of whom 38 per cent (22/58) were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent (56/80) of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia (82 per cent v 50 per cent, p = 0.028). The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

The recent death of Peter McHugh becomes an occasion for the remembrance and recollection of the distinctive form of reflexive or analytic social inquiry, which framed his work and that of his longtime friend and collaborator, Alan Blum. Following dual appointments at York University, Toronto, Canada in 1972, Blum and McHugh’s partnership formed the basis for a community of scholars and students throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. A brief review of McHugh and Blum’s works shows theoretical roots in social (...) constructivism and a deep appreciation of the linguistic turn, which in turn lead to the development of a form of social analysis that meets the stringent requirements of a reflexive sociology by repudiating any claim to a privileged exemption of theoretical speech (practice) from the hermeneutical circle of speech and language. Blum and McHugh are shown to embrace and not to evade the hermeneutical circle by a form of social inquiry that subverts the inherent possibilities available within speech and social convention to make available an encounter with the (moral) authority or form of life for that self-same speech. With each example of everyday life or conventional usage, McHugh (and Blum) move from theorizing which formulates the complexity of a particular instance of social interaction through its rules, to the question of the form of life that make that particular instance of the rules possible. It is the pursuit of transparency between speech and its roots in language that informed and continues to inform the distinctive style of social theory fostered at York-Toronto under the orchestration of McHugh and Blum. (shrink)

Ή νέα αὐτή μελέτη δέχεται τήν ταύτιση τοῦ θέματος μέ τήν κρίση τοῦ Πάρι καί προτείνει τήν παρακάτω ἀποκατάσταση γιά τά τμήματα πού λείπουν : πάνω στό σφηνόλιθο, ἀνάμεσα στούς λίθους Ρ καί Q, ὐπῆρχε ἕνα φοινικόδεντρο · πάνω στή χαμένη τρίτη πλάκα, ὑπῆρχε δεύτερο φοινικόδεντρο, ὁ Πάρις καθισμένος σέ βράχο, κατόπιν ἡ Ἥρα πού ἀνεβαίνει στό ἀρμα καί κλείνοντας τή σύνθεση, ἕνας ὑπηρέτης γιά τό ζευγάρι τῶν ζώων. Ή νέα ἀποκατάσταση δείχνει σέ τί βαθμό ό σχεδιαστής φρόντισε νά ἐνσωματώσει (...) τή σύνθεση του μέ τά ἀρχιτεκτονικά μέλη τῆς πρόσοψης. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wonder, Imagination, and the Matter of Theatre in The TempestMary MooreAriel occurs. Recounting his performance of "the tempest" in Act I, scene 1 of The Tempest, he presents himself as being and action, fracturing grammar, spatial and temporal logic in ways that amaze and confound:I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement. Sometime I'd divide, And (...) burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join...(1.2.195–201) 1"I flamed" means that Ariel emits or is flames, which in the normal order of things would consume him. His very narration, however, proves his survival, evoking wonder through the utterance itself. Forceful and compacted syntax, a recognized source of wonder in Classical and Renaissance accounts of style (Biester, pp. 14; 35–40), magnifies this effect. 2 Shakespeare's transitive use of the usually intransitive verb flame reflects a not uncommon practice, as E. A. Abbott shows; 3 but this syntactic device also reflects The Tempest's own logic. Ariel crosses boundaries between [End Page 496] deed and being, verb and noun, subject and object, matter and spirit: he both is and does flames. What could be more jarring to syntax and semantics than a singular subject whose utterance claims that he can flame, divide, meet and join? Just as "a" fire consists of many flames yet functions grammatically as a singular substance in English, just as the Christian Trinity is both singular and multiple, Ariel burns in many places at once. Meanwhile, this extraordinary language seems belied by the actor's very embodiment. Ariel cannot have done what he claims; yet the prior scene has represented the very storm in which Ariel flamed. In that sense, the actor's embodiment represents what we imagine to be matter's intractability, while Ariel's claims, coupled with the storm we have just witnessed, reveal matter's fluidity and permeability to imagination. Fluidity and intractability co-exist, another source of wonder. Sound mimics these paradoxes: the assonance and consonance in flame and amazement create a near rhyme that echoes the near identity of fire and human amazement. If, as Gurr and Ichikawa observe, a Renaissance audience expected to hear more than see a play, this echo calls attention to Ariel's marvelous powers. 4 Lest the noises and pleasures of the Renaissance theatre, which recent scholarship deems to be considerable, distract audience members from this bit of language, similar moments reinforce Ariel's play in and with language and matter throughout the play. Marvelous poetic language is of a piece with a "fever" that is of "the mind," with music that "creeps," actors who vanish, new found goddesses who speak the discoverers' own language.Amazement provides our cue: it and its cognates name the appropriate response to Ariel, his language, and to The Tempest itself. Attention to Ariel's poetic language reveals that it, like the plot, conforms to the marvels of the play and to the period's well documented love for marvels in several ways. Wonder, an aesthetic "'object of desire'" in itself, and a response to the inexplicable in classical and early modern views, may be evoked by the unexpected in style (and through other strategies that the era's handbooks taught). 5 The clause "I flamed amazement" epitomizes the unexpected in syntax as well as differing from one of the few sources found for The Tempest, William Strachey's 1610 letter, which describes just such a storm. 6 While St. Elmo's fire itself may elicit wonder, Shakespeare's syntax and diction reinforce that marvel. And no wonder: rhetoric and theatre alike depend upon audience attention, and wonders naturally evoke it. Jarring language also harmonizes with The Tempest's structural marvels—loose ends, disrupted actions, unforeseen futures—issues several critics explore. 7 [End Page 497]The wonders of The Tempest, however, also involve imagination—in early modern psychology, the human faculty that permits perception of the world and invention of images. 8 Wonder responds to how the perceived differs from the expected, how the imagined supplants the usual, how an... (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent of residents identified as (...) being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent of residents of whom 38 per cent were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia. The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

There is a national movement supporting the retention and use of bio-specimens from deceased individuals for the purpose of genetic testing. This manuscript discusses the significance of postmortem genetic testing in the context of death determination by medical examiners. We highlight distinctive concerns that are raised in the areas of consent, confidentiality, and return of results when genetic testing is performed as part of a public molecular autopsy. We believe our manuscript will contribute to the development of a robust ethical (...) and legal framework for genetic testing in this context. (shrink)

Improving how health care providers respond to medical injury requires an understanding of patients’ experiences. Although many injured patients strongly desire to be heard, research rarely involves them. Institutional review boards worry about harming participants by asking them to revisit traumatic events, and hospital staff worry about provoking lawsuits. Institutions’ reluctance to approve this type of research has slowed progress toward responses to injuries that are better able to meet patients’ needs. In 2015–2016, we were able to surmount these challenges (...) and interview 92 injured patients and families in the USA and New Zealand. This article explores whether the ethical and medico‐legal concerns are, in fact, well‐founded. Consistent with research about trauma‐research‐related distress, our participants’ accounts indicate that the pervasive fears about retraumatization are unfounded. Our experience also suggests that because being heard is an important (but often unmet) need for injured patients, talking provides psychological benefits and may decrease rather than increase the impetus to sue. Our article makes recommendations to institutional review boards and researchers. The benefits to responsibly conducted research with injured patients outweigh the risks to participants and institutions. (shrink)

Firearm violence in the United States produces over 36,000 deaths and 74,000 sustained firearm-related injuries yearly. The paper describes the burden of firearm violence with emphasis on the disproportionate burden on children, racial/ethnic minorities, women and the healthcare system. Second, this paper identifies factors that could mitigate the burden of firearm violence by applying a blend of key ethical theories to support population level interventions and recommendations that may restrict individual rights. Such recommendations can further support targeted research to inform (...) and implement interventions, policies and laws related to firearm access and use, in order to significantly reduce the burden of firearm violence on individuals, health care systems, vulnerable populations and society-at-large. By incorporating a blended public health ethics to address firearm violence, we propose a balance between societal obligations and individual rights and privileges. (shrink)

ObjectiveApproximately half of all people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis experience persistent or recurrent emotional distress, yet little is known about the psychological processes that maintain emotional distress in this population. The self-regulatory executive functioning model specifies that maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and processes are central to the development and maintenance of emotional distress. This study explored whether maladaptive metacognitive beliefs are associated with emotional distress after controlling for demographic factors, time since diagnosis, and current level of physical functioning.DesignIn a cross-sectional (...) design, 75 adults with a diagnosis of ALS completed self-report questionnaires. Participants had a mean age of 60.40 years, mean duration of symptoms 63.92 months, and male:female gender ratio of 14:11.Main Outcome MeasuresQuestionnaires assessed emotional distress, physical functioning, repetitive negative thinking, metacognitive beliefs, and demographic factors.ResultsMaladaptive metacognitive beliefs explained additional variance in emotional distress after controlling for age, gender, time since diagnosis, physical functioning, and repetitive negative thinking. Repetitive negative thinking partially mediated the relationships between positive and negative metacognitive beliefs and emotional distress.ConclusionsThese data support the utility of the metacognitive model in understanding emotional distress in people with ALS. Examination of the temporal relationship between maladaptive metacognitive beliefs and emotional distress in people living with ALS may help to guide the development of therapeutic approaches. (shrink)

In this chapter, Mary Collins Swabey critiques G. E. Moore's discussion of sense data.

How should clinical ethicists be trained? Scholars have stated that clinical ethics fellowships create well-trained, competent ethicists. While this appears intuitive, few features of fellowship programs have been publicly discussed, let alone debated. In this paper, we examine how fellowships can foster effective mentoring relationships. These relationships provide the foundation for the fellow’s transition from novice to competent professional. In this essay, we begin by discussing our pedagogical commitments. Next, we describe the structures our program has created to assist our (...) fellows in becoming competent ethicists. We then outline the kinds of knowledge, skills, and professional attributes mentors should possess. Following this, we focus on the knowledge, skills, and professional attributes that fellows develop as they co-create effective mentoring relationships. We will not prescribe a single approach to fellowship training; instead, our perspective will, we hope, become a catalyst for further conversation on training and mentoring clinical ethics fellows. (shrink)

This multi-faceted collection of women's perspectives on the renaissance in philosophical practices provides an international overview on the professional practice of philosophical counseling as rooted in the ancient philosophical discipline of life and its essential difference from modern mainstream philosophy.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary selection of essays represents the explosion of scholarly interest since the 1960s in the pioneering feminist, philosopher, novelist and political theorist, Mary Wollstonecraft. Organized by theme and genre, the collection deals with the full range of her work, reproduces the most important modern Wollstonecraft scholarship, tracks the development of the author's reputation from the nineteenth century and demonstrates Wollstonecraft's importance in contemporary social, political and sexual theory and in Romantic studies.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s visionary treatise, originally published in 1792, was the first book to present women’s rights as an issue of universal human rights. Ideal for coursework and classroom study, this comprehensive edition of Wollstonecraft’s heartfelt feminist argument includes illuminating essays by leading scholars that highlight the author’s significant contributions to modern political philosophy, making a powerful case for her as one of the most substantive political thinkers of the Enlightenment era. No other scholarly work to date has examined as (...) closely both the ideological moorings and the enduring legacy of Wollstonecraft’s groundbreaking and courageous discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CRUCIFIXION: ACCIDENT OR DESIGN? Sebastian Moore, O.S.B. Downside Abbey Lastyear I was visited by an old friend from my Liverpool days. Mike and I had worked together with the young of the parish, and one summer the two of us took a couple of boys camping in France, a trial of patience which made us known to each other at some depth. He was in fact a passionately (...) convinced Catholic, and very pastoral with it. We had many and long theological discussions. On his recent visit to Downside, I was showing him and some friends round our church, when, à propos ofquite what I don't remember, he made a remark about the Catholic cult of suffering, and said, "and it's all because ofthe crucifixion, isn't it? Why don't we recognize that the crucifixion was an accident?" I didn't react, because I was dumbfounded at what seemed to be the denial ofthe mystery ofthe cross by a friend who I had no reason to believe had stopped being a Catholic. And I'm sure he hasn't. He would certainly have told me ifhe had. It has taken me over a year to figure out what is going on here, and this would not have been possible without intensive study of the work of René Girard. The only alternative to saying that the crucifixion was an accident is to say that it was "ordained by God." It is only as ordained by God that this horrible event could be presented to people as a divine affirmation that suffering is to be sought and espoused. Also, it is only as ordained by God that the crucifixion can be thought of as "appeasing God" in some way. Both the moral and the dogmatic implication ofthe crucifixion—that suffering is a good thing, and that God required a victim—are grounded in the notion that God required the crucifixion ofhis Son. And it is because this idea is quite unacceptable, unworthy of God and ofthe human mind made in God's image, that my friend concludes that the crucifixion was not required by God, not written into the eternal scheme ofthings, but an accident. 156Sebastian Moore Once the problem is clarified in these terms, more and more instances come to mind, of rejection, by Christians and others, of the whole divine ordination ofthe cross. Gore Vidal refers to Christianity as "that lugubrious religion." Mary Hunt, a prominent American Catholic feminist, introduced a workshop with the statement, "we are not about naked guys nailed to crosses, blood all over the place!" Where divine ordering is accepted the special painfulness and darkness ofthe idea is noted. Anselm refers to the doctrine as the Narnia Chronicles, to commend the notion, by referring to a dark law written into the nature ofthings beyond our comprehension. The children's suggestion that Asian should simply not comply with the Snow Queen's requirement is rejected by Asian with a mysterious impatience—the children justhaven't grown up, like the romantics who, according to Matthew Arnold, "did not know enough." Again, during a day on "the roots of violence" that I led here yesterday there was much questioning about the role ofGod die Father in the crucifixion. The problem is crystallized in the famous cry from the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" To my confessedly lame suggestion that Jesus was "only quoting a psalm," someone remarked, "to quote that psalm at thatjuncture and not mean it, is somewhatmisleading!" Again it's the same problem. How can God be understood as ordaining the crucifixion, compatibly with the notion of God as all-loving which Christianity of course affirms? Hans Urs Von Balthasar, who is 90% pro-Girard, in the other 10% wants to hold on to something he calls "the wrath of God." Thus the seeming necessity of having God require and ordain the crucifixion is the main crisis of Christian belief. The six-year-old Willie, in Thomas Klise's amazing novel, The Last Western, puts the problem with childlike directness. He keeps interrupting catechism class with, "Why did God kill Jesus?" and is shushed by Sister. I recall that Illtyd Trethowan said to... (shrink)

I argue that the equal rights views of Tom Regan and Evelyn B. Pluhar must be rejected because they have unacceptable consequences. My objection is similar to one made in the literature by Mary Anne Warren, but I develop it in more detail and defend it from several plausible responses that an equal rights theorist might make. I formulate a theory, a moderate form of perfectionism, that makes a valuedistinction between moral agents and moral patients according to which although (...) both have rights, these rights are not equal. This theory avoids the unacceptable consequences of the equal rights view and is immune to the marginal cases arguments that typical full-personhood theories succumb to. This moderate perfectionism generates an obligation for people to be vegetarians (in most cases) and to severely curtail animal experimentation. (shrink)

Cresp, Mary Some months ago while driving I heard an interview with writer Alan Moore on the radio and was so captured by his comments about trends in modern society that I had to pull over to the side of the road and stop to concentrate on what he was saying. I ordered his book, No Straight Lines, and found he presents an inspiring plea for a more human-centric world, more able organisations and more vibrant and equitable economies (...) relevant to the world we live in today. His descriptions so correspond with my experience that, although the changes in Religious Life over the past fifty years are often seen as something that occurred only in church circles, I conclude that they are part of a world-wide search for ways to serve humanity better, to search for meaning in the work people do and to find viable alternatives for the ways that things were done in the past. Because my immediate experience of Religious Life is confined to the Sisters of St Joseph, my comments are framed around that experience. However, through interaction with members of other Congregations, I know their journey parallels that of Josephites in many respects. (shrink)