In this paper, we explore the recent creation of “iBlastoids,” which are 3-D structures that resemble early human embryos prior to implantation which formed via self-organization of reprogrammed ad...

In “Developing a Reflexive, Anticipatory, and Deliberative Approach to Unanticipated Discoveries: Ethical Lessons from iBlastoids,” we proposed a RAD approach to meet the challenging issues...

Conventional wisdom has it that truth is always evaluated using our actual linguistic conventions, even when considering counterfactual scenarios in which different conventions are adopted. This principle has been invoked in a number of philosophical arguments, including Kripke’s defense of the necessity of identity and Lewy’s objection to modal conventionalism. But it is false. It fails in the presence of what Einheuser (2006) calls c-monsters, or convention-shifting expressions (on analogy with Kaplan’s monsters, or context-shifting expressions). We show that c-monsters naturally (...) arise in contexts, such as metalinguistic negotiations, where speakers entertain alternative conventions. We develop an expressivist theory—inspired by Barker (2002) and MacFarlane (2016) on vague predications and Einheuser (2006) on counterconventionals—to model these shifts in convention. Using this framework, we reassess the philosophical arguments that invoked the conventional wisdom. (shrink)

For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, “Mending Wall,” which ends with the ironic line, “good fences make good neighbors.” The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process (...) and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories among Native Americans and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children. (shrink)

As members of the fetal surgery advisory board at a large tertiary care center, we read with great interest Hendriks’ et al. target article proposing a new ethical framework for fetal therap...

We were interested to read the current target article, given our admiration for the senior author’s comprehensive coverage of these same topics a decade ago (Donley, Hul...

In this target article by Morain and Largent (2023), the authors focus on an investigator’s duty to patient-subjects specifically regarding incidental or collateral findings within the context of e...

The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...) by more briefly focusing on the idea of a significant reason. By placing these results against the broader historical and ongoing contexts in which the lives of those with disabilities have been deemed of inferior quality, we conclude with a call for greater humility about disability and well-being in thought and practice. (shrink)

Despite the increased prevalence of bioethics research that seeks to use empirical data to answer normative research questions, there is no consensus as to what an appropriate methodology for this would be. This review aims to search the literature, present and critically discuss published Empirical Bioethics methodologies.

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

The topic of fake news has received increased attention from philosophers since the term became a favorite of politicians (Habgood-Coote 2016; Dentith 2016). Notably missing from the conversation, however, is a discussion of fake news and conspiracy theory media as a market. This paper will take as its starting point the account of noxious markets put forward by Debra Satz (2010), and will argue that there is a pro tanto moral reason to restrict the market for fake news. Specifically, we (...) begin with Satz’s argument that restricting a market may be required when i) that market inhibits citizens from being able to stand in an equal relationship with one another, and ii) this problem cannot be solved without such direct restrictions. Our own argument then proceeds in three parts: first, we argue that the market for fake news fits Satz’s description of a noxious market; second, we argue against explanations of the proliferation of fake news that are couched in terms of “epistemic vice”, and likewise argue against prescribing critical thinking education as a solution to the problem; finally, we conclude that, in the absence of other solutions to mitigate the noxious effects of the fake news market, we have a pro tanto moral reason to impose restrictions on this market. At the end of the paper, we consider one proposal to regulate the fake news market, which involves making social media outlets potentially liable in civil court for damages caused by the fake news hosted on their websites. (shrink)

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the 'model organism' in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology, and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing research. We focus on what makes model organisms an important type of model, (...) and how the use of these models has shaped biological knowledge, including how model organisms represent, how they are used as tools for intervention, and how the representational commitments linked to their use as models affect the research practices associated with them. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that emission quotas should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis. In this paper I aim to show that a number of arguments in favour of equal shares are based on a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. I argue that a correct understanding of the way in which climate change results from the (...) overuse of a global commons shows those who defend equal shares using commons arguments to be harbouring more controversial commitments than might at first appear. I then discuss two options for equal shares theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of my critique, and attempt to show that one approach holds more promise than the other. (shrink)

Dynamic Consent is both a model and a specific web-based tool that enables clear, granular communication and recording of participant consent choices over time. The DC model enables individuals to know and to decide how personal research information is being used and provides a way in which to exercise legal rights provided in privacy and data protection law. The DC tool is flexible and responsive, enabling legal and ethical requirements in research data sharing to be met and for online health (...) information to be maintained. DC has been used in rare diseases and genomics, to enable people to control and express their preferences regarding their own data. However, DC has never been explored in relationship to historical collections of bioscientific and genetic heritage or to contexts involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.In response to the growing interest by First Peoples throughout Australia in genetic and genomic research, and the increasing number of invitations from researchers to participate in community health and wellbeing projects, this article examines the legal and ethical attributes and challenges of DC in these contexts. It also explores opportunities for including First Peoples' cultural perspectives, governance, and leadership as a method for defining DC on cultural terms that engage best practice research and data analysis as well as respect for meaningful and longitudinal individual and family participation. (shrink)

I argue that propaganda does not characteristically interfere with individual rationality, but instead with group agency. Whereas it is often claimed that propaganda involves some sort of incitement to irrationality, I show that this is neither necessary nor sufficient for a case’s being one or propaganda. For instance, some propaganda constitutes evidence of the speaker’s power, or else of the risk and futility of opposing them, and there is nothing irrational about taking such evidence seriously. I outline an alternative account (...) of propaganda inspired by Hannah Arendt, on which propaganda characteristically creates or destroys group agency. One aspiring to control the public should have an interest in both creating and suppressing group agency, I argue, both because groups have capacities that individuals don’t, and because participation in group action can have a transformative effect upon the individual. Finally, I suggest that my characterization of propaganda suggests a vision of resistance to propaganda quite unlike the one that emerges from irrational-belief accounts, on which propaganda cannot be resisted by oneself. (shrink)

Some claim that a commitment to egalitarianism is in tension with support for reparations for historical injustice. This tension appears to arise insofar as egalitarianism is a forward-looking approach to justice: an approach that tells us what kind of world we should aim to build, where that world is not defined in terms of the decisions or actions of previous generations. Some have claimed that egalitarianism thereby renders reparations redundant. One popular option for egalitarians who aim to reject this thesis (...) is to insist that historical injustices demand reparations when they have caused present-day inequality. A promising alternative, skilfully defended by Alasia Nuti in Injustice and the Reproduction of History, is to argue that historical injustices stand in need of repair when they are reproduced into the present-day, such that some past and present injustices are in fact the same injustice. In this paper, I assess these egalitarian responses to the redundancy thesis. I find that Nuti’s account is equipped to reject this thesis, but that the same lines of reply can be adopted by proponents of the causal approach. I suggest that both approaches therefore be viewed as potential ways to conceptualise the relationship between historical injustice and our present normative circumstances; and that in choosing between them, we should understand ourselves to be engaged in an ameliorative project – a project that is guided by, and designed to help us to achieve, our legitimate purposes. (shrink)

Moral distress has been characterised in the nursing literature as a major problem affecting nurses in all healthcare systems. It has been portrayed as threatening the integrity of nurses and ultimately the quality of patient care. However, nursing discourse on moral distress is not without controversy. The notion itself is conceptually flawed and suffers from both theoretical and practical difficulties. Nursing research investigating moral distress is also problematic on account of being methodologically weak and disparate. Moreover, the ultimate purpose and (...) significance of the research is unclear. In light of these considerations, it is contended that the notion of moral distress ought to be abandoned and that concerted attention be given to advancing inquiries that are more conducive to improving the quality and safety of moral decision-making, moral conduct and moral outcomes in nursing and healthcare domains. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in love and its general role in morality. This volume focuses on and explores the complex relation between love and justice as it appears within loving relationships, between lovers and their wider social context, and the broader political realm. Special attention is paid to the ensuing challenge of understanding and respecting the lovers’ personal autonomy in all three contexts. Accordingly, the essays in this volume are divided into three thematic sections. Section I aims at shedding (...) further light on conceptual and practical issues concerning the compatibility or incompatibility of love and justice within relationships of love. For example, are loving relations inherently unjust? Might love require justice? Or do love and justice belong to distinct moral domains? The essays in Section II consider the relation between the lovers on the one hand and their broader societal environment on the other. Specifically, how exactly are love and impartiality related? Are they compatible or not? Is it unjust to favor one’s beloved? Finally, Section III looks at the political dimensions of love and justice. How, for instance, do various accounts of love inform how we are to relate to our fellow citizens? If love is taken to play an important role in fostering or hindering the development of personal autonomy, what are the political implications that need to be addressed, and how? In addressing these questions, this book engenders a better understanding both of conceptual and practical issues regarding the relation between love, justice, and autonomy as well as their broader societal and political implications. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working on the philosophy of love from ethical, political, and psychological angles. (shrink)

This volume presents new work in history and historiography to the increasingly broad audience for studies of the history and philosophy of science. These essays are linked by a concern to understand the context of early modern science in its own context.

Pro Doernberg and Truog (2023), we recognize and acknowledge five spheres of morality in medicine. We posit that these spheres represent domains of practical engagement, which, as the authors note,...

A key feature of unregulated mHealth research is the diversity of participants in this space. Applying an approach drawn from user experience design, we describe a set of archetypal unregulated mHealth researcher “personas,” which range from individuals who seek empowerment or have philanthropic objectives to those who are primarily motivated by financial gain or have misanthropic objectives. These descriptions are useful for evaluating policies applicable to mHealth to understand how they will impact various stakeholders.

This paper provides an analysis of U.S. farmland owners, operators, and workers by race, ethnicity, and gender. We first review the intersection between racialized and gendered capitalism and farmland ownership and farming in the United States. Then we analyze data from the 2014 Tenure and Ownership Agricultural Land survey, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, and the 2013–2014 National Agricultural Worker Survey to demonstrate that significant nation-wide disparities in farming by race, ethnicity and gender persist in the U.S. In 2012–2014, White (...) people owned 98% and operated 94% of all farmland. They generated 98% of all farm-related income from land ownership and 97% of income from farm owner-operatorship. Meanwhile, People of Color farmers were more likely to be tenants rather than owners, owned less land, and generated less farm-related wealth per person than their White counterparts. Hispanic farmers were also disproportionately farm laborers. In addition to racial and ethnic disparities, there were disparities by gender. About 63% of non-operating landowners, 86% of farm operators, and 87% of tenant farmers were male, and female farmers tended to generate less income per farmer than men. This data provides evidence of ongoing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in agriculture in the United States. We conclude with a call to address the structural drivers of the disparities and with recommendations for better data collection. (shrink)

Land is becoming increasingly scarce relative to the demands of the global economy; a problem significantly exacerbated by climate change. In response, some have suggested that land should be conceptualised as a global commons. This framing might seem like an appealing way to promote sustainable and equitable land use. However, it is a poor fit for the worldʼs land because global commons are generally understood as resources located beyond state borders. I argue that land can be seen to fit the (...) definition of a global commons, if viewed in a particular way; namely, as a biogeochemical resource system that sequesters carbon emissions. The question then arises whether land should be conceptualised as a global commons. I consider this question by reference to three contemporary problems of land justice (land grabbing, forced displacement, and unfairness in land-based climate mitigation); arguing that the global-commons framing will not be conducive to understanding or responding to these problems. I leave the question of how the global community should conceptualise land in the context of climate change open, claiming that any answer must include the voices and perspectives of those whose livelihoods and identities are closely connected to the land. (shrink)

This paper contends that eating shapes the self; that is, our practices and understandings of eating can cultivate, reinforce, or diminish important aspects of the self, including agency, values, capacities, affects, and self-understandings. I argue that these self-shaping effects should be included in our ethical analyses and evaluations of eating. I make a case for this claim through an analysis and critique of the hypothesis that young women’s vegetarianism is a risk, sign, or “cover” for eating disorders or disordered eating. (...) After outlining the relevant empirical literature, I suggest that the evidence for this hypothesis is inconclusive. Given this uncertainty, we should consider the risks of making a mistake when accepting or rejecting this understanding of young women’s eating. I argue that these risks importantly include negative effects on the self, such as damage to moral and epistemic agency. Along with other potential consequences of mistakenly accepting the hypothesis, these effects give us reason to reject it pending more conclusive research. Overall, this paper offers a philosophical intervention into the debate over the relationship between vegetarianism and eating disorders while illustrating the ethical importance and relevance of eating as a self-shaping activity. (shrink)

According to many accounts, propaganda is a variety of politically significant signal with a distinctive connection to irrationality. This irrationality may be theoretical, or practical; it may be supposed that propaganda characteristically elicits this irrationality anew, or else that it exploits its prior existence. The view that encompasses such accounts we will call irrationalism. This essay presents two classes of propaganda that do not bear the sort of connection to irrationality posited by the irrationalist: hard propaganda and propaganda by the (...) deed. Faced with these counterexamples, some irrationalists will offer their account of propaganda as a refinement of the folk concept rather than as an attempt to capture all of its applications. The author argues that any refinement of the concept of propaganda must allow the concept to remain essentially political, and that the irrationalist refinement fails to meet this condition. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in intellectual humility (IH) has attempted to provide deeper understanding of the virtue as personality trait and its impact on an individual's thoughts, beliefs, and actions. A limitations-owning perspective of IH focuses on a proper recognition of the impact of intellectual limitations and a motivation to overcome them, placing it as the mean between intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility. We developed the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale to assess this conception of IH with related personality constructs. In Studies 1 (...) (n= 386) and 2 (n = 296), principal factor and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model – owning one's intellectual limitations, appropriate discomfort with intellectual limitations, and love of learning. Study 3 (n = 322) demonstrated strong test-retest reliability of the measure over 5 months, while Study 4 (n = 612) revealed limitations-owning IH correlated negatively with dogmatism, closed-mindedness, and hubristic pride and positively with openness, assertiveness, authentic pride. It also predicted openness and closed-mindedness over and above education, social desirability, and other measures of IH. The limitations-owning understanding of IH and scale allow for a more nuanced, spectrum interpretation and measurement of the virtue, which directs future study inside and outside of psychology. (shrink)

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to the (...) possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation. (shrink)

Living things are often plastic during their early development and are moulded by the environment. Many human fetuses have to adapt to a limited supply of nutrients, and in doing so they permanently change their physiology and metabolism. These programmed changes may be the origins of a number of diseases in later life, including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension.

This paper takes up the question of how videographic public announcements (VPAs)---i.e. videos that a wide swath of the public sees and knows that everyone else can see too--- have functioned to mobilize people politically, and how the presence of deepfakes in our information environment stands to change the dynamics of this mobilization. Existing work by Regina Rini, Don Fallis and others has focused on the ways that deepfakes might interrupt our acquisition of first-order knowledge through videos. But I point (...) out that even where every audience member takes a video to be veridical, where first-order knowledge acquisition is secure, an audience aware of deepfakes in their environment will not acquire higher order knowledge in the way that has erstwhile been characteristic for audiences of VPAs. Engaging with ideas from the literatures on public announcement logic, common knowledge, and convention, I enumerate a variety of ways in which we should expect this absence of higher order knowledge to throw up barriers to political mobilization. I go on to apply my analysis of VPAs to the mechanisms by which an uptick in publicly available videos of police brutality over the last decade, mediated by camera phones and social media, was responsible for the largest mass protests in US history in summer 2020. This makes vivid the stakes of the transformation in our mobilizing environment that I've claimed deepfakes effect: where we lose the common-knowledge-generating effects of VPAs, there are fresh obstacles to this sort of mass mobilization. (shrink)

In this paper I want to examine a view of the Darwinian theory of evolution which was put forward fairly recently by A. R. Manser. His approach is of interest not only in itself, but also because it may be expanded to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of the science of biology in general. I shall not consider these further implications here, but shall concentrate on an examination of his thesis in the context in which it is raised. (...) My paper falls into two sections. In the first I shall state Manser's thesis and some of the arguments with which he supports it, and shall try to show how a series of objections raised by A. G. N. Flew and K. Connolly may be answered. In the second I shall offer on my own account a positive argument to provide a possible basis for his point of view, with the aim of indicating why the theory should be of the kind he suggests, and what form the study of evolution must take. (shrink)

To address climate change fairly, many conflicting claims over natural resources must be balanced against one another. This has long been obvious in the case of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas sinks including the atmosphere and forests; but it is ever more apparent that responses to climate change also threaten to spur new competition over land and extractive resources. This makes climate change an instance of a broader, more enduring and - for many - all too familiar problem: the problem (...) of human conflict over how the natural world should be cared for, protected, shared, used, and managed. -/- This work develops a new theory of global egalitarianism concerning natural resources, rejecting both permanent sovereignty and equal division, which is then used to examine the problem of climate change. It formulates principles of resource right designed to protect the ability of all human beings to satisfy their basic needs as members of self-determining political communities, where it is understood that the genuine exercise of collective self-determination is not possible from a position of significant disadvantage in global wealth and power relations. These principles are used to address the question of where to set the ceiling on future greenhouse gas emissions and how to share the resulting emissions budget, in the face of conflicting claims to fossil fuels, climate sinks, and land. It is also used to defend an unorthodox understanding of responsibility for climate change as a problem of global justice, based on its provenance in historical injustice concerning natural resources. (shrink)

Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...) and critique, it remains underdeveloped and is often misrepresented by its critics (section 8). (shrink)

Bringing to light new facets in the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and William James, Megan Craig explores intersections between French phenomenology and American pragmatism.

In an effort to address healthcare disparities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer populations, many hospitals and clinics institute diversity training meant to increase providers’ awareness of and sensitivity to this patient population. Despite these efforts, many healthcare spaces remain inhospitable to LGBTQ patients and their loved ones. Even in the absence of overt forms of discrimination, LGBTQ patients report feeling anxious, unwelcome, ashamed, and distrustful in healthcare encounters. We argue that these negative experiences are produced by a variety (...) of subtle, ostensibly insignificant features of healthcare spaces and interpersonal interactions called microaggressions. Healthcare spaces and providers often convey heteronormative microaggressions, which communicate to LGBTQ—and, we suggest, intersex and asexual —people that their identities, experiences, and relationships are abnormal, pathological, unexpected, unwelcome, or shameful. We identify heteronormative microaggressions common to healthcare settings and specify how they negatively impact LGBTQIA patients. We argue that standard diversity training cannot sufficiently address heteronormative microaggressions. Despite these challenges, healthcare institutions and providers must take responsibility for heteronormative microaggressions and take steps to reduce their frequency and mitigate their effects on LGBTQIA care. We conclude by offering strategies for problem-solving at the level of medical education, institutional culture and policy, and individual awareness. (shrink)

We argue that in contemporary business organizations, in which fundamental purpose is construed to be increased value—especially in ‘participative’ organizations, in which non–hierarchal interaction (for example, work teams) is the norm; and in ‘adaptive’ organizations, in which unpredictable change is the rule—a process of values covenanting will be much more valueable than just espoused values or even values covenants. We propose such a process model for organizational values covenanting and argue that such covenanting reflects an anthropomorphism of the human character (...) development process, validated in terms of the theory of viable systems. (shrink)