Resources,Rules, and Oppression

There is a large and growing literature on communal interpretive resources: the concepts, theories, narratives, and so on that a community draws on in interpreting its members and their world. (They’re also called “hermeneutical resources” in some places and “epistemic resources” in others.) Several recent contributions to this literature have concerned dominant and resistant interpretive resources and how they affect concrete lived interactions. In this article, I note that “using” interpretive resources—applying them to parts of the world in conversation with others—is “a rule‐governed activity”; and I propose that in oppressive systems, these rules are influenced by the rules of oppression. Section I clarifies some rules governing the use of resources. Section II draws on work by Gaile Pohlhaus, Jr. and others to suggest that according to the present rules of our oppressive system, it is permissible for dominantly situated speakers to dismiss interpretive resources developed in marginalized communities. Section III appeals to Charles Mills’s work on White ignorance to propose, further, that our system’s rules make it impermissible and deserving of punishment to use resistant resources. The conclusion enumerates several further points about such rules governing the use of interpretive resources, their social effects, and some philosophical literatures.     

Suffering, meaning, and bioethics.

Suffering evokes moral and metaphysical reflection, the bioethics of suffering concerns the proper ethos of living with suffering. Because empirical and philosophical explorations of suffering are imprisoned in the world of immanent experience, they cannot reach to a transcendent meaning. Even if religious and other narratives concerning the meaning of suffering have no transcendent import, they can have aesthetic and moral significance. This understanding of narratives of suffering and of their custodians has substantial ecumenical implications: chaplains can function as general custodians of narratives and sustainers of a generic religious meaning. This understanding is contrary to traditional Christianity, which discloses a transcendent significance of human suffering found in a very particular history involving particular persons: Christ as the second Adam through the submission of the second Eve has taken on our nature so that we can be united with God. Human suffering is tied to human sin, not simply as a punishment for sin, much less as an opportunity to discharge a supposed temporal punishment due to sin. Human suffering is the result of our rebellious free choices. It provides an opportunity for humility and submission, so that, united to the cross of Christ, sin can be forgiven and suffering set aside in the Resurrection. Knowledge of this framing context for all human suffering is accessible not through rational argument. It is a knowledge garnered through repentance, purification of the heart, illumination by God's grace, and unification with God. Christian bioethics is embedded in the narrative of suffering, which is part of the history of salvation and which encompasses and places all of medicine in its terms.     

Bioethics in the third millennium: some critical anticipations

Its promises to the contrary notwithstanding, bioethics is plural. There is a diversity of content-full moral undertandings of the good and the right. Moreover, there is no secular means in principle to set this diversity aside without begging the question. This moral diversity exists both as a sociological condition and as a moral epistemological constraint. Without succumbing to a metaphysical scepticism or moral relativism, the bioethics of the future, if it is to be honest, should learn how to live with robust moral diversity.     

Genetic enhancement and theosis: two models of therapy.

The author argues that to think theologically about genetic enhancement is to think prayerfully about how to locate all one's uses of medicine, recognizing that they must all be lodged in the Christian struggle to holiness. He is critical of the essays in this issue because they often appear to take on a scholastic life of their own outside of the all-consuming struggle to salvation of Christians across the millennia.     

Father and mother contributions to family functioning when the child has a mental delay

Less is known about the father's than the mother's role in family adaptation to children with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships of both father and mother use of coping strategies and perceptions of the child with measures of family functioning style. Subjects were 26 families of 30-month-old children with a mental delay and a comparison group of 26 families of same-aged children with no delay. Functioning style for study families showed a balance of cohesion and adaptability; comparison families were more chaotically flexible on the adaptability scale. Mothers and fathers agreed on family functioning style. Study parents made the greatest use of external coping strategies, while in both groups mothers used more external and fathers more internal coping strategies. Relationships between coping and family functioning varied by parent and by group. Results suggest the need for further exploration of the separate needs of fathers and mothers in maintaining balanced family functioning.     

The Problem of Secondary Effects

This paper argues that two principles held by many metaphysicians and philosophers of mind are inconsistent: (1) there is no systematic overdetermination, and (2) some causal effects are also determined by their metaphysical grounds. Call this “The Problem of Secondary Effects.” After introducing the problem and noting philosophical theories that face it, the paper offers further clarification by considering three potential strategies for solving it. All fail. An approach that sacrifices ‘secondary effects’ is briefly sketched as a solution.     

Everyday Attention: Variation in Mind Wandering and Memory in a Lecture

Understanding the factors underlying variation in attentional state is critical in a number of domains. Here, we investigate the relation between time on task and mind wandering (i.e., a state of decoupled attention) in the context of a lecture. Lectures are the primary means of knowledge transmission in post secondary education rendering an understanding of attentional variations in lectures a pressing practical concern. We report two experiments wherein participants watched a video recorded lecture either alone (Experiment 1) or in a classroom context (Experiment 2). Participants responded to mind wandering probes at various times in the lecture in an effort to track variations in mind wandering over time. In addition, following the lecture, memory for the lecture material was tested. Results demonstrate that in a lecture mind wandering increases with time on task and memory for the lecture material decreases. In addition, there was a significant relation between mind wandering and memory for lecture material. Theoretical and practical applications of the present results are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.