If Folk Intuitions Vary,Then What?

We have recently presented evidence for cross‐cultural variation in semantic intuitions and explored the implications of such variation for philosophical arguments that appeal to some theory of reference as a premise. Devitt (2011) and Ichikawa and colleagues (forthcoming) offer critical discussions of the experiment and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. In this response, we reiterate and clarify what we are really arguing for, and we show that most of Devitt’s and Ichikawa and colleagues’ criticisms fail to address our concerns.     

Short-Term Effect of Crural Fasciotomy on Kinematic Variability and Propulsion During Level Locomotion

Treadmill locomotion can be characterized by consistent step-to-step kinematics despite the redundant degrees of freedom. The authors investigated the effect of disrupting the crural fascia in decerebrate cats to determine if the crural fascia contributed to kinematic variability and propulsion in the limb. Crural fasciotomy resulted in statistically significant decreases in velocity and acceleration in the joint angles during level walking, before, during, and after paw-off, particularly at the ankle. A further finding was an increase in variance of the limb segment trajectories in the frontal plane. The crural fascia therefore provides force transmission and reduction in kinematic variability to the limb during locomotion.     

Characteristics and Effects of the Co-parenting Alliance between Incarcerated Parents and Child Caregivers

We examined co-parenting alliance based on information provided by 57 incarcerated parents and their corresponding child caregivers who took part in the Messages Project, in which incarcerated parents video recorded greetings to children that were then mailed home. We assessed perceptions of co-parenting alliance, measured by the Parenting Alliance Measure, and levels of child contact from both parents and caregivers. We also observed expressions of positive and negative attitudes that prisoners expressed regarding the home caregiver during the video recording. Incarcerated parents reported more frequent phone contact with children and more frequent letter-writing to children than did home caregivers. Incarcerated parents likewise reported higher levels of co-parenting alliance with the home caregiver in comparison to the assessment of co-parenting alliance reported by the home caregiver. Among children observing the video recorded message, a more positive co-parenting alliance between their parent and home caregiver was associated with increased positive mood. More frequent displays of negative attitudes toward caregivers during the recordings were associated with more negative mood indicators among children. Results suggest the importance of a strong co-parenting alliance between incarcerated parents and home caregivers, but imply that incarcerated parents may have a more optimistic view of their connection home than is the case for collaborating caregivers.     

A Family Therapist for Life: Observations and Options

“Life” is used here in the chronological sense of years spent as a family therapist and in the existential sense of experiencing “life” in terms of satisfaction, meaning, and vitality in one’s living. In the 1950s, there were few guidelines for professionals recognizing the need for working therapeutically with families. Becoming and being a family therapist are discussed, along with lifetime learning about family and tolerance for ambiguity in understanding family and marital relationships and dynamics; flexibility in implementing therapeutic interventions; functioning in ways that fit with one’s personality, beliefs, and principles; working where one functions best; and what works at what stage for the family therapist and relating these to establishing and maintaining “life” in one’s living.     

Abortion, Time-Relative Interests, and Futures Like Ours

Don Marquis (1989) has argued most abortions are immoral, for the same reason that killing you or me is immoral: abortion deprives the fetus of a valuable future (FLO). Call this account the FLOA. A rival account is Jeff McMahan’s (2002), time-relative interest account (TRIA) of the wrongness of killing. According to this account, an act of killing is wrong to the extent that it deprives the victim of future value and the relation of psychological unity would have held between the victim at the time of death and herself at a later time if she had lived. The TRIA supposedly has two chief advantages over Marquis’s FLOA. First, unlike the FLOA, the TRIA does not rely on the controversial thesis that identity is what matters in survival. Second, the TRIA yields more plausible verdicts about cases. Proponents of the TRIA use the account to argue that abortion is generally permissible, because there would be little to no psychological unity between the fetus and later selves if it lived. I argue that advocates of the TRIA have failed to establish its superiority to the FLOA, for two reasons. First, the two views are on a par with respect to the thesis that identity is what matters in survival. Second, Marquis’s FLOA does not yield the counterintuitive implications about cases that advocates of the TRIA have attributed to it, and the TRIA yields its own share of implausible judgments about cases.