Bioethics, Race, and Contempt.YolondaYvetteWilson -2021 -Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 18 (1):13-22.detailsThe U.S. healthcare system has a long history of displaying racist contempt toward Black people. From medical schools’ use of enslaved bodies as cadavers to the widespread hospital practice of reporting suspected drug users who seek medical help to the police, the institutional practices and policies that have shaped U.S. healthcare systems as we know them cannot be minimized as coincidence. Rather, the very foundations of medical discovery, diagnosis, and treatment are built on racist contempt for Black people and have (...) become self-perpetuating. Yet, I argue that bioethics and bioethicists have a role in combatting racism. However, in order to do so, bioethicists have to understand the workings of contemptuous racism and how that particular form of racism manifests in U.S. healthcare institutions. Insofar as justice is part of the core mission of bioethics, then antiracism must also be part of the mission of bioethics. (shrink)
Bioethicists Can and Should Contribute to Addressing Racism.Marion Danis,YolondaWilson &Amina White -2016 -American Journal of Bioethics 16 (4):3-12.detailsThe problems of racism and racially motivated violence in predominantly African American communities in the United States are complex, multifactorial, and historically rooted. While these problems are also deeply morally troubling, bioethicists have not contributed substantially to addressing them. Concern for justice has been one of the core commitments of bioethics. For this and other reasons, bioethicists should contribute to addressing these problems. We consider how bioethicists can offer meaningful contributions to the public discourse, research, teaching, training, policy development, and (...) academic scholarship in response to the alarming and persistent patterns of racism and implicit biases associated with it. To make any useful contribution, bioethicists will require preparation and should expect to play a significant role through collaborative action with others. (shrink)
Intersectionality in Clinical Medicine: The Need for a Conceptual Framework.YolondaWilson,Amina White,Akilah Jefferson &Marion Danis -2019 -American Journal of Bioethics 19 (2):8-19.detailsIntersectionality has become a significant intellectual approach for those thinking about the ways that race, gender, and other social identities converge in order to create unique forms of oppression. Although the initial work on intersectionality addressed the unique position of black women relative to both black men and white women, the concept has since been expanded to address a range of social identities. Here we consider how to apply some of the theoretical tools provided by intersectionality to the clinical context. (...) We begin with a brief discussion of intersectionality and how it might be useful in a clinical context. We then discuss two clinical scenarios that highlight how we think considering intersectionality could lead to more successful patient–clinician interactions. Finally, we extrapolate general strategies for applying intersectionality to the clinical context before considering objections and replies. (shrink)
Is Trust Enough? Anti‐Black Racism and the Perception of Black Vaccine “Hesitancy”.YolondaWilson -2022 -Hastings Center Report 52 (S1):12-17.detailsHastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S12-S17, March‐April 2022.
Racial Injustice and Meaning Well: A Challenge for Bioethics.Yolonda Y.Wilson -2021 -American Journal of Bioethics 21 (2):1-3.details“Ignorance,” Jim Hudson, the art dealer, declares shortly before the climactic scene in the 2017 film, Get Out. “They mean well, but they have no idea what real people will go through”...
How Might We Address the Factors that Contribute to the Scarcity of Philosophers Who Are Women and/or of Color?Yolonda Y.Wilson -2017 -Hypatia 32 (4):853-861.detailsProfessional philosophy in the US remains relatively homogenous. I use four anecdotes to amplify some of the practices that may contribute to the dearth of underrepresented philosophers. Each anecdote highlights a different problem—lack of proper mentoring, stereotype threat, difficulties navigating sexism, and a sense of exclusion. Although I discuss each of these issues separately, it is certainly the case that these can and often do occur concurrently. I offer preliminary thoughts on how these problems could be addressed while keeping in (...) mind that philosophy in the US is a microcosm of the larger US society. (shrink)
There Are Priorities and Then There Are Priorities: A Prior Question About the Perpetuation of Injustice Through Bioethics Research Funding.Yolonda Y.Wilson -2022 -American Journal of Bioethics 22 (1):19-21.detailsFabi and Goldberg have made an important contribution to the understanding of how bioethicists do bioethics, or more precisely, how bioethics research funding mechanisms reflect the values o...
Understanding the "Difficult" Patient.YolondaWilson -2023 -Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics 13 (1):45-49.detailsAbstract:James Groves opens his 1978 foundational article, "Taking Care of the Hateful Patient," thusly, "Admitted or not, the fact remains that a few patients kindle aversion, fear, despair, or even downright malice in their doctors." Groves understood his article as pulling back the curtain on an experience that physicians had but that few dared discuss without shame. His taxonomy of four types of "hateful" patients: clingers, entitled demanders, manipulative help rejectors, and self-destructive deniers may still be instructive. However, the intervening (...) years have revealed that this taxonomy does not adequately capture the nuances present when patients are described as "difficult." This issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics situates this complexity. Different kinds of providers in a variety of healthcare delivering institutions have offered accounts of their own interactions with so-called difficult patients. In each of these stories, the providers tell the reader how the providers were transformed through these interactions: what they learned about their patients, what they learned about patient care, what they could have done differently or better, and what lessons they have taken with them into subsequent encounters. (shrink)
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What Happened to Consent? Rationalizing Its Breaches.YolondaWilson &Lou Vinarcsik -2022 -Hastings Center Report 52 (3):49-51.detailsHastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 49-51, May–June 2022.
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Hobbesian Diffidence, Second-Order Discrimination, and Racial Profiling.Yolonda Y.Wilson -2023 -Hobbes Studies 36 (1):74-96.detailsTaking Hobbesian logic as my starting point, I argue that Hobbesian diffidence, one of the causes of quarrel in the state of nature, does not disappear once the citizens enter civil society. Rather, diffidence is merely contained by the sovereign. Following Alice Ristroph, I argue that diffidence comes to shape what citizens demand of the state/sovereign in the criminal law. However, I show that Ristroph does not fully appreciate that the concept of diffidence is a racialized one, and as such, (...) race underlies how the citizens understand their own diffidence, what citizens demand of the sovereign, and how they demand it. Further, because diffidence itself is racialized, criminal law need not make explicit appeals to race. Once racialized diffidence becomes embedded in the criminal law, it remains there regardless of any conscious racial animus. I show that racial profiling is a prime example of how this racialized diffidence manifests. Thus, I present Hobbesian diffidence as a framework from which to understand racial oppression. This paper is primarily an application of Hobbes to contemporary issues rather than an exegesis and analysis of Hobbes’s views. (shrink)
Beyond Good Intentions: Student Run Free Clinics as a Reflection of a Broken System.YolondaWilson &Lou Vinarcsik -2022 -American Journal of Bioethics 22 (3):27-29.detailsCamisha Russell argues that this contemporary moment of societal reckoning with the value of Black lives is also a moment for considering racism as a bioethical issue. She continues that bioethicis...
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Feminist Bioethics as Public Practice.YolondaWilson -2022 - In Lee C. McIntyre, Nancy Arden McHugh & Ian Olasov,A companion to public philosophy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 53–64.detailsThis chapter shows that feminist bioethics begins with critical engagement. Feminist bioethics as perspective centers the experiences of women – women's health, challenges that women primarily face within health care contexts, gaps in research that are only understood as gaps when one takes women seriously as women. The chapter highlights a few significant breakthroughs in feminist theory broadly that have informed feminist bioethics as perspective and as methodology – standpoint theory, relational autonomy, and intersectionality – in order to show how (...) an intentionally feminist lens can improve bioethics for everyone. Feminists understood that healthcare generally, and bioethics, in particular, were important sites for feminist thought. The traditional view of autonomy in bioethics is centered on the individual. The chapter also highlights an example of public practice, The Black Mamas Matter Alliance, that shows the important work of Black women's community advocacy as a blueprint for a public feminist bioethics. (shrink)
Empathy and structural injustice in the assessment of patient noncompliance.YolondaWilson -2021 -Bioethics 36 (3):283-289.detailsBioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 283-289, March 2022.
Against Happiness.Owen Flanagan,Joseph E. LeDoux,Bobby Bingle,Daniel M. Haybron,Batja Mesquita,Michele Moody-Adams,Songyao Ren,Anna Sun &Yolonda Y.Wilson -2023 - Columbia University Press.detailsThe “happiness agenda” is a worldwide movement that claims that happiness is the highest good, happiness can be measured, and public policy should promote happiness. Against Happiness is a thorough and powerful critique of this program, revealing the flaws of its concept of happiness and advocating a renewed focus on equality and justice. Written by an interdisciplinary team of authors, this book provides both theoretical and empirical analysis of the limitations of the happiness agenda. The authors emphasize that this movement (...) draws on a parochial, Western-centric philosophical basis and demographic sample. They show that happiness defined as subjective satisfaction or a surplus of positive emotions bears little resemblance to the richer and more nuanced concepts of the good life found in many world traditions. Cross-cultural philosophy, comparative theology, and social and cultural psychology all teach that cultures and subcultures vary in how much value they place on life satisfaction or feeling happy. Furthermore, the ideas promoted by the happiness agenda can compete with rights, justice, sustainability, and equality—and even conceal racial and gender injustice. Against Happiness argues that a better way forward requires integration of cross-cultural philosophical, ethical, and political thought with critical social science. Ultimately, the authors contend, happiness should be a secondary goal—worth pursuing only if it is contingent on the demands of justice. (shrink)
For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics by Alex John London.Jaime O’Brien,Lou Vinarcsik &YolondaWilson -2022 -Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 50 (2):390-391.detailsWritten in response to what he recognizes as the problematic philosophical underpinnings of “orthodox research ethics,” Alex John London’s For the Common Good reimagines what is called for in any effort to create a better system of oversight and regulation in biomedical research. London weaves a common thread — justice — through this historical and critical account of the practice of research ethics and its organization of stakeholders, institutions and regulations. By introducing the idea of “a common good” London reframes (...) the narrative and responsibilities of the research ethics field to demonstrate that scientific research and regard for the rights and welfare of individuals are not mutually exclusive. This impressive monograph encourages its readers to push past the limitations of traditional research ethics to consider the context in which the discipline is embedded. That is, rather than settling for analysis at the level of researchers and research participants alone, London encourages us to expand our inquiry to encompass a wider array of stakeholders who co-labor in the social undertaking of biomedical knowledge production. London accomplishes the difficult task of upstream analysis — turning his attention to the conditions and assumptions which create ethical dilemmas rather than applying a retrospective ethical salve to injuries near-guaranteed by a broken system. As opposed to the limited domain of orthodox research ethics (researchers, participants, and the institutional bodies which regulate interaction between the two) London also considers the role and contributions of affected communities, pharmaceutical firms, philanthropic organizations, and journal editors among others. (shrink)
The Problem of Piecemeal Induction.Conor Mayo-Wilson -2011 -Philosophy of Science 78 (5):864-874.detailsIt is common to assume that the problem of induction arises only because of small sample sizes or unreliable data. In this paper, I argue that the piecemeal collection of data can also lead to underdetermination of theories by evidence, even if arbitrarily large amounts of completely reliable experimental and observational data are collected. Specifically, I focus on the construction of causal theories from the results of many studies (perhaps hundreds), including randomized controlled trials and observational studies, where the studies (...) focus on overlapping, but not identical, sets of variables. Two theorems reveal that, for any collection of variables V, there exist fundamentally different causal theories over V that cannot be distinguished unless all variables are simultaneously measured. Underdetermination can result from piecemeal measurement, regardless of the quantity and quality of the data. Moreover, I generalize these results to show that, a priori, it is impossible to choose a series of small (in terms of number of variables) observational studies that will be most informative with respect to the causal theory describing the variables under investigation. This final result suggests that scientific institutions may need to play a larger role in coordinating differing research programs during inquiry. (shrink)
Facing the Camera: Self‐portraits of Photographers as Artists.Dawn M.Wilson -2012 -Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70 (1):56-66.detailsSelf-portrait photography presents an elucidatory range of cases for investigating the relationship between automatism and artistic agency in photography— a relationship that is seen as a problem in the philosophy of art. I discuss self-portraits by photographers who examine and portray their own identities as artists working in the medium of photography. I argue that the automatism inherent in the production of a photograph has made it possible for artists to extend the tradition of self-portraiture in a way that is (...) radically different from previous visual arts. In Section I, I explain why self-portraiture offers a way to address the apparent conflict between automatism and agency that is debated in the philosophy of art. In Section II, I explain why mirrors play an important function in the production of a traditional self-portrait. In Sections III and IV, I discuss how photographers may create self-portraits with and without the use of mirrors to show how photography offers unique and important new forms of self-portraiture. (shrink)
Concepts, contestability and the philosophy of education.JohnWilson -1981 -Journal of Philosophy of Education 15 (1):3–15.detailsJohnWilson; Concepts, Contestability and the Philosophy of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 3–15, https://.
Entrepreneurial Intention and Perceived Social Support From Academics-Scientists at Chilean Universities.Eduardo Acuña-Duran,Daniela Pradenas-Wilson,Juan Carlos Oyanedel &Roberto Jalon-Gardella -2021 -Frontiers in Psychology 12.detailsWithin Ajzen's Planned Behavior Theory framework, this article tests a model to estimate the predictors of entrepreneurial intention in academic scientists working in Chile. We adapted into Spanish the entrepreneurship intention questionnaire. We tested the entrepreneurship intention model on a sample of 1,027 scientists leading research projects funded by the Chilean Scientific and Technological Development Fund, the country's primary scientific research grant. The results show strong empirical support for the entrepreneurship intention model proposed while highlighting some critical issues specific to (...) entrepreneurial intention in scientists. In particular, we found an indirect effect of perceived subjective social support on entrepreneurial intention, which is mediated by entrepreneurial attitude and perceived behavioral control toward entrepreneurship. These results suggest that policies orientated toward promoting academic entrepreneurship should include developing a healthy social environment toward it, meaning that entrepreneurial intention is not only an individual but an organizational challenge. These policies should analyze the social norms guiding the scientists' reference groups to increase their effectiveness. (shrink)
Leibniz et Ficino: vie, activité, matière. Leibniz und Ficino: Leben, Aktivität, Materie.James G. Snyder &CatherineWilson -2017 -Studia Leibnitiana 49 (2):243.detailsAlthough Leibniz characterised himself in the “New Essays” as a “Platonic” as opposed to a “Democritean” philosopher, his intellectual relationship with the most famous of the Renaissance Neoplatonists, Marsilio Ficino, has received little attention. Here we review what can be thus far established regarding Leibniz’s acquaintance with portions of Ficino’s Opera omnia of 1576. We compare Ficino’s disenchantment with the atomistic materialism of Lucretius, which he had favoured in his youth, and his turn to Platonism for inspiration, with Leibniz’s own (...) reported disenchantment with Gassendi’s Epicurean atomism and his invention of a vitalistic monadology that, despite Leibniz’s reservations regarding Ficinian magic, resembles Ficinian nature philosophy in number of striking respects. (shrink)
Tradução e comentários à conferência de Freud sobre a Histeria masculina: uma contribuição à historiografia da psicanálise.Caio Padovan &Wilson de Albuquerque Cavalcanti Franco -2018 -Natureza Humana 20 (1).detailsApresentamos neste artigo uma tradução inédita de uma das atas da conferência de Freud sobre a histeria masculina, comunicação proferida pelo futuro psicanalista diante da Sociedade de Médicos de Viena em 15 de outubro de 1886. A conferência tornou-se conhecida no interior do movimento psicanalítico principalmente em função da ideia de que, na ocasião, Freud teria sido objeto de escárnio e rejeição por parte da comunidade médica e acadêmica. Além da tradução, ofereceremos ainda um panorama técnico e contextual com o (...) objetivo de contribuir para a elucidação de alguns equívocos recorrentes ligados à história deste episódio. Assim, enquanto caso exemplar, tal evento nos servirá também como pivô de uma crítica mais ampla a certas historiografias da psicanálise. (shrink)
Group selection and “the pious gene”.E. Sober &Wilson David -1996 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (4):782-787.detailsThe six commentaries raise five issues about multi-level selection theory that we attempt to address: (1) replicators without vehicles, (2) group selection and movement between groups, (3) absolute versus relative fitness, (4) group-level psychological adaptions, and (5) multi-level selection as a predictive theory.
William James.GayWilson Allen -1970 - Minneapolis,: University of Minnesota Press.detailsUniversity of Minnesota Pamphlets on American Writers ; No. 88.