Background: The factors influencing parents’ willingness to enroll their children in biobanks are poorly understood. This study sought to assess parents’ willingness to enroll their children, and their perceived benefits, concerns, and information needs under different consent and data-sharing scenarios, and to identify factors associated with willingness. Methods: This large, experimental survey of patients at the 11 eMERGE Network sites used a disproportionate stratified sampling scheme to enrich the sample with historically underrepresented groups. Participants were randomized to receive one of (...) three consent and data-sharing scenarios. Results: In total, 90,000 surveys were mailed and 13,000 individuals responded (15.8% response rate). 5737 respondents were parents of minor children. Overall, 55% (95% confidence interval 50–59%) of parents were willing to enroll their youngest minor child in a hypothetical biobank; willingness did not differ between consent and data-sharing scenarios. Lower educational attainment, higher religiosity, lower trust, worries about privacy, and attitudes about benefits, concerns, and information needs were independently associated with less willingness to allow their child to participate. Of parents who were willing to participate themselves, 25% were not willing to allow their child to participate. Being willing to participate but not willing to allow one’s child to participate was independently associated with multiple factors, including race, lower educational attainment, lower annual household income, public health care insurance, and higher religiosity. Conclusions: Fifty-five percent of parents were willing to allow their youngest minor child to participate in a hypothetical biobank. Building trust, protecting privacy, and addressing attitudes may increase enrollment and diversity in pediatric biobanks. (shrink)

Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History. By Megan Bishop Moore and Brad E. Kelle. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011. Pp. xvii + 518. $46.

Imperative sentences like Dance! do not seem to represent the world. Recent modal analyses challenge this idea, but its intuitive and historical appeal remain strong. This paper presents three new challenges for a non-representational analysis, showing that the obstacles facing it are even steeper than previously appreciated. I will argue that the only way for the non-representationalist to meet these three challenges is to adopt a dynamic semantics. Such a dynamic semantics is proposed here: imperatives introduce preferences between alternatives. This (...) characterization of meaning focuses on what function a sentence serves in discourse, rather than what that sentence refers to (e.g., a state of the world). By representing the meaning of imperatives, connectives and declaratives in a common dynamic format, the challenges posed for non-representationalism are met. (shrink)

A uniform theory of conditionals is one which compositionally captures the behavior of both indicative and subjunctive conditionals without positing ambiguities. This paper raises new problems for the closest thing to a uniform analysis in the literature (Stalnaker, Philosophia, 5, 269–286 (1975)) and develops a new theory which solves them. I also show that this new analysis provides an improved treatment of three phenomena (the import-export equivalence, reverse Sobel-sequences and disjunctive antecedents). While these results concern central issues in the study (...) of conditionals, broader themes in the philosophy of language and formal semantics are also engaged here. This new analysis exploits a dynamic conception of meaning where the meaning of a symbol is its potential to change an agent’s mental state (or the state of a conversation) rather than being the symbol’s content (e.g. the proposition it expresses). The analysis of conditionals is also built on the idea that the contrast between subjunctive and indicative conditionals parallels a contrast between revising and consistently extending some body of information. (shrink)

(1) a. Invariably, if it is raining, Jones wears his hat b. If it is not raining, Jones wears his hat at random c. Today, it is raining and so Jones is wearing his hat d. But, even if it had not been raining, Jones would have been wearing his hat..

In this paper, I examine various popular notions concerning the ethics of investing. I first consider and reject the absolutist view that it is always wrong to invest in evil companies and the view that what makes investments in evil companies morally objectionable is the fact that by making such investments, investors are taking steps to benefit from the wrongdoing of others. I then defend the view that what makes certain investments morally objectionable is the fact that by making such (...) investments, investors enable others to do wrong. According to this view, when weighing the purchase of a certain company's stock, investors should ask themselves the following question: Would this sort of investment, if made by many people, enable others to do wrong? If the answer to this question is yes, and if an investor nevertheless makes the investment in question, he can justifiably be accused of moral wrongdoing. (shrink)

The ArgumentMany of the epistemological issues that occupied natural philosophers of the seventeenth century were expressed visually in title-page engravings. One of those issues concerned the relative status to be accorded to evidence of the senses, as compared to knowledge gained by faith or reason. In title-page illustrations, the various arguments were often waged by a series of light metaphors: the Light of Reason, the Light of Nature, and the Lights of Sense, Scripture, and Grace. When such illustrations are examined (...) with the authors' theological views in mind, it becomes apparent that in the first half of the seventeenth century, Catholic authors favored the Light of Reason as a source of truth, while Protestant authors favored the Light of Nature. Since by the end of the century it was widely accepted by scientists of all religious persuasions that certain knowledge must be grounded in sense evidence and the direct study of nature, one might argue that in this instance Protestantism was responsible for nurturing an important development of the Scientific Revolution. However, the skewed nature of the sample and the large number of counterexamples available mitigate against taking this offshoot of the Merton thesis too seriously. (shrink)

This paper proposes a semantics for free choice permission that explains both the non-classical behavior of modals and disjunction in sentences used to grant permission, and their classical behavior under negation. It also explains why permissions can expire when new information comes in and why free choice arises even when modals scope under disjunction. On the proposed approach, deontic modals update preference orderings, and connectives operate on these updates rather than propositions. The success of this approach stems from its capacity (...) to capture the difference between expressing the preferences that give rise to permissions and conveying propositions about those preferences. (shrink)

Modern Moral Problems addresses moral quandaries that can beguile and confuse faithful Catholics. Written in a question-and-answer format, the book covers questions regarding sexuality, medical ethics, business practices, civic responsibilities, and the sacramental life of the Church. The extraordinary assortment of issuesforming a single, organized collectionis a valuable reference for anyone seeking clear and concise answers to tough moral questions. Written in a conversational tone often spliced with humor, this work by a highly respected moral theologian will be read with (...) fascination for its clarity of argument and fundamental good sense. Originally published as a monthly question-and-answer column in a magazine for priests, these selections by Msgr. William B. Smith retain a striking current topicality. Msgr. Smith often tackled matters of controversy in the Catholic Church, ones which continue to draw conflicting opinions. Interesting, informative, and eminently practical, this book conveys an overall impression that sound thinking about morality is rooted in a tradition within the Catholic Church, even when the answers to particular moral questions cannot be found in catechisms or Vatican documents. Msgr. Smith offers a clear-headed approach to the quandaries of our time precisely because of his training in traditional moral principles and his fidelity to the Catholic magisterium. This book should be in the possession of all seminarians and priests, who are bound to confront moral matters that are not so easily decided at first glance. But lay people, too, will find here rich responses to the challenging and sometimes unresolved moral questions they encounter in their own lives. (shrink)

No existing conditional semantics captures the dual role of 'if' in embedded interrogatives — 'X wonders if p' — and conditionals. This paper presses the importance and extent of this challenge, linking it to cross-linguistic patterns and other phenomena involving conditionals. Among these other phenomena are conditionals with multiple 'if'-clauses in the antecedent — 'if p and if q, then r' — and relevance conditionals — 'if you are hungry, there is food in the cupboard'. Both phenomena are shown to (...) be problematic for existing analyses. Surprisingly, the decomposition of conditionals needed to capture the link with interrogatives provides a new analysis that captures all three phenomena. The model-theoretic semantics offered here relies on a dynamic conception of meaning and compositionality, a feature discussed throughout. (shrink)

This article updates the author’s 1982 argument that lutetium and lawrencium, rather than lanthanum and actinium, should be assigned to the d-block as the heavier analogs of scandium and yttrium, whereas lanthanum and actinium should be considered as the first members of the f-block with irregular configurations. This update is embedded within a detailed analysis of Lavelle’s abortive 2008 attempt to discredit this suggestion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MIMESIS AND EMPATHY IN HUMAN BIOLOGY William B. Hurlbut, M.D. Stanford University Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus. 19:18) The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, (...) thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew. 6:22-23) On the levels both ofcommon discourse and scientific description, the concept of empathy has found renewed popularity. Like a bridge that spans disparate realms, the idea of empathy can reconnect neurophysiology with psychology and social theory, and reestablish the grounds for a natural concept of ethics. Specifically, it can connect mimetic theory with a possible basis in biology, since empathy seems to represent an extension ofmimetic processes across the animal kingdom. For this reason, empathy/mimesis might be the grounds for a concept of ethics based on natural observation. Drawn from a German term Einfühlung, which means "feeling into," empathy carries the concept of "getting into the feelings of someone else" (deWaal 79). As a medium for the formation of meaningful bonds and William Hurlbut15 sensitive associations, the concept of empathy has taken on, in popular discourse, the somewhat sentimental notion ofsympathy. In the scientific description, however, empathy is seen as the highest human expression of a broader biological capacity for mimesis that seems inextricable from the very progress ofthe phylogenetic process. Among the earliest life forms, organisms drew information from one another to pattern and coordinate such basic biological functions as reproduction and nurture. But with the increased complexity of multicellular creatures, new means of communication arose, making possible more flexible adaptation and sociability. Gradually the direct chemical coordination suitable for collectives or swarms gave way to richer and more individual communication between organisms of higher forms of differentiation. The externally evident demarcation ofthe head region, with its organs ofsensory perception and communication, evolved in parallel with internal cerebral structures capable ofprocessing more complex impressions of the surrounding environment and coordinating greater freedom of motion. These vital powers of action and awareness in turn came to be governed, guided and integrated by an inner felt sense of need, goal or purpose. As Leon Kass says, "desire, not DNA, is the deepest principle of life" (Kass 1994, 48). This quality of "inwardness" is paralleled by an equally complex differentiation and integration of the external "look" ofthe animal. This "look," which is the literal translation of the Latin root of our word species, is the result of a genetically determined plan as important as any internal vital organ. It provides the unity of form that reveals or selectively conceals the inner life of the organism. It communicates and coordinates vital information regarding sexual and other social interactions. This upward process ofcomplex integrated organization of the "inner life" and the external action and presentation of selfreaches its fullest expression in the human form. Along with upright posture and its freeing ofthe hands as tools of "gnostic touching," comes a reordering of the senses and a highly flexible, furless canvas of selfpresentation we call the face (Kass 1985, 287). Upwards through mammalian evolution there is a progressive refinement of the structures of the face that facilitate active and increasingly subtle communication and penetration into the life of the other. With more than 30 finely tuned muscles of facial expression and vocal control, human beings are capable of a wide array of communicative 16 Mimesis andEmpathy expressions of emotions and intentions. Paul Ekman claims to have discerned more than 1 8 forms of smiling, each with a distinct meaning (66). With upright posture came a retraction ofthe snout and bilateral stereoscopic vision. Sight replaced smell as the prominent sense. Whereas smell required direct chemical contact, and sound gave formless information, sight gave a knowing and accurate encounter with the form and unity ofwholes. Sight allowed rapid perception ofobjects and actions at distant horizons. The detached beholding of sight allowed a deeper and more accurate apprehension of... (shrink)

Biodiversity and genetic resources have become the focal point of major national and international biological and political debates regarding control, ownership, access, and erosion of critical resources. While these issues are key to environmental sustainability and food security, biodiversity and genetic resources must be seen in the broader context of their inextricable relationship to cultural diversity and to humans' view of nature. Nature is assumed to be constituted socially through a wide variety of human processes described collectively as culture. Three (...) significant cultural factors, technology, science, and capitalism, are largely responsible for the secularization and homogenization of food and agriculture and the remaking of nature. These processes and forces may simultaneously and unwittingly create the problems of declines in biodiversity, cultural diversity, and food equity. Indeed, it may well be that the only way to conserve cultural biodiversity in the field is to conserve cultural diversity among peoples. This reunification of biodiversity and cultural diversity and food and agriculture will require new paradigms and institutional mechanisms that allow us to show our care for each other through our reverence for nature. (shrink)

Abstract As there are food gluttons, so there are energy gluttons. One difference is that energy gluttons are typically oblivious to how much energy they consume and the source of that energy. Their energy gluttony is a side effect of insatiable desire for material goods, which themselves are often associated with social status. Nonetheless, steps taken to deal with energy gluttony parallel those taken with food gluttony. Typically these fall into three categories: educational, political, and technological. I will examine a (...) fourth, however, best characterized as philosophical. I will show how, by following the advice of the ancient Stoics and training ourselves to care less what others think of us, we can help overcome our desire for social status, resulting in a reduction in our desire for material things and a significant reduction in our personal energy bill. The pessimistic conclusion, however, is that most people are probably unwilling to undergo the self-analysis and self-transformation that this philosophical approach requires. (shrink)

This article describes the racial integration of Emory University and the subsequent creation of Pre-Start, an affirmative action program at Emory Law School from 1966 to 1972. It focuses on the initiative of the Dean of Emory Law School at the time, Ben F. Johnson, Jr.. Johnson played a number of leadership roles throughout his life, including successfully arguing a case before the United States Supreme Court while he was an Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, promoting legislation to create Atlanta (...) 's subway system as a state senator, and representing Emory in its lawsuit to strike down the state statute that would have rescinded its tax exemption if it admitted African American students ). This account supplements my related article on Pre-Start, "'A Bulwark against Anarchy': Affirmative Action, Emory Law School, and Southern Self-Help", providing more information about historical context generally, and particularly about Emory v. Nash. Johnson was ambitious for Emory as a whole, and particularly for the Law School, and he saw in segregation the single largest impediment to making Emory a nationally prominent research university. The story of Emory's integration, and Johnson's leadership, requires revision of the prevailing story of integration generally, and especially of universities. Integration at Emory came about because of the pressure that African Americans and their supporters created through the civil rights movement, but Emory administrators responded to such pressure more constructively than most. Their actions provide an interesting case study in effective leadership during a period of significant moral and political conflict. (shrink)