A sufficiency threshold is not a harm principle: A better alternative to best interests for overriding parental decisions

Douglas Diekema influentially argues that interference with parental decisions is not in fact guided by the child’s best interests, but rather by a more permissive standard, which he calls the harm principle. This article first seeks to clarify this alternative position and defend it against certain existing criticisms, before offering a new criticism and alternative. This ‘harm principle’ has been criticized for (i) lack of adequate moral grounding, and (ii) being as indeterminate as the best interest standard that it seeks to replace. I argue that these are not serious problems. I take Diekema’s negative point to be right—our actual standard for intervention is not literally the best interests of the child—but I disagree with his proposed replacement. First, Diekema’s proposed harm threshold should be more carefully distinguished from Mill’s harm principle. Second, there is no reason to assume that the standard for permissible intervention coincides with the threshold for harm (or serious harm). Thus, I propose that the best alternative to the best interests standard is not a harm principle, but rather a sufficiency threshold between adequate (or ‘good enough’) and inadequate (or ‘substandard’) parenting.     

Faking it or making it: the politics of consumption and the precariousness of social mobility in South Africa

This article critically explores the complex and contradictory meanings attached to conspicuous consumption in an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It examines why un(der)employed young people, especially young Black men, view the trappings of wealth in their midst and dismiss them as ‘fake’. The article shows how the widespread concern with ‘faking it’ indexes the unstable links between consumption, status, and class differentiation in a time of generalized economic insecurity. Accordingly, it maintains that the accusation of ‘fakery’ is not only about jealousy and the dangers of being seen to accumulate money without redistributing it, but also a product of the precariousness that characterizes young people's lives. Ultimately, the article shows how consumption affords a unique window into the values, aspirations, and anxieties of young un(der)employed Black men in a context where ‘proper’ pathways to social mobility are, for most, completely out of reach.     

Intermediate Moral Respect and Proportionality Reasoning

In a recent article in this journal Jonathan Pugh critiques the idea of intermediate ‘moral respect’ which some say is owed to embryos. This concept is inherent within the ‘principle of proportionality’, the principle that destructive research on embryos is permissable only if the research serves an important purpose. Pugh poses two specific questions to proponents of the idea of intermediate moral respect. This article argues that while the questions posed by Pugh are certainly pertinent to the debate, the hypothetical responses he suggests to these questions do not quite get to the core of what is troublesome about the concept. The article suggests alternative responses to Pugh's questions in order to focus attention on more fundamental problems facing the idea of intermediate moral respect, while also pointing to how the intermediate moral respect proponent might best develop these responses. It goes on to argue that these hypothetical responses fail to answer convincingly the questions posed. More specifically, this article challenges two possible justifications for the distinct idea of intermediate moral respect, namely the argument from potentiality (the argument raised by Pugh) and an argument from the proportionality of fundamental moral status (not considered by Pugh). The article also raises a dilemma inherent in the application of the principle of proportionality to cases involving beings to which intermediate moral respect is owed even where it is allowed, ex hypothesi, that both the category of intermediate moral respect and the general proportionality reasoning underpinning the principle of proportionality are basically cogent. This article thus develops and adds to the challenge laid down by Pugh to proponents of the idea of intermediate moral respect.     

Conscientious objection,professional duty and compromise: A response to Savulescu and Schuklenk

In a recent article in this journal, Savulescu and Schuklenk defend and extend their earlier arguments against a right to medical conscientious objection in response to criticisms raised by Cowley. I argue that while it would be preferable to be less accommodating of medical conscientious than many countries currently are, Savulescu and Schuklenk's argument that conscientious objection is ‘simply unprofessional’ is mistaken. The professional duties of doctors should be defined in relation to the interests of patients and society, and for reasons set out in this article, these may support limited accommodation of conscientious objection on condition that it does not impede access to services. Moreover, the fact that conscientious objection appears to involve unjustifiable compromise from the objector's point of view is not a reason for society not to offer that compromise. Arguing for robust enforcement of the no‐impediment condition, rather than opposing conscientious objection in principle, may be a more effective way of addressing the harms resulting from an over‐permissive conscientious objection policy.     

‘Alive by default’: An exploration of Velleman’s unfair burdens argument against state sanctioned euthanasia

In this article we critically evaluate an argument against state-sanctioned euthanasia made by David Velleman in his 1992 paper ‘Against the right to die’. In that article, Velleman argues that legalizing euthanasia is morally problematic as it will deprive eligible patients of the opportunity of staying ‘alive by default’. That is to say, those patients who are rendered eligible for euthanasia as a result of legislative reform will face the burden of having to justify their continued existence to their epistemic peers if they are to be perceived as ‘reasonable’. We discuss potential criticisms that could be made of the argument, and consider how a defender of the view might respond. Velleman’s argument is particularly interesting as it is a consequentialist argument against state-sanctioned euthanasia, challenging the many consequentialist arguments that have been made in favour of legalizing the procedure. We conclude by suggesting that further research on the question of unfair burdens is important to adequately evaluating the potential harms of legalizing euthanasia for patients at the end of life.     

Revolución o muerte: Self-Sacrifice and the Ontology of Cuban Revolution

With reference to the experience of the Cuban Revolution, this article addresses what may be called the ‘late revolutionary paradox’: How can so many people in countries such as Cuba continue to pledge visceral allegiance to their revolution while at the same time expressing deep disaffection with it? My main claim is that the paradox is a product of an undue analytical emphasis on the ideological content of revolutionary discourse, with its mantra-like evocations of ‘process’, ‘change’, ‘emancipation’ and other discursive projections into the future. Seen from the point of view of its form as a socio-political event, I argue, revolution turns on a deeper premise, namely the commitment to self-sacrifice, i.e. the assumption that revolutionary subjects are defined by their potential death in defence of the revolution. The premise of self-sacrifice, I argue, lends revolutionary politics a peculiar ontological foundation that makes it radically different to, broadly, ‘liberal’ understandings of politics. This difference, I show, dissolves the putative ‘paradox’ of later revolutionary societies such as Cuba, allowing revolutionary subjects to sustain a sense of revolutionary conviction in the face of the many historical contingencies that would seem otherwise to make such enduring convictions increasingly difficult to sustain.     

Autonomy,Natality and Freedom: A Liberal Re‐examination of Habermas in the Enhancement Debate

Jurgen Habermas has argued that carrying out pre‐natal germline enhancements would be inimical to the future child's autonomy. In this article, I suggest that many of the objections that have been made against Habermas' arguments by liberals in the enhancement debate misconstrue his claims. To explain why, I begin by explaining how Habermas' view of personal autonomy confers particular importance to the agent's embodiment and social environment. In view of this, I explain that it is possible to draw two arguments against germline enhancements from Habermas' thought. I call these arguments ‘the argument from negative freedom’ and ‘the argument from natality’. Although I argue that many of the common liberal objections to Habermas are not applicable when his arguments are properly understood, I go on to suggest ways in which supporters of enhancement might appropriately respond to Habermas' arguments.     

Biofuels – for better or worse?

The present world population is largely fed by ‘industrialised agriculture’. This, in turn, depends on massive inputs of fossil fuels. While this energy expenditure is inescapable, it is an expensive way of ‘converting oil into potatoes'. Arguably, in view of global climate change, ever increasing population, ever increasing oil prices, ever diminishing availability of water and arable land, this is not sustainable. Despite the fact that biofuels inevitably compete for resources that might otherwise be used to grow, store and distribute food, they are frequently held to be desirable and feasible ‘green’ substitutes for fossil fuels and even that they spare carbon emissions to the atmosphere. This article challenges the absurdity of such ‘retro-agriculture’ (i.e. except in a few local circumstances) incurring yet more energy expenditure. It seeks to illustrate the misinformation on which some of the advocacy of biofuels has been based.     

Valuing Lives and Allocating Resources: A Defense of the Modified Youngest First Principle of Scarce Resource Distribution

In this paper, I argue that the ‘modified youngest first’ principle provides a morally appropriate criterion for making decisions regarding the distribution of scarce medical resources, and that it is morally preferable to the simple ‘youngest first’ principle. Based on the complete lives system's goal of maximizing complete lives rather than individual life episodes, I argue that essential to the value we see in complete lives is the first person value attributed by the experiencer of that life. For a life to be ‘complete’ or ‘incomplete,’ the subject of that life must be able to understand the concept of a complete life, to have started goals and projects, and to know what it would be for that life to be complete. As the very young are not able to do this, it can reasonably be said that their characteristically human lives have not yet begun, giving those accepting a complete lives approach good reason to accept the modified youngest first principle over a simple ‘youngest first’ approach.     

Sieve-plate pores,open or occluded? A critical review

Abstract It is widely believed that there is a growing body of evidence that sieve plate pores in functioning phloem are open and quite free from obstruction. The arguments used to establish this idea are critically examined one by one and the conclusion is reached that it has very little foundation in published work. On the contrary, the view that sieve plate pores are delicately-occluded with P-protein in the angiosperms has much more evidence to substantiate it. Since ‘open’ and ‘occluded’ are physiologically defined this means that the pressure-flow hypothesis must be regarded as seriously in doubt.     

A critique of the principle of ‘respect for autonomy’, grounded in African thought

I give an account how the principle of ‘respect for autonomy’ dominates the field of bioethics, and how it came to triumph over its competitors, ‘respect for persons’ and ‘respect for free power of choice’. I argue that ‘respect for autonomy’ is unsatisfactory as a basic principle of bioethics because it is grounded in too individualistic a worldview, citing concerns of African theorists and other communitarians who claim that the principle fails to acknowledge the fundamental importance of understanding persons within the nexus of their communal relationships. I defend the claim that ‘respect for persons’ is a more appropriate principle, as it is able to acknowledge both individual decision making and the essential relationality of persons. I acknowledge that my preference for ‘respect for persons’ is problematic because of the important debate around the definition of ‘personhood’ in bioethics discourse. Relying on Thaddeus Metz's conception of moral status, I propose a relational definition of personhood that distinguishes between persons with agency and persons without agency, arguing that we have different moral obligations to these distinct categories of persons. I claim that this conception of personhood is better able to accommodate our moral intuitions than conventional approaches, and that it is able to do so without being speciesist or question‐begging.     

Roadwork: expertise at work building roads in the Maldives

This article engages critically with concepts of ‘skill’, ‘expertise’, and ‘capacity’ as they operate as markers of distinction and domination and shape migratory labour relations among road construction workers from across South Asia in the Maldives archipelago. The article examines roadwork at three levels: the professional biographies leading to ‘flexible specialization’ rather than technical expertise amongst Maldivian managers; the technical expertise and social incorporation of ‘skilled’ Sri Lankan supervisors; and the key material expertise of ‘non-skilled’ Bangladeshi labourers in precarious employment. Whilst discussions of South Asian labour migration have been dominated by caste and class, this article argues that it is important to consider how the cultural production and understanding of concepts such as ‘expertise’, ‘capacity’, and ‘exposure’ at worksites can (also) become distinguishing factors in (hierarchical) migratory labour relations.     

Omarakana revisited,or ‘do dual organizations exist?’ in the Trobriands

Omarakana is arguably the most renowned village in the Trobriand and anthropological worlds. It is the very centre and wellspring of the North Kiriwinan universe and thus a sacred site, serving as the home of the Tabalu chiefly paramountcy. For us anthropologists, it is ground zero for our field methodology, thanks to Malinowski's pioneering research, and probably Melanesia's most hierarchical polity. Ironically, though, very little is actually known ethnographically about Omarakana's spatial layout. In this article I seek to compensate for that deficiency, arguing that Omarakana's seemingly concentric contours encode transformations of indigenous symbolism involving recurrent metaphors drawn from at least three conjoined semantic contexts of wide distribution across the Austronesian sphere and beyond: the double bisection of ‘male’ versus ‘female’; the botanical imagery of ‘base’, ‘body’, ‘tip’, and ‘fruit’; and various elements of ‘canoe’ symbolism. This alternative view of Omarakana's spatio‐temporal plan sheds new light on various additional dimensions of Trobriand sociality and cosmology while elaborating classic and contemporary anthropological theories of dualism.     

The tribunal of philosophy and its norms: history and philosophy in Georges Canguilhem’s historical epistemology

In this article I assess Georges Canguilhem’s historical epistemology with both theoretical and historical questions in mind. From a theoretical point of view, I am concerned with the relation between history and philosophy, and in particular with the philosophical assumptions and external norms that are involved in history writing. Moreover, I am concerned with the role that history can play in the understanding and evaluation of philosophical concepts. From a historical point of view, I regard historical epistemology, as developed by Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, as a conception and practice which came out of the project, elaborated in France from the 1920s to the 1940s, of combining history of science and philosophy. I analyse in particular Canguilhem’s epistemology in his theory and practice of history of science. What he called ‘normative history’ is the focus of my analysis. I evaluate the question of the nature and provenience of the norm employed in normative history, and I compare it with the norm as discussed by Canguilhem in Le normal et le pathologique. While I am critical of Canguilhem’s treatment of history, I conclude that his philosophical suggestion to analyse the formation of scientific concepts ‘from below’ represents a useful model for history and philosophy of science, and that it can be very profitably extended to philosophical concepts.     

The play of ‘dirty politics’: ordinary ethics and the evidence of experience on the workfloor in New Delhi,India

This article explores the tensed sociality amongst precariously employed service economy workers in the retail outlets of a prominent eyewear company in New Delhi, India. The bickering staff label the ongoing interpersonal strife ‘dirty politics’. Linked to this are their confident assertions that, in fact, all politics is dirty, and dirty politics is the only type of politics possible – rejecting formal party politics and labour unions as morally vacuous and motivated by utilitarian individualism. Engaging with the anthropology of ordinary ethics, the article demonstrates how the affectively charged experience and talk of petty politicking on the neoliberal workfloor provides critical ‘evidence’ that ‘confirms’ such a politico-ethical view.     

The (in)complete organelle genome: exploring the use and nonuse of available technologies for characterizing mitochondrial and plastid chromosomes

Not long ago, scientists paid dearly in time, money and skill for every nucleotide that they sequenced. Today, DNA sequencing technologies epitomize the slogan ‘faster, easier, cheaper and more’, and in many ways, sequencing an entire genome has become routine, even for the smallest laboratory groups. This is especially true for mitochondrial and plastid genomes. Given their relatively small sizes and high copy numbers per cell, organelle DNAs are currently among the most highly sequenced kind of chromosome. But accurately characterizing an organelle genome and the information it encodes can require much more than DNA sequencing and bioinformatics analyses. Organelle genomes can be surprisingly complex and can exhibit convoluted and unconventional modes of gene expression. Unravelling this complexity can demand a wide assortment of experiments, from pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis to Southern and Northern blots to RNA analyses. Here, we show that it is exactly these types of ‘complementary’ analyses that are often lacking from contemporary organelle genome papers, particularly short ‘genome announcement’ articles. Consequently, crucial and interesting features of organelle chromosomes are going undescribed, which could ultimately lead to a poor understanding and even a misrepresentation of these genomes and the genes they express. High‐throughput sequencing and bioinformatics have made it easy to sequence and assemble entire chromosomes, but they should not be used as a substitute for or at the expense of other types of genomic characterization methods.     

‘It's true,I'm English… I'm not lying’: essentialized and precarious English identities

This article explores relationships between Englishness and racialization in order to consider the potential for English identities that are progressive in anti-essentialist or multicultural terms. The article draws on data from interviews in which people from a South London area talk about Englishness. I will examine how English identities are understood by participants who are white and participants who are not white. While white participants experience Englishness as a taken-for-granted identity, for participants who are not white English identities are a more calculated, precarious performance. I will then examine discussions of ‘who can be English’. While most participants argue that ‘anyone can be English’ in principle, this is not necessarily the case in practice. It will be suggested that talk of Englishness is particularly constrained by relationships between Englishness, whiteness and ancestry, but that for those who experience Englishness as precarious there are signs that this is not necessarily the case.