COMMENTS ON SIX RESPONSES TO DEMOCRACY AND TRADITION

This paper is a rejoinder to papers by Sabina Lovibond, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Sumner B. Twiss, G. Scott Davis, M. Cathleen Kaveny, and John Kelsay on the author's recent book Democracy and Tradition. The argument covers a host of topics, ranging from epistemology and methodology to human rights, the common law, and Islamic ethics.     

Forget about equality.

Justice is widely thought to consist in equality. For many theorists, the central question has been: Equality of what? The author argues that the ideal of equality distorts practical reasoning and has deeply counterintuitive implications. Moreover, an alternative view of distributive justice can give a better account of what egalitarians should care about than can any of the competing ideals of equality.     

Managed care: how economic incentive reforms went wrong

In its response to pressures to rationalize health care resource allocation, the American health care system has embraced managed care without concurrent comprehensive health care reform, either in the form of the centralized tax-based systems found in Europe and Canada or that of the Clinton reform plan. What survives is managed care without managed competition, employer mandates, or universal access. Two problems inherent in the incentive structure of managed care plans developed in the absence of comprehensive health care reform work against the public interest. First, sacrifices in terms of medical innovation and quality of care may not be offset by greater equity in the distribution of health care. Second, such managed care plans fail to address the need for long-term accountability.     

TWO GENERATIONS OF MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS: ROLE POSITION AND INTERDEPENDENCE

Using both partners as informants and three interdependence measures (contact, aid, and attachment) as criterion variables, we address the assumption that women's orientation to and dependence on other generations differ because of unique roles. In 135 pairs of student women and their mothers and 119 pairs of middle-aged women and their mothers, we ask how a woman's role position interacts with her partner's role position in regard to interdependence. Both dyadic and individual role combinations are examined. In younger pairs, we examine the combination of daughter's marital status and both mother's launching and work statuses; in older pairs, we examine the combination of mother's marital status and both daughter's launching and marital statuses. Regression analyses demonstrate that, except for younger pairs where married daughters and their mothers are less interdependent than single daughters and their mothers, interdependence is remarkably unrelated to role positions, singly or in combination. Results suggest normative pressures toward new conjugal bonds and stability in women's family roles.     

Modeling and the Michigan Experimental Simulation Supervisor: An overview and some prospects

A data-generating system (MESS) is described which facilitates the construction and study of behavioral science models of various types. The system provides a spectrum of options that make it possible to employ MESS in a variety of classroom situations with relatively unsophisticated students.     

Assessing Growth in a Diagnostic Classification Model Framework

A common assessment research design is the single-group pre-test/post-test design in which examinees are administered an assessment before instruction and then another assessment after instruction. In this type of study, the primary objective is to measure growth in examinees, individually and collectively. In an item response theory (IRT) framework, longitudinal IRT models can be used to assess growth in examinee ability over time. In a diagnostic classification model (DCM) framework, assessing growth translates to measuring changes in attribute mastery status over time, thereby providing a categorical, criterion-referenced interpretation of growth. This study introduces the Transition Diagnostic Classification Model (TDCM), which combines latent transition analysis with the log-linear cognitive diagnosis model to provide methodology for analyzing growth in a general DCM framework. Simulation study results indicate that the proposed model is flexible, provides accurate and reliable classifications, and is quite robust to violations to measurement invariance over time. The TDCM is used to analyze pre-test/post-test data from a diagnostic mathematics assessment.     

Bioethics as politics: the limits of moral expertise

The increasing reliance upon, and perhaps the growing public and professional skepticism about, the special expertise of bioethicists suggests the need to consider the limits of moral expertise. For all the talk about method in bioethics, we, bioethicists, are still rather far off the mark in understanding what we are doing, even when we may be going about what we are doing fairly well. Quite often, what is most fundamentally at stake, but equally often insufficiently acknowledged, are inherently political, essentially contested visions of the most compelling and attractive forms of life for individuals and social organization. The current situation in bioethics parallels similar debates in eighteenth-century jurisprudence, especially Jeremy Bentham's withering critique of the prevalent forms of judicial argument and his own, equally unsuccessful, attempt to develop a decision-making procedure in ethics that would operate on a plane above politics. The risk, both then and now, is that we will fail to appreciate the wide range of reasonable disagreement that will remain past the point of extended reflection and discussion.     

Factor analysis of the frontal systems behavior scale (FrSBe)

The Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe), formerly called the Frontal Lobe Personality Scale (FLOPS), is a brief behavior rating scale with demonstrated validity for the assessment of behavior disturbances associated with damage to the frontal-subcortical brain circuits. The authors report an exploratory principal factor analysis of the FrSBe-Family Version in a sample including 324 neurological patients and research participants, of which about 63% were diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases (Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases). The three-factor solution accounted for a modest level of variance (41%) and confirmed a factor structure consistent with the three subscales proposed on the theoretical basis of the frontal systems. Most items (83%)from the FrSBe subscales of Apathy, Disinhibition, and Executive Dysfunction loaded saliently on three corresponding factors. The FrSBe factor structure supports its utility for assessing both the severity of the three frontal syndromes in aggregate and separately.