We were astonished to read a recent media news item about a 51-year-old woman in Ontario who was offered and accepted medical assistance in dying (MAID) because she was experiencing multiple chemical sensitivities, also known by its preferred diagnostic term, idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI). Reportedly, she could not access appropriate housing. We find this concerning, as providing MAID to individuals with refractory IEI symptoms on the basis of housing unavailability implies that there were no better management options available. (...) This case should prompt ethical reflection on whether our supports for the most vulnerable enable them to maintain basic human dignity, and whether systemic societal action in other ways could better support people with IEI. (shrink)

This chapter shows how the major lessons of the preceding chapters apply to cases of policy‐relevant research other than hormesis. It argues that those who investigate endocrine disruption and multiple chemical sensitivity also encounter at least four major categories of value judgments: (1) choices about what topics to investigate and how to design studies; (2) decisions about what scientific terminology and definitions to employ; (3) choices about how to interpret and evaluate studies; and (4) questions about how (...) to incorporate scientific research into policy decisions. The chapter also shows, in accordance with Chapter 4, that current university conflict‐of‐interest policies are unlikely to prevent interest groups from exerting powerful influences on these judgments. Chapter 7 also supports the central contention of Chapter 5 (i.e., that diagnosing deliberative forums is important) by showing the problematic effects of poorly designed deliberation in the MCS case and the positive consequences of well‐designed deliberation in response to endocrine disruption. Finally, the chapter shows that experts who study MCS and endocrine disruption could also gain valuable guidance by reflecting on the ethics of expertise developed in Chapter 6. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the book and a summary of each subsequent chapter. It highlights the volume's two major goals: to examine the range of methodological decisions and interpretive judgments that permeate policy‐relevant scientific research and to explore ways of making these choices more responsive to a range of public values (in addition to those of deep pockets, which have abundant resources to spend on research). It also introduces readers to the book's central case study, hormesis, which involves (...) seemingly beneficial effects produced by low doses of substances that are normally toxic. Chapters 2 and 3 perform two preliminary tasks: (1) They clarify the major categories of value judgments that contribute to differing evaluations of the generalizability and regulatory implications of hormesis; and (2) they argue that societal values should not be completely excluded from influencing any of these categories of judgments. Chapters 4 through 6 develop the book's three primary lessons, corresponding to the three “bodies” that Sheila Jasanoff emphasizes as central to obtaining trustworthy public‐policy guidance from scientific experts. These lessons concern how to safeguard the _body of scientific knowledge_ from interest groups, how to ascertain the best _advisory bodies_ for guiding policy makers and directing the course of future research, and how to provide the _bodies of experts_ themselves with an ethics of expertise. Chapter 7 argues that the lessons drawn in chapters 2 through 6 are applicable not only to the hormesis case but also to other areas of policy‐relevant research, such as endocrine disruption and multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). (shrink)

This chapter examines the history of hormesis research as an important case study of the ways in which methodological and interpretive judgments enter scientific practice. It organizes these choices into four major categories. First, judgments pervade the choice of research projects and the design of studies. One of the important questions in this regard is what kinds of studies to prioritize, given the limited funding available to examine the low‐dose effects of toxicants. Second, crucial decisions are involved in developing scientific (...) language. The hormesis case study (as well as the multiple chemical sensitivity and endocrine disruption cases examined in Chapter 7) provides vivid examples of how the choice of scientific terms and categories can subtly influence policy discussions. Third, judgments play a crucial role in the interpretation and evaluation of studies. This third category of methodological choices is especially important to understand in the hormesis case, because it is largely responsible for the disagreements between proponents and opponents of claims about the generalizability and regulatory implications of hormesis. Fourth, there are important decisions to make about how to apply research results in the context of formulating public policy. For example, efforts to apply hormesis to regulatory policy must come to grips with difficult questions about how to balance potentially beneficial and harmful effects of toxic chemicals. (shrink)

The expression ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ is still widely used to indicate physical symptoms that are not attributable to any known conventionally defined disease. It is discursively related to several other concepts including somatisation, somatic symptom disorder (DSM 5), and functional somatic syndromes, which include the diagnoses of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, and irritable bowel syndrome, among others. Some of these conditions are currently the object of controversies and political battles. This chapter examines what it (...) can mean to approach this group of conditions ‘pragmatically’ by contrasting two different versions of pragmatism. One version, exemplified in social research that aligns itself with arguments proposed by some patient movements, is consistent with Rorty’s ‘epistemological behaviourism’. Another version, exemplified by a novel clinical intervention (the Symptoms Clinic) is consistent with William James’ ‘radical empiricism’. It is argued that these different approaches yield significantly different consequences. The first affords legitimacy to patients on an immediate and piecemeal basis at the expense of reinforcing a bifurcated mode of thought. This, it is argued, is a factor in (re)producing the experience of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’. The second is premised on the assumption of a relational continuity between social structure, embodied experience, and physiology. (shrink)

Could low-level exposure to polluting chemicals be analogous to exercise -- a beneficial source of stress that strengthens the body? Some scientists studying the phenomenon of hormesis (beneficial or stimulatory effects caused by low-dose exposure to toxic substances) claim that that this may be the case. Is A Little Pollution Good For You? critically examines the current evidence for hormesis. In the process, it highlights the range of methodological and interpretive judgments involved in environmental research: choices about what questions to (...) ask and how to study them, decisions about how to categorize and describe new information, judgments about how to interpret and evaluate ambiguous evidence, and questions about how to formulate public policy in response to debated scientific findings. The book also uncovers the ways that interest groups with deep pockets attempt to influence these scientific judgments for their benefit. Several chapters suggest ways to counter these influences and incorporate a broader array of societal values in environmental research: (1) moving beyond conflict-of-interest policies to develop new ways of safeguarding academic research from potential biases; (2) creating deliberative forums in which multiple stakeholders can discuss the judgments involved in policy-relevant research; and (3) developing ethical guidelines that can assist scientific experts in disseminating debated and controversial phenomena to the public. Kevin C. Elliott illustrates these strategies in the hormesis case, as well as in two additional case studies involving contemporary environmental research: endocrine disruption and multiple chemical sensitivity. This book should be of interest to a wide variety of readers, including scientists, philosophers, policy makers, environmental ethicists and activists, research ethicists, industry leaders, and concerned citizens. (shrink)

A systemic phenomenological model that assumes the movability of the Cartesian cut is proposed and elucidated by means of a single exploratory case study. The model assumes that a continuum from purely psychosomatic disorders to RSPK cases exists. The degree of externalization (locus of control) of the affected person serves as an ordering parameter for the location of the Cartesian cut. It turns out that the dynamics of the disorder develops in four phases, like in the RSPK-model of the MPI. (...) However, in contrast to the decline phase of the RSPK cases (because of the NT-axiom), CER cases lead to petrification of the complaints. (shrink)

Chapter 14 argues that the ethos of the modern city in the developed world is marked by a conflict between an established tendency toward “deodorizing” and a minority of scent advocates who seek greater olfactory diversity. The chapter begins by discussing smellwalking, smell mapping, and related artworks, then moves on to the place of odors in urban design, noting that most city officials think of odors only as something to be controlled or eliminated. After a discussion of the role of (...) smell in architecture, the chapter closes by considering the ethical issues surrounding ambient scenting in both the workplace and the marketplace, as well as the clash between claims made for aromatherapy and the demand for fragrance bans made by sufferers from multiple chemical sensitivity. (shrink)

Advances in molecular biology have generally been taken to support the claim that biology is reducible to chemistry. I argue against that claim by looking in detail at a number of central results from molecular biology and showing that none of them supports reduction because (1) their basic predicates have multiple realizations, (2) their chemical realization is context-sensitive and (3) their explanations often presuppose biological facts rather than eliminate them. I then consider the heuristic and confirmational implications of (...) irreducibility and argue that purely biochemical approaches are likely to be unsound and to be unable to confirm an important range of statements. I conclude by sketching criteria for scientific unity that do not entail reducibility and yet leave an important place for identifying underlying mechanisms. Molecular biology, properly understood, provides an excellent paradigm of non-reductive unity between different explanatory levels. (shrink)

Many loci in Drosophila exhibit dosage effects on single phenotypes. In the case of modifiers of position‐effect variegation, increases and decreases in dosage can have opposite effects on variegating phenotypes. This is seemingly paradoxical: if each locus encodes a limiting gene product sensitive to dosage decreases, then increasing the dosage of any one should have no effect, because the others should remain limiting. An earlier model put forward to resolve this paradox suggested that dosage‐dependent modifiers encode protein subunits of a (...) macromolecular complex that is sensitive to mass action equilibrium conditions. Because chemical equilibria are dynamic, however, such hypothetical complexes will be unstable to an extent that is inconsistent with the known properties of molecules that make up chromatin. An alternative model accounts for the dosage effects in terms of interactions between structural proteins that bind at multiple linked sites. These might include indirect interactions occurring between regulatory proteins and genes for structural proteins or their protein products. The large number of direct and inverse regulatory genes which are known to exist in Drosophila could account for the apparent genetic complexity that is seen for modifiers of position‐effect variegation and for other systems of phenotypic modification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Plastic Turn by Ghosh, RanjanMaria MargaroniGhosh, Ranjan. The Plastic Turn. Cornell University Press, 2022. 224pp.In Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing: Dialectic, Destruction, Deconstruction (2005; 2010), Catherine Malabou argues that “the concept of plasticity is becoming both the dominant formal motif of interpretation and the most productive exegetical and heuristic tool of our time,” supplanting older theoretical paradigms such as “writing” and “the trace” (57). Almost twenty (...) years later, the truth of this statement is certainly confirmed not only by Malabou’s own developing elaboration of this concept and the growing body of works inspired by her creative adaptation of neurological theory in the realm of philosophy, but also by the proliferation of studies that seek to reflect on the ecological, anthropological, ethical, or political consequences of what has been termed the “Plasticene.”1 There is no doubt, then, that we are witnessing yet another “turn” in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the plastic turn coming to displace or supplement a host of currently competing theoretical tendencies: i.e., the material turn, the affective turn, the cognitive turn, and the mimetic turn, among others.2Ranjan Ghosh’s The Plastic Turn is the first in a trilogy intended to theorize the aims, scope and effects of a “plastic Humanities.”3 Interestingly, Ghosh does not locate the “turn” in the 1990s when plastic “gained widespread public acceptance” (Mah 31) and when (with the development of the neurosciences) brain plasticity was increasingly adopted as “the most effective sensor of energy and meaning” of our contemporary era (Malabou, Plasticity 31-32). Instead, he goes back to the turn of the twentieth century when plastic as a new material and plasticity as a scheme of thought were still in the realm of potentiality, triggering, countering, and reshaping many of our political, cultural, and aesthetic modern imaginaries.Much has been written about the promise of plastic as a “magical” substance, capable of sublimating matter into what Roland Barthes describes as the trace of a metamorphic movement that produces an abundance of forms out of the singularity of its origin (104-105). In “The Material Consciousness of Plastics,” Russell Gagg notes that “in the early part of the twentieth century, plastics were seen as leading a new utopian vision for economic growth after the depression of the pre-war and austerity of the post-war years” (32). In the interwar period, plastics were [End Page 149] promoted for their democratic, egalitarian potential in making “designed consumer goods […] commercially viable,” thus introducing an aesthetics of the popular and the banal (Gagg 44-45; Ghosh 9, 20). One of the many strengths of Ghosh’s book is that it takes inspiration not merely from plastic as the stuff of fantasy but also from the very materiality of plastic, namely, its polymeric structure, malleability of form, sensitivity to the change of temperature, crystalline-amorphous texture, diverse modes of esterification, and resistance to biodegradability. In his first chapter, Ghosh acknowledges the influence of Goethe’s Elective Affinities and Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table which, as he argues, bring “the chemical metaphor to bear on human relationships” (20). He points to the development of a body of contemporary works that elaborate a “chemo-poetics,” aiming to “connect life and its undulations with molecular formations” (21).4 In subsequent chapters, the author succeeds in re-molding the chemical metaphor exploited in these works into a full-blown “material-aesthetic” that enables him to produce new readings of the forces behind literary modernism; the possibilities, limits, and stakes of world literature; the emergence of uncanny forms of plastic nature and art; and the distinct affective modalities caused by our petro-modernity.In analyzing side-by-side the diverse histories of, on the one hand, plastic as an increasingly disgraced material and, on the other hand, our literary, aesthetic, and critical production from the early 20th century to the present, Ghosh is dependent on an analogical process that permits him to think across multiple disciplines and subjects, connecting terms, ideas, and practices that resonate but remain asymmetrical (1). As he emphasizes, it is the “asymmetrically analogous (metaphors)” that “deepens the framework of my arguments” (3). Indeed... (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the heterogeneity problem for sensitivity accounts of knowledge against an objection that has been recently proposed by Wallbridge in Philosophia. I argue in, 479–496, 2015) that sensitivity accounts of knowledge face a heterogeneity problem when it comes to higher-level knowledge about the truth of one’s own beliefs. Beliefs in weaker higher-level propositions are insensitive, but beliefs in stronger higher-level propositions are sensitive. The resulting picture that we can know the stronger propositions without being (...) in a position to know the weaker propositions is too heterogeneous to be plausible. Wallbridge objects that there is no heterogeneity problem because beliefs in the weaker higher-level propositions are also sensitive. I argue against Wallbridge that the heterogeneity problem is not solved but only displaced. Only some beliefs in the weaker higher-level propositions are sensitive. I conclude that the heterogeneity problem is one of a family of instability problems that sensitivity accounts of knowledge face and that Wallbridge’s account raises a further problem of this kind. (shrink)

Background: Ethical sensitivity has been identified as a foundational component of ethical action. Diminished or absent ethical sensitivity can result in ethically incongruent care, which is inconsistent with the professional obligations of nursing. As such, assessing ethical sensitivity is imperative in order to design interventions to facilitate ethical practice and to ensure nurses recognize the nature and extent of professional ethical obligations. Aim: To review and critique the state of the science of nurse ethical sensitivity and (...) to synthesize findings across studies. Research design: Whittemore and Knafl’s revised framework for integrative reviews guided the analysis. Research context and data sources: A comprehensive, computer-assisted search of literature published in Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature and PubMed was performed. A systematic approach was used to extract, reduce, and synthesize the data. Findings: Four major conceptualizations of ethical sensitivity emerged from the literature. A sample of 25 reports met inclusion criteria, including 17 empirical reports and 8 theoretical reports. Discussion: Despite the existence of a concept analysis and a validated tool, ethical sensitivity remains a highly theoretical concept with multiple, and at times competing, conceptualizations. Ethical sensitivity has been assessed extensively in the context of ethical dilemmas; however, little attention has been paid to the way the concept operates in day-to-day practice. Conclusion: Future research should focus on better ways to operationalize and assess the concept, with particular attention to nurse awareness of the ethical content of everyday practice. (shrink)

Introduction Patient safety is essential for healthcare quality and a global concern. The rapid advancement of medical technology presents ethical challenges for critical care nurses, who navigate complex decision-making processes. Given their close relationships with patients, nurses are uniquely positioned to address patient safety issues. Thus, enhancing nurses’ moral sensitivity and ethical values is increasingly important. Objective This study aims to explore the relationship between moral sensitivity and attitude towards patient safety in critical care nurses. Methods This cross-sectional, (...) descriptive-correlational study was conducted from June to September 2022 in three hospitals affiliated with Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Participants were nurses in intensive care units (ICUs), selected via convenience sampling. A total of 382 nurses completed questionnaires assessing demographic information, moral sensitivity, and patient safety attitudes. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple regression in SPSS 26. Ethical considerations: This research received ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. Participants provided informed consent regarding the study’s objectives, and their confidentiality was strictly upheld throughout the research. Results The nurses’ average age and work experience were 38.6 years and 12.4 years, respectively. Mean scores for moral sensitivity and patient safety attitude were 81.65 ± 2.69 and 51.47 ± 2.21, indicating high levels and a significant positive correlation. Factors such as increasing age, work experience, fewer working hours, and completion of ethics training were linked to more positive attitudes towards patient safety ( p <.05). Regression analysis showed that 42.8% of the variability in attitudes towards patient safety could be explained by moral sensitivity and demographic characteristics. Conclusion This study highlights the relationship between moral sensitivity and patient safety attitudes among critical care nurses, emphasizing the importance of education, experience, and training in shaping ethical values. Enhancing moral sensitivity is vital for reducing risky behaviors and improving patient safety outcomes in critical care settings. (shrink)

Environmental chemicals accumulate in all human bodies and have the potential to affect the health of men and women, adults, and children. This article advances “precautionary consumption”—the effort to mediate personal exposure to environmental chemicals through vigilant consumption—as a new empirical site for understanding the intersections between maternal embodiment and contemporary motherhood as a consumer project. Using in-depth interviews, I explore how a group of 25 mothers employ precautionary consumption to mediate their children’s exposure to chemicals found in food, consumer (...) products, and the home. Most of the mothers in the study situate their children’s chemical “burdens” within their own bodies and undertake the labor of precautionary consumption as part of a larger and commodity-based motherhood project. In actively expanding the sphere of responsible motherhood to include managing children’s body burdens, these mothers navigate multiple and overlapping contexts that hold women accountable for children’s futures and value the agency of the proactive consumer. Yet, as the sphere of responsible mothering expands, women without financial resources, time, and family stability are pushed to the margins of normative motherhood. (shrink)

. This descriptive study discusses cognitive mapping as a technique for analyzing ethical sensitivity, examines whether the method allows comparisons between people, compares the ethical sensitivity levels of participants from three organizations, examines which indicators of ethical sensitivity are most salient to members of specific organizations, and examines whether education level or organizational membership is the best predictor of an individual’s ethical sensitivity level. Subjects from three organizations read background information, listened to two audiotaped scenarios containing (...) multiple ethical issues related to organizational communication, responded to focused interview questions, and completed questionnaires. The interviews were taped, transcribed, and analyzed using cognitive mapping techniques. Significant differences in levels of ethical sensitivity were found between the members of the three organizations. However, a hierarchical regression model demonstrated that the difference was likely due to the differences in level of education in each organization. Organizational membership seemed to affect the particular aspects of the scenarios that participants noticed. (shrink)

I develop a framework for the compositional semantics of focus association that differs minimally from Rooth (Nat Lang Semant 1:75–116, 1992) in letting focus-sensitive operators optionally pass up evaluated focus alternatives. My proposal is informed by prior work on various complex constructions involving multiple alternative-sensitive operators and alternative sources—including multiple association with a single focus, multiple overlapping associations with separate foci, focus intervention effects in _wh_-questions, and focus association with _wh_-phrases—all of which I show can be accurately (...) modeled in my framework. The framework allows us to maintain the idea due to Beck (Nat Lang Semant 14:1–56, 2006) that alternatives computed for the semantics of questions (Hamblin in Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973, a.o.) and of focus (Rooth in Association with focus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1985, a.o.) are formally the same objects, defusing the argument in Li and Law (Linguist Philos 39:201–245, 2016) against such unification. (shrink)

In 1931, Paneth identified a dual meaning of the term “chemical element,” translated as “basic substance” and “simple substance.” Since then multiple philosophers of chemistry have also identified ambiguities surrounding this concept, and the IUPAC still holds a double definition today. This paper aims to help resolve this ambiguity through an analysis and reinterpretation of the two meanings of the term “element” proposed by Paneth. It is important to distinguish between elements as substances and elements as constituents, because (...) the elementary substances disappear when elements enter into compounds, whereas the constituent subsists. The notion of simple substance fails to capture the stability of the element as a constituent of matter, and Paneth’s metaphysical idea of basic substance is contradictory with a concept of element that evolved thanks to scientific practice, not independent of it. Since these meanings are mutually exclusive, their combination within one term is problematic; yet, this paper will show that neither of them individually suffice to qualify the element. Therefore, based on a brief analysis of the history of chemistry, I will propose a way of rethinking Paneth’s distinction in order to understand the different aspects of this complex chemical concept. Though there is a certain duality to the notion of element in the sense that it can be characterized both as an abstract constituent and as a chemical substance, the term “element” does not have two distinct meanings; it refers to the element in all forms of chemical combination. (shrink)

Since the introduction and widespread adoption of chemical herbicides, “weed management” has become almost synonymous with “herbicide management.” Over-reliance on herbicides and herbicide-resistant crops has given rise to herbicide resistant weeds. Integrated weed management (IWM) identifies three strategies for weed management— biological-cultural, chemical-technological, mechanical-physical—and recommends combining all three to mitigate herbicide resistance. However, adoption of IWM has stalled, and research to understand the adoption of IWM practices has focused on single stakeholder groups, especially farmers. In contrast, decisions about (...) weed management often occur within a social ecosystem where multiple stakeholder groups co-create knowledge and practices. To more holistically investigate perceptions and decision-making related to herbicide resistant weed management, we conducted 23 in-depth interviews in combination with Q methodology with farmers and public-/private-sector agricultural professionals in the state of Georgia (U.S.). Our investigation focused on the management of an increasingly herbicide resistant weed, Palmer amaranth, which enabled broader conversations about agricultural systems, farmer livelihoods, and sustainability. Factor and thematic analyses allowed us to identify and characterize two distinct typologies: one primarily valued agronomic efficiency and relied upon chemical-technological management practices, while the other valued diversifying weed management strategies as the pathway to agronomic and economic success. Typologies diverged substantially in attitudes toward the three weed management strategies, the role of technology, and systems management generally. These two viewpoints have implications for how we understand underlying stakeholder motivations and choices around weed management strategies, both of which are crucial in promoting and supporting farmer use of diverse, ecologically-sound, weed management strategies. (shrink)

Scientific research leading to the production of chemical agents and technologies enables malevolent agents to engage in harmful behaviour by way of a number of different pathways. For example, scientific research led to knowledge-how to aerolize chemicals for crop dusting (benefit); yet this discovery also made possible the aerolizing of chemicals for use in weaponry (harm). For nation-states (especially) can and do directly establish chemical weapons research programs. However, according to the definition in this book weapons research programs, (...) including chemical weapons research programs, are not dual use because weapons are designed in the first instance to cause harm, and this is the case even if the weapons in question are developed for defensive rather than offensive use. Naturally, at least in principle, chemical weapons research might be conducted not with the intention of making and potentially using chemical weapons, but rather with the intention merely of understanding the functioning of such weapons so as to enable (say) the design and production of protective clothing in case of a chemical weapons attack by one’s enemies. Such weapons research might be dual use in our favoured sense. It is also argued in this chapter that the management of dual use risks in chemical research should be seen as a collective moral and institutional responsibility of multiple actors that can only be fulfilled with a Web of prevention (an integrated suite of regulatory measures). (shrink)

Consider what the brain-state theorist has to do to make good his claims. He has to specify a physical–chemical state such that any organism (not just a mammal) is in pain if and only if (a) it possesses a brain of suitable physical–chemical structure; and (b) its brain is in that physical–chemical state. This means that the physical–chemical state in question must be a possible state of a mammalian brain, a reptilian brain, a mollusc’s brain (octopuses (...) are mollusca, and certainly feel pain), etc. At the same time, it must not be a possible (physically possible) state of the brain of any physically possible creature that cannot feel pain. Even if such a state can be found, it must be nomologically certain that it will also be a state of the brain of any extraterrestrial life that may be found that will be capable of feeling pain before we can even entertain the supposition that it may be pain. It is not altogether impossible that such a state will be found... . But this is certainly an ambitious hypothesis. (Putnam 1967/1975, p. 436) The belief that mental states are multiply realized is now nearly universal among philosophers, as is the belief that this fact decisively refutes the identity theory. I argue that the empirical support for multiple realization does not justify the confidence that has been placed in it. In order for multiple realization of mental states to be an objection to the identity theory, the neurological differences among pains, for example, must be such as to guarantee that they are of distinct neurological kinds. But the phenomena traditionally cited do not provide evidence of that sort of variation. In particular, examples of neural plasticity do not provide such evidence. (shrink)

We used a multi-dimensional framework to assess current stereotypes of men and women. Specifically, we sought to determine (1) how men and women are characterized by male and female raters, (2) how men and women characterize themselves, and (3) the degree of convergence between self-characterizations and charcterizations of one’s gender group. In an experimental study, 628 U.S. male and female raters described men, women, or themselves on scales representing multiple dimensions of the two defining features of gender stereotypes, agency (...) and communality: assertiveness, independence, instrumental competence, leadership competence (agency dimensions), and concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity (communality dimensions). Results indicated that stereotypes about communality persist and were equally prevalent for male and female raters, but agency characterizations were more complex. Male raters generally descibed women as being less agentic than men and as less agentic than female raters described them. However, female raters differentiated among agency dimensions and described women as less assertive than men but as equally independent and leadership competent. Gender stereotypes also were evident in self-ratings, with female raters rating themselves as less agentic than male raters and male raters rating themselves as less communal than female raters, although there were exceptions (e.g., no differences in independence and sociability self-ratings for men and women). Comparisons of self-ratings and ratings of men and women in general indicated that women tended to characterize themselves in more stereotypic terms – as less assertive and less competent in leadership – than they characterized others in their gender group. Men, in contrast, characterized themselves in less stereotypic terms – as more communal. Overall, our results show that a focus on facets of agency and communality can provide deeper insights about stereotype content than a focus on overall agency and communality. (shrink)

Social learning has been shown to be an evolutionarily adaptive strategy, but it can be implemented via many different cognitive mechanisms. The adaptive advantage of social learning depends crucially on the ability of each learner to obtain relevant and accurate information from informants. The source of informants’ knowledge is a particularly important cue for evaluating advice from multiple informants; if the informants share the source of their information or have obtained their information from each other, then their testimony is (...) statistically dependent and may be less reliable than testimony from informants who do not share information. In this study, we use a Bayesian model to determine how rational learners should incorporate the effects of shared information when learning from other people, conducting three experiments that examine whether human learners behave similarly. We find that people are sensitive to a number of different patterns of dependency, supporting the use of a sophisticated strategy for social learning that goes beyond copying the majority, and broadening the situations in which social learning is likely to be an adaptive strategy. (shrink)

Background In an increasingly globalized world, legal protocols related to health care that are both effective and culturally sensitive are paramount in providing excellent quality of care as well as protection for physicians tasked with decision making. Here, we analyze the current medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis with regard to end-of-life care in Japan, China, and South Korea from the perspectives of front-line health care workers. Main body Japan has legally wrestled with the concept of brain death for decades. (...) An inability to declare brain death without consent from family coupled with cultural expectations of family involvement in medical care is mirrored in other Confucian-based cultures and may complicate care for patients from these countries when traveling or working overseas. Within Japan, China, and South Korea, medicolegal shortcomings in the diagnosis of brain death act as a great source of stress for physicians and expose them to potential public and legal scorn. Here, we detail the medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis within Japan and compare it to China and South Korea to find common ground and elucidate the impact of legal ambiguity on health care workers. Conclusion The Confucian cultural foundation of multiple Asian countries raises common issues of family involvement with diagnosis and cultural considerations that must be met. Leveraging public education systems may increase awareness of brain death issues and lead to evolving laws that clarify such end-of-life issues while protecting physicians from sociocultural backlash. (shrink)

This article argues that the normative promise of recognition theory in International Relations has become increasingly inadequate to the cross-cutting and intersecting issues characteristic of a globalised and fragmented world. Engaging in critical readings of cosmopolitan forms of recognition theory, the critique of sovereignty and Markell’s influential critique of recognition theory, I suggest that the increasing ontological specificity of recognition theory in IR has come at the expense of its ability to develop links between different areas of international politics. The (...) result is a failure to deal with recognition’s simultaneity, or the co-existence of analytically distinct and internally coherent recognition orders that is characteristic of the international. Building on this insight, I argue that a more historically-sensitive and materialist approach to recognition can be grounded in the concept of multiplicity. By opening recognition up to processes of interaction, and not merely reproduction, multiplicity frames the international more clearly as a historical presupposition, rather than a limit, of recognition. Furthermore, placing recognition struggles within the state, international institutions or transnational movements in relation to each other ensures that IR can contribute to the further development of recognition theory by situating recognition struggles at the intersection of different moral geographies. (shrink)

This paper develops co-ordinated multiple-domain supervenience relations to model determination and dependence relations between complex entities and their constituents by appealing to R-related pairs and by making use of associated isomorphisms. Supervenience relations are devised for order-sensitive and repetition-sensitive mereologies, for mereological systems that make room for many-many composition relations, as well as for hierarchical mereologies that incorporate compositional and hylomorphic structure. Finally, mappings are provided for theories that consider wholes to be prior to their parts.

Recently, several critics of the multiple realizability thesis have argued that philosophers have tended to accept the thesis on too weak grounds. On the one hand, the analytic challenge has problematized how philosophers have treated the multiple realization relation itself, claiming that assessment of the sameness of function and the relevant difference of realizers has been uncritical. On the other hand, it is argued that the purported evidence of the thesis is often left empirically unverified. This paper provides (...) a novel strategy to answer these worries by introducing a role for multiple realizability in the context of biological engineering. In the field of synthetic biology, bioengineers redesign the evolutionary realizations of biological functions, even constructing artificial chemical surrogates in the laboratory. I show how in the rational design approach to biological engineering, multiple realizability can function as a design heuristic in which the sameness of function and difference of realizers can be controlled. Although practically motivated, this engineering approach has also a theoretical, exploratory component that can be used to study the empirical limitations of multiple realizability. Successful realization of the engineering designs would amount to a concrete demonstration of multiple realizability, taking evidence for MRT beyond what is readily found in nature. (shrink)

I introduce a range of examples of different causal hypotheses about human mate selection. The hypotheses I focus on come from evolutionary psychology, fluctuating asymmetry research and chemical signaling research. I argue that a major obstacle facing an integrated biology of human behavior is the lack of a causal framework that shows how multiple proximate causal mechanisms can act together to produce components of our behavior.

Functionalism argues that since any mental state can be realized by different physical systems, it is therefore wrong to define or identify a mental state of an organism by the corresponding physical-chemical state of its body . In this paper, I argue that since a single mental state can also be realized in different functional patterns, multiple realizability creates the same problem for functionalism. This means that it is wrong to implicitly define a mental state by its causal (...) role in an interconnected network of inputs, outputs and internal states. It is discussed that the functionalists’ responses to this criticism are as plausible as the physicalists’ responses to the problem. It is concluded that in dealing with the multiple realizability problem, functionalism has no advantage over its rival, type physicalism. (shrink)

This chapter defends the view that although the sentence ‘Superman is Clark Kent, but some people who believe that Superman flies do not believe that Clark Kent flies’ is logically inconsistent, we can still utter it, while speaking literally, without asserting anything false. This key to the resolution of the puzzle of substitutivity is the idea that logical inconsistency for sentences which contain multiple context-sensitive expressions merely requires falsity on all uniform interpretations, where uniformity of interpretation requires resolving the (...) context-sensitivity of occurrences of related expressions in parallel ways. A logically inconsistent sentence can thus admit true non-uniform interpretations. Moreover, various factors, including the use of several names for the same thing, can make certain non-uniform interpretations of a sentence easier for us to access than any of its uniform interpretations. (shrink)

Integrated reporting, as a novel corporate reporting approach, focuses on how six forms of capital promote corporate value. This paper explores whether this kind of multiple capitals disclosure framework has an impact on the capital market. Using a sample of Chinese A-share firms from 2012 to 2016, we examine the relationship between MCD quality and firm value. The results indicate that a higher MCD quality leads to a greater firm value. Our results are robust to a variety of (...) class='Hi'>sensitivity tests. Further evidence suggests that MCD quality could increase profitability by affecting the decision-making of non-financial stakeholders and enhance the value relevance of financial information by affecting the decision-making of investors. The paper helps understand how the IR approach affects the perception of investors on the value of a firm. The findings of the paper are of interest to academics, corporate management, investors, and governmental officials. (shrink)

Background: The Taiwan Nursing Accreditation Council has proposed eight core professional nursing qualities including ethical literacy. Consequently, nursing ethics education is a required course for student nurses. These courses are intended to improve the ethical literacy. Moral sensitivity is the cornerstone of ethical literacy, and learning moral sensitivity is the initial step towards developing ethical literacy. Objectives: To explore the effect of nursing ethics educational interventions based on multiple teaching strategies on student nurses moral sensitivity. Based (...) on the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic model, three strategies were developed for determining the programme components and corresponding learning styles. Research design: This was a quasi-experimental study. Participants: A total of 234 junior-college student nurses participated in this study. All participants were aged 18–19 years. Ethical considerations: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital. Only the participants who signed an informed consent form took part in the study. The participants were permitted to withdraw from the study at any point if they wished to do so without affecting their academic score. Results: The scores of Modified Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire for Student Nurses were significantly improved after the intervention of integrating multiple teaching strategies ( p =.042). Significant relationships were observed between the satisfaction scores of two teaching strategies and moral sensitivity. The results indicated that using multiple teaching strategies is effective for promoting nursing ethics learning. Conclusion: This strategy was consistent with the student nurses’ preferred learning style and was used to correct their erroneous ethical conceptions, assisting in developing their ethical knowledge. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience has inspired a number of methodological advances to extract the highest signal-to-noise ratio from neuroimaging data. Popular techniques used to summarize behavioral data include sum-scores and item response theory. While these techniques can be useful when applied appropriately, item dimensionality and the quality of information are often left unexplored allowing poor performing items to be included in an itemset. The purpose of this study is to highlight how the application of two-stage approaches introduces parameter bias, differential item functioning (...) can manifest in cognitive neuroscience data and how techniques such as the multiple indicator multiple cause model can identify and remove items with DIF and model these data with greater sensitivity for brain–behavior relationships. This was performed using a simulation and an empirical study. The simulation explores parameter bias across two separate techniques used to summarize behavioral data: sum-scores and IRT and formative relationships with those estimated from a MIMIC model. In an empirical study participants performed an emotional identification task while concurrent electroencephalogram data were acquired across 384 trials. Participants were asked to identify the emotion presented by a static face of a child across four categories: happy, neutral, discomfort, and distress. The primary outcomes of interest were P200 event-related potential amplitude and latency within each emotion category. Instances of DIF related to correct emotion identification were explored with respect to an individual’s neurophysiology; specifically an item’s difficulty and discrimination were explored with respect to an individual’s average P200 amplitude and latency using a MIMIC model. The MIMIC model’s sensitivity was then compared to popular two-stage approaches for cognitive performance summary scores, including sum-scores and an IRT model framework and then regressing these onto the ERP characteristics. Here sensitivity refers to the magnitude and significance of coefficients relating the brain to these behavioral outcomes. The first set of analyses displayed instances of DIF within all four emotions which were then removed from all further models. The next set of analyses compared the two-stage approaches with the MIMIC model. Only the MIMIC model identified any significant brain–behavior relationships. Taken together, these results indicate that item performance can be gleaned from subject-specific biomarkers, and that techniques such as the MIMIC model may be useful tools to derive complex item-level brain–behavior relationships. (shrink)

Taste sensitivity and liking drive food choices and ingestive behaviors from childhood to adulthood, yet their longitudinal association with dietary intake and BMI is largely understudied. Here, we examined the longitudinal relationship between sugar and fat sensitivity, sugar and fat liking, habitual dietary intake, and BMI percentiles in a sample of 105 healthy-weight adolescents over a 4-year period. Taste sensitivity was assessed via a triangle fat and sweet taste discrimination test. Taste liking were rated on a visual (...) analog scale for four milkshakes that varied in sugar and fat contents, low-fat/high-sugar, high-fat/low-sugar, low-fat/low-sugar milkshakes). A modified version of the reduced Block Food Frequency Questionnaire was used to assess dietary intake. All measurements were repeated annually. Repeated measures correlations and linear mixed effects models were used to model the associations between the variables. Sugar sensitivity was negatively associated with liking for the LF/HS milkshake over the 4-year period. Low sugar sensitivity at baseline predicted increases in BMI percentile over time, but this association didn’t survive a correction for multiple comparisons. Percent daily intake from fat was positively associated with liking for the HF/HS milkshake and negatively associated with liking for the LF/LS milkshake over 4 years. Together, these results demonstrate that lower sensitivity to sweet taste is linked to increased hedonic response to high-sugar foods and increased energy intake from fat seems to condition adolescents to show increased liking for high-fat/high-sugar foods. (shrink)

A sample from the Ubatuba fragment collected in Brazil in 1957 was tested with the intent of examining the isotope ratios of its primary element, magnesium, and the trace elements strontium, barium, copper, and zinc. As background, the history of chemical testing of the Ubatuba fragments during the 1960s-1980s at multiple labs with varying capabilities is reviewed and then the remainder of the paper examines recent tests completed in 2017 and 2018 that for the first time used HR-ICPMS (...) techniques to look at the isotopic ratios of the minor constituents as well as the primary magnesium makeup of the sample. The magnesium isotope ratios were found to fall within terrestrial limits while the results on the isotope ratios of the trace elements was inconclusive. Recommendations are made for improving the process of examining the trace elements. Keywords: Ubatuba, isotope, magnesium, HR-ICPMS, UFO. (shrink)

One trend in recent work on topic of the multiple realization of psychological properties has been an emphasis on greater sensitivity to actual science and greater clarity regarding the metaphysics of realization and multiple realization. One contribution to this trend is Bechtel and Mundale’s examination of the implications of brain mapping for multiple realization. Where Bechtel and Mundale argue that studies of brain mapping undermine claims about the multiple realization, this paper challenges that argument.

The current paper highlights a new, interactive Shiny App that can be used to aid in understanding and teaching the important task of conducting a prior sensitivity analysis when implementing Bayesian estimation methods. In this paper, we discuss the importance of examining prior distributions through a sensitivity analysis. We argue that conducting a prior sensitivity analysis is equally important when so-called diffuse priors are implemented as it is with subjective priors. As a proof of concept, we conducted (...) a small simulation study, which illustrates the impact of priors on final model estimates. The findings from the simulation study highlight the importance of conducting a sensitivity analysis of priors. This concept is further extended through an interactive Shiny App that we developed. The Shiny App allows users to explore the impact of various forms of priors using empirical data. We introduce this Shiny App and thoroughly detail an example using a simple multiple regression model that users at all levels can understand. In this paper, we highlight how to determine the different settings for a prior sensitivity analysis, how to visually and statistically compare results obtained in the sensitivity analysis, and how to display findings and write up disparate results obtained across the sensitivity analysis. The goal is that novice users can follow the process outlined here and work within the interactive Shiny App to gain a deeper understanding of the role of prior distributions and the importance of a sensitivity analysis when implementing Bayesian methods. The intended audience is broad and can include those with limited exposure to Bayesian methods or the specific model presented here. (shrink)

Although applications are being developed and have reached the market, nanopharmacy to date is generally still conceived as an emerging technology. Its concept is ill-defined. Nanopharmacy can also be construed as a converging technology, which combines features of multiple technologies, ranging from nanotechnology to medicine and ICT. It is still debated whether its features give rise to new ethical issues or that issues associated with nanopharma are merely an extension of existing issues in the underlying fields. We argue here (...) that, regardless of the alleged newness of the ethical issues involved, developments occasioned by technological advances affect the roles played by stakeholders in the field of nanopharmacy to such an extent that this calls for a different approach to responsible innovation in this field. Specific features associated with nanopharmacy itself and features introduced to the associated converging technologies- bring about a shift in the roles of stakeholders that call for a different approach to responsibility. We suggest that Value Sensitive Design is a suitable framework to involve stakeholders in addressing moral issues responsibly at an early stage of development of new nanopharmaceuticals. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray classically challenges what she takes to be the masculine foundations of knowledge in Western liberal culture. The present article contends not only that this epistemological challenge implicates a radical feminist politics, but that it is also more helpful in formulating a multicultural feminist theory than is often acknowledged by her readers. This is because her account responds to the false neutrality of liberal feminist approaches to multiculturalism. It does so by supporting, at the socio-political level, transformative genealogical practices (...) that are aimed at fostering women's agency in culturally sensitive ways. However, Irigaray's recent work on multiculturalism does not sustain the necessary continuity between her core epistemological critique and her political claims. In particular, the continuity between her criticism of the West's sexual indifference and the cultural multiplicity of female identity becomes problematic in her recent work. The author finally contends that Irigaray's writings pose difficulties for a multicultural feminism, because they fail to specify the different forms of policy necessary to promote diverse women's equality in the postcolonial contexts on which she recently focuses. (shrink)

From virtue ethics and interactionist perspectives, we hypothesized that personal justice norms (distributive and procedural justice norms) were shaped directly and multiplicatively by ethical dispositions (equity sensitivity and need for structure) and ethical climates (egoistic, benevolent, and principle climates). We collected multisource data from 123 companies in Hong Kong, with personal factors assessed by participants’ self-reports and contextual factors by aggregations of their peers. In general, LISREL analyses with latent product variables supported the direct and multiplicative relationships. Our findings (...) could lay the groundwork for justice research from a morality perspective in future. (shrink)

The ‘triumph of the anti-phlogistians’ is a familiar story to the historians and philosophers of science who characterize the Chemical Revolution as a broad conceptual shift. The apparent “incommensurability” of the paradigms across the revolutionary divide has caused much anxiety. Chemists could identify phlogiston and oxygen, however, only with different sets of instrumental practices, theoretical schemes, and philosophical commitments. In addition, the substantive counterpart to phlogiston in the new chemistry was not oxygen, but caloric. By focusing on the changing (...) visions of chemical body across the revolutionary divide with a more sensitive probe into the historical actors’ material manipulations and linguistic usage, we can historicize their laboratory realities and philosophical agenda. An archeology of chemical bodies that configures the fragile stability of the material worlds chemists created in succession promises a philosophical horizon that would recognize our hybrid (natural–artificial) environment as an evolving investigative object of science. (shrink)

The paper argues that colouring is a conventional ingredient of literal meaning characterized by a considerable degree of semantic under-determination and a high degree of context-sensitivity. The positive, though tentative, suggestion made in the paper is that whereas in the case of words such as "but" and "damn" we are dealing with words lacking in specificity, in the case of pejoratives in general, and racist jargon in particular, we are dealing with words that express concepts that purport to describe (...) the world as being in a certain way. The circumstance that in certain contexts of utterance colouring can be cancelled out, does not show that it forms a detachable part of a word's literal meaning. It only shows that to account for the interplay between context, literal meaning and assertoric content is much trickier than meets the eye. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic called for a new ethical climate in the designated hospitals and imposed challenges on care quality for anti-pandemic nurses. Less was known about whether hospital ethical climate and nurses’ ethical sensitivity were associated with care quality. This study examined the association between the perceived hospital ethical climate and self-evaluated quality of care for COVID-19 patients among anti-pandemic nurses, and explored the mediating role of ethical sensitivity in this relationship.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted through an online (...) survey. A total of 399 anti-pandemic nurses from ten designated hospitals in three provinces of China were recruited to fill out an online survey. Multiple linear regression analysis and a bootstrap test were used to examine the relationships between ethical climate, ethical sensitivity and care quality.ResultsNurses reported mean scores of 4.43 ± 0.577 (out of 5) for hospital ethical climate, 45.00 ± 7.085 (out of 54) for ethical sensitivity, and 5.35 ± 0.661 (out of 6) for self-evaluated care quality. After controlling for covariates, perceived hospital ethical climate was positively associated with self-evaluated care quality (direct effect = 0.710, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.628, 0.792), and was partly mediated by ethical sensitivity (indirect effect = 0.078, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.002, 0.145).ConclusionsChinese nurses who cared for COVID-19 patients perceived high levels of hospital ethical climate, ethical sensitivity, and self-evaluated care quality. Positive perceptions of hospital ethical climate were both directly associated with a higher level of self-evaluated care quality and indirectly associated, through the mediation effect of ethical sensitivity among anti-pandemic nurses. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of trust and a national culture of secretiveness on the number of bank relationships per firm. We hypothesize that the degree of openness of a firm and trust between economic agents may influence the willingness of the firm to release sensitive information to its lenders, as well as the decision between maintaining single or multiple bank relationships. Using a sample of over 8000 non-financial firms operating in 12 countries from the eurozone we provide evidence (...) that a national culture of secrecy enhances the number of bank relationships, while trust has the opposite effect. Results are robust to the use of various estimation techniques, alternative definitions of secrecy and trust, controls for firm-level and country-level characteristics, and instrumental variables. The main implication of this finding is that the financial decisions of firms cannot be effectively examined without considering deep-rooted national cultural elements. We also find that the results are mainly driven by small and medium enterprises, implying that the higher informational opaqueness of these firms enhances the role of secrecy and trust. (shrink)