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Facing the possibility of a surge of COVID-19-infected patients requiring ventilatory support in Intensive Care Units, the Singapore Hospice Council and the Chapter of Palliative Medicine Physicians forward its position on the guiding principles that ought to drive the allocation of ICU beds and its role in care of these patients and their families.

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Biologists who work on the pig (_Sus scrofa_) take advantage of its similarity to humans by constructing the inferential and material means to traffic data, information and knowledge across the species barrier. Their research has been funded due to its perceived value for agriculture and medicine. Improving selective breeding practices, for instance, has been a driver of genomics research. The pig is also an animal model for biomedical research and practice, and is proposed as a source of organs for cross-species (...) transplantation: xenotransplantation. Genomics research has informed transplantation biology, which has itself motivated developments in genomics. Both have generated models of correspondences between the genomes of pigs and humans. Concerning genomics, I detail how researchers traverse species boundaries to develop representations of the pig genome, alongside ensuring that such representations are sufficiently porcine. In transplantation biology, the representations of the genomes of humans and pigs are used to detect and investigate immunologically-pertinent differences between the two species. These key differences can then be removed, to ‘humanise’ donor pigs so that they can become a safe and effective source of organs. In both of these endeavours, there is a tension between practices that ‘humanise’ the pig (or representations thereof) through using resources from human genomics, and the need to ‘dehumanise’ the pig to maintain distinctions for legal, ethical and scientific reasons. This paper assesses the ways in which this tension has been managed, observing the differences between its realisations across comparative pig genomics and transplantation biology, and considering the consequences of this. (shrink)

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This article examines a thesis of interest to social epistemology and some articulations of First Amendment legal theory: that a free market in speech is an optimal institution for promoting true belief. Under our interpretation, the market-for-speech thesis claims that more total truth possession will be achieved if speech is regulatedonlyby free market mechanisms; that is, both government regulation and private sector nonmarket regulation are held to have information-fostering properties that are inferior to the free market. After discussing possible counterexamples (...) to the thesis, the article explores the actual implications of economic theory for the emergence of truth in a free market for speech. When confusions are removed about what is maximized by perfectly competitive markets, and when adequate attention is paid to market imperfections, the failure of the market-for-speech thesis becomes clear. The article closes by comparing the properties of a free market in speech with an adversarial system of discourse. (shrink)

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This paper assesses the effect of DNA barcoding—the use of informative genetic markers to identify and discriminate between species—on taxonomy. Throughout, we interpret this in terms of _varipraxis_, a concept we introduce to make sense of the treatment of biological variation by scientists and other practitioners. From its inception, DNA barcoding was criticised for being reductive, in attempting to replace multiple forms of taxonomic evidence with just one: DNA sequence variation in one or a few indicative genes. We show, though, (...) how DNA barcoding has not narrowed or reduced taxonomy in the way it was projected to. We examine the development and implementation of DNA barcoding across three kingdoms of life: animals, plants, and protists. Through this, we demonstrate that for DNA barcoding to work, the range of acceptable intra-specific variation needs to be demarcated from variation deemed to be characteristic of inter-specific differences. Consequently, biological processes responsible for particular patterns of variation need to be investigated and understood. This encourages an integrative disposition towards understanding and explaining the evolutionary processes affecting the rate and nature of change at the nucleotide level. We detail how the impact of DNA barcoding has manifested differently across the three kingdoms we examine, assessing this in terms of the ontological commitments that are held and instantiated in practice. Based on this evaluation, we consider the problem of studying multi-kingdom communities, and assess the consequences of our analysis for understanding classification and taxonomy. (shrink)

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From the 1980s onwards, the Roslin Institute and its predecessor organizations faced budget cuts, organizational upheaval and considerable insecurity. Over the next few decades, it was transformed by the introduction of molecular biology and transgenic research, but remained a hub of animal geneticists conducting research aimed at the livestock-breeding industry. This paper explores how these animal geneticists embraced genomics in response to the many-faceted precarity that the Roslin Institute faced, establishing it as a global centre for pig genomics research through (...) forging and leading the Pig Gene Mapping Project (PiGMaP); developing and hosting resources, such as a database for genetic linkage data; and producing associated statistical and software tools to analyse the data. The Roslin Institute leveraged these resources to play a key role in further international collaborations as a hedge against precarity. This adoption of genomics was strategically useful, as it took advantage of policy shifts at the national and European levels towards funding research with biotechnological potential. As genomics constitutes a set of infrastructures and resources with manifold uses, the development of capabilities in this domain also helped Roslin to diversify as a response to precarity. (shrink)

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In this paper, rather than focusing on genes as an organising concept around which historical considerations of theory and practice in genetics are elucidated, we place genetic markers at the heart of our analysis. This reflects their central role in the subject of our account, livestock genetics concerning the domesticated pig, Sus scrofa. We define a genetic marker as a element existing in different forms in the genome, that can be identified and mapped using a variety of quantitative, classical and (...) molecular genetic techniques. The conjugation of pig genome researchers around the common object of the marker from the early-1990s allowed the distinctive theories and approaches of quantitative and molecular genetics concerning the size and distribution of gene effects to align in projects to populate genome maps. Critical to this was the nature of markers as ontologically inert, internally heterogeneous and relational. Though genes as an organising and categorising principle remained important, the particular concatenation of limitations, opportunities, and intended research goals of the pig genetics community, meant that a progressively stronger focus on the identification and mapping of markers rather than genes per se became a hallmark of the community. We therefore detail a different way of doing genetics to more gene-centred accounts. By doing so, we reveal the presence of practices, concepts and communities that would otherwise be hidden. (shrink)

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"... provocative and rewarding... " --Religious Studies Review "... a tour de force." --Theological Studies Theology and Difference reconceives the options confronting modern theology and investigates the disputed questions that underlie it. Pressing beyond the ready-made enlightenment offered by the subject-object framework, Walter Lowe uncovers a number of remarkable convergences between the contemporary philosopher Jacques Derrida and the early twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth.

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In the present research, we qualitatively document the process by which spiritual leader and leadership emerge in religion-based organizations. Data from 26 participants in three religion-based organizations revealed three cardinal themes that depict the development of spiritual leader and spiritual leadership, the process of developing a spiritual leader and spiritual leadership, and outcomes of spiritual leader and leadership development. Based on the results, we propose a model that depicts the phases involved in the development of spiritual leader/leadership in the religion-based (...) workplace. These phases are proposed to impact the outcomes for the leader, followers, and the organization. The implications of our results are discussed. (shrink)

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The theory of negation developed in the grammatical-philosophical system of later Vyākaraṇa remains almost entirely unstudied, despite its close links with the (widely studied) approaches to negation found in other philosophical schools such as Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā, and despite its consequent importance for a comprehensive understanding of the theory of negation in ancient India. In this paper we present an edition, translation and commentary of the relevant sections of Nāgeśa’s _Paramalaghumañjūṣā_, a concise presentation by the final authority of the Pāṇinian (...) tradition, together with an explanatory introduction outlining the grammarians’ theory of negation and its relations particularly with the Nyāya theory of negation. (shrink)

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This paper aims to clarify the consequences of new scientific and philosophical approaches for the practical-theoretical framework of modern developmental biology. I highlight normal development, and the instructive-permissive distinction, as key parts of this framework which shape how variation is conceptualised and managed. Furthermore, I establish the different dimensions of biological variation: the units, temporality and mode of variation. Using the analytical frame established by this, I interpret a selection of examples as challenges to the instructive-permissive distinction. These examples include (...) the phenomena of developmental plasticity and transdifferentiation, the role of the microbiome in development, and new methodological approaches to standardisation and the assessment of causes. Furthermore, I argue that investigations into organismal development should investigate the effects of a wider range of kinds of variation including variation in the units, modes and temporalities of development. I close by examining various possible opportunities for producing and using normal development free of the assumptions of the instructive-permissive distinction. These opportunities are afforded by recent developments, which include new ways of producing standards incorporating more natural variation and being based on function rather than structure, and the ability to produce, store, and process large quantities of data. (shrink)

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Male to male unprotected anal sex is the main route of HIV transmission in Australia. The Australian Study of Health and Relationships, a large, representative population survey of sexual health behaviors, found that six percent of males in the general population have engaged in homosexual activity. These findings were consistent with studies in Europeand North America. Condoms have been shown to reduce the transmission of HIV in the community. Barriers to the use of condoms include access,stigma,and cost? Nevertheless, increased condom (...) use has been reported among homosexual males, sex workers and injecting drug users although recent declines in condom use among homosexuals has presented new challenges in HIV prevention.The prevalence of male to male sexual activity may be higher in prison than in the general population. Sexual activity in prison can be consensual and non-consensual involving both homosexual / bisexual and heterosexual men. (shrink)

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Meat is a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on people performing risky physical work inside meat-processing facilities over long shifts in close proximity. These workers are socially disempowered, and many are members of groups beset by historic and ongoing structural discrimination. The combination of working conditions and worker characteristics facilitate the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Workers have been expected to put their health and lives at risk during the pandemic because of government and industry pressures to keep (...) this “essential industry” producing. Numerous interventions can significantly reduce the risks to workers and their communities; however, the industry’s implementation has been sporadic and inconsistent. With a focus on the U.S. context, this paper offers an ethical framework for infection prevention and control recommendations grounded in public health values of health and safety, interdependence and solidarity, and health equity and justice, with particular attention to considerations of reciprocity, equitable burden sharing, harm reduction, and health promotion. Meat-processing workers are owed an approach that protects their health relative to the risks of harms to them, their families, and their communities. Sacrifices from businesses benefitting financially from essential industry status are ethically warranted and should acknowledge the risks assumed by workers in the context of existing structural inequities. (shrink)

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PROFILES AN INTERNATIONAL SERIES ON CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND LOGICIANS EDITORS RADU ... University of Warsaw J. VUILLEMIN, College de France VOLUME 5 ...

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The paper focuses on an employee’s perception of his or her own labour market outcome. It proposes that the basic earnings function, by adopting an approach that ignores perception effects, is likely to result in biased results that will fail to understand the complexities of the wage distribution. The paper uses an orthodox job search framework to illustrate the nature of this problem and then adapts the model to take onboard the theory of cognitive dissonance. The search model indicates how (...) workers may adopt a coping strategy in order to reduce the disutility associated with the wage underpayment that develops. Then, by modelling cognitive dissonance, the paper highlights the weaknesses of using purely human capital proxies to understand labour market outcome. The analysis goes some way to explaining why individuals with equivalent human capital investment can have disparate earnings profiles. (shrink)

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There are three main accounts of the proper function of the low mood system (LMS): the social risk theory, the disease theory, and the propitiousness theory. Adjudicating between these accounts has proven difficult, as there is little agreement in the literature about what a theory of the LMS’s proper function is supposed to explain. In this article, drawing upon influential work on the evolution of other affective systems, such as the disgust system and the fear system, I argue that a (...) theory of the proper function of the low mood system should: (i) account for the reliable, distal causes and effects of the system’s activation, and (ii) explain how having a system that performed such a function increased fitness in ancestral environments. On this basis, I show that the proper function of the low mood system is to limit resource expenditure in relatively unpropitious circumstances, exactly as hypothesised by the propitiousness theory. (shrink)

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Does low mood have intentional content? If so, what is it? Philosophers have tried to answer both questions by appealing to low mood’s phenomenal character. However, appeals to phenomenology have not settled this debate. Thus, I take a different approach: I tackle both questions by examining low mood’s complex functional role in cognition. I argue that if we take this role into account, we have excellent reason to believe that low mood a) has content, and b) has the following indicative-imperative (...) content: Good events are, on average, less likely to occur than bad events & Limit [the subject’s] resource expenditure! (shrink)

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What is the connection between mirror processes and mindreading? The paper begins with definitions of mindreading and of mirroring processes. It then advances four theses: (T1) mirroring processes in themselves do not constitute mindreading; (T2) some types of mindreading (“low-level” mindreading) are based on mirroring processes; (T3) not all types of mindreading are based on mirroring (“high-level” mindreading); and (T4) simulation-based mindreading includes but is broader than mirroring-based mindreading. Evidence for the causal role of mirroring in mindreading is drawn from (...) intention attribution, emotion attribution, and pain attribution. Arguments for the limits of mirroring-based mindreading are drawn from neuroanatomy, from the lesser liability to error of mirror-based mindreading, from the role of imagination in some types of mindreading, and from the restricted range of mental states involved in mirroring. “High-level” simulational mindreading is based on enactment imagination, perspective shifts, or self-projection, which are found in activities like prospection and memory as well as theory of mind. The role of cortical midline structures in executing these activities is examined. (shrink)

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Industrial wind turbines are frequently thought of as benign. However, the literature is reporting adverse health effects associated with the implementation of industrial-scale wind developments. This article explores the historical evidence about what was known regarding infra and low-frequency sound from wind turbines and other noise sources during the period from the 1970s through the end of the 1990s. This exploration has been accomplished through references, personal interviews and communications, and other available documentation. The application of past knowledge could improve (...) the current siting of industrial wind turbines and avoid potential risks to health. (shrink)

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If the contemporary rebirth of the ontological argument had its conception in Norman Malcolm's discovery of a second Anselmian argument it had its full-term delivery as a healthy philosophical progeny withAlvin Plantinga's sophisticated modal version presented in the tenth chapter of The Nature of Necessity. This latter argument has been the centre of a huge body of literature over the last fifteen years, and deservedly so. One is impressed that this version of Anselm's jewel is valid and sound (...) if any is. (shrink)

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Pierre Jacob (2008) raises several problems for the alleged link between mirroring and mindreading. This response argues that the best mirroring-mindreading thesis would claim that mirror processes cause, rather than constitute, selected acts of mindreading. Second, the best current evidence for mirror-based mindreading is not found in the motoric domain but in the domains of emotion and sensation, where the evidence (ignored by Jacob) is substantial. Finally, simulation theory should distinguish low-level simulation (mirroring) and high-level simulation (involving pretense or imagination). (...) Jacob implies that bi-level simulationism creates an unbridgeable 'gap' in intention reading, but this is not a compelling challenge. (shrink)

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Edward Jonathan Lowe (usually cited as E. J. Lowe) was one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. He made sustained and significant contributions to debates in metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and philosophy of religion, as well as contributing important scholarly work in early modern philosophy (most notably on Locke). Over the length of his career, Lowe published eleven single-authored books, four co-edited collections, and well over 300 papers and (...) book reviews in journals and edited volumes. The range of topics covered in his published work is highly eclectic. Given this, and his prolific rate of publication, this article cannot aim to cover all of the questions that Lowe contributed work on. Instead, it will focus on some of his most significant contributions in metaphysics and ontology, and related topics in other areas of philosophy. This choice of focus stems, in part, from Lowe’s strong belief in the inescapability of metaphysical questions. Lowe argued for the need to approach metaphysics, and philosophy more broadly, in a serious, systematic fashion, likening metaphysics to putting together the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, working with, rather than trying to overrule or being secondary to, natural science. Although the sections in this article focus on different topics, the highly systematic nature of Lowe’s work means that there are many potential points of intersection that could be drawn between them. In the interests of providing a navigable summary of Lowe’s work, this article highlights only some of these connections. (shrink)

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This article addresses the use of computer-assisted career guidance systems (CACGS) in career interventions. Major CACGS developed in the past decades were based on the trait-factor or person-environment fit approaches in their conceptualization and design. The strengths and limitations of these CACGS in addressing the career development needs of individuals are discussed. The Career Construction Theory (CCT) is a promising paradigm to guide the development of new generations of CACGS. The narrative tradition, career adaptability model, and life-design interventions of CCT (...) offer rich conceptual and practical applications that could expand the scope and breadth of career exploration and identity construction through using CACGS. A digital system developed in Hong Kong called Infinity is a case-in-point of a CACGS where users could learn about career planning, engage in self and career construction through using the quantitative and qualitative assessment applications and gamified tools, take career planning actions over time, and communicate with their social supportive systems. Initial findings suggested that users of the system reported lesser decision-making difficulties, higher levels of decision clarity, and better understanding of what is career planning than non-users. Users from high academic achievement schools reported higher levels of career adaptability than their counterparts in schools of similar academic background. Users from low achievement schools reported higher intention to pursue government-supported universities than non-users from schools of similar background. Research and practice implications in schools and organizational settings are discussed. (shrink)

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