1,721,169 research outputs found
The Ethical Ramifications of Recent Advances in Ovarian Transplantation
Full text linkThe author examines the ethical questions and issues that come with the new advances in autologous transplantation and heterologous transplantation, specifically regarding ovaries. He argues in strong favor of each’s continued advancement and thinks that jewish concerns align more in-line with non-IVF advancements and the procedure of allografting. Throughout, his paper includes comparisons with embryo freezing, oocyte freezing, sperm banking, organ transplantation, and gamete donation. The author is frequently in dialogue with John A. Robertson’s views on many of the matters, and comments on Alison McCarty’s analysis of the double effect when considering how to classify ovarian donation. Finally, genetics are not favored when answering the interesting questions: Whose ovary is it? Whose child is the product? The ovary (and its possible output) belongs to the woman who has received the transplant
Reforming Age Cutoffs
Full text linkThis Article examines the use of minimum age cutoffs to define eligibility for social insurance, public benefits, and other governmental programs. These cutoffs are frequently used but rarely examined in detail. In Part I, I examine and catalogue policies that employ minimum age cutoffs. These include not only Medicare and Social Security but also other policies such as access to pensions and retirement benefits, eligibility for favorable tax treatment, and eligibility for discounts on governmentally provided goods and services. In Part II, I examine different rationales underlying eligibility and discuss the imperfect fit between these rationales and the use of age cutoffs, as well as the likelihood that cutoffs will exacerbate disparities and disadvantage those with atypical life plans. In Part III, I consider different ways that age cutoffs might be reformed. One, the most realistic, is the option proposed for Medicare: extending eligibility downward to people earlier in life. But other options exist as well. One option, often advanced by those further to the political left, would completely eliminate age-based eligibility cutoffs in favor of universal programs such as Medicare for All. Another option would adjust age cutoffs upward or downward based on factors like geography or occupation, rather than basing eligibility on a one-size-fits-all cutoff. Yet another would replace age-based eligibility cutoffs with eligibility time periods, which are limited but can be started and ended flexibly: people could give up some eligibility time later in life in order to receive access during earlier periods
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
When, and How, Should Cognitive Bias Matter to Law
Full text linkRecent work in the behavioral sciences asserts that we are subject to a variety of cognitive biases. For example, we mourn losses more than we prize equivalently sized gains; we are more inclined to believe something if it matches our previous beliefs; and we even relate more warmly or coldly to others depending on whether the coffee cup we are holding is warm or cold. Drawing on this work, case law and legal scholarship have asserted that we have reason to select legal norms, or revise existing norms, so as to eliminate the influence of these and other cognitive biases.
In this Article, I critically evaluate whether and when this reaction is warranted. I begin by contrasting predominantly descriptive definitions of bias, on which bias is merely deviation from a predictive model, with prescriptive definition of bias, on which biased conduct is conduct that actors ought not do. I then similarly contrast the behavioral-scientific concepts of statistical significance and effect size with the concept of significance required to justify legal conclusions.
With this apparatus in place, I go on to consider a variety of examples where legal commentators and decisionmakers have worried about the effects of cognitive bias on law. I argue that many of these cognitive biases (for example, our aversion to losses), while reflecting deviations from behavioral scientists’ models of human behavior, are not normatively objectionable and so give us no reason to revise our legal norms to eliminate their effect. Others (e.g., the effect of judges’ hunger on their decisionmaking), however, constitute biases under both descriptive and prescriptive definitions and therefore give us good reason to revise our legal norms.
I conclude by contrasting my conclusion — that evaluation of cognitive biases’ legal significance must explicitly evaluate the normative arguments for and against the model of decisionmaking in question on a case-by-case basis — with the arguments of influential scientists and legal commentators like Daniel Kahneman and John Mikhail, who treat cognitive heuristics and biases as more broadly desirable or objectionable
Cost-Effectiveness in Animal Health: An Ethical Analysis
Full text linkThis chapter evaluates the ethical issues that using cost-effectiveness considerations to set animal health priorities might present, and its conclusions are cautiously optimistic. While using cost-effectiveness calculations in animal health is not without ethical pitfalls, these calculations offer a pathway toward more rigorous priority-setting efforts that allow money spent on animal well-being to do more good. Although assessing quality of life for animals may be more challenging than in humans, implementing prioritization based on cost-effectiveness is less ethically fraught
Considering Vaccination Status
No full textThis Article examines whether policies—sometimes termed “vaccine mandates” or “vaccine requirements”— that consider vaccination status as a condition of employment, receipt of goods and services, or educational or other activity for participation are legally permitted, and whether such policies may even sometimes be legally required. It does so with particular reference to COVID-19 vaccines.
Part I explains the legality of private actors, such as employers or private universities, considering vaccination status, and concludes that such consideration is almost always legally permissible unless foreclosed by specific state legislation. Part II examines the consideration of vaccination status by state or federal policy. It concludes that such consideration is similarly allowed at the state level unless expressly foreclosed, and is allowed at the federal level if appropriately supported by federal regulatory authority. Part III examines what may be a future front in these debates: whether policies considering vaccination status may be required rather than merely permitted, just as some courts have found that mask requirements may be federally required in certain circumstances
Authority without identity: defending advance directives via posthumous rights over one’s body
No full textEquality via mobility: Why socioeconomic mobility matters for relational equality, distributive equality, and equality of opportunity
No full textSince the economic crisis of 2008, think tanks have pursued research into the causes and effects of socioeconomic mobility; columnists and bloggers like Paul Krugman, Tyler Cowen, and Reihan Salam have debated whether mobility is desirable; and politicians — from both ends of the political spectrum and both sides of the Atlantic — have emphasized mobility’s importance. In contrast, socioeconomic mobility has received little attention from philosophers, who have instead focused their attention on social and economic inequality
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