In our paper ‘The ethical case for non-directed postmortem sperm donation’ we argued that it would be ethical for men to donate sperm after death for use by strangers. In their thoughtful response Fredrick and Ben Kroon lay out practical concerns regarding our proposal. They raise issues regarding the quality of sperm collected postmortem based on empirical studies. Second, they claim that concerns about quality would make women unlikely to use sperm collected after death. In this response we explore issues (...) of sperm quality in both living and dead donors. We consider whether there might be ways to ensure quality in both. Finally, we question whether quality should be a barrier to women choosing to use sperm donated after death. (shrink)

We consider an approach to some philosophical problems that I call the Method of Conceptual Articulation: to recognize that a question may lack any determinate answer, and to re-engineer concepts so that the question acquires a definite answer in such a way as to serve the epistemic motivations behind the question. As a case study we examine “Galileo’s Paradox”, that the perfect square numbers seem to be at once as numerous as the whole numbers, by one-to-one correspondence, and yet less (...) numerous, being a proper subset. I argue that Cantor resolved this paradox by a method at least close to that proposed—not by discovering the true nature of cardinal number, but by articulating several useful and appealing extensions of number to the infinite. Galileo was right to suggest that the concept of relative size did not apply to the infinite, for the concept he possessed did not. Nor was Bolzano simply wrong to reject Hume’s Principle (that one-to-one correspondence implies equal number) in the infinitary case, in favor of Euclid’s Common Notion 5 (that the whole is greater than the part), for the concept of cardinal number (in the sense of “number of elements”) was not clearly defined for infinite collections. Order extension theorems now suggest that a theory of cardinality upholding Euclid’s principle instead of Hume’s is possible. Cantor’s refinements of number are not the only ones possible, and they appear to have been shaped by motivations and fruitfulness, for they evolved in discernible stages correlated with emerging applications and results. Galileo, Bolzano, and Cantor shared interests in the particulate analysis of the continuum and in physical applications. Cantor’s concepts proved fruitful for those pursuits. Finally, Gödel was mistaken to claim that Cantor’s concept of cardinality is forced on us; though Gödel gives an intuitively compelling argument, he ignores the fact that Euclid’s Common Notion is also intuitively compelling, and we are therefore forced to make a choice. The success of Cantor’s concept of cardinality lies not in its truth (for concepts are not true or false), nor its uniqueness (for it is not the only extension of number possible), but in its intuitive appeal, and most of all, its usefulness to the understanding. (shrink)

Burnout among health professionals is at epidemic proportions. In response, many health institutions have emphasised the importance of self-care, relying particularly on the idea that doctors who are burned out provide worse care for their patients. Although not made explicit, this suggests that doctors might have a responsibility to their patients (and perhaps others) to practice self-care. This chapter explores the potential grounds for such an obligation. We suggest that while there is potential for a limited obligation of self-care, institutional (...) emphasis on this risks instrumentalising doctors' well-being, minimising institutional responsibilities and workers' rights, and being excessively demanding for individuals. (shrink)

Relativism in psychology unravels the truth-claims and oppressive\npractices of the discipline, but simply relativizing psychological knowledge\nhas not been sufficient to comprehend and combat the discipline\nas part of the ‘psy-complex’. For that, a balanced review of the contribution\nand problems of relativism needs to work dialectically, and so\nthis article reviews four problematic rhetorical balancing strategies in\nrelativism before turning to the contribution of critical realism. Critical\nrealism exposes positivist psychology’s pretensions to model itself\non what it imagines the natural sciences to be, and it grounds (...) discursive\naccounts of mentation in social practices. The problem is that those\nsympathetic to mainstream psychology are also appealing to ‘realism’\nto warrant it as a science and to discredit critical research that situates\npsychological phenomena. Our use of critical realism calls for an\naccount of how psychological facts are socially constructed within\npresent social arrangements and for an analysis of the underlying historical\nconditions that gave rise to the ‘psy-complex’. Only by understanding\nhow the discipline of psychology reproduces notions of\nindividuality and human nature, a critical realist endeavour, will it be\npossible to transform it, and to socially construct it as something different. (shrink)

This paper will investigate how geographic features were recorded on maps in the eighteenth century in order to outline the construction of geographic knowledge by British mapmakers. Due to practical and economic factors, early modern cartography was a conservative practice based on source compilation and comparison. For the Pacific region especially, the paucity of first-hand observations and the conflicting nature of those observations rendered the world's largest ocean difficult to chart and prone to the retention of mythical continents, passages and (...) islands. After a discussion of the practical and economic reasons why geographic features were difficult to revise on maps, the article focuses on a case study to show how geographic enigmas could be placed and persist. It will use Pepys Island to illustrate the ways in which a chimeric feature could become instilled in geographic parlance. (shrink)

Gratitude has been promoted as a beneficial emotional experience. However, gratitude is not universally experienced as positive. The current work examines whether an autonomous interpersonal style is associated with differential experience of gratitude. Study 1 found an inverse relationship between trait autonomy and both trait gratitude and positivity of response to receiving a hypothetical benefit from a friend. Study 2 replicated the finding that those higher in autonomy report less trait gratitude, and also demonstrated an inverse relationship between autonomy and (...) valuing gratitude. Study 3 found that those higher in autonomy had more self-image goals and reduced compassionate goals in relationships, and that valuing gratitude mediated the relationship between autonomy and relationship goals. These results show a consistent inverse relationship between autonomy and the experience and valuing of gratitude, suggesting that degree of autonomy is one determinant of whether gratitude is experienced as positive. (shrink)

American leaders in four realms were studied to assess their views on the helpfulness to workers with family obligations of employers' policies and services. The realms were corporate management, labor unions, the pro-family movement, and the feminist movement. The data were analyzed by leadership realm and gender in relation to policies of two types: scheduling and work arrangements and services and benefits. Gender accounted for the respondents' views better than class or social movement did. Except for feminist men, the men (...) held similar views regardless of leadership realm. The pro-family women differed from the other women in failing to view most services and benefits as particularly helpful to employees. Union and corporate women's favorable views on services and benefits suggest that fundamental change in workplace supports for workers' family obligations could develop if more women became leaders in unions and corporations. (shrink)

The recently published BMA Guidelines on Withholding and Withdrawing Medical Treatment encourage a balance between deriving maximal benefit from medical treatment, and achieving as natural a death as possible in the circumstances. I argue that the concepts of burdensomeness, natural death and medicalised death are of greater fundamental importance than that of intention, and do not help constitute a moral distinction between withdrawal of treatment and active assistance to die. Nor should they continue to ground the corresponding legal distinction. In (...) the situations of both treatment withdrawal and active assistance to die, disease causation, human agency and moral responsibility are related in the same way. In both situations, we can intend that a person die for the right reasons, based on a concern for natural death.However, the law is reluctant to impose positive obligations on people, in contrast to the protection of negative rights. For example, the Northern Territory’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (1996) provided for assisted death as a lawful exception to an otherwise unlawful act, rather than as an enforceable right like the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. Nevertheless, that the enforceability of a positive right to assisted death is difficult to conceive, is itself the product of a particular historical/moral/religious frame of reference currently under deconstruction. Genuine natural death statutes would consolidate the important principles supported here, and could apply uniform safeguards to all death-hastening decisions. (shrink)

This issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy is dedicated to topics in clinical ethics with essays addressing clinician participation in state sponsored execution, duties to decrease ecological footprints in medicine, the concept of caring and its relationship to conscientious refusal, the dilemmas involved in dual use research, a philosophical and practical critique of principlism, conundrums that arise when applying surrogate decision-making models to patients with moderate intellectual disabilities, the phenomenology of chronic disease, and ethical concerns surrounding the use (...) of artificial intelligence in medicine. Throughout the issue, the themes of conceptual and moral boundaries in bioethics, critiques of current clinical ethics paradigms, and the importance of transparency are prominent. (shrink)

The Second Sex offers a philosophy of bodies that hinges on the crucial concepts of ambiguity and singularity. I revisit two widely influential essays on the status of “the body” in The Second Sex, those of Moira Gatens and Catriona Mackenzie. However, both of these readings mistakenly present Beauvoir as accepting lived experiences of politically overdetermined immanence, rather than exploring them as stifled modes of transcendence. Several years later, Moira Gatens took a very helpful “second look” at the status of (...) bodies and biology in Beauvoir. I contrast this with Judith Butler's reading of The Second Sex as a project engaged in the denaturalization of gender. My chapter charts a middle way between Gatens’ second essay and Butler's reading: I argue that The Second Sex does “denaturalize” gender, but it does so precisely to bring attention to the powers and plurality of bodies. Singularity as multiplicitous lived bodily variance, according to Beauvoir, will “always exist” regardless of the static and idealizing categories of some approaches to biology. (shrink)

Now one of the aims of this treatise is to show that values are an essential factor in reality, and how therefore their most general traits are reflections of the pervasive characters of all being, so far as known to us. We shall not neglect the fine, individual nuances of values, but equally we shall try to reveal how they lie embedded in a more inclusive matrix. It will be the special topic of this chapter to establish and describe this (...) matrix. In doing this, we shall be pursuing what may well be called a metaphysic or ontology of values. (shrink)

We know that Bradley himself dismissed his 1874 essay The Presuppositions of Critical History as an inconsequential early work; but we also know that a later generation, Collingwood and Oakeshott especially, regarded this essay as truly revolutionary, in the words of Collingwood as a “Copernican revolution”. But it is still not generally recognised just how innovative, and destructive of older habits of thought, this short essay was.

Summary 2 Maccabees provides solid historical information concerning the activities of Antiochus IV in Egypt and Palestine in the 160s B.C. This information both supplements and partially corrects the corresponding account in 1 Maccabees. Since the Jews in Palestine used the so-called Babylonian Seleucid Era (instead of the Macedonian Seleucid Era as Klaus Bringmann has argued), the presentation of events in 1 Maccabees becomes highly problematic at points, and it is once again 2 Maccabees which points the way toward a (...) solution. (shrink)

Fulford has argued that (1) the medical concepts illness, disease and dysfunction are inescapably evaluative terms, (2) illness is conceptually prior to disease, and (3) a model conforming to (2) has greater explanatory power and practical utility than the conventional value-free medical model. This ‘reverse’ model employs Hare's distinction between description and evaluation, and the sliding relationship between descriptive and evaluative meaning. Fulford's derivative ‘Values Based Medicine’ (VBM) readjusts the imbalance between the predominance of facts over values in medicine. VBM (...) allegedly responds to the increased choices made available by, inter alia, the progress of medical science itself. VBM attributes appropriate status to evaluative meaning, where strong consensus about descriptive meaning is lacking. According to Fulford, quasi-legal bioethics, while it can be retained as a kind of deliberative framework, is outcome-based and pursues ‘the right answer’, while VBM approximates a democratic, process-oriented method for dealing with diverse values, in partnership with necessary contributions from evidence-based medicine (EBM). I support the non-cognitivist underpinnings of VBM, and its emphasis on the importance of values in medicine. But VBM overstates the complexity and diversity of values, misrepresents EBM and VBM as responses to scientific and evaluative complexity, and mistakenly depicts ‘quasi-legal bioethics’ as a space of settled descriptive meaning. Bioethical reasoning can expose strategies that attempt to reduce authentic values to scientific facts, illustrating that VBM provides no advantage over bioethics in delineating the connections between facts and values in medicine. (shrink)

From cultural figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Wendell Berry to philosophers such as Jane Addams and William James, this collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to resilience practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.

It is widely accepted that Judith Butler’s work represents a fundamental departure from that of Luce Irigaray. However, in a 2001 essay, Butler suggests that Irigaray’s work plays a formative role in her own, and that the problematization of the biological and cultural distinction that Irigaray’s notion of sexual difference accomplishes must be rethought and multiplied rather than simply rejected. In this essay, I place the notion of precarity in the work of Butler alongside that of sexual difference in Irigaray, (...) to show how together they seek to address violence to certain bodies through an approach that is at once ecological and political. I show that Butler’s concept of precarity has deep, largely unappreciated, roots in the work of Irigaray. Butler explores precarity as bodily multiplicity in ways that pluralize Irigaray’s own ethics and politics of difference. Butler is, in other words, rewriting sexual difference as precarity. (shrink)

A close reading of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE), an anonymous captain's manual written in everyday Greek, provides ways of thinking about broader questions concerning the connectedness of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. It is located primarily in the Red Sea, an interstitial zone between the two large seas, and concerns long-distance networks of exchange between South Asia, the Arabian peninsula, the Horn of Africa, Alexandria, and beyond that the Mediterranean. Among the issues to emerge (...) are the linear nature of spatial experience and the means by which commodities are mapped. A goal of the article is to identify ways in which to link the practice and representations of travel. (shrink)

The materials consist of a co-authored, peer-reviewed book, a co-authored, peer-reviewed book chapter, 30 single authored peer-reviewed journal papers, and 15 co-authored peer-reviewed journal papers, of which I was the lead author on 8 papers. There are 32 papers from Australasian journals, at least two of which are also regarded as international. 22 papers are published in international journals. The co-authored book was favourably described in his foreword by Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. The refereed chapter (...) is contained in an issue of the Australian Legal Monographs series. The papers constitute a body of work in Australasian and international contexts in a field which is relatively new to academic achievement, broadly understood as philosophy of medicine, medical ethics and health law. The journals in which the papers are published include two of the most highly regarded bioethics journals in the world, Australia’s leading medical journal, the two leading world medical education journals, Australia’s leading journal for health and medical law, and the Torts Law Journal, an Australian journal which is recognized as one of the world’s leading journals in the field of tort law. (shrink)

Stewart and DeMarco’s economic theory of patient decision-making applied to the case of diabetes is flawed by clinical inaccuracies and an unrealistic depiction of patients as rational traders. The theory incorrectly represents patients’ struggles to optimize their management as calculated trade-offs against the costs of care, and gives an unrealistic, inflexible account of such costs. It imputes to physicians the view that their patients’ lack of compliance is unreasonable, but physicians are accustomed to the variety of human factors which contribute (...) to suboptimal compliance, and work with patients to minimize their influence. By depicting patients as rational traders rather than human beings with a range of motivations and burdens, the economic theory distorts the proper function of informed consent. (shrink)

Lloyd (2009) contends that climate models are confirmed by various instances of fit between their output and observational data. The present paper argues that what these instances of fit might confirm are not climate models themselves, but rather hypotheses about the adequacy of climate models for particular purposes. This required shift in thinking—from confirming climate models to confirming their adequacy-for-purpose—may sound trivial, but it is shown to complicate the evaluation of climate models considerably, both in principle and in practice.

Closely related to this is Mr. Bruner's "evolutionary instrumentalism," his conception of instruction as the means of transmitting the tools and skills of a ...

The practice of medicine frequently involves the unconsented restriction of liberty. The reasons for unilateral liberty restrictions are typically that being confined, strapped down, or sedated are necessary to prevent the person from harming themselves or others. In this paper, we target the ethics of chemical restraints, which are medications that are used to intentionally restrict the mental states associated with the unwanted behaviors, and are typically not specifically indicated for the condition for which the patient is being treated. Specifically, (...) we aim to identify the conditions under which chemical restraints are ethically permissible. It is wrong to assume that what is morally true of physical restraints is also true of chemical restraints. Our aim is thus to identify the conditions under which chemical restraints are permissible while distinguishing these conditions from those of the application of physical restraints. (shrink)