GENETIC TIES: ARE THEY MORALLY BINDING?

Does genetic relatedness define who is a mother or father and who incurs obligations towards or entitlements over children? While once the answer to this question may have been obvious, advances in reproductive technologies have complicated our understanding of what makes a parent. In a recent publication Bayne and Kolers argue for a pluralistic account of parenthood on the basis that genetic derivation, gestation, extended custody and sometimes intention to parent are sufficient (but not necessary) grounds for parenthood. ¹ 1 Bayne, T. & Kolers, A. . Toward A Pluralist Account of Parenthood . Bioethics 2003 ; 17 : 221 – 242 .
Bayne and Kolers further suggest that definitions of parenthood are underpinned by the assumption that ‘being causally implicated in the creation of a child is the key basis for being its parent’. ² 2 Ibid. p. 241.
This paper examines the claim that genetic relatedness is sufficient grounds for parenthood based on a causal connection between genetic parents and their offspring. I argue that parental obligations are about moral responsibility and not causal responsibility because we are not morally accountable for every consequence to which we causally contribute. My account includes the conditions generally held to apply to moral responsibility, i.e. freedom and foreseeability. I argue that parental responsibilities are generated whenever the birth of a child is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of voluntary actions. I consider the implications of this account for third parties involved in reproductive technologies. I argue that under some conditions the obligations generated by freely and foreseeably causing a child to exist can be justifiably transferred to others.     

Researching ethnicity,identity, subjectivity: anything but the four-lettered word

This article gives a frank account of how anthropological research on Cape Verdean migrant experiences of parenthood in Portugal developed from avoiding the use of the analytical concept of ‘race’ to encountering ‘race’ as a category of practice in fieldwork and discusses the implications of this for analysing the data. Although the aim of the research was to look beyond categorizations, in order to explore the emotional dimensions of lived experience, the effects of ‘racial automatisms’ upon migrant subjectivities cannot be ignored. Racist effects are nonetheless distinguished from racist intentions. The ethnography elucidates the political potential of ‘race’ to foment critical reflection upon the relationship between an individual's personal and collective identities.     

CLONING, PARENTHOOD, AND GENETIC RELATEDNESS

In this paper I examine what I take to be the best case for reproductive human cloning, as a medical procedure designed to overcome infertility, and argue that it founders on an irresolvable tension in the attitude towards the importance of being ‘genetically related’ to our children implied in the desire to clone. Except in the case where couples are cloning a child they have previously conceived naturally, cloning is unable to establish the right sort of genetic relation to make couples the parents of their cloned child. If anybody is the genetic parent of a cloned child it is the natural parent(s) of the DNA donor. Paradoxically, in order to resist the claims of the parents of the donor to the cloned child, the argument for human reproductive cloning must place more weight on the intention to parent a child, than we do in cases of ordinary reproduction. It must insist that the parental relation is established by the intentions of the couple who bring a clone into the world and not by their genetic relation to the child. The emphasis placed on intention as establishing the parental relationship works to undermine the justification for cloning in the first place. For cloning to play a useful role as a reproductive technology, it must allow couples to become parents who could do so no other way. However, to the extent that intention is sufficient to establish parenthood, adoption or surrogacy, which are existing alternatives to cloning, will serve equally well to allow couples to become parents.     

ORPHANS BY DESIGN: THE FUTURE OF GENETIC PARENTHOOD

Establishing the nature of genetic parenthood is an important task. This is, firstly, because many people desire that relationship and it is in their interest to know what that is, and secondly, because there is a view that it may incur certain moral obligations between the genetic parent and their child. Many theorists have made attempts to define exactly what genetic parenthood is. I show that these definitions are deficient if they wish to fully capture all reproductive scenarios in ways that are intuitive and/or meaningful. Through a series of cases involving technologies such as cloning and genome editing, we see that in lieu of the traditional two parents, there are possible beings who have no genetic parents, one genetic parent, or many genetic parents. Establishing these cases complicates our understanding of genetic parenthood. From this, we must reconsider current definitions, as well as the usefulness of defining genetic parenthood in these complex cases. Here I do not aim to establish a new definition, but rather to suggest that this complexity makes it necessary to re‐assess the importance of the connection between genetic parenthood and parental obligations and authorities.     

Serial Callers: Communication Technologies and Political Personhood in Contemporary Uganda

ABSTRACT

Together, radio and mobile phones have been the object of many political expectations held by development actors in Africa. Stating that they enable ‘participation’ is, however, not enough to understand what is at stake in a given context. It is necessary to describe exactly the kind of participation taking place. Despite development projects inceptors’ intentions, the way people use ICT (information and communication technologies) objects sometimes leads to a rerouting of their political meaning. This article deciphers these sideway uses and what they imply in the Ugandan context. Based on the example of ‘serial callers' (people who intensively call in during radio talk shows), it demonstrates that ICT objects become the site of the elaboration of particular ways of conceiving one's roles, status and duties in the polity, as an ‘educator’ or a ‘representative’, blurring established distinctions between political representation and participation, and offers a nuanced picture of the complexities of patronage politics.     

Memory of Social Partners in Hermit Crab Dominance

We investigated the possibility that invertebrates recognize conspecific individuals by studying dominance relationships in the long‐clawed hermit crab, Pagurus longicarpus. We conducted three sets of laboratory experiments to define the time limits for acquiring and maintaining memory of an individual opponent. The results reveal two characteristics that make individual recognition in this species different from standard associative learning tasks. Firstly, crabs do not require training over many repeated trials; rather, they show evidence of recognition after a single 30‐min exposure to a stimulus animal. Secondly, memory lasts for up to 4 d of isolation without reinforcement. A third interesting feature of individual recognition in this species is that familiar opponents are recognized even before the formation of a stable hierarchical rank. That is, recognition seems to be relatively independent of repeated wins (rewards) or losses (punishments) in a dominance hierarchy. The experimental protocol allowed us to show that this species is able to classify conspecifics into two ‘heterogeneous subgroups’, i.e. familiar vs. unfamiliar individuals, but not to discriminate one individual of a group from every other conspecific from ‘a unique set of cues defining that individual’. In other words, we demonstrated a ‘binary’– and not a ‘true’– individual recognition. However, 1 d of interactions with different crabs did not erase the memory of a former rival, suggesting that P. longicarpus uses a system of social partner discrimination more refined than previously shown.     

Empowered imagination and mental vulnerability: local theory of mind and spiritual experience in Vanuatu

‘Theory of mind’ in developmental psychology focuses on how children develop the ability to infer others’ beliefs, desires, and intentions. Anthropologists have taken up the notion of ‘theory of mind’ to explore the way cultural differences in representations of beliefs, desires, and intentions affect everyday lives. In Oceania, anthropologists have noted that inferences about others’ intentions are not accorded a privileged role in social interaction. In Vanuatu, I find, it is often the material, rather than immaterial, aspects of relatedness that are elaborated upon. People think about knowledge, creativity, meaning, and intention not as confined to a bounded mental or inner domain, but as discoverable through the body, and in the world at large. I argue here that this propensity to locate meaning and moral purpose as external to the mind corresponds to a ‘porous’ view of self and mind, and that this in turn may open people to experience vivid, intense, and often tangible forms of spiritual encounter.     

The missing link between neurobiology and behavior in Aplysia conditioning

Over the past decades, a wealth of findings has led to a substantial change in the assumed complexity of classical conditioning. The combined evidence indicates that temporal pairing is neither necessary nor sufficient for the formation of an associative connection. At the same time, studies of model invertebrate nervous systems have allowed us to ask a series of questions about the molecular basis of associative conditioning. The discovery of a pairing-sensitive mechanism in the gill-withdrawal circuitry of Aplysia is regarded as the hallmark of the reductionist approach. This review outlines the insights gathered from behavioral and neurobiological studies. Furthermore, the conceptual frameworks guiding research at the ‘what’ and ‘how’ levels of analysis are compared and contrasted. I argue that a rich cognitive view of conditioning has emerged at the ‘what’ level, whereas the traditional notion of temporal pairing still drives research at the ‘how’ level. A complete account of classical conditioning has to await the resolving of this discordance.     

GOING FROM PRINCIPLES TO RULES IN RESEARCH ETHICS

In research ethics there is a canon regarding what ethical rules ought to be followed by investigators vis‐à‐vis their treatment of subjects and a canon regarding what fundamental ethical principles apply to the endeavor. What I aim to demonstrate here is that several of the rules find no support in the principles. This leaves anyone who would insist that we not abandon those rules in the difficult position of needing to establish that we are nevertheless justified in believing in the validity of the rules. I conclude by arguing that this is not likely to be accomplished. The rules I call into question are the rules requiring:

• – that studies be designed in a scientifically valid way
• – that risks to subjects be minimized
• – that subjects be afforded post‐trial access to experimental interventions
• – that inducements paid to subjects not be counted as a benefit to them
• – that inducements paid to subjects not be ‘undue’
• – that subjects must remain free to withdraw from the study at any time for any reason without penalty

Both canons, the canon on principles and the canon on rules, are found in the overlap among ethical pronouncements that are themselves canonical: the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, CIOMS's International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, and NBAC's 2001 report, Ethical Issues in International Research: Clinical Trials in Developing Countries.     

IS PAYMENT A BENEFIT?

What I call ‘the standard view’ claims that IRBs should not regard financial payment as a benefit to subjects for the purpose of risk/benefit assessment. Although the standard view is universally accepted, there is little defense of that view in the canonical documents of research ethics or the scholarly literature. This paper claims that insofar as IRBs should be concerned with the interests and autonomy of research subjects, they should reject the standard view and adopt ‘the incorporation view.’ The incorporation view is more consistent with the underlying soft‐paternalist justification for risk‐benefit assessment and demonstrates respect for the autonomy of prospective subjects. Adoption of the standard view precludes protocols that advance the interests of subjects, investigators, and society. After considering several objections to the argument, I consider several arguments for the standard view that do not appeal to the interests and autonomy of research subjects.     

Individuals and groups in evolution: Darwinian pluralism and the multilevel selection debate

Outlined here is an updated review of the long-standing ‘kin selection vs group selection’ debate. Group selection is a highly contentious concept, scientifically and philosophically. In 2012, Dawkins’ attack against Wilson’s latest book about eusociality concentrated all the attention on group selection and its mutual exclusivity with respect to inclusive fitness theory. Both opponents seem to be wrong, facing the general consensus in the field, which favours a pluralistic approach. Historically, despite some misunderstandings in current literature, such a perspective is clearly rooted in Darwin’s writings, which suggested a plurality of levels of selection and a general view that we propose to call ‘imperfect selfishness’. Today, the mathematically updated hypothesis of group selection has little to do with earlier versions of ‘group selection’. It does not imply ontologically unmanageable notions of ‘groups’. We propose here population structure as the main criterion of compatibility between kin selection and group selection. The latter is now evidently a pattern among others within a more general ‘multilevel selection’ theory. Different explanations and patterns are not mutually exclusive. Such a Darwinian pluralism is not a piece of the past, but a path into the future. A challenge in philosophy of biology will be to figure out the logical structure of this emerging pluralistic theory of evolution in such contentious debates.     

GENETIC ENGINEERING TO AVOID GENETIC NEGLECT: FROM CHANCE TO RESPONSIBILITY

Currently our assessment of whether someone is a good parent depends on the environmental inputs (or lack of such inputs) they give their children. But new genetic intervention technologies, to which we may soon have access, mean that how good a parent is will depend also on the genetic inputs they give their children. Each new piece of available technology threatens to open up another way that we can neglect our children. Our obligations to our children and our susceptibilities to corresponding legal and moral sanctions may be about to explosively increase. In this paper I argue that we should treat conventional neglect and ‘genetic neglect’– failing to use genetic intervention technologies to prevent serious diseases and disabilities – morally consistently. I conclude that in a range of cases parents will have a moral obligation to use genetic treatments to prevent serious disabilities in their children. My particular focus is on prenatal interventions and their impact of the bodily integrity of expectant mothers. I conclude that although bodily integrity constrains moral obligations, it is outweighed in a range of cases.     

Investment in the public good through conditional phenotypes of large effect

We investigate the evolution of an individual's willingness to invest in a public good (what we call, helping) in a patch‐structured population with limited natal dispersal. We assume that an individual's decision to invest is informed by its dispersal status: an individual makes one decision given it is native to the patch on which it breeds, and is free to make a different decision given that it is not native to the patch on which it breeds. Unlike previous work, we assume that investment in the public good, and the public good, itself, both have a large effect on individual fecundity. Kin selection analysis reveals that only extreme investment decisions (i.e. ‘always invest’ or ‘never invest’) can be evolutionarily stable. Numerical results suggest that the evolutionary instability of the ‘never invest’ phenotype (what we call, complete nonhelping) implies the evolutionary stability of ‘always invest’ (what we call, complete helping). In addition, numerical results show that bistability of extreme phenotypes is possible, indicating that the adaptive significance of altruism, in this context, is greater than has been previously recognized. Numerical results are supported by computer simulation, and results, themselves, are briefly discussed in a concluding section.     

A failing anthropology of colonial failure: following a driver's uniform found at Amani research station,Tanzania

The remains of Amani, a century-old scientific laboratory in Tanzania, are quintessential modern relics. When anthropologists turn to such infrastructures of, originally colonial, knowledge-making, their own implication with the object of their study – and with its epistemological and political-economic origins and order – becomes part of the ethnographic pursuit. This entanglement between researcher and research material should challenge familiar realist modes of ethnographic writing ‘about’ such places that elude the anthropologists’ own, compromised position within them. Matters are complicated further when the studied knowledge-making sites already are broken, having failed their purpose – as in the case of the vestiges of an abandoned colonial institution. In this essay, I wonder how such ruins of knowledge-making might transform the knowledge made by anthropologists working within them. Instead of just adding ‘reflexive’ confessions to realist accounts, could writing take part in the defeat that the scientific station's remains seem to embody – writing not ‘after/beyond’ but ‘going along with’ failure? Drawing on non-representational ethnography, and poet-anthropologist Hubert Fichte's embrace of epistemic defeat as anticolonial method, I trace my engagements with just one fragment of the scientific station – a driver's uniform. In doing so, I experiment with an object ethnography that ‘fails’ to detach author and object, or settle the question of failure, and instead foregrounds performativity, ambiguity, and mirth as starting points for an ethnography of, and in, our modern ruins.     

Contemporary Urban Buddhist ‘Cults’ and the Socio-Political Order in Thailand

This paper is concerned with the ongoing intense interest in Thailand of two controversial urban Buddhist movements which have appeared since the beginning of the seventies, Santi Asok and Thammakaai. Essentially, I view both as a resonance of the perceived need for ‘change’ among an articulate aspiring new middle class. I also argue that both Santi Asok and Thammakaai in their expressions — Thammakaai the specious discursive function of capital, Santi Asok by confrontation and spurning what they consider an ‘amoralistic’ establishment — are predicating a radical critique of the Thai social order, a call for collective ‘inner-worldly activism’ and ‘individualistic’ reflexive response to convention.     

Determinants of child-bearing intentions of low-income women: attitudes versus life circumstances.

Surveys of low-income women in Los Angeles County in 1985 and 1986 were used to examine the relative impact of child-bearing motivations versus life circumstances on the intention to have a(nother) child. Future child-bearing intentions are strongly related to current parity level regardless of marital status, race/ethnicity or economic status. Psychological motivating factors predict child-bearing intentions of nulliparous women, but not those of parous women. Multivariate analyses showed that motivation for parenthood and life circumstances combined predicted women's child-bearing intentions 88.6% of the time for nulliparous women, but 73.7% for parous women. These findings suggest that, in a low-income population, the onset of parenthood reduces the relationship between specific motivations for child-bearing and actual child-bearing intentions, and diminishes the ability to predict child-bearing intentions based on both attitudinal and social/structural factors.     

Adaptation and Natural Selection revisited

In Adaptation and Natural Selection, George C. Williams linked the distinction between group and individual adaptation with the distinction between group and individual selection. Williams’ Principle, as we will call it, says that adaptation at a level requires selection at that level. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition; for example, group adaptation requires group selection, but the fact that group selection influences a trait’s evolution does not suffice for the resulting trait frequency to be a group adaptation. What more is required? In this paper, we describe an answer to this question that has been developed in multilevel selection theory. We also discuss an alternative framework for defining units of adaptation that violates Williams’ Principle.     

Changes In Rhesus Macaque 'Coo' Vocalizations during Early Development

In order to test whether ‘coo’ calls of young rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, undergo some modifications during early development, and to explore which factors may influence these changes, we studied the ontogeny of their contact call, the ‘coo’ call. Vocalizations were recorded during brief periods of social separation. Infants were either raised with their mothers and other conspecifics, or separated from their mothers at birth and housed in a nursery with other infants. We recorded calls uttered in the separation context from 20 infants. We digitized the first 50 calls of a given series and subjected them to a Fourier transform. From each frequency–time spectrum, we extracted 65 acoustic parameters using a software program (LMA 5.9). We then used a cluster analysis to separate the ‘coo’ calls from other call types. With increasing age, the ‘coos’ dropped in pitch and became more even. The course of amplitude became more constant and the call duration increased slightly. Nevertheless, we found a high intra‐individual variation throughout the 5 mo. Neither rearing condition nor sex had any apparent influence on age‐related changes in ‘coo’ structure. With one exception, all parameters that correlated with age could be explained by variation in weight. Therefore, we conclude that growth is the main factor accounting for the observed changes.     

Nobody likes to sleep alone: aspiring to kinship futures in post-Soviet Cuba

In post-Soviet Cuba, instead of the political future envisioned by Revolutionary authorities, poor residents of Havana aspire to create kinship futures where there is no need to ‘sleep alone’. Here, the idea of ‘sleeping together’ represents a trustworthy social bond that shelters a person from loneliness over time. For these habaneros, sexual love between men and women cannot be trusted, since it is often plagued by suspicions of material interest. By contrast, they view parent-child connections as a way to secure a cared-for future for themselves. Nevertheless, as Cuban socialism undergoes transformations, gendered inequalities create obstacles for many people's aspirations for parenthood. This article explores the contrast between sexual and filial love in Cubans’ efforts to create kinship futures for themselves, thereby adding to our understandings of poor people's life projects.     

Fleck and the social constitution of scientific objectivity

Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought-styles has been hailed as a pioneer of constructivist science studies and sociology of scientific knowledge. But this consensus ignores an important feature of Fleck’s epistemology. At the core of his account is the ideal of ‘objective truth, clarity, and accuracy’. I begin with Fleck’s account of modern natural science, locating the ideal of scientific objectivity within his general social epistemology. I then draw on Fleck’s view of scientific objectivity to improve upon reflexive accounts of the origin and development of the theory of thought-styles, and reply to objections that Fleck’s epistemological stance is self-undermining or inconsistent. Explicating the role of scientific objectivity in Fleck’s epistemology reveals his view to be an internally consistent alternative to recent social accounts of scientific objectivity by Harding, Daston and Galison. I use these contrasts to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of Fleck’s innovative social epistemology, and propose modifications to address the latter. The result is a renewed version of Fleck’s social epistemology, which reconciles commitment to scientific objectivity with integrated sociology, history and philosophy of science.