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The values associated with nature are a central component of human–nature interactions, but their assessment remains a challenge.In this exploratory research, we examine the potential of a creative data collection method to elucidate the multiple values of nature. We invited visitors to a natural area to write letters to non‐human elements of the ecosystem (trees), then analysed the letters to determine whether they provide information about values.This project involves collaboration with the Intervale Center in Burlington, VT, U.S.A., a peri‐urban site with both forest and farmland.We received 45 letters from 25 letter writers. The majority of letter writers discussed relational values associated with trees or benefits from ecosystem services that trees provide to humans and non‐humans. Others asked questions about natural elements at the Intervale Center.We explored whether the letter writing method, which invites (although does not require) a more interpersonal approach to communicating with non‐humans, might facilitate the expression of relational values. Our findings support this assertion. We found that people expressed diverse relational values towards nature and asked many questions (mostly ecological) about the site and tree species. We encourage future work to consider data collection instruments that provide opportunities for diverse ways of conceiving of human–nature relationships (especially, as in this case, ways more conducive to personhood as not confined to humans).Benefits of this project include an unconventional framing of human–nature relationships (i.e. one that invites but does not require expanded notions of personhood), the open‐ended nature of the prompt, relatively low costs and flexibility in when and how participants respond. Drawbacks include convenience sampling (and low response rates) and poor accessibility to people who do not read English. We conclude that letter writing method has the potential to elicit data about multiple values of nature, as well as create an engaging experience for visitors of natural areas. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: In this article, I discuss coastal and oceanic biocultural heritage and its relevance to a transformed perception of the ocean and coast in South Africa. An anthropology of biocultural heritage at the coast reveals the multidimensional nature of personhoods—specifically transspecies, trans‐material forms of personhood—and the rich dialogical engagement of "humans" with nature and marine species. Through sensory ethnography on coastal biocultural heritage in South Africa's Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape provinces, I challenge anthropocentric strategies for ocean management and assert the need to consider sensory/embodied relations with the sea and the sentience of other species in the marine space. By presenting on and discussing coastal biocultural heritage, I hope to advance discussions on identity in Africa as well as marine epistemologies for a rehumanized ocean management in South Africa and the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judith Butler and Kate Manne shed, in different ways, doubt on the capacity of the recognition‐paradigm to comprehend phenomena of crucial ethical and political importance: whereas Butler argues that deeper than recognition are "frames" in light of which individuals and groups appear as recognizable human beings at all, Manne argues that too much has been made of the capacity of the idea of being recognized as human or person to explain interhuman cruelty and violence. In short, for Butler there is something even more important than recognition that precedes it, whereas for Manne matters of vital (or lethal) importance happen after, or on top of, recognition. In my view both are pointing at crucially important issues, but I am more optimistic of the capacity of the notion of recognition to deal with them. I present an account of recognition as personification, which can both meet the challenges and unite the seemingly disparate views of the two authors as complementary perspectives to, and focussed on dialectically related aspects of, a whole. This whole is recognition, or lack thereof, of particular individuals and groups as full‐fledged persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assertion that Christ is truly and fully human supports using Christology as a starting point to frame discussions surrounding humanity. This article focuses on the Christological distinction between personhood and nature that is made in the Chalcedonian Definition and argues that it could reframe current discussions in the science–theology discourse on humanity identity. As discussions of human identity often center around issues such as personhood, consciousness, and the soul, taking this Christological perspective into account means that scholars must consider whether scientific contributions are engaging with characteristics of human nature or personhood, and recognize the theological distinction. To address some of the troubling implications of this reframing, this article proposes a vision of humanity as natural energies expressing an unrepeatable personhood, based largely on the work of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras. This proposal takes traditional Christology seriously in its relevance to discussions on human identity, while possibly enabling even more productive engagement with scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engagement with the historical and theoretical underpinnings of measuring quality of life (QoL) and patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) in healthcare is important. Ideas and values that shape such practices—and in the endgame, people's lives—might otherwise remain unexamined, be taken for granted or even essentialized. Our aim is to explicate and theoretically discuss the philosophical tenets underlying the practices of QoL assessment and PRO measurement in relation to the notion of person‐centredness. First, we engage with the late‐modern history of the concept of QoL and the act of assessing and measuring it. Working with the historical method of genealogy, we describe the development of both QoL assessments and PRO measures (PROMs) within healthcare by accounting for the contextual conditions for their possibility. In this way, the historical and philosophical underpinnings of these measurement practices are highlighted. We move on to analyse theoretical and philosophical underpinnings regarding the use of PROMs and QoL assessments in clinical practice, as demonstrated in review studies thereof. Finally, we offer a critical analysis regarding the state of theory in the literature and conclude that, although improved person‐centredness is an implied driver of QoL assessments and PROMs in clinical practice, enhanced theoretical underpinning of the development of QoL assessments is called for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phrase 'person‐centred care' (PCC) reminds us that the fundamental philosophical goal of caring for people is to uphold or promote their personhood. However, such an idea has translated into promoting individualist notions of autonomy, empowerment and personal responsibility in the context of consumerism and neoliberalism, which is problematic both conceptually and practically. From a conceptual standpoint, it ignores the fact that humans are social, historical and biographical beings, and instead assumes an essentialist or idealized concept of personhood in which a person is viewed as an individual static object. From a practical standpoint, the application of such a concept of personhood can lead to neglect of a person's fundamental care needs and exacerbate the problems of social inequity, in particular for older people and people with dementia. Therefore, we argue that our understanding of PCC must instead be based on a dynamic concept of personhood that integrates the relevant social, relational, temporal and biographical dimensions. We propose that the correct concept of personhood in PCC is one in which persons are understood as socially embedded, relational and temporally extended subjects rather than merely individual, autonomous, asocial and atemporal objects. We then present a reconceptualization of the fundamental philosophical goal of PCC as promoting selfhood rather than personhood. Such a reconceptualization avoids the problems that beset the concept of personhood and its application in PCC, while also providing a philosophical foundation for the growing body of empirical literature that emphasizes the psychosocial, relational, subjective and biographical dimensions of PCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of American Anthropologist is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Many parents bereaved of a stillborn baby spend time with the child. In this time frame, different acts with the child in focus may occur. Some parents invite others to see the child too. Parents who suffer the loss of a newborn are vulnerable, and understanding acts and practices surrounding the dead newborn is important knowledge for caretakers. Aims: This article aims to enlighten the amount of time Danish parents spend with their stillborn in hospital settings that encourage this practice. Furthermore, it aims to transcend the mere quantitative numbers through a theoretical approach that frames the analysis and discussion of possible layers of meaning imbedded in time spent with a dead newborn. Study design: Data from a Danish cohort of bereaved parents were collected using web‐based questionnaires. These numbers were successively interpreted through an anthropological lens within the perspective of transition and ritualisation. Knowledge from existing empirical literature was also fused. Results from the cohort: Danish parents spend hours or days with their stillborn child. They feel supported in this by healthcare professionals. Mainly close relatives join the parents while admitted to the hospital to see the stillborn child, followed by other family members and friends. Conclusion: Danish parents engage to a very high degree in contact with their dead baby. The analysis points out that 'Time' and 'Others' are needed to create a socially comprehensible status for parents and child when birth brings death. In liminal space during the transition, healthcare professionals act as ritual experts, supporting parents and their relatives to ascribe social status to the dead body of the child through ritualised acts. Instead of only thinking of this period as 'memory‐making', we suggest regarding it as a time of ontological clarification as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time can only be understood within physics as a special dimension of a four‐dimensional reality given "all at once" in its totality. There seems to be no way that a special moment ("now") can be distinguished. Within human experience, however, the feel of time is vivid: now is intensely present, and time flows from one now to another. This dramatic difference, between the realm of personal experience and the realm of material existence, raises doubt about the unity of the concept of nature and thus about the attraction of naturalism. Following the thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel, I explore whether a solely physical universe can serve as an appropriate whole of an existence that also includes persons. Heschel argues that the whole of existence needs to have a personal character as well, in other words God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infancy is characterized by physical and biological changes and growth, and across cultures, parents associate this period with care, protection, and nutrition. However, beyond the universal aspects of infancy, the ways in which caretakers understand babies' needs and nature are subject to great cultural variation. In this article I explore how people in a township in Lusaka, Zambia, conceptualize and understand how babies become social persons. Particular attention is paid to how human potentials are seen to naturally grow and unfold if properly cultivated in the relationships that the child shares with others. I will also discuss how local models of natural growth contrast models of early child development offered by international parenting intervention programs that focus on how parents in poor communities can stimulate young children's cognitive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case report describes the ethical implications of paradoxical lucidity in persons with severe stage dementia. Paradoxical lucidity describes an episode of unexpected communication or connectedness in a person who is believed to be noncommunicative due to a progressive and pathological process that causes dementia. A caregiver who witnesses an event of paradoxical lucidity may experience it as ethically and emotionally transformative. We provide an ethical framework for addressing this event in clinical practice. The framework addresses clinician interactions with the patient, caregiver, and family to improve understanding of paradoxical lucidity and to enhance patient care, caregiver well‐being, and decision‐making. Participants for this case study consented to having the case published. Participant names are changed to protect confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing nursing care for people with dementia residing in long‐term care facilities poses specific challenges regarding pain practices. With underlying communication barriers unique to dementia pathologies, this population is often unable to communicate verbal sentiments and descriptions of pain. In turn, nurses caring for older persons with dementia have difficulty assessing, managing and treating pain. Objectivity is an imperative factor in healthcare pain practices; however, it is difficult to objectively evaluate someone who cannot accurately communicate their experience of pain. Therefore, the authors believe that subjectivity is also an essential part of evaluating the person with dementia's experience of pain. In this critical reflection, the authors explore objectivity and subjectivity in relation to pain practices for dementia in long‐term care. A historical summary of pain is provided outlining the evolution of objectivity and subjectivity related to pain practices. The authors discuss the complexities of assessing and managing pain and offer a new perspective about the role of objectivity (and co‐existence of subjectivity) for nurses treating pain in the older adults with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on multi‐sited fieldwork and discourse analysis of government orders, we investigate land‐titling programmes that distribute marginal public land to the poor in both urban and rural South India. We suggest understanding this type of distribution as a process of creating a subaltern category of land ownership to facilitate governance of lands and people entangled in de facto land tenures. Although these titling initiatives have been largely ignored or dismissed as failures in the existing literature, we argue that they have had significant socio‐political effects. First, we argue that, despite the attempt to create a differentiated property regime, titling engenders a complex juridico‐legal terrain where the bounds of 'subaltern citizenship' are contested and negotiated. Second, we show that titling is better understood as a process that creates new social relations and new expectations of the normative relationship between state and citizen. Finally, we suggest that the practices and discourses of the land bureaucracy are a window into the production of spatial relations based on pressures from above and below. In sum, we show how a history of iterative titling has resulted in the entanglement of struggles over possession, personhood and citizenship for marginalized groups in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common‐sense morality seems to dictate that newborn babies strictly outrank non‐human animals on an ordered list of subjects of moral consideration. This is best described as the view that newborn babies have a higher moral status than any non‐human animal. In this article, I will argue that this common‐sense claim about the special moral status of newborn babies makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that fetuses, including pre‐conscious fetuses, also have a higher moral status than any non‐human animal—indeed, as high as newborn babies. While this conclusion does not quite entail that abortion is generally seriously immoral, it does seem to follow that it would be no less difficult to justify (even relatively early) abortion than it would be to justify killing a newborn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on ethnographic research conducted in 2015 with Hip Hop dancers in Perth, as well as my own personal engagement as a Breaking practitioner, to examine how membership within the local Perth Hip Hop dance scene is made and negotiated. The focus of this article is on the processual, embodied and locally particular aspects of personhood, alhough specifically my concern is with how Hip Hop dancers themselves make sense of, experience and authenticate persons within their own specific local and social context. My ethnographic observations and discussions of the Perth Hip Hop dance scene contribute to broader anthropological debates on personhood by drawing attention to the importance of being connected and actively involved in Hip Hop dancing practices and local Hip Hop dancing events. This research illustrates how personhood in Hip Hop is something that is continually being remade and renegotiated over time and across different spaces, in addition to the significance of one's body in the negotiation process (An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2017 Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) conference at the University of Adelaide.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ethos (00912131) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A recent article argued for the immorality of abortion regardless of personhood status by comparing the impairment caused by fetal alcohol syndrome to the impairment caused by abortion. I argue that two of the premises in this argument fail and that, as such, one cannot reasonably attribute moral harms to abortion on the basis of the moral harms caused by fetal alcohol syndrome. The impairment argument relies on an inconsistent instantiation, which undermines the claim that personhood is irrelevant, and it does not fulfill its own ceteris paribus clause, which demands that no additional benefit be gained from abortion that would not be gained from causing fetal alcohol syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First advanced in a major essay published in 2010, Mark Mosko's 'partible penitent' thesis asserts that Melanesian and Christian cultures are based upon analogous conceptions of dividual personhood. Consequently, conversion in the region has been characterised by continuity rather than rupture, as argued most prominently by Joel Robbins. This essay offers an assessment of Mosko's thesis in terms of his critique of the theoretical and ethnographic literature and his recent application of the model to religious change in the Trobriand Islands. Robbins' work proves more convincing and provocative on both theoretical and methodological grounds. Yet both approaches, which frame their analysis of Christianity in terms of conversion, appear increasingly out of sync with the experience of the vast majority of Melanesians who are more accurately considered active participants in a diverse global religious tradition rather than recipients of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the social and processual dimensions of personhood can transform ethnographic and clinical understandings of "person-centered care" in dementia care specifically and in medicine more generally. Ethnographic research among people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease in a day center in Poznań, Poland, shows that practices of remembering involving collective memory can sustain personhood and foster ties of relatedness among people with dementia, defying some expectations about the destructive effects of dementia on personhood. This apparent paradox between people with dementia's loss of memory and their capacity to build social relations based on remembering can be resolved through expanding understandings of personhood to include practices of remembering involving collective pasts-in this case, through shared national frameworks and embodied practices of sociality. Attending to these two dimensions of collective memory reveals unexpected aspects of personhood among people with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre‐Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within change is found in the way my interlocutors have made Christianity their own. I argue that the local concept of the person defined by aspects of dividualism and reflecting ontological premises of people's lifeworld has strongly influenced the way Christianity was appropriated. In current religious practices people put these premises into action and reinforce them in intersubjective encounters with the divine other. Analysing people's 'onto‐praxis', I argue that the Thomas Souls Ministry can be understood as part of a re‐empowerment process that re‐appropriates local meanings, spirits, and practices despite, and in fact against, the influence of the Catholic mission proselytizing in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the debate about the ethics of abortion has centered on whether the fetus is a person. In an attempt to sidestep this complex issue, I argue that, even if the fetus is not a person, abortion is immoral. To arrive at this conclusion, I argue that giving a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, and that if this is so, then killing the fetus is immoral. Roughly, this is because killing the fetus impairs it more than giving it fetal alcohol syndrome. Since abortion (in most cases) amounts to killing the fetus, this means that abortion (in most cases) is immoral. I defend the premises of this argument against a plethora of objections, concluding that they either do not work, or commit their proponent to a controversial position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: In everyday practice, we do not pay much attention to the words we use. So we do not usually become aware of an ontological difference between the levels of so‐called objects focused upon and person‐centredness. To elucidate this fundamental difference, we contrast here person‐centred medicine (PCM) and a corresponding use of a polycentric grid approach (PCG approach) with the conventional impersonal, objectifying approach. The latter is typically depicted in orthogonal grids, such as charts and lists. This conventional way may be called the Cartesian orthogonal grid approach, or simply Cartesian approach. Results: A conceptual framework corresponding to PCM is proposed. The PCG approach issues centricity in a formal way and provides a polycentric arrangement of interacting centres. The topic of polycentricity is discussed by the later Nobel Prize‐winner Elinor Ostrom and her husband Victor, concerning management of common goods. The corresponding concept and use of a polycentric grid allow depicting uniqueness and relatedness of interacting centres better than the conventional Cartesian orthogonal grids. The PCG approach outlined here corresponds to the use of different graphic and cartographic procedures, such as the glyph plot. This unconventional form of representation is seen as beneficial in PCM. Practical exercises are developed to enhance awareness of centricity in everyday health care settings. The steps suggested are based on imagination of common tools, such as used in playing darts. Following the practical application, the theoretical background is outlined. It has been published in an extended form and hence can be discussed in a more focused way. Conclusions: Use of the PCG approach enhances experience and enactment of personhood. It supports PCM in everyday practice. On a theoretical level, the PCG approach has ontological primacy compared with the conventional Cartesian approach. To refer to physical empiric, the decontextualized Cartesian concept needs to be embedded in the empiric polycentric one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This introduction to a special collection of articles on the theme of poverty and personhood provides an overview of the collection's response to recent calls for a reconsideration of culture in urban poverty studies. We argue that such a reconsideration must confront two theoretical problems if it is to be successful. First, the analyses must make a sustained effort to define clearly the theoretical model of “culture” used in the analyses and why this theoretical perspective is illuminative without reproducing the problematic uses of culture in past scholarship. Second, this reconsideration must come to terms with the problematic relationship between culture and human subjectivities. The remainder of the article describes how this special collection addresses these two concerns by bringing together recent innovations in person‐centered ethnography that draws considerably from psychodynamic theory, phenomenology, and a theory from cognitive anthropology that replaces bounded cultures with variably distributed, affectively imbued cultural models. Cultural models also include expectations about others’ judgments. This introductory article concludes by highlighting four contributions the accompanying research articles make as a collection to the question of how we might better understand the relation of culture and human subjectivity in the study of urban poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Problems experienced by older people with complex needs to live at home have been reported in the literature. This qualitative study builds on previous research and investigates enduring issues older people face when interacting with healthcare services. Aim: To gain an in‐depth understanding of what is involved in providing good quality health care for older people who need support to live at home. Methodological design: We adopted an interpretive descriptive approach and conducted semi‐structured interviews with older people (n = 7), carers (n = 8) and key informants (n = 11). Initial and secondary analysis of qualitative data was completed. Findings: Major themes emerged about meanings of partnership in health care, and invisibility of the older person as a partner in health care. Partnership in health care was understood to mean being treated as an equal, being involved in decision‐making, and making contributions which impact on health care and health systems. The metaphorical concept of ‘invisibility’ related to the older person not being seen and heard as a partner in health care, as well as being a recipient of care. Conclusions: We concluded that older people who need support to live at home are not highly visible to health providers, policymakers and researchers as a central partner and consumer to be meaningfully engaged in shaping their health care. Opportunities to address persistent issues with quality of health care may in future be achieved through stronger partnerships between older people and health providers, to find new ways to improve the quality of care for older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of patient–nurse interaction for older women receiving care in healthcare settings. Background: Older women are often overlooked or misunderstood by the nurses caring for them. Some research exists on nurses’ perception of their interaction with patients, yet few studies have described the meaning of such interaction from the patients’ perspective. Methods: This was a pilot study using qualitative description as a methodology. Data were filtered through a lens of critical feminist theory to interpret interactions taking place in healthcare settings that are often characterised by paternalism. Seven women between the ages of 66 and 81 were interviewed using a semi‐structured guide. Results: Participants had a distinctive perspective on the experience of caring. Their expressions include stories of being cared for themselves by nurses as well as historical recalls of being the one‐caring for family members. In these combined stories, the contrast between the nurses who held caring in primacy and those who were distinctly uncaring sheds light on the importance of cultivating a moral ideal of caring and respect for personhood. Conclusion: A population of older women who potentially face disabling conditions must rely on direct, meaningful, interaction with nurses to successfully navigate the healthcare system. The findings suggest that these women did not have consistent access to such interaction. Implications for practice: The gathering and interpretation of new narratives about patient–nurse interaction for older women could lead to a deeper understanding of power and civility as it impacts a caring relationship. Further research using a theoretical lens of critical feminism has implications for improving healthcare delivery for older women worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of American Ethnologist is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article explores the divergences between ex-prisoners' use of entrepreneurship as a tool for rebuilding social ties and the vision of entrepreneurship provided by Mission Forward, a European-funded, Ugandan-run nongovernmental organization that provides ex-prisoners with entrepreneurship training. Forty-six interviews were conducted over two months with Mission Forward staff and with ex-prisoners participating in the entrepreneurship training program in Gulu, northern Uganda. These interviews found that Mission Forward's official position, like that of many providers of criminal justice services, was to view crime as resulting from one primary deficiency in personhood: idleness. To rectify this, their policy was to fashion prototypical neoliberal entrepreneurs: self-motivated and self-reliant individualists whose primary concern is making money and who could achieve this goal no matter what the circumstances. In contrast, ex-prisoners experienced a loss of personhood when they became marked as criminals by their friends and neighbors. To address this, ex-prisoners were concerned with using the contracts, exchanges, and interactions associated with their entrepreneurial ventures to rebuild the social ties that their crimes and subsequent incarceration had damaged and thereby reclaim personhood. This article argues that these divergent uses of entrepreneurship as a rehabilitative and reintegrative tool provide new insights into the nature of entrepreneurship and into the establishment and reestablishment of both personhood and social ties through economic exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of psychotic disorders often brings major changes to an individual, which, for some, are never fully reversed and remain a dominant force. Despite such changes, the individual still experiences themselves as a continuous person and must find some way to assimilate these shifts into their self-concept. From a philosophical perspective, the various models of continuing identity all depend upon some notion of fundamental stability, which seems a poor fit for the trajectory associated with psychotic disorders. This article will explore, in more depth, how the transitions that accompany psychotic disorders present a challenge to conventional and philosophical notions of selfhood. If we are not simply to judge psychotic disorders as bringing about a loss of selfhood, we will need an alternative model of identity to use in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article in this journal Jonathan Pugh critiques the idea of intermediate 'moral respect' which some say is owed to embryos. This concept is inherent within the 'principle of proportionality', the principle that destructive research on embryos is permissable only if the research serves an important purpose. Pugh poses two specific questions to proponents of the idea of intermediate moral respect. This article argues that while the questions posed by Pugh are certainly pertinent to the debate, the hypothetical responses he suggests to these questions do not quite get to the core of what is troublesome about the concept. The article suggests alternative responses to Pugh's questions in order to focus attention on more fundamental problems facing the idea of intermediate moral respect, while also pointing to how the intermediate moral respect proponent might best develop these responses. It goes on to argue that these hypothetical responses fail to answer convincingly the questions posed. More specifically, this article challenges two possible justifications for the distinct idea of intermediate moral respect, namely the argument from potentiality (the argument raised by Pugh) and an argument from the proportionality of fundamental moral status (not considered by Pugh). The article also raises a dilemma inherent in the application of the principle of proportionality to cases involving beings to which intermediate moral respect is owed even where it is allowed, ex hypothesi, that both the category of intermediate moral respect and the general proportionality reasoning underpinning the principle of proportionality are basically cogent. This article thus develops and adds to the challenge laid down by Pugh to proponents of the idea of intermediate moral respect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global language of English has emerged over the centuries as the language of human rights. This language embodies many Anglo key cultural concepts that we take for granted, related to some of our most fundamental epistemologies - such concepts as freedom, dignity, respect, reason and conscience, equality, individuality and the concept of 'rights' itself. By making explicit the cultural workings of these English concepts, and by considering English itself as a cultural universe, we can also examine Anangu core cultural concepts from a new perspective. A first step toward this juxtaposition of Anangu and English key cultural concepts is through the process of translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UDHR) into Pintupi-Luritja. As Edward Sapir said in 1949, 'vocabulary is a very sensitive index of the culture of a people'. This article will principally examine the first Article of the UDHR to elaborate Anangu cultural forms of morality and conceptions of personhood. That there is no ready parallel of these concepts in this local vernacular, a Western Desert language, both reveals 'traditional' socio-moral priorities and elides contemporary dialogical processes, as conversations begin to explicate, if not to translate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tapa (or barkcloth), which is made from the outer bark of specific trees, is intimately interwoven with past and present socialities across Oceania. The cloths have been used to decorate, wrap, cover, protect, and carry the human body, as exchange valuables and commodities, in land claims, and as indexes and embodiments of ancestral power. This article explores the complexities of personhood in Oceania by focusing on the making and ceremonial use of tapa among the Maisin of Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea. It elucidates dynamics of the intimate correspondence between people and things, and, in particular, how people's gendered identities are mediated: that is shaped, reproduced, and contested through the cloth's specific materiality and design. Ultimately, it reveals the mutual growth of people and things and how they are part of each other's substance, thereby dissolving the subject-object dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I discuss a genre of stories circulating in contemporary Vanuatu that tells of mysterious routes to wealth through attainment and possession of 'the diamond' in one of its myriad forms. Examples of these stories are given, and the genre is discussed with reference to changes in the economic and labouring activities of ni- Vanuatu, particularly in the pre-independence plantation economy. While possession of the diamond may lead to undreamed-of wealth, in the majority of the stories the recipient fails to abide by the necessary conditions of secrecy, and usually loses their newly gained prosperity. The links between 'magic' and wealth production described by Alfred Gell are discussed, in addition to the ways in which the magical might be used as a metonym for the 'double binds' of modernity. Drawing on Neil Maclean's distinction between freedom and autonomy in Melanesia, the article concludes with reflections on how ni- Vanuatu might find a 'self of value' amid changed economic conditions and their social corollaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Familial determination, replete with its frequent usurping of patient autonomy, propagation of collusion, and circumnavigation of direct patient involvement in their own care deliberations, continues to impact clinical practice in many Asian nations. Suggestions that underpinning this practice, in Confucian-inspired societies, is the adherence of the populace to the familial centric ideas of personhood espoused by Confucian ethics, provide a novel means of understanding and improving patient-centred care at the end of life. Clinical experience in Confucian-inspired Singapore, however, suggests that personhood is conceived in broader terms. This diverging view inspired a study of local conceptions of personhood and scrutiny of the influence of the family upon it. From the data gathered, a culturally appropriate, clinically relevant and ethically sensitive concept of personhood was proposed: the Ring Theory of Personhood ( Ring Theory) that better captures the nuances of local conceptions of personhood. The Ring Theory highlights the fact that, far from being solely dependent upon familial centric ideals, local conceptions of personhood are dynamic, context dependent, evolving ideas delineated by four dimensions. Using the Ring Theory, the nature of familial influences upon the four dimensions of personhood - the Innate, Individual, Relational and Societal - are examined to reveal that, contrary to perceived knowledge, conceptions of personhood within Confucian societies are not the prime reason for the continued presence of this decision-making model but remain present within local thinking and practices as a sociocultural residue and primarily because of inertia in updating ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the quotidian ways that older Chicagoans remade and traversed physical boundaries between their homes and the city beyond. In so doing, it explores how changing engagements with the environment impact social personhood in later life. In a context in which personhood is equated with independence, elders relying on paid care workers to remain in their homes found themselves at the threshold of social death. To sustain their independence and personhood, older Chicagoans sought to prevent spatial and social transitions using a range of everyday tactics and material practices located around the doorways of their homes. These liminal practices simultaneously reasserted racial, class, and other social distinctions between elders, home care workers and others, helping elders continue to occupy familiar subject positions. For these older adults, homes and their thresholds became resources with which they resisted profound changes to their daily lives, subjectivities, and social personhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers on transnationalism and migration in contemporary Europe often insufficiently communicate or even neglect the major shift between the first and second generation. Using empirical material from eastern Oslo, I argue that the dominant conceptualization of the self, of personhood, has shifted from a chiefly sociocentric to a chiefly egocentric form of selfhood, with important consequences for the process of integration into Norwegian society. At the same time, this change in personhood, a result of wide-ranging participation in the institutions of majority society, does not per se lead to a weakening of religious or ethnic identity, although they are now reflexively chosen and not adhered to as a duty or social obligation. This process of individualization creates a situation of multiple, complex adaptations rather than one of stable, coherent diasporic populations, one where even conservative traditions have to be chosen actively because they no longer recommend themselves. Members of the second generation are compelled to balance the demands of two social ontologies, one emphasizing security and group cohesion, the other favouring freedom and individuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, aims and objectives The practicing doctor, and most obviously the primary care clinician who encounters the full complexity of patients, faces several fundamental but intrinsically related theoretical and practical challenges - strongly actualized by so-called medically unexplained symptoms ( MUS) and multi-morbidity. Systems medicine, which is the emerging application of systems biology to medicine and a merger of molecular biomedicine, systems theory and mathematical modelling, has recently been proposed as a primary care-centered strategy for medicine that promises to meet these challenges. Significantly, it has been proposed to do so in a way that at first glance may seem compatible with humanistic medicine. More specifically, it is promoted as an integrative, holistic, personalized and patient-centered approach. In this article, we ask whether and to what extent systems medicine can provide a comprehensive conceptual account of and approach to the patient and the root causes of health problems that can be reconciled with the concept of the patient as a person, which is an essential theoretical element in humanistic medicine. Methods We answer this question through a comparative analysis of the theories of primary care doctor Eric Cassell and systems biologist Denis Noble. Results and conclusions We argue that, although systems biological concepts, notably Noble's theory of biological relativity and downward causation, are highly relevant for understanding human beings and health problems, they are nevertheless insufficient in fully bridging the gap to humanistic medicine. Systems biologists are currently unable to conceptualize living wholes, and seem unable to account for meaning, value and symbolic interaction, which are central concepts in humanistic medicine, as constraints on human health. Accordingly, systems medicine as currently envisioned cannot be said to be integrative, holistic, personalized or patient-centered in a humanistic medical sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, mystically inclined practitioners from various religious traditions have articulated anomalous and mystical experiences. One common aspect of these experiences is the feeling of the loss of the sense of self, referred to as 'self-loss.' The occurrence of 'self-loss' can be understood as the feeling of losing the subject/object distinction in one's phenomenal experience. In this article, the author attempts to incorporate these anomalous experiences into modern understandings of the mind and 'self' from philosophy and psychology. Accounts of self-loss from religious literature along with similar accounts from recent nonreligious writers, suggest that self-loss accounts are potentially legitimate descriptions and not simply the result of religious apologetics. Specifically, I examine self-loss through the lens of philosopher Daniel Dennett's theory of 'self as the center of narrative gravity.' I argue that Dennett's understanding of the self, if correct, allows for the relegitimation of self-loss experiences rooted in current views from the psychological literature, rather than rooted in metaphysical religious claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the United States. For some CRC patients, cancer treatment involves creating a permanent or temporary intestinal ostomy. Having an ostomy often results in complex social and physical concerns-including unpredictable and at times publicly noticeable bowel output. In this article, we discuss findings from 30 in-depth interviews with female CRC survivors with ostomies in the western United States. We highlight how having an ostomy disrupts culturally sanctioned practices of continence that mark the attainment of full-adult personhood. We discuss how survivors reclaim a sense of full personhood after ostomy surgery through a process of realignment that entails both learning how to manage ostomy equipment to conceal bowel activity and reappraising their illness and suffering. We suggest that the anthropological categories of personhood and personhood realignment be incorporated into research and interventions aimed at increasing support among cancer survivors living with bodily impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian ethics accentuates in manifold ways the unique character of human nature. Personalists believe that the mind is never reducible to material and physical substance. The human person is presented as the supreme principle, based on arguments referring to free-willed actions, the immateriality of both the divine spirit and the reflexive capacity, intersubjectivity and self-consciousness. But since Darwin, evolutionary biology slowly instructs us that morality roots in dispositions that are programmed by evolution into our nature. Historically, Thomas Huxley, 'Darwin's bulldog,' agreed with Darwin on almost everything, except for his gradualist position on moral behavior. Huxley's 'saltationism' has recently been characterized by Frans de Waal as 'a veneer theory of morality.' Does this mark the end of a period of presenting morality as only the fruit of socialization processes (nurture) and as having nothing in common with nature? Does it necessarily imply a corrosion of personalist views on the human being or do Christian ethics have to become familiar again with their ancient roots? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social robotics is a rapidly developing industry-oriented area of research, intent on making robots in social roles commonplace in the near future. This has led to rising interest in the dynamics as well as ethics of human-robot relationships, described here as a nascent relational turn. A contrast is drawn with the 1990s' paradigm shift associated with relational-self themes in social psychology. Constructions of the human-robot relationship reproduce the 'I-You-Me' dominant model of theorising about the self with biases that (as in social constructionism) consistently accentuate externalist or 'interactionist' standpoints as opposed to internalist or 'individualistic'. Perspectives classifiable as 'ecological relationalism' may compensate for limitations of interactionist-individualistic dimension. Implications for theorising subjectivity are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ascendance of neoliberalism, often subsumed under the rubric of globalization, has a profound impact on the nature of work. Based on yearlong ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the rise of temporary agency work in post-bubble Japan where an increasing number of workers are assembled and dispatched by staffing agencies to receiving firms on limited-term contracts. Such a distinct triangular employment structure provides an exemplary field in which to explore recurring issues of labor flexibility and inequality that characterize contemporary globalization. By delving into minute details of how 'dispatched workers' engaging in temporarily and spatially fragmented work make sense of themselves, the article aims to accentuate the role of power in the social construction of reality as well as the complexity of everyday practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to recent theories of emergence which attempt to examine system dynamics and the evolution of complexity from physics to biology and consciousness, a number of theologians have attempted to distill religious insights from a philosophical concept of emergence. Recent work by Terrence Deacon, however, which emphasizes constraint and a process understanding of complexity, undercuts significant features in emergent theologies, namely the privileging of certain loci within emergent complexity, an emphasis on efficient causation, and, theologically, an agential and personal God. The final section of this article, using the example of Navaho religious thought, argues that other religious insights which centralize normativity, global features of complexity, and are depersonalized, have greater traction with current scientific theories of emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 1985, about 80 Muslim religious scholars and biomedical scientists gathered in a symposium held in Kuwait to discuss the broad question 'When does human life begin?' This article argues that this symposium is one of the milestones in the field of contemporary Islamic bioethics and independent legal reasoning (Ijtihād). The proceedings of the symposium, however, escaped the attention of academic researchers. This article is meant to fill in this research lacuna by analyzing the proceedings of this symposium, the relevant subsequent developments, and finally the interplay of Islam and the West as a significant dimension in these discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Having encountered landmines in offering a critique of philosophy based on my experience as the mother of a cognitively disabled daughter, I ask, “Should I continue?” I defend the idea that pursuing this project is of a piece with the invisible care labor that is done by people with disabilities and their families. The value of attempting to influence philosophical conceptions of cognitive disability by virtue of this experience is justified by an inextricable relationship between the personal, the political, and the philosophical. If one grants that the “special relationship” between mother and child requires moral recognition, then I need first to make vivid the case that this relationship in the case of a child who lacks some “normal capacities” is indistinguishable from any mother-child relationship. If this is so, then I believe I can make a case that has as its conclusion that the moral personhood of even the severely cognitively disabled must be granted. Moreover, such recognition, I argue, necessitates the recognition of others who bear no special relationships to the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberalism welcomes diversity in substantive ideas of the good but not in the process whereby these ideas are formed. Ideas of the good acquire weight on the presumption that each is a person's own, formed independently. But people differ in their capacities to conceptualize. Some, appropriately characterized as cerebral, are proficient in and profoundly involved with conceptualizing. Others, labeled cognitively disabled, range from individuals with mild limitations to those so unable to express themselves that we cannot be sure whether their behavior is mediated by concepts at all. Constricted cognitive capacities have been thought to prevent participation in the prescribed process for forming personalized ideas of the good. So liberal theory, when formulating principles and practices of justice, often disregards cognitively disabled peoples' perspectives. We put aside metaphysically driven notions about personhood and show how interpersonal processes of “prosthetic” thinking (different from surrogacy) can satisfy liberalism's standards, positioning cognitively disabled individuals as fully participating subjects of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Introduction to the collection of essays surveys the philosophical literature to date with respect to five central questions: justice, care, agency, metaphilosophical issues regarding the language and representation of cognitive disability, and personhood. These themes are discussed in relation to three specific conditions: intellectual and developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's disease, and autism, though the issues raised are relevant to a broad range of cognitive disabilities. The Introduction offers a brief historical overview of the treatment cognitive disability has received from philosophers, and explains the specific challenges that cognitive disability poses to philosophy. In briefly summarizing the essays in the collection, it highlights the distinctive contributions the collection makes to ethics, political philosophy, bioethics, and the philosophy of disability. We hope that the richness of the topics explored by these essays will be a spur to further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Non-Identity Problem is the problem of explaining the apparent wrongness of a decision that does not harm people, especially since some of the people affected by the decision would not exist at all were it not for the decision. One approach to this problem, in the context of reproductive decisions, is to focus on wronging, rather than harming, one's offspring. But a Non-Person Problem emerges for any view that claims (1) that only persons can be wronged and (2) that the person-making properties allow for there to be human non-persons. Consider an individual human organism that is prevented from ever possessing the person-making properties. On person-only accounts of the victims of wronging, this organism cannot be wronged by anyone. Hence even individuals whose decisions prevent it from ever possessing the person-making properties cannot wrong it. But this is counter-intuitive. We can think of examples where a human organism is wronged by precisely those decisions that prevent it from possessing the person-making properties. The best solution to this problem, in the case where the person-making property is rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, is to adjust the concept of a person so that it refers, not merely to those with the immediate capacity for rational self-governance in pursuit of a meaningful life, but also to those with a higher-order capacity for such self-governance. Any solution to the Non-Identity Problem that focuses on wronging rather than harming should incorporate this sort of solution to the Non-Person Problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic philosophical, mystical, and theological sub-traditions have each made characteristic assumptions about the human person, including an incorporation of substance dualism in distinctive manners. Advances in the brain sciences of the last half century, which include a widespread acceptance of death as the end of essential brain function, require the abandonment of dualistic notions of the human person that assert an immaterial and incorporeal soul separate from a body. In this article, I trace classical Islamic notions of death and the soul, the modern definition of death as "brain death," and some contemporary Islamic responses to this definition. I argue that a completely naturalistic account of human personhood in the Islamic tradition is the best and most viable alternative for the future. This corporeal monistic account of Muslim personhood as embodied consciousness incorporates the insights of pre-modern Muslim thinkers yet rehabilitates their characteristic mistakes and thus has the advantages of neuroscientific validity and modern relevance in trans-cultural ethical discourse; it also helps to alleviate organ shortages in countries with majority Muslim populations, a serious ethical impasse of recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]