In this paper, I link philosophical discussion of policies for trans inclusion or exclusion, to a method of policy making. I address the relationship between concerns about safety, fairness, and inclusion in policy making about the inclusion of transwomen athletes into women’s sport. I argue for an approach based on lexical priority rather than simple ‘balancing’, considering the different values in a specific order. I present justifying reasons for this approach and this lexical order, based on the special obligations of (...) International Federations such as World Rugby. As a result, I provide a justificatory framework for the WR Guidelines that exclude transwomen from the women’s game in WR competitions. Finally, I give an account of a maximally safe, maximally fair and maximally inclusive form of sex categorisation in sport. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a new conception that has arrived relatively recently on the scene, in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport. That conception is ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC) – a term used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue that MC is not fair. I understand MC as a substitute concept, (...) as an attempt to substitute for the perfectly serviceable concept of fair competition. It is an attempt at conceptual engineering that should be resisted. This is important because some International Federations have accepted MC as good coin, and the underlying theory of MC, which I explicate for the first time, underpins the stance taken by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in its Framework Document. To establish that the inclusion of TW in female sport meets the criteria of MC in the sense I explicate here, does not show that the inclusion of TW in female sport is fair. Such inclusion is not fair, and the proper currency of sport is fair competition. ‘Meaningful Competition’, on the other hand, is a snare and a delusion. (shrink)

In this highly original and accessible book, one of our leading philosophers of religion seeks to answer this question by analyzing the several states of mystic union as they are described and explained in the classical primary literature ...

There is widespread consensus that present patterns of consumption could lead to the permanent impossibility of maintaining those patterns and, perhaps, the existence of the human race. While many patterns of consumption qualify as ‘sustainable’ there is one in particular that deserves greater attention: virtual consumption. We argue that virtual consumption — the experience of authentic consumptive experiences replicated by alternative means — has the potential to reduce the deleterious consequences of real consumption by redirecting some consumptive behavior from shifting (...) material states to shifting information states. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI present a corrective to the formalist and conventionalist down-playing of physical actions in the understanding of the value of sport. I give a necessarily brief account of the Causal Theory of Action and its implications for the normativity of actions. I show that the CTA has limitations, particularly in the case of failed or incomplete actions, and I show that failed or incomplete actions are constitutive of sport. This allows me to open up the space for another model, drawn (...) from Aristotle, for failed or incomplete actions, conceived of as ‘doables.’ This avoids some of the problems of the CTA. I explain the importance of difficult but doable actions, at which athletes often fail, and suggest that this establishes pro tanto value. Finally, I claim that this account of the actions that are constitutive of sport deepens our understanding of the value of sport as a whole. (shrink)

Introduction: Two Working Assumptions In the course of the deliberations to follow, I assume that God (if He exists) is a being — a single individual ...

There is an emerging ethical consensus that injured research participants should receive medical care and compensation for their research-related injuries. This consensus is premised on notions of beneficence, distributive justice, compensatory justice and reciprocity. In response, countries around the world have implemented no-fault compensation systems to ensure that research participants are adequately protected in the event of injury. The United States, the world's leading sponsor of research, has chosen instead to rely on its legal system to provide injured research participants (...) with medical care and compensation. This article argues that US reliance on its legal system leaves injured research participants unprotected in the event of injury. Nearly every injured research participant will have difficulty receiving compensation in court, and certain classes of research participants will be barred from receiving compensation altogether. The United States’ outlier status also threatens to impede US-sponsored multinational research, potentially delaying important biomedical advances. To rectify this injustice, researchers, Institutional Review Boards, sponsors and research institutions should advocate systematic no-fault compensation in the United States to bring US law into accord with global ethical norms and ensure that injured research participants are adequately protected. (shrink)

The inventor of the concepts of emics and etics, linguist Kenneth Pike, uses this volume as a forum to explain their development and their usage today. He is joined in the debate by renowned anthropologist Marvin Harris. Eight other scholars add to the scholarly discourse and demonstrate applications of the concepts in a variety of disciplines. Referring to insider versus outsider, subjective versus objective views of the world, these concepts are vital for researchers dealing with cultures other than their own.

Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) utilises nuclear transfer technology to replace defective mitochondria with healthy ones and thereby minimise the risk of a mitochondrial disease passing from a mother to her child. It promises much but comes with ethical controversy, significant risk of harm and many unknowns. Forming a position on MRT requires accurate information about the current state of knowledge, and an appreciation of the ethical issues at stake. Ethical deliberations will vary depending on the framework used. There are in (...) principle objections to MRT on the grounds of direct harm to human embryos and germline genetic modification. But even without these objections MRT can be weighed in terms of the balance between risks and benefits, alternatives and uncertainties. This paper explores the evidence and lays out the relevant issues to assist such a deliberation. (shrink)

Without taking a position on the overall justification of anti-doping regulations, I analyse the possible justification of Therapeutic Use Exemptions from such rules. TUEs are a creative way to prevent the unfair exclusion of athletes with a chronic condition, and they have the potential to be the least bad option. But they cannot be competitively neutral. Their justification must rest, instead, on the relevance of intentions to permissibility. I illustrate this by means of a set of thought experiments in which (...) only an athlete’s intentions vary. I argue that the Doctrine of Double Effect sheds some light on TUEs and illustrate this by applying different readings of the DDE to the thought experiment. This underpins a justification of anti-doping exemptions very different from the approach adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency. I argue for three changes to bring TUEs in line with this understanding: rewriting of the regulations, transparency, and a greater role for athletes in determining what exemptions are allowed, and when. (shrink)

BackgroundResearch ethics and the measures deployed to ensure ethical oversight of research (e.g., informed consent forms, ethics review) are vested with extremely important ethical and practical goals. Accordingly, these measures need to function effectively in real-world research and to follow high level standards.MethodsWe examined approved consent forms for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies approved by Canadian research ethics boards (REBs).ResultsWe found evidence of variability in consent forms in matters of physical and psychological risk reporting. (...) Approaches used to tackle the emerging issue of incidental findings exposed extensive variability between and within research sites.ConclusionThe causes of variability in approved consent forms and studies need to be better understood. However, mounting evidence of administrative and practical hurdles within current ethics governance systems combined with potential sub-optimal provision of information to and protection of research subjects support other calls for more scrutiny of research ethics practices and applicable revisions. (shrink)

A queue‐jumping argument concludes that some course of action is impermissible by likening it to the presumptively impermissible act of jumping a queue. Arguments of this sort may be found in a disparate range of contexts and in support of policies favoured by both left and right. Examples include arguments against private education and private health care but also arguments against accommodations for learning disabilities, refugee resettlement, and birthright citizenship. We infer that, although queue‐jumping arguments are strictly analogies, they constitute (...) a sufficiently distinct class of arguments to justify their separate treatment. The paper proposes an argumentation scheme for queue‐jumping arguments and demonstrates its applicability to some existing arguments of this type. (shrink)

In this paper, we reply to Eric Moore’s argument that Lance Armstrong did not cheat, at least according to one, standard account of cheating. If that is the case, we argue, so much the worse for th...

This textbook reflects the buoyant state of contemporary political philosophy, and the development of the subject in the past two decades. It includes seminal papers on fundamental philosophical issues such as: the nature of social explanation distributive justice liberalism and communitarianism citizenship and multiculturalism nationalism democracy criminal justice. A range of views is represented, demonstrating the richness of the philosophical contribution to some of the most contested areas of public policy and political decision making. Each section has an introduction by (...) the editors that situates the papers in the ongoing debate. Further Reading sections feature at the end of each chapter. Readings from the following thinkers are included: Steven Lukes, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Bhikhu Parekh, Antony Duff, G.A. Cohen, Derek Parfit, Roger Scruton, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntrye. _Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy_ will be a valuable resource for upper-level students interested in current thinking in this area. (shrink)

I argue that Harry Frankfurt’s doctrine of sufficiency, properly understood, presents a plausible alternative to egalitarianism. My position may be more general than Frankfurt’s, insofar as he limits himself to economic sufficiency; on my view, insufficiency is a generic reason for the rejection of principles governing permissible behavior. By situating sufficiency within a contractualist framework of moral permissibility, I provide an alternative to common (and, I think, mistaken) characterizations of the doctrine of sufficiency as either subordinate to equality or primarily (...) concerned with maximizing cases of sufficiency. (shrink)

The recently published ‘Scientific Review’ by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport about transwomen’s participation in female sport doesn’t deserve its name; it is wholly unscientific. This publication follows a familiar pattern. The body is not important anymore when it comes to categorisation and eligibility in sport; instead, it’s all about a psychological phenomenon: gender identity. This side-lining of the body (which makes the side-lining of female athletes and the inclusion of male-born athletes possible) is now reinforced by an (...) attack on the bio-medical sciences. (shrink)

In den Abschnitten X und XI der Dialoge über Natürliche Religion legt Hume seine Ansichten zum traditionellen theologischen Problem des Übels dar. Humes Anmerkungen zu diesem Thema scheinen mir eine reichhaltige Mischung aus Einsichten und Irrtümern zu enthalten. Mein Ziel in diesem Aufsatz besteht darin, diese entgegengesetzten Elemente seiner Diskussion zu entwirren.

Norman Geras argues for the incorporation of elements from the just war tradition into the ethics of social change. But this does not go far enough. In this paper I argue for a prefigurative constraint: that action intended to bring about social transformation ought to prefigure that transformation, and bear those properties of the future state of affairs that make the future state of affairs morally valuable. I defend the idea of a prefigurative constraint against some objections and introduce a (...) schema to relate political action to morally valuable end states. (shrink)

Bill Morgan has written a terrific book, the culmination of his career long engagement in the philosophy of sport and a work which is immediately a required read – one might say a required grapple...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.2 (2003) 61-72 [Access article in PDF] From Personal to Social Transaction:A Model of Aesthetic Reading in the Classroom Mark A. Pike This article seeks to define more precisely the nature of the individual transaction that occurs between reader and text and the potential for aesthetic reading in literature classrooms by relating knowledge of the way pupils engage in literary transactions to theoretical perspectives (...) that address the issue. The validity of Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of the literary work, expounded in Literature as Exploration and The Reader, The Text, The Poem, and its relevance for contemporary educators, particularly in the field of English education, has recently been reasserted by Jeanne Connell in her timely and cogent article in this journal. 1 The present article, however, seeks to refocus debate by problematizing and subsequently developing some aspects of key theories such as Rosenblatt's while examining the individual and social nature of reading in schools. Rosenblatt's view that aesthetic experiences can have both social origin and effect certainly deserves further theorizing if aesthetic experience in school communities and classrooms is to flourish.The influence of John Dewey's Art as Experience upon Rosenblatt is evident as this seminal text conceives of our primary task as the restoration of "continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and everyday events." 2 Such continuity with experience is vital because, for Dewey, "experience is the fulfillment of an organism in its struggles and achievements in a world of things, it is art in germ." 3 Applying such a notion to education in schools, Rosenblatt saw the aim of literature lessons as the growth of experience rather than the acquisition of knowledge. Yet, despite such progress, in the United Kingdom, teachers of English are in the unenviable position of having to deliver an extensive body of knowledge prescribed by the National Curriculum and also to focus explicitly upon the features of certain types of text as they teach the National Literacy Strategy. 4 In Rosenblatt's work the emphasis on our experience of [End Page 61] literary works provides a much needed alternative to positions such as that adopted by New Criticism where "it is never what a poem says which matters, but what it is" because we acknowledge we can only ever gain access to what a poem says as "the sentence that seems to need no interpretation is already the product of one." 5 Clearly, understanding the reader's transaction with texts is where we must begin if we wish to foster aesthetic reading in our classrooms.Transactional theory also appears to be closely related to Martin Heidegger's thought in Being and Time where Dasein (givenness, existence, being) is seen as a distinctive characteristic of the human being as our consciousness projects things of the world and is also subjected to the things of the world which belong to us, in some sense, only as long as our consciousness is projecting them. 6 The validity of Dewey's view, where experience is not separated from art, can be seen when we acknowledge that we can "never adopt an attitude of detached contemplation, looking down on the world as if from a mountain top" for we are "inevitably merged with the very object of our consciousness." 7Such a view reflects Hans-Georg Gadamer's position in Truth and Method in which Heidegger's explanation of situation is applied to literary theory because, for Gadamer, the literary work cannot appear as a packaged and completed artefact in which meaning is neatly wrapped because it is influenced by a particular reader's actions at a particular moment. 8 Rosenblatt's realistic conception that "each reading involves a particular person at a particular time and place" is developed in this article as it seems that, even now, many reader response critics and curriculum designers "write as though people read literature in a vacuum or in a generalized kind of academic setting" which often does not apply... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.2 (2003) 61-72 [Access article in PDF] From Personal to Social Transaction:A Model of Aesthetic Reading in the Classroom Mark A. Pike This article seeks to define more precisely the nature of the individual transaction that occurs between reader and text and the potential for aesthetic reading in literature classrooms by relating knowledge of the way pupils engage in literary transactions to theoretical perspectives (...) that address the issue. The validity of Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of the literary work, expounded in Literature as Exploration and The Reader, The Text, The Poem, and its relevance for contemporary educators, particularly in the field of English education, has recently been reasserted by Jeanne Connell in her timely and cogent article in this journal. 1 The present article, however, seeks to refocus debate by problematizing and subsequently developing some aspects of key theories such as Rosenblatt's while examining the individual and social nature of reading in schools. Rosenblatt's view that aesthetic experiences can have both social origin and effect certainly deserves further theorizing if aesthetic experience in school communities and classrooms is to flourish.The influence of John Dewey's Art as Experience upon Rosenblatt is evident as this seminal text conceives of our primary task as the restoration of "continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and everyday events." 2 Such continuity with experience is vital because, for Dewey, "experience is the fulfillment of an organism in its struggles and achievements in a world of things, it is art in germ." 3 Applying such a notion to education in schools, Rosenblatt saw the aim of literature lessons as the growth of experience rather than the acquisition of knowledge. Yet, despite such progress, in the United Kingdom, teachers of English are in the unenviable position of having to deliver an extensive body of knowledge prescribed by the National Curriculum and also to focus explicitly upon the features of certain types of text as they teach the National Literacy Strategy. 4 In Rosenblatt's work the emphasis on our experience of [End Page 61] literary works provides a much needed alternative to positions such as that adopted by New Criticism where "it is never what a poem says which matters, but what it is" because we acknowledge we can only ever gain access to what a poem says as "the sentence that seems to need no interpretation is already the product of one." 5 Clearly, understanding the reader's transaction with texts is where we must begin if we wish to foster aesthetic reading in our classrooms.Transactional theory also appears to be closely related to Martin Heidegger's thought in Being and Time where Dasein (givenness, existence, being) is seen as a distinctive characteristic of the human being as our consciousness projects things of the world and is also subjected to the things of the world which belong to us, in some sense, only as long as our consciousness is projecting them. 6 The validity of Dewey's view, where experience is not separated from art, can be seen when we acknowledge that we can "never adopt an attitude of detached contemplation, looking down on the world as if from a mountain top" for we are "inevitably merged with the very object of our consciousness." 7Such a view reflects Hans-Georg Gadamer's position in Truth and Method in which Heidegger's explanation of situation is applied to literary theory because, for Gadamer, the literary work cannot appear as a packaged and completed artefact in which meaning is neatly wrapped because it is influenced by a particular reader's actions at a particular moment. 8 Rosenblatt's realistic conception that "each reading involves a particular person at a particular time and place" is developed in this article as it seems that, even now, many reader response critics and curriculum designers "write as though people read literature in a vacuum or in a generalized kind of academic setting" which often does not apply... (shrink)

Reproductive coercion encompasses a collection of pregnancy promoting and pregnancy avoiding behaviours. Coercion may vary in severity and be perpetrated by intimate partners or others. Research is complicated by the inclusion of behaviours that do not necessarily involve an intention to influence reproduction, such as contraceptive sabotage. These behaviours are the most common, but are not always included in survey instruments. This may explain why the prevalence of reproductive coercion varies widely. Prevalence also varies when coerced abortion is included in (...) survey instruments. When it is, it seems roughly comparable in prevalence to coercion intended to impregnate. The extent and nature of coerced abortion can also be derived from studies that explore the reasons why women access abortion, the relationship between abortion and intimate partner violence, and online blogs and forums. This narrative review of reproductive coercion examines the evidence and attempts to comprehend why coerced abortion has been neglected. (shrink)