The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato Si'

Laudato si' attempts simultaneously to disrupt prevailing global environmental discourse and to reorient central concepts in Catholic moral tradition by requalifying the meaning of dominion and by ecologically expanding human dignity. The image of Earth crying out to humans from within a kinship relation plays a central role in both arguments. However, the political consequences of those shifts remain vague because the “voice” of Earth remains silent in crucial loci of the encyclical's argument.     

Having a voice and getting a hearing: An educational perspective on free speech in a plural society

This paper examines Ronald Dworkin's claim that the right to free speech does not include a right to circumstances that encourage citizens to speak nor a right to competent and sympathetic understanding on the part of listeners. Drawing on familiar arguments for the existence of other human rights, the paper challenges Dworkin's claim. Even if, however, the challenge fails and it is not possible to show that there is such a right, that is not the end of the story. It is argued that democratic societies should try to foster conditions in which citizens are encouraged to speak and are listened to sympathetically in the interests of the well-being and flourishing of the polity. The important role education has to play in this is explored.     

Ecofeminism: What One Needs to Know

Ecofeminism refers to feminist theory and activism informed by ecology. Ecofeminism is concerned with connections between the domination of women and the domination of nature. Although ecofeminism is a diverse movement, ecofeminist theorists share the presuppositions that social transformation is necessary for ecological survival, that intellectual transformation of dominant modes of thought must accompany social transformation, that nature teaches nondualistic and nonhierarchial systems of relation that are models for social transformation of values, and that human and cultural diversity are values in social transformation. Ecofeminist theology, ethics, and religious perspectives are particularly concerned with the integration of science and religion. Examples of religious or spiritual ecofeminisms are North American Christian ecofeminism, North American womanist Christian theology, neopagan Wiccan ecofeminism, Native American ecofeminism, and Third World ecofeminism.     

American Political Culture in Comparative Perspective

In order to formulate a comparative model of political cultures, a theory that integrates psychological, sociological and economic variables is developed. Within societies dominant political cultural themes stress particular patterns of right and obligation. These patterns simultaneously undergird social solidarity and justify an unequal distribution of rewards. Differences among political cultures exist vertically on an historical dimension of increasing moral comprehensiveness and horizontally on a dimension of moral content. Internal tensions deriving from technological development and from social discourse about the moral adequacy of norms stimulate change. A case study of American political culture, with its contrasting emphases on egalitarianism and individualism, assesses the theoretical claims.     

Global surrogacy: exploitation to empowerment

Commercial surrogacy has gone global in the last decade, and India has become the international centre for reproductive tourism, boasting numerous high-quality and low-fee clinics. The growth of the surrogacy industry in India raises serious concerns of global gender justice, in particular whether the option is inordinately enticing for women who lack other remunerable options and whether the conditions are adequate and the compensation fair. In this paper I argue that the moral harm of global commercial surrogacy lies in the exploitative nature of transactions involving unequally vulnerable parties. More specifically, I argue that the practice exploits Indian surrogates on the basis of an inter-contractual failure of both justice and consent. I go on to consider an important objection to my use of exploitation as the relevant conceptual tool of analysis. The ethnographic challenge holds that the exploitation lens Occidentalizes surrogacy by conceptualizing the practice in universalizing terms, thereby eclipsing the particularities of the global surrogate's lived experience. I respond by showing that in fact the exploitation and the ethnographic models are not so at odds as they might seem. Provided we are careful in our use of the former to nuance our analysis by appeal to narrative evidence supplied by the latter, we are thereby best situated to identify and address the moral difficulties generated by commercial surrogacy under conditions of global injustice.     

Disability Rights,Prenatal Diagnosis and Eugenics: A Cross-Cultural View

This paper considers the disability rights critique of genetic testing in the context of different communities and the issue of nondirectiveness. Despite the wide usage of genetic diagnosis in Israel, no public debate has emerged there concerning disability rights and prenatal testing. The common attitude that emerged from interviews with Israeli representatives of organizations “of’’ and “for’’ people with genetic diseases and congenital disabilities can be described as a two-fold view of disability: support of genetic testing during pregnancy, and support of the disabled person after birth. This two-fold view is explained as a secular construction situated in legal, economic and cultural contexts. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the “two-fold view’’ of disability for the profession of genetic counseling. It is argued that awareness of the existence of conflicting views among clients—such as the view of the ‘disability critique’ as well as of the “two-fold view of disability’’—should strengthen the significance of nondirectiveness.     

What’s Human Rights Got to Do with It? On the Proposed Changes to SSHRC Ethics Research Policy

What’s human rights got to do with it? That is, what’s human rights got to do with the June 2004 report of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Special Working Committee to the Inter-Agency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. The disturbing answer is “not enough.” Certain key recommendations of the working committee, it is suggested, would unacceptably weaken the researcher’s legal and moral accountability to research participants. Those particular recommendations rely on misguided references to academic freedom and the nature of the non-medical research context. In fact, universal human rights, and the legal instruments in which they are embodied ought to inform the research endeavor at every stage; from problem selection to analysis and conclusions. This will lead us closer to shared truths rather than simply to the academic elite’s vision of truth. Without sufficient regard for the human rights of research participants academic freedom itself is not possible.     

A utilitarian argument against torture interrogation of terrorists

Following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, much support for torture interrogation of terrorists has emerged in the public forum, largely based on the “ticking bomb” scenario. Although deontological and virtue ethics provide incisive arguments against torture, they do not speak directly to scientists and government officials responsible for national security in a utilitarian framework. Drawing from criminology, organizational theory, social psychology, the historical record, and my interviews with military professionals, I assess the potential of an official U.S. program of torture interrogation from a practical perspective. The central element of program design is a sound causal model relating input to output. I explore three principal models of how torture interrogation leads to truth: the animal instinct model, the cognitive failure model, and the data processing model. These models show why torture interrogation fails overall as a counterterrorist tactic. They also expose the processes that lead from a precision torture interrogation program to breakdowns in key institutions—health care, biomedical research, police, judiciary, and military. The breakdowns evolve from institutional dynamics that are independent of the original moral rationale. The counterargument, of course, is that in a society destroyed by terrorism there will be nothing to repair. That is why the actual causal mechanism of torture interrogation in curtailing terrorism must be elucidated by utilitarians rather than presumed.     

The ethics of earthquake prediction

Scientists’ responsibility to inform the public about their results may conflict with their responsibility not to cause social disturbance by the communication of these results. A study of the well-known Brady-Spence and Iben Browning earthquake predictions illustrates this conflict in the publication of scientifically unwarranted predictions. Furthermore, a public policy that considers public sensitivity caused by such publications as an opportunity to promote public awareness is ethically problematic from (i) a refined consequentialist point of view that any means cannot be justified by any ends, and (ii) a rights view according to which individuals should never be treated as a mere means to ends. The Parkfield experiment, the so-called paradigm case of cooperation between natural and social scientists and the political authorities in hazard management and risk communication, is also open to similar ethical criticism. For the people in the Parkfield area were not informed that the whole experiment was based on a contested seismological paradigm.     

Introduction: Law and Disobedience

This essay considers some major questions raised by civil and other forms of conscientious disobedience. What distinguishes that form of dissent? Can we recognise the legitimacy of a political system yet defy its laws? Is disobeying a democratic decision especially or entirely unacceptable, or can disobedience be an instrument of democracy? If a regime recognises rights, how should we regard disobedience that appeals to those rights in challenging the regime’s laws? How should reasons for obedience figure in our thinking about justified disobedience? The essay locates the contributions that make up this special issue of Res Publica within these debates about disobedience. It questions whether any general theory of justified disobedience can command agreement: the conditions that give rise to conscientious disobedience -- conflicting values and judgements -- seem to preclude consensus on when its use is justified.