It is unarguable that the implementation and use of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) should be critical and appropriate. After all, decisions that influence when and how to have children have ut...

Non-invasive prenatal testing is an emerging form of prenatal genetic testing that provides information about the genetic constitution of a foetus without the risk of pregnancy loss as a direct result of the test procedure. As with other prenatal tests, information from NIPT can help to make a decision about termination of pregnancy, plan contingencies for birth or prepare parents to raise a child with a genetic condition. NIPT can also be used by women and couples to test purely ‘for (...) information’. Here, no particular action is envisaged following the test; it is motivated entirely by an interest in the result. The fact that NIPT can be performed without posing a risk to the pregnancy could give rise to an increase in such requests. In this paper, we examine the ethical aspects of using NIPT ‘purely for information’, including the competing interests of the prospective parents and the future child, and the acceptability of testing for ‘frivolous’ reasons. Drawing on several clinical scenarios, we claim that arguments about testing children for genetic conditions are relevant to this debate. In addition, we raise ethical concerns over the potential for objectification of the child. We conclude that, in most cases, using NIPT to test for adult-onset conditions, carrier status or non-serious traits presenting in childhood would be unacceptable. (shrink)

Tom Andersen’s reflecting team process, which allowed families to witness and respond to the talk of professionals during therapy sessions, has been described as revolutionary in the field of family therapy. Reflecting teams are prominent in a number of family therapy approaches, more recently in narrative and dialogical therapies. This way of working is considered more a philosophy than a technique, and has been received positively by both therapists and service users. This paper describes how dialogical therapists conceptualise the reflective (...) process, how they work to engage families in reflective dialogues and how this supports change. We conducted semi-structured, reflective interviews with 12 dialogical therapists with between 2 and 20 years of experience. Interpretative Phenomenological analysis of transcribed interviews identified varying conceptualisations of the reflecting process and descriptions of therapist actions that support reflective talk among network members. We adopted a dialogical approach to interpretation of this data. In this sense, we did not aim to condense accounts into consensus but instead to describe variations and new ways of understanding dialogical reflecting team practices. Four themes were identified: Lived experience as expertise; Listening to the self and hearing others; Relational responsiveness and fostering connection; and Opening space for something new. We applied these themes to psychotherapy process literature both within family therapy literature and more broadly to understand more about how reflecting teams promote helpful and healing conversations in practice. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics offers the most authoritative and compelling guide to this diverse and fertile field of philosophy. Twenty-four of the world's most distinguished specialists provide brand-new essays about 'what there is': what kinds of things there are, and what relations hold among entities falling under various categories. They give the latest word on such topics as identity, modality, time, causation, persons and minds, freedom, and vagueness. The Handbook's unrivaled breadth and depth make it the definitive reference work (...) for students and academics across the philosophical spectrum. (shrink)

During the past decade and a half, the field of family literacy has gone from its infancy on the educational periphery toward a position closer to the mainstream. Characteristic ofthe field’s growth is the nation’s largest endeavor in family literacy, the federal Even Start program, which began from scratch in the late 1980s and now claims more than 800 local programs in 50 states and Puerto Rico.Despite several national evaluations of Even Start, no comprehensive study in the family literacy literature (...) specifically focuses on this quarter-billion dollar program’s attempts to measure the progress of its adult students. Accordingly, this study sought to discover the ways in which adult assessment is performed by Even Start programs.This essay emphasizes critical thinking with regards to assessment in Even Start programs Critical thought and reflection drive the exploration of several themes in the study’s data that carry itnplications for the families served by Even Start. These implications, gleaned from what Brookfield (1987) calls “reflective skepticism” and careful study of the data, bring the survey’s numbers to life and ultimately yield useful, potentially program-enhancing information.The article offers background on family literacy and Even Start programs and briefly illustrates the study’s methodology. Then follows a discourse that views the study’s findings through the lens of critical thought, drawing meaning from selected findings that contain repercussions for Even Start families. The piece concludes with recommendations for the improvement of Even Start programs through enhanced assessment and continued study. (shrink)

This article outlines a training activity that can enable both business and governmental professionals to translate the principles in a code of ethics to a specific list of company-related behaviors ranging from highly ethical to highly unethical. It also explores how this list can become a concrete model to follow in making ethical decisions. The article begins with a discussion as to what will improve ethical decision making in business and government. This leads us to explore the factors that can (...) most easily lead to improvement, namely a comprehensive code of conduct and employee training. From there we look at the Critical Incident Technique as a training strategy that has the potential for identifying those behaviors that distinguish really outstanding behaviors from those that go by the book, and can be used to encourage more independent thinking and to set expectations for future decisions. If employees are given the skills and examples that will enable them to make better decisions, they can apply them to any situation. (shrink)

Recent publications by several leading philosophers of chemistry have focused on the definition, scope, utility, and nomenclature of issues dealing with acidity and basicity. In this paper, molecular orbital theory is used to explain all acid–base reactions, concluding that the interaction of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of one substrate, “the base,” with the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of a second substrate, “the acid,” determines the reactivity of such systems. This paradigm provides an understanding of all acid–base reactions (...) as well as other reactions which, on the surface, may not seem like acid–base reactions but which have fundamental underpinnings of that kind of chemistry. Rather than being unable to determine a unified understanding of acidity and basicity as suggested in the philosophy of chemistry literature, we propose that acidity and basicity fit securely in a classification of many other reactions that, using classical chemistry knowledge, pre-quantum chemistry, would not be possible. We strongly support the use of all scientific knowledge and experience in the development of the ideas in the philosophy science. We further suggest increased interactions between philosophers of science and scientists, so that all scholars benefit from the values, knowledge, and perspectives of other disciplines. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that some health professionals believe consent procedures for the emerging technology of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) should become less rigorous than those currently used for invasive prenatal testing. In this paper, we consider the importance of informed consent and informed choice procedures for protecting autonomy in those prenatal tests which will give rise to a definitive result. We consider whether there is anything special about NIPD that could sanction a change to consent procedures for prenatal diagnosis or (...) otherwise render informed decision-making less important. We accept the claim that the absence of risk of miscarriage to some extent lessens the gravity of the decision to test compared with invasive methods of testing. However, we also claim that the definitive nature of the information received, and the fact that the information can lead to decisions of great significance, makes NIPD an important choice. This choice should only be made by means of a rigorous and appropriately supported decision-making process (assuming that this is what the pregnant woman wants). We conclude that, on balance, consent procedures for NIPD should mirror those for invasive testing, albeit without the need to emphasise procedure-related risk. (shrink)

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that (...) has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility. (shrink)

The ‘byproduct account’ of female orgasm, a subject of renewed debate since Lloyd (The case of the female orgasm, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005), is universally attributed to Symons (The evolution of human sexuality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979). While this is correct to the extent that he linked it to the adaptive value of male orgasm, I argue that the attribution of the theory as we understand it to Symons is based on a serious and hitherto unrecognised misinterpretation. Symons (...) had a different explanation of why women can orgasm, and beneath this explanation lies an obscure line of argument, including a particularly obscure use of the word ‘homologous’. (shrink)

The ability of very wealthy individuals (or, as I will call them, the ‘super-rich’) to turn their economic power into political power has been—and remains—an important cause of political inequality. In response, this paper advocates an original solution. Rather than solving the problem through implementing a comprehensive conception of political equality, or through enforcing complex rules about financial disclosure etc., I argue that we should impose a choice on the super-rich. The super-rich must choose between (i) forfeiting the things that (...) make them super-rich, i.e., pay a 100 % tax on their wealth above a certain level, or, (ii) they must forfeit some of their political rights. These rights include entitlements to fund political parties; to stand for office; and to work or volunteer for political parties. The right to vote, though, is not limited. I defend my proposal against non-consequentialist and consequentialist objections. I also argue that it avoids two problems that many attempts to reduce political inequality face; these are the political egalitarian’s dilemma and the problem of political equality’s relative moral importance. (shrink)

Scholars have recognized the importance of local and indigenousknowledge in less industrialized countries. Few studies havebeen done on the diversity of knowledge communities in moreindustrialized countries, however, because of researcherassumptions about the spatial and temporal dimensions of localand scientific knowledge. A distinguishing feature of knowledgecommunities is the way that time and space are perceived. Thesedifferences are reflected in farmers' decision-making.Depending on farmers' knowledge orientations, they may utilizequite different criteria to determine the reliability andapplicability of new information. Advocates of sustainableagriculture, and (...) proponents of on-farm research will benefit byrecognizing the diverse ways that farmers know and understandtheir farming systems in both less and more industrializedcountries. (shrink)

Democracy can be a means to independently valuable ends and/or it can be intrinsically (or non-instrumentally) valuable. One powerful non-instrumental defence of democracy is based on the idea that only it can publicly justify political authority. I contend that this is an argument about the reasonable acceptability of political authority and about the requirements of publicity and that satisfying these requirements has nothing to do with whether a society is democratic or not. Democracy, then, plays no role in publicly justifying (...) political authority. I also show that any non-instrumental defence of democracy must make claims about what justice requires and make several further claims that require substantial justification. (shrink)

During the evolution of business ethics as a profession, the fields it draws from have identified separate knowledge and skills they believe define business ethics; however, there is little agreement among these fields. This means the strengths of each are seldom combined to guide ethical decision making in business and industry, which leaves business ethicists looking less effective, and perhaps less professional, than their counter-parts in medicine and law. It also means that those who have been thrust into the role (...) of guiding business ethics – or those who have added the title of ethics consultant after their name, without having the preparation to do so, have no standards to look to.This article examines one of the touchstones of mature professions, performance standards by which members of the profession can measure themselves and the profession can self-monitor. Further, it suggests that business ethics has not yet addressed one of the standards by which all professions are measured, that of service. (shrink)

Every day, in many situations, we use expressions which seem only vaguely to provide us with information. The weather forecaster tells us that "some showers are likely in Northern regions during the night", a statement which is vague with respect to number of showers, location, and time. Yet such messages are informative, and often it is not possible for the producer of the message to be more precise. A tutor tells his students that "only a few students fail their exams (...) outright". This does not give a precise incidence. Yet it might be equally misleading to do so. For example, to say that 12% failed outright last year says nothing about other years, while to say an average of 8% over the last five years says nothing about variability. We argue that a precise, numerical statement can be sometimes more misleading in reality than a vague statement. Many researchers in psychology have attempted to capture the meaning of quantities by relating them to scales of quantity. The book explores this idea in detail and shows with original studies how these expressions also serve to control attention and to convey information about the expectations held by those involved in the communication. The book works towards a psychological theory of the meaning of quantifiers and similarly vague terms. New links are drawn between formal theories of quantification and psychological experimentation. (shrink)

This article argues against the claim that democracy is a necessary condition of political legitimacy. Instead, I propose a weaker set of conditions. First, I explain the case for the necessity of democracy. This is that only democracy can address the ‘egalitarian challenge’, i.e. ‘if we are all equal, why should only some of us wield political power?’. I show that if democracy really is a necessary condition of political legitimacy, then (what I label) the problems of domestic justice and (...) of international legitimacy become intractable. I then argue that the egalitarian challenge is addressed where the requirements of (1) horizontal equality, (2) acceptable vertical inequality, and (3) publicity, are met and where (4) citizens have some institutionalized opportunity for a voice in decisions. I show that these conditions can be realized in non-democratic form and conclude by explaining how the four conditions can be employed to make the problems of domestic justice and of international legitimacy more tractable. Overall, my ambitions are limited. I do not offer an all-things-considered case against democracy but I do show that (some) forms of non-democratic government are permissible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionCarolyn J. Dean (bio)... even since he [Nietzsche] became famous has he ever been anything but an occasion for misunderstanding?—Georges Bataille, The Accursed ShareAt the current juncture in the history of studies “on Bataille,” admiration and indebtedness have given way to admiration constrained by ambivalence and indebtedness complicated by a desire for accountability. This special issue provides an opportunity to work through these inevitable critical shifts, symptoms of (...) an immeasurable debt to a writer from whom we have necessarily taken distance. It is also an occasion to ask about our own investments in the renewed production of Bataille.During his lifetime (1897–1962), Georges Bataille was called many names, including a “pornographer” and a fascist, and when he died he became a cult figure among some intellectuals, for whom he represented an eclectic and unappreciated thinker. Since his untimely death, Bataille has become very famous. Now, according to Jürgen Habermas, this former librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale, editor of Critique, author of covertly circulated erotic books and other works that did not sell well, stands first in a line of French intellectuals leading from “Bataille via Michel Foucault to Jacques Derrida” [Habermas 14]. 1 Bataille’s remains are located in the posthumanist pantheon: his work is joined to the giants of the French philosophical, psychoanalytic, and literary heritage, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, and Maurice Blanchot; he has been the subject of countless literary exegeses and even of a prizewinning biography [see Surya]. Bataille no longer has the merit of being unknown.But who is the Bataille we pretend to know? He is the one with whom many critics identify, yet his work is necessarily misunderstood, sometimes (but not always) in the interests of preserving its insights. Critical work on Bataille naturally emphasizes his theory of dépense (expenditure), his mysticism, his attraction to the sacrificial, sadomasochistic erotics of fascist politics, and tends, viscerally if implicitly, to identify with Bataille’s refusal to be hard in the conventional sense—his repudiation of impermeable, phallic masculinity and its association with moral resolve. In 1945, Bataille wrote that he was the “contrary of him who tranquilly watches the dismasted vessels from the shore, because in fact... I cannot imagine anyone so cruel that he could notice the one who is dismasted with such carefree laughter. Sinking is something altogether different, one can have it to one’s heart’s content...” [OC 6:358]. In 1966, a sensitive critic wrote: “Bataille’s cogito, thus, reads: ‘I sink therefore I am’” [Hollier 138]. In other words, Bataille was no proponent of a sink-or-swim philosophy, but of “the hard desire to endure”—words he wrote to describe Vincent Van Gogh, whose self-mutilation was, from Bataille’s perspective, the necessary precondition of his art. This hard desire is paradoxically the hard labor of unbinding the self, a project that entails yet moves beyond empathizing with those caught in the storm: Bataille insisted that creation required symbolic castration rather than the phallic virtue of the moral man or the swollen pride of those who volunteer heroically for the rescue mission (“Heroism,” he said, “is an [End Page 3] attitude of flight” [OC 5: 347]). As countless critics have demonstrated, even Bataille’s most relentlessly hard-core texts use sexuality as an allegory for the self-shattering of the phallic body.The sacrificial constitution of the man who would sink—for this Bataille was giddily embraced after his death. By 1990, when Yale French Studies devoted a special issue to him, the embrace was equally enthusiastic, but giddiness had given way to some defensiveness. Those theorists who did not admire Bataille equated his repudiation of phallic virtue with the ego-dissolving sublimity of fascism. After all, some of his friends and intellectual heirs had been subjected to public scrutiny for their anti-Semitic, often fascist sympathies. Implicitly defending Bataille, the editor of that special issue insisted on Bataille’s “ethics” of sacrifice. He claimed that Bataille held “onto the possibility of an ethics” through a paradoxically “incessant repositing of the ethical” [Stoekl 2, 5]. This account of Bataille’s ethics avoids the problem that the ethics of sacrifice in... (shrink)

New standards adopted by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) stress business curriculum-wide learning objectives, of which ethics is a critical part. “Knowledge and skills” in ethical responsibilities are required as part of institutionalaccreditation. An exploratory study offers insight into ethics integration, perceived comfort in teaching ethics, and methods used. The main tension presented balances calls for ethics across business curricula with the assertion that ethics instruction, in the hands of an untrained professor, may do more (...) damage than good. Results suggest that while faculty include ethics in their courses, only slightly more than half have received some kind of ethics training. We also explore ethics pedagogies and found differences between methods respondents used in the classroom and desired learning methods for themselves. We offer insights about and possible explanations for the gaps we found in our study, contextualizing them in new literature. We finish with a brief discussion of how our findings impact accreditation assessment. (shrink)

Un Siècle d'antiféminisme est l'un des premiers travaux universitaires s'attachant à définir l'antiféminisme et à en retracer l'historique en France au cours des cent dernières années. Son intérêt repose sur l'éventail et la variété des contributions réunies par Christine Bard autour de trois axes : « De la fin du XIXe siècle aux années folles », « Des années 1930 au baby boom » et « Du MLF à nos jours ». Il rend compte non seulement de la véritable bataille (...) contre les droits politique... (shrink)

Christine Bard, avec Les Garçonnes, propose un fougueux antidote à la remarquable capacité du patriarcat à convertir la rébellion féminine en un reflet de son propre désir ou anxiété. Dans une analyse extrêmement précise de la garçonne, l'auteur montre combien cette figure est essentiellement une métaphore de la dissolution des mœurs. La garçonne rejette la féminité traditionnelle, s'attirant la colère de ceux qu'inquiète la dépopulation. Son corps échappe aux bornes érigées par les co..

Christine Bard, avec Les Garçonnes, propose un fougueux antidote à la remarquable capacité du patriarcat à convertir la rébellion féminine en un reflet de son propre désir ou anxiété. Dans une analyse extrêmement précise de la garçonne, l'auteur montre combien cette figure est essentiellement une métaphore de la dissolution des mœurs. La garçonne rejette la féminité traditionnelle, s'attirant la colère de ceux qu'inquiète la dépopulation. Son corps échappe aux bornes érigées par les co...

Agricultural intensification and extensification are standard responses to ecological and economic vulnerability among smallholder communities. Climate change has exacerbated this vulnerability and thrown the complexity of and critical need for managing a healthy natural resource base while increasing on-farm productivity into sharp light. Sustainable intensification is one of many mechanisms for accomplishing this balancing act. This study examines the adoption of sustainable intensification practices, namely input packages focused on tef row planting—designed to boost yield and promote more efficient use of (...) inputs. This study utilized a mix methods approach to survey 115 smallholder farmers in the South Wollo zone of the Amhara region in Ethiopia. This study found that cash and capital, more so than contact with the AIS, influenced farmers’ decisions to adopt row planting input packages. Khat production was an important source of cash for inputs and was more likely to be available to farmers with irrigation schemes. Long-term, farmers who cultivate khat may not successfully engage in SI, as khat replaces traditional food crop production in the region. Yet, for farmers who do not grow khat, long-term investment in SI practices is unlikely unless access to affordable credit options is improved. (shrink)