Thinking theologically about reproductive and genetic enhancements: the challenge.

Current philosophical and legal bioethical reflections on reprogenetics provides little more than a rationalization of the interests of science. There are two reasons for this. First, bioethicists attempt to address ethical issues in a "language of precision" that characterizes science, and this works against analogical and narratological modes of discourse that have traditionally provided guidance for understanding human nature and purpose. Second, the current ethical and legal debate is framed by a public/private distinction that banishes robust norms to the private realm, and leaves a minimalist public discourse of harm avoidance that is insuffucient for regulating the science. In this essay, I argue that Mark Hanson's account of anxiety provides a valuable starting point for addressing deficiencies in the current philosophical and legal debate, and it highlights the need for a theological discourse on genetic enhancements. Through an assessment of Joel Shuman's criticism of the public/private distinction, I show how the needed theological discourse should be situated in the context of robust communities, and how such a communitarian inter-ethic is compatible with a variant of liberalism. Finally, I critically assess James Keenan's account of virtue and perfection, in order to outline what a sufficient discourse on reproductive and genetic enhancements requires.     

Thinking about luck

Luck looms large in numerous different philosophical subfields. Unfortunately, work focused exclusively on the nature of luck is in short supply on the contemporary analytic scene. In his highly impressive recent book Epistemic Luck, Duncan Pritchard helps rectify this neglect by presenting a partial account of luck that he uses to illuminate various ways luck can figure in cognition. In this paper, I critically evaluate both Pritchard’s account of luck and another account to which Pritchard’s discussion draws our attention—viz., that due to Nicholas Rescher. I also assess some novel analyses of luck that incorporate plausible elements of Pritchard’s and Rescher’s accounts.     

对几种临床定势思维的思考

思维定势有权威定势、从众定势、经验定势、唯书本定势、情感定势。思维定势制约我们创新思想的发展,要更好实践临床工作,必须客观评价各种思维定势,主动进行创新思维训练。本文分别对各种思维定势在临床工作中的体现、优劣进行表述,并举例说明。     

对几种临床定势思维的思考

思维定势有权威定势、从众定势、经验定势、唯书本定势、情感定势.思维定势制约我们创新思想的发展,要更好实践临床工作,必须客观评价各种思维定势,主动进行创新思维训练.本文分别对各种思维定势在临床工作中的体现、优劣进行表述,并举例说明.     

Thinking Clearly about Violence

Philosophical Studies -     

Thinking about feeling historical

This essay looks at the waning of melodramatic event genres in contemporary attempts to think historical experience. It telegraphs this engagement in four passages that pursue how to write the history of the present under conditions of crisis within the ordinary: in the first instance, AIDS/IRAQ are the goads, in the second, a more generalized but not apolitical atmosphere where the contemporary is encountered not as trauma but flatness.     

Thinking about thinking and feeling about feeling

Traditional clinical psychology generally posits "mental" events that differ from "behavioral" events. Mental events are not publicly observable, take place in a different dimension from overt behavior, and are the topic of primary concern. For example, mental events are often taken to be causes of troublesome overt behavior. In addition, the mental events themselves may be regarded as troublesome, independent of their relation to any specific overt behavior. Therapy is usually aimed at fixing these troublesome mental events, under an assumption that improvement in the client's status will follow in due course. Behavior analysis has its own position on the relations among clinical matters, overt behavior, and such private events as thinking and feeling. In a behavior-analytic view, private events are behavioral phenomena rather than mental phenomena. They are not initiating causes of behavior; rather, they are themselves caused by antecedent conditions, but they may contribute to discriminative control over subsequent behavior, both verbal and nonverbal. Verbal processes are viewed as vitally important in understanding troublesome behavior. However, the circumstances that cause both the troublesome private events and the troublesome behavior in the first place still need to be addressed. Finally, clinical behavior analysis will need to market its insights into diagnosis and treatment very adroitly, because it rejects the mentalism upon which most traditional forms of therapy are predicated and the mentalism that most consumers expect to encounter.