This article explores how structural failures in major federal environmental regulations —which set a foundation for environmental protections nationwide— have helped create many of the environmental injustices that people of color and low-income communities experience. It continues by examining how local governments have reinforced and compounded the failures in the federal environmental regulatory framework, particularly through local land use decisions. Although states play an important role in environmental policymaking, we propose that local governments are uniquely positioned to utilize a health (...) justice approach to address environmental health inequities. This approach centers partnerships between frontline communities and local governments to develop just solutions that fill gaps within the federal environmental regulatory system and anticipate and mitigate the compounding effects of environmental health inequities. (shrink)

Some obligations are conditional such that act A is morally optional, but if one chooses A, one is required to do act B rather than some other less valuable act C. Such conditional obligations arise frequently in research ethics, in the philosophical literature, and in real life. They are controversial: how does a morally optional act give rise to demanding requirements to do the best? Some think that the fact that a putative obligation has a conditional structure, so defined, is (...) a strike against its being a genuine obligation. I argue that conditional obligations are to be expected in a moral theory that has moral options. (shrink)

Scripture: early convictions -- Being taught: the Bible and the Reformed Scripture principle -- Dominus illuminatio mea: the school of the biblical witness -- Dominus et vivificantem: biblical witnesses as children of God.

Given recent advancements in CRISPR‐Cas9 powered genetic modification of gametes and embryos, both popular media and scientific articles are hailing CRISPR’s life‐saving, curative potential for people with serious monogenic diseases. But claims that CRISPR modification of gametes or embryos, a form of germline engineering, has therapeutic value are deeply mistaken. This article explains why reproductive uses of CRISPR, and germline engineering more generally, do not treat or save lives that would otherwise have a genetic disease. Reproductive uses of CRISPR create (...) healthy people whose existence is not inevitable in the first place. Creating healthy lives has distinct and lesser moral value from saving or curing lives that would otherwise have genetic disease. The real value in reproductive uses of CRISPR is in helping a very limited population of people have healthy, genetically related children. This diminished value cannot compete with the concerns in opposition to germline engineering, nor is it worth the investment of research money. (shrink)

Clinicians and health researchers frequently encounter opportunities to rescue people. Rescue cases can generate a moral duty to aid those in peril. As such, bioethicists have leveraged a duty to rescue for a variety of purposes. Yet, despite its broad application, the duty to rescue is under-analyzed. In this paper, we assess the state of theorizing about the duty to rescue. There are large gaps in bioethicists’ understanding of the force, scope, and justification of the two most cited duties to (...) rescue—the individual duty of easy rescue and the institutional rule of rescue. We argue that the duty of easy rescue faces unresolved challenges regarding its force and scope, and the rule of rescue is indefensible. If the duty to rescue is to help solve ethical problems, these theoretical gaps must be addressed. We identify two further conceptions of the duty to rescue that have received less attention—an institutional duty of easy rescue and the professional duty to rescue. Both provide guidance in addressing force and scope concerns and, thereby, traction in answering the outstanding problems with the duty to rescue. We conclude by proposing and propose research priorities for developing accounts of duties to rescue in bioethics. (shrink)

In this paper I compare two models of expert judgment: the art critic in Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and the “wise man” in “Of Miracles.” The art critic is a true judge of beauty because he has made himself into a person who is optimally receptive to beauty. He possesses the virtues of taste: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice” (“Of the Standard of Taste,” 241). But the (...) virtues of the art critic, I argue, are also those of the “wise man,” the person who consistently “proportions his belief to the evidence” (EHU 10.4; SBN 110). Comparison of these two characters reveals that for Hume the virtues fundamental to the art critic’s critical competence are also epistemic virtues. Hume’s exposition of aesthetic excellences should thus be of interest for virtue epistemology. Because contemporary virtue epistemologists have tended to focus almost exclusively on the relationships between intellectual and moral virtues, Hume offers something new: an account of epistemic virtues based on aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

____Ethics of Eros__ sheds light on contemporary feminist discourse by questioning the basic distinctions and categories in feminist theory. Tina Chanter uses the work of Luce Irigaray as the focus for a critique of French and Anglo-American feminism as it is articulated in the debate over essentialism. While these two branches of feminism represent opposing views, Chanter advocates a productive exchange between the two.

_ Source: _Page Count 30 Millions of children worldwide could benefit from adoption. One could argue that prospective parents have a pro tanto duty to adopt rather than create children. For the sake of argument, I assume there is such a duty and focus on a pressing objection to it. Prospective parents may prefer that their children are genetically related to them. I examine eight reasons prospective parents have for preferring genetic children: for parent-child physical resemblance, for family resemblance, for (...) psychological similarity, for the sake of love, to achieve a kind of immortality, for the genetic connection itself, to be a procreator, and to experience pregnancy. I argue that, with the possible exception of the pregnancy desire, these reasons fail to defeat a duty to adopt a child rather than create one, even assuming that we do have some leeway to favor our own interests. (shrink)

In this paper, I will describe how Brentano was able to integrate descriptive philosophy and logical analysis fruitfully by pointing out Brentano’s concept of philosophy as a rigorous science. First I will clarify how Brentano attempted to turn philosophy into a rigorous descriptive science by applying scientific methods to philosophical questions. After spelling out the implications of such a descriptive understanding of philosophy, I will contrast this descriptive view of philosophy with a semantic-analytic understanding of philosophy as proposed by Frege. (...) After having thus set the stage I will argue that the current separation of philosophy into the seemingly antithetical strands of phenomenology and analytic philosophy may be seen as a consequence of how the term ‘rigorous science’ in ‘philosophy as a rigorous science’ is interpreted: Does a rigorous science grasp its object with as much exactitude as possible? Or is a science rigorous when its theories are expressed unambiguously, and their implications are drawn with precision? In the course of this investigation I will also point out how Brentano’s integrative use of descriptive philosophy and analysis can provide a suitable starting point for an equally successful integration of these methods in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Most people would agree that adoption is a good thing for children in need of a family. Yet adoption is often considered a second best or even last resort for parents in making their families. Against this assumption, I explore the unique value of adoption for prospective parents. I begin with a criticism of the selective focus on the value of adoption for only those people using assisted reproductive technologies. I focus on the value of adoption for all prospective parents, (...) reflecting on non-relative, non-procreative adoptions. First, adoption can meet the important need that a child has for a family, whereas procreation creates rather than meets needs. Second, adoption provides a morally noble opportunity to extend to a stranger benefits usually withheld for one's genetic kin. As such, adoption offers a unique possibility in which impartial concern for an other can be the starting point for a lifetime of love and care. Finally, adoptions can have transformative power over adoptive parents’ conception of family and self. In highlighting the unique value of adoption, I aim to challenge the widespread assumption that adoption has second best status to procreation. Indeed adoption can exemplify the human potential for moral compassion and impartial concern for the needs of others. (shrink)

Gathering thoughts -- Teachers who inspired me -- What am I? : Montessori? Steiner? eclectic? : Is it important? -- Which comes first? : a philosophical framework, theory and research evidence : what do teachers and other practitioners need to bring out their best work -- Working with principles which are interpreted and embedded in articulated practice -- The importance of parent partnership and the development of moral values and self-discipline -- Play : a very complex thing -- Finding how (...) to position myself in relation to play -- Inclusion : commonalities, differences"fragmentation or wholeness?"-- Cultivating creativity -- Remaining a generalist rather than becoming a specialist within one area of early childhood education -- Changing political climates -- How best to train teachers of young children -- Remaining a Froebelian but still exploring why and wondering "will I always be one?". (shrink)

This article responds to Gavan Duffy's critique of AnalogiesatWar in his recent essay on the agent-structure debate in the JJPS (2001, 2: 161giving structure its duestructure” with process, perceptual, and personality variables; (3) misinterprets my assumptions while neglecting the findings of recent works that corroborate the findings of AnalogiesatWar; and (4) fails to demonstrate one of his key suggestions, i.e. the importance of showing how agents and structures are mutually constitutive. The article concludes by discussing some pointers raised by the (...) exchange for furthering the agent-structure debate. (shrink)

How to raise a child with confidence, kindness, and intelligence.

By means of data from the most comprehensive source of teacher data in the nation, Schools and Public School Teacher Staffing Survey (SASS), we designeda follow-up quantitative study to test the effects of two decades of national policy mandates on instructional time allotments for core academic subjects. We used data from the SASS data from National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) (1993/1994, 1999/2000, 2003/2004, 2007/2008) to examine national trends of continued marginalization of social studies by exploring the influence of recent (...) educational policy on defining elementary curricula in the 21st Century. With the reauthorization of NCLB in 2007 and newly mandated science testing in grades 3 through 5, we sought to understand statistically how this policy change has affected instructional decisions regarding time allocated to core academic subjects (ELA, mathematics, science and social studies) in elementary schools. Findings provide evidence of the national trend of the declining role of social studies in an era in which testing is associated with importance. Moreover, grade level disparities unique to social studies intensified the effects of 2007 NCLB policy mandates of science testing for 3rd through 5th grade students. Results provide a broader and nationally generalizable understanding of the declining role of social studies in elementary schools and the reduction of time practitioners spend teaching social studies. Thus, the growing imbalance in instructional time distributions for social studies and the tipping of the time distribution scales in favor of science document teacher responses to the expansion of testing mandates and the continued absence of studies from the national testing landscape. (shrink)

Compersion is an affective state commonly discussed in the context of consensually non-monogamous relationships. It is typically described as a positive emotional reaction to one’s partner’s enjoying time and/or intimacy with another person, sort of ‘the opposite of jealousy’. Recent years have seen an increased interest in this seemingly startling emotion. Part of what makes understanding compersion so difficult is the mononormative expectations of our culture. We suggest that a non-Western, in particular Buddhist, perspective might be more helpful to understand (...) that love and/or intimacy need not be an affair between two people only. We approach compersion through a Buddhist lens based on the ‘four immeasurables’, i.e. non-egocentric states that Buddhists take to promote well-being, and their ‘near enemies’, i.e. states which are easily conflated with them, but egocentric and harmful. Our goal is not to formulate a definition of compersion, nor to raise a normative bar for anyone who feels compersion, but to describe important facets of it that stand out more clearly against a Buddhist background than they might otherwise do. Such an approach not only enriches our understanding of compersion but contributes to people’s flourishing in all kinds of relationships and shows that non-monogamous relationships might be compatible with some forms of Buddhist practice. (shrink)

Methodological tools for doing philosophy that take into account the historical context of the phenomenon under consideration are arguably better suited for examining questions of race and gender than acontextual or ahistorical methodological tools. Accordingly, Rebecca Tuvel’s “defense” of so-called transracialism arguably veers off track to the extent that it relies on acontextual and ahistorical tools. While Tuvel argues, largely relying on such tools, that so-called transracialism is both metaphysically possible and ethically permissible, from a perspective that factors in context (...) and history, so-called transracialism is arguably neither. Nonetheless, Tuvel’s ethical call to the effect that an individual right to racial self-definition should be acknowledged has its appeal. However, the lesson to be learned from the Tuvel affair arguably has less to do with the metaphysical or ethical status of so-called transracialism than with changes that arguably need to be made in the way mainstream/analytic professional philosophy goes about its business, particularly with regard to non-ideal topics like race and gender. (shrink)

In February 2016, the Institute of Medicine released a report, commissioned by the United States Food and Drug Administration, on the ethical and social‐policy implications of so‐called three‐parent in vitro fertilization. The IOM endorses commencement of clinical trials on three‐parent IVF, subject to some initial limitations. Also called mitochondrial replacement or transfer, three‐parent IVF is an intervention comprising two distinct procedures in which the genetic materials of three people—the DNA of the father and mother and the mitochondrial DNA of an (...) egg donor—can be used to create a child. Three‐parent IVF would enable a woman with mitochondrial disease to have a genetically related child without transmitting the disease to the child. The possibility for three‐parent children has prompted criticism from many corners. Critics have pointed to ethical issues including safety concerns and risks to children, genetic and germline engineering concerns, the potential exploitation of the third‐parent egg donor, donor anonymity and privacy, and objections to creating babies with three parents, which undermines natural and traditional conceptions of procreation. Additionally, developing the technology would involve experimenting on, manipulating, and disposing of embryos. Although the IOM report considers the ethical concerns about the value of the three‐parent IVF technology, the IOM failed to give due attention to an important objection to the development of this technology: three‐parent IVF lacks the social value necessary to make investment of public resources in it ethical.Unlike the other concerns, this objection is not based on conservativism about new reproductive technologies or default favoritism of the status quo. I argue that the technology does not meet a plausible social value standard to render public research investment into its development ethical. Proponents of three‐parent IVF make inaccurate and exaggerated claims that it will eradicate mitochondrial disease and save lives. Were these claims true, proponents would have a strong case for the social value of the technology. But three‐parent IVF alone will not eradicate mitochondrial disease, and it will not save lives. Rather, it can create healthy lives. As I discuss, the moral distinction is crucial. Most importantly, investment in three‐parent IVF comes at the opportunity cost of researching treatment for mitochondrial disease that would benefit actual, living disease sufferers. (shrink)

The lack of attention to the role of emotions generally has led modern learning theories to neglect the importance of emulation as a pedagogical support to students’ learning. One reason could be that the influence of teacher personality is not considered in relation to learning outcome. Another reason may be that the concept of emulation has been used as a psychological conception for one-way transmission. From a pedagogical rhetorical perspective, it is here argued that emulation and its pedagogical function is (...) rooted in three human conditions: the biological, moral and political. The framework for this reasoning is discussed, as well as historical changes in pedagogical focus. Finally, it is concluded that the educative character of the teacher has a crucial impact on how willing students are to interact and share the teachers’ knowledge, skills and values. Therefore, there is a need for a greater awareness of these aspects to be developed among teachers. (shrink)

Self-defining memories are touchstones in individuals’ narrative identity. This is the first SDM study to compare college students from the mainland People’s Republic of China to American college students. It examined SDMs, Big Five personality traits, and memory function in 60 students from each country. Participants rated their memories for affect, recall frequency, and importance. Chinese students recalled their most positively rated memories more frequently and with greater importance, while American students did not show this pattern. American students who scored (...) higher in Openness were more likely to recall negative memories. Memory content coding revealed that Chinese students recalled significantly more guilt/shame events than American students. Further analysis indicated that these memories were particularly focused on academic performance and parental expectations. The discussion suggests that follow-up studies look at differing emotion regulation strategies in the two countries, as well as at how the two different educational systems are affecting late adolescent identity formation processes. (shrink)

With their organic neural queues, the Na'vi are able to communicate with other species in a way human beings cannot. Along with their insights into other minds, the Na'vi have a deep respect for the other animals of Pandora. There are two primary ways in which we human beings can infer what another creature is experiencing, including whether it is suffering. The first involves studying its physiology and drawing inferences from the activity of its nerves and brain. The second way (...) in which we infer the presence of pain in others is by analogy. The Na'vi have yet another way to know the minds of other creatures, one that we lack. Through their tsaheylu or neural bond with other animals, the Na'vi can access the memories, thoughts, and perceptions of other animals. (shrink)

Millions of children worldwide could benefit from adoption. One could argue that prospective parents have a pro tanto duty to adopt rather than create children. For the sake of argument, I assume there is such a duty and focus on a pressing objection to it. Prospective parents may prefer that their children are genetically related to them. I examine eight reasons prospective parents have for preferring genetic children: for parent-child physical resemblance, for family resemblance, for psychological similarity, for the sake (...) of love, to achieve a kind of immortality, for the genetic connection itself, to be a procreator, and to experience pregnancy. I argue that, with the possible exception of the pregnancy desire, these reasons fail to defeat a duty to adopt a child rather than create one, even assuming that we do have some leeway to favor our own interests. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that people have a moral right to procreate. This article explores recent arguments in opposition to procreation in some or all contexts. Some such views are concerned with the risks and harms of life that procreation imposes on non-consenting children. Others articulate concerns for third parties – the environmental damage or opportunity costs that procreation poses to already existing people. The article then surveys arguments that favor procreation despite the risks to the children created and third (...) parties. The best argument for procreation is based on the significant interest people have in forming the parent–child relationship. An important under-discussed middle ground is suggested – one that avoids the criticisms of the anti-natalist while fulfilling the best aims of procreation – viz. adoption. The duty to adopt is summarized and objections to it considered. Thoughtful people who deeply desire to become parents but do not wish to participate in the range of potential procreative harms should consider adoption as a first choice. (shrink)

Nicholas Gresson 2001L-RUniversity of Auckland, Faculty of Education PhD graduates in 2001:Elizabeth Grierson/Gresson, Tina Besley, Ho-Chia Chueh, Janet Mansfield, Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul, Nesta De...

Adding instructional time and holding teachers accountable for teaching social studies are touted as practical, logical steps toward reforming the age-old tradition of marginalization. This qualitative case study of an urban elementary school, examines how nine teachers and one administrator enacted district reforms that added 45 min to the instructional day and implemented a series of formative and summative assessments. Through classroom observations, interviews, time journals, and official school documents, this article describes underlying perceptions and priorities that were barriers to (...) any positive impact time or testing might have afforded social studies. Two recommendations emerge from results: 1) time structures need to provide space for the teaching of and planning for social studies; and 2) testing can have positive outcomes, but these are limited when assessments structures are hierarchical, misaligned, and poorly communicated. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his innovative and thought-provoking Why Worry About Future Generations? Samuel Scheffler argues that the value of many of our present-day projects depends upon the existence of future generations, and this gives us one major reason to care about their fate. I raise questions about this ‘Value Dependence Thesis’ by comparing an imminent human extinction scenario to the case of imminent individual death. If an imminently dying individual can still find much value in their remaining life, then why should (...) it be any different for humanity facing imminent extinction? Scheffler anticipates this kind of argument; I respond to his objection to this analogy. I also raise a concern about the value of meliorative projects as providing reason in favor of continued human existence. While meliorative projects have instrumental value contingent on the existence of future generations, this value does not count in favor of their existing. Despite raising these concerns, I agree with Scheffler that many of our actual activities presuppose the survival of humanity and that we are antecedently interested in and committed to their survival. Moreover, Scheffler’s novel approach offers us a creative, sophisticated, and rich resource for developing the ethics of future generations. (shrink)

Effective altruism encourages people to donate their money to the most effective, efficient charities. Some effective altruists believe that taking a longtermist priority—benefitting far-off future, enormous generations—is one of the best ways to use our resources. This paper explains how the longtermist argument as laid out by William MacAskill in his book What We Owe the Future, is unconvincing. MacAskill argues that we should ensure that the future is very well-populated on the assumption that it will be on balance good (...) over bad. This reasoning, however, fails to account for additional moral considerations that most people would endorse. The present critique of pronatalist longtermism advances a critical benefit theory compatible with putting our energy into preventing and alleviating serious harms to actual future generations without intensive pronatalism. (shrink)