Vulnerable Human Beings Research Articles

Towards an eco-practical theology: An eschatological horizon of true hope

The ecological crisis in the world necessitates the reconfiguration of the hegemony of modern science, theology, politics, economics and technology – the root cause of a pending ecological catastrophe. The aim is to redress a growing culture of apathy in the context of devastating weather conditions, social and political discord, and unrelenting violent wars. Public theology serves as a conceptual framework with transversal rationality as an interlocutor between the different theological (systematic, ethics, pastoral care and eco-theology), religious and philosophical perspectives. The theological ontology of care is presented followed by the role of communities of critical prophetic discourse. The notion of earth as a community leads to the prospect of a new eco-theology. Finally, the pending ecological catastrophe is reconceptualised in and through Christian eschatology. This is an inter- and intra-disciplinary discussion on the disastrous consequences of modernity and anthropocentric behaviour in terms of the current environmental crisis. Various scholars offer valuable insights into what the problem is, who responsible is for the environmental crisis, and how Christian communities should forge an accountability of care for the earth and vulnerable human beings. The eschatological reality of God’s preferred future remains a constant of hopeful and sustainable life in the Anthropocene age. It is recommended that we change the way we exist by transforming modernity as developed and sustained through theology, socio-political, economic and technological ‘advances’.Contribution: This article focussed on the ecological crisis because of anthropocentrism and distorted theological, political and socio-economic paradigms to serve human interests despite the consequences for the earth. We need to reconfigure interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary scientific approaches to embrace earth as a key scientific interlocutor. The ecological crisis should be conceptualised within the reality of Christian eschatology – Jesus Christ is ultimately, the eschaton.

Deadly Language Games: Theological Reflections on Emerging Reproductive Technologies

Abstract This issue of Christian Bioethics explores theological, metaphysical, and ethical questions surrounding emerging reproductive technologies. Narratives concerning such technologies are often manipulated via “language games.” Language games involve toying with language to ensure that one’s vision of the good gains or retains political prominence. Such games are common in academic discussions of “artificial womb” technologies. Abortion proponents, for example, are already using language to dehumanize subjects within “artificial wombs.” This is unsurprising. Were relevant subjects considered persons, then abortion access (and other forms of “reproductive autonomy”) might be curtailed. Here, I show that abortion proponents’ language games often depend on dubious metaphysical claims. Second, I argue that Christians should oppose dehumanizing language games, since those games undermine “neighbor-love,” which Christians are commanded to show others. I also highlight how discussions of other technologies—such as medication abortion—are affected by confused (or manipulative) language. Ultimately, the language games I critique aim to preserve and expand the “rights” of the powerful to dehumanize, control, and kill vulnerable human beings. Since neighbor-love commands Christians to provide for “the least of these,” however, Christians must expose these manipulative language games, refute them, and resist the corrupt ideologies from which they flow.

인공지능자동화의 전면화 국면에서 일과 사회1) : 창의성의 문제

Creativity begins to establish itself as human nature at the dawn of modern society. However, the current creativity discourse in the era of automation is centered on the situation in which machines threaten humans. Regarding this situation, this study deals with the problem of creativity discourse, which claims that we can only survive when we are creative. The process begins by examining how creativity, as a latent ability, emerged as a universal human possibility in modern society, but how it was blocked. All the tools and inventions that mankind has created in the long history of life supplement the vulnerable human beings. However, in the era of artificial intelligence automation, paradoxical claims are being made that machines are humanizing. So, in the era of automation, we look at how what those who advocate for creativity are doing is creating the result of grading people. The key is that creativity is what a good job that will survive in the age of automation requires. However, such a claim threatens to block the opportunities for creativity that every individual should enjoy. Creativity studies by psychologists track the environmental and psychological characteristics of creative people. Recognize the importance of the social and cultural environment. However, they do not pay attention to the structural problem of historical society that this study focuses on. It also examines the concreteness of practice, which progressive automation theorists’ expectations for labor emancipation and the utopian vision of a society where universal human creativity can be exercised are lacking. This study focuses on the local as a possibility to overcome these limitations. An important factor in the centripetal force of the Capital metropolitan area in Korean society is employment opportunities. The creativity required by the labor market is the ability to be employed. So it does not require the ability to express creativity to achieve true individuation. Moreover, human creative thinking is possible through meaningful social interaction. However, it does not happen in abstract groups such as nations and countries. Concrete and practical interactions are possible within meaningful human relationships created in the local, which is the basic living ecosystem in which individuals live. Therefore, this study pays attention to the emergence of local creators, which are visibly active in Korean society since early 2010s. Specifically, it argues that the movement of a new generation to realize their own uniqueness in the local community where life takes place is an important practice case of creative freedom to realize the uniqueness of ‘I’.

Equity for the child in adoption: Some issues of concern in the adoption of children ordinance of Sri Lanka

The Adoption Ordinance of 1941 regulates the adoption of children in Sri Lanka. The few <em>ad hoc </em>amendments made thus far to this eighty-year-old colonial statute have proved inadequate to efficiently address illegal baby farming and trafficking of children in the country. It also falls short of internationally recognized standards and norms regarding adoption of children, denying many children several rights they are entitled to as vulnerable human beings. This situation is due to two main reasons. Firstly, the Ordinance fails to respond to the contemporary socio-cultural structure, which has transformed tremendously during the last eight decades. Secondly, powers and functions relating to child rights governance have fluctuated between the center and the provinces, resulting in a tugof-war between multiple authorities. Amidst insensitivities, adversaries and corruption, the system fails to ensure equity for the children. The article stresses the need to relocate the adoption law within a childrights-centered framework. Being mindful of the multi-faceted and largescale exploitation and trafficking of children, and the powerplay between central and provincial authorities working on probation and childcare, the article emphasizes the necessity to overhaul the law and the institutional framework. The article aims to strike a balance between human rights issues, psychological and psychosocial issues, and issues relative to child-rights governance. The article proposes substantive and procedural changes and lists out guidelines for judicial and other officers involved in adoption processes to protect the rights of the child.

Spontaneous ethics in nurses' willingness to work during a pandemic.

Background: In modern healthcare, the role of solidarity, altruism and the natural response to moral challenges in life-threatening situations is still rather unexplored. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to obtain a deeper understanding of nurses’ willingness to care for patients during crisis.Objective: To elucidate clinical expressions of ontological situational ethics through nurses’ willingness to work during a pandemic.Research design, participants and context: A qualitative study with an interpretive design was applied. Twenty nurses who worked in intensive care unit at two Swedish hospitals during the first, second, and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed. The analysis was interpretative and applied a theoretical ethics perspective.Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and informed consent was obtained from all participants.Findings: From a philosophical perspective, the nurses expressed sovereign life expressions of mercy and compassion, which arose spontaneously in response to seeing vulnerable fellow humans. They referenced ‘‘the nurse inside me’’ and their choice of profession as motives to provide care. Ontological situational ethics in culture and norms were noted in the constructs of competence, responsibility, solidarity with colleagues and organization; and interest and learning were driving forces. Ethical demand was evident when nurses expressed ideas of meaningfulness in helping their fellow humans; but themes of ambiguity, exhaustion and unwillingness were also present.Conclusions: The nurses showed a high willingness to care for patients during a crisis. Responding to the ethical demand and to care for vulnerable human beings while risking their own health and lives could be interpreted as an inter-human vocation. These spontaneous altruistic actions saved the lives of many patients during the pandemic and need to be understood and supported

Child Sex Tourism: A Case Study in Surabaya, Indonesia

This article provides a case study of child sex tourism (CST) in Surabaya, Indonesia. CST cases are difficult to surface because the victims of CST are such vulnerable human beings. Victims of CST need a variety of forms of support for their recovery and reintegration. This article contends that social, economic, political, technological, and individual factors cause CST. It examines the negative impacts of CST, which are medical, social, psychological, and physical in nature. It also reveals that the techniques used for CST recruitment are fake promises, debt bondage, emotional abuse, counterfeit love, drug addiction, physical abuse, gifts and favors. The elimination of CST calls for ending certain depraved cultural practices and beliefs, rehabilitation and reintegration of the victims, proactive anti-CST government policies and programs, enactment and effective enforcement of tough laws prohibiting CST, prosecution of the offenders, raising public awareness about the ills of CST, providing education for all children, the provision of national identification documents to all children, and strict border controls to prevent the trafficking of children for sex tourism.

Equivalence of the Moral Objects in Embryo Adoption and Heterologous IVF

Embryo adoption is a topic of considerable debate in the Church. Well over a million human embryos are currently being kept in cryogenic containers with little prospect of survival. The desire to rescue these vulnerable human beings is natural. However, the processes required to do so raise serious questions regarding the ethics of embryo adoptions. The violation of the unitive and procreative aspects of human intercourse and its ramifications on the moral status of heterologous embryo transfer are key to understanding the reasoning behind some objections to human embryo adoption.

Relationships influencing caring in first-line nursing leadership: A visual hermeneutic study.

To explore and interpret relationships that influence caring in nursing leadership, in the context of Nordic municipal health care, from first-line nurse managers' perspectives. We chose a visual hermeneutic design. A three-stage interpretation process outlined by Drew and Guillemin, based on Rose, was used to analyse drawings and the following reflective dialogue from three focus groups, with a purposive sample of 11 first-line nurse managers. The study was conducted from February to May 2018. The findings demonstrated that first-line nurse managers struggled to balance their vision with administrative demands. Caring for patients implied caring for staff; however, they often felt as if they were drowning in contradictory demands. First-line nurse management could be a lonely position, where the first-line nurse managers longed for belonging based on increased self-awareness of their position within an organisation. Superiors' support enabled first-line nurse managers' in their primary aim of caring for patients. First-line nurse managers showed deep roots to their identities as nurses. Caring for patients included caring for staff and was their main concern, despite demanding reforms and demographic changes affecting leadership. Superiors' support was important for FLNMs' self-confidence and independence in leadership, so the first-line nurse managers can enact their vision of the best possible patient care. This study adds knowledge of the significance of caring in nursing leadership and the caritative leadership theory. In order to recognise FLNMs as vulnerable human beings and provide individual confirmation and support, a caring organisational culture is needed. FLNMs need knowledge based on caring and nursing sciences, administration and participation in formal leadership networks. These findings can serve as a foundation for developing educational programmes for nurse leaders at several organisational levels.

Cooperation with Evil Reconsidered: The Moral Duty of Resistance

The essay presents an argument for critical retrieval of the framework of cooperation with evil used by the moral manualists who dominated Catholic moral theology in the first part of the 20th century. Both “liberal” and “conservative” Christians are concerned with cooperation but differ as to which issues deserve attention and when cooperation becomes problematic. The key to moving beyond the current impasse is balancing the manualists’ tolerance for material cooperation in the face of conflicting responsibilities with the prophetic sensibilities of womanist theologians who are “troubled in their souls” by the suffering of vulnerable human beings and call Christians to take concrete steps to contribute to the decrease of that suffering.

Eden's Other Residents: The Bible and Animals by Michael J. Gilmour

Reviewed by: Eden's Other Residents: The Bible and Animals by Michael J. Gilmour HyeRan Kim-Cragg michael j. gilmour, Eden's Other Residents: The Bible and Animals ( Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014). Pp. xvii + 169. Paper $24. Animals are everywhere in the Bible, not only as props for the stories but also as actors in important relationships with others. Michael Gilmour demonstrates that the Bible has much to teach contemporary readers, not only about the human relationship with God but about human relationships with animals as well. Gilmour admits, however, that animals and the Bible are rather a strange choice of subject (p. 10). By strange he means a low priority for biblical studies and Christian life. This is partly because what the Bible says about animals is complex and ambiguous. G. makes various references that affirm God's ḥesed (mercy and love) toward all creation, while also providing passages that minimize the value of nonhuman creatures in the Bible. A bigger problem, he adds, is the anthropocentric view in the Bible and in most Christian theological traditions. Gilmour's methodology is complex and diverse. His reading of biblical literature is deliberately provocative and disrupts dominant "reading habits" that exclude animals from commentaries and Christian discourse (p. 15). This disruptive approach is most obvious in chap. 2 (e.g., Judg 15:4-5). G.'s presentation is thematic, ranging from "creation," "animal sacrifice," to "visions of eschatological peace and restoration." He closely examines translations of important concepts and words such as "subdue," "manna," "a herd of swine," and "another gardener," and combines these with contextual and historical exegesis. He takes a transdisciplinary approach, engaging classic literary texts and authors (e.g., the Odyssey, C. S. Lewis, Anne Brontë), and historical tales (e.g., Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins's journal). His wide range of sources draws together to weave a variety of cultural threads that address the place of animals in the Bible and in the world. Gilmour's intertextual readings disclose the scarcity of explicit references to animals in the NT but nonetheless are able pick up the echoes of their presence. To do so, he borrows postcolonial cultural critic Edward Said's "contrapuntal" reading strategy, which refers to ideas in the text that become "figures whose writing travels across temporal, cultural, and ideological boundaries in unforeseen ways to emerge as part of a new ensemble along with later history and subsequent art" (pp. 30-31). An example of such reading is 1 Cor 9:9-10, [End Page 340] where Paul's teaching on Deut 25:4 ("You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain") transforms a teaching about the treatment of animals into an argument that Christian preachers deserve to be paid. The passage from Deuteronomy is one of the Hebrew Scriptures' most explicit teachings on human responsibility to animals, and one may despair that Paul has replaced this meaning in the NT interpretation. "But all is not lost," G. consoles (p. 33). To offer a contrapuntal interpretation of 1 Cor 9:9-10, he travels back to the broader context of Deuteronomy, whose key message is the well-being and the dignity of the defenseless, which includes people and animals because to "speak of caring for laboring animals is to speak of caring for vulnerable human beings" (p. 34). G. applies the "prophetic suggestiveness" of Said to Paul, who did not abandon the message of Deuteronomy but proclaims that "God is not concerned with oxen only in Deut 25:4, any more than other laws demanding generosity, hospitality, protection, and compassion are about human beings only" (p. 35). Ultimately, G. establishes the relationship of animals–humans–God as a "triptych" (p. 38). Codex Vaticanus, one of the oldest parchment manuscripts of the whole Christian Bible, he suggests, is an example of where animals serve as the nexus for an encounter between the divine and the human (p. 58). Triptychs are covenantal relationships that require faithful commitments in which humans and animals are cocelebrants (p. 119), in which God is revealed to humans through animals (p. 131), and in which humans are not independent of animals (p. 145). Although there is cruelty...

The Refugee as Invasive Other

The Refugee as Invasive Other Michael Ignatieff (bio) after the mass displacements of populations following world War II, refugees earned a legal and moral status as persons with a justified claim on the protection of a state if they could demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. Thanks to the Refugee Convention of 1951, refugees acquired a newfound moral identity sanctioned in international law. Sixty years later, the structure of international law remains intact, but new metaphors have entered the democratic body politic, categorizing the refugee not as an individual with rights and a moral claim, but as the invasive other. A few examples from Eastern Europe will make this evident. In September 2015, Czech and Slovak politicians and medical professionals supported closure of the Czech and Slovak borders on the grounds that refugees would bring in disease. The claim had no substance, of course, but it was not an empirical claim at all. It was a pure exercise in malicious political metaphor, a not-so-subtle trope intended to construe refugees as a collective threat to the nation. As a result, neither the Czech Republic nor the Slovak Republic was prepared to grant the refugees any of the rights sanctioned by the 1951 convention. In the same period, the autumn of 2015, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, justified the closing of his country's border on the grounds that the refugees were a threat to "Christian civilization." This metaphorical terrain was already available before the refugees arrived; Hungary as a "Christian guardian" of Europe was a trope of Hungarian nationalism throughout the twentieth century. [End Page 223] Mr. Orbán is a master of this metaphorical terrain: he has built political power on an adept use of such tropes, in which history is reconfigured as biology and Islamic faith is re-envisaged as disease. Islam, a faith that has been present in Europe and part of its history since the eighth century, is recategorized as the invasive other. When politics enters this metaphorical zone, the results are always perilous for vulnerable human beings. Through malign use of these metaphors, populist politicians in Europe, primarily of the right, have managed an extraordinarily ingenious inversion of reality. Refugees in flight from chaos, bombardment, and fear are described as an invading force. People fleeing ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria are viewed as terrorist threats. When victims are forced into this metaphorical terrain, the legal and humanitarian duties that states and their citizens once took for granted are reinvented as burdens to be sloughed off. Victims' claims are regarded either as moral blackmail or as duplicitous exploitation of our generous impulses. The political consequences of treating refugees as the invasive other are immediate. Encampment, detention, forced repatriation, razor wire, searchlights, guard patrols, and dogs all quickly follow. Populist politicians of the right—and some on the left—construct these metaphors for a purpose: to collapse the political space for public consent to the generous and humane treatment of the desperate. The collapse of this space is evident everywhere. The United States had prided itself on responding generously to surges in refugees and forced migrants. During the Syrian civil war, which has displaced nearly 10 million people, this tradition lost its power to inspire public support and guide policy. Since 2012, the United States has taken in no more than fifteen thousand Syrian refugees, and the newly elected president wants to bar the door to any refugees from countries that have a majority of Muslim citizens. While populist politicians and ideologues bear the responsibility for the collapse of the space for generosity and compassion, they claim that they are giving voice to the voiceless majority, whose fears were ignored or condescended to by liberal elites. Populism's moral [End Page 224] claim is always that it gives democratic utterance to preferences ignored by the privileged few. This democratic claim acquires a certain plausibility in a time of fear. Terrorist attacks—such as those that occurred in San Bernardino, Orlando, Brussels, Paris, and Istanbul—create a background condition of anxiety that makes it easy for populist politics to "other" the stranger. Fear, in turn, then makes people indifferent to facts. The facts...

L’infanzia e i diritti violati: furto di neonati e pedofilia nella Chiesa

Starting from a journalistic enquiry on two events which, only apparently, are not linked, the article highlights the connection between a few bedrocks of catholic religious thought and the systematic crimes against humanity many clergymen committed by sexually abusing children. This is the case, for example, of pedophilia which the Roman Catholic Church considers to be an offence against morality, an offence to God, rather than a true crime, possibly, the cruellest crime against the most vulnerable human beings. This conception is at the basis of the protection ecclesiastic hierarchies have offered to pedophile priests, who are being moved from one parish to the other, thus escaping justice. For the Roman Catholic Church, safeguarding children is not a priority when it comes to protect its public image. A report issued by the United Nations shows unequivocally how, in the last twenty-five years, the Vatican has never considered the psycho-physical health of children to be one of its priorities. This approach, which is detrimental to inalienable human rights, involve all ecclesiastic hierarchies and also reflects the active role thousands of catholic priests played in stealing newborns and children from unbelieving parents in Spain and Latin America in the Twentieth Century.

A Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement

As this sourcebook clearly demonstrates, solitary confinement has a well documented negative impact on mental health and wellbeing and may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, particularly when used for a prolonged time. The use of solitary confinement should therefore be strictly limited to exceptional cases or where it is absolutely necessary for criminal investigation purposes. The severe suffering caused by solitary confinement means that in all cases it should only be used as a last resort, and then for the shortest possible period of time. When used for interrogation purposes, either in combination with other methods or on its own, solitary confinement can amount not only to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment but even to torture. This comprehensive sourcebook brings together the accumulated knowledge and standards relating to solitary confinement and its harmful consequences. It identifies how solitary confinement may be misused and the protections that should be put in place. It is a valuable resource for prison staff and policy makers in the effort to promote the respect and protection of the rights and wellbeing of prisoners and detainees. Let us not forget that persons deprived of liberty are among the most vulnerable human beings in every society. - Manfred Nowak, Preface.

The best there is? Communication, objectivity and the future of Critical International Relations Theory

Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action has provided the inspiration for a school of Critical International Relations Theory which looks to communication as a source of praxis, and therefore a means of emancipation. This article argues that Critical International Relations Theorists have been too ready to accept Habermas’s claims about the emancipatory power of communication. In particular, it is not clear that a Habermasian Critical International Relations Theory can address the concerns of more sophisticated materialists — not least those of Habermas’s predecessors in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. One of the most original of these predecessors, Theodor Adorno, argued that the pursuit of communication between subjects would result in the betrayal of Critical Theory to the requirements of instrumental reason. The article suggests that similar concerns are apparent in International Relations: in Marxian criticisms of the turn to communication; in accusations of ‘anthropocentrism’ aimed at post-positivists by Critical Realists; and in Andrew Linklater’s emphasis on the common human capacity to experience and recognize bodily suffering. Adorno’s Critical Theory points to the need for a reorientation of Critical International Relations Theory towards an account of praxis which draws upon the experiences and needs of corporeal, vulnerable human beings who are part of a material world. In this way, critical International Relations theorists can carry forward the critique of global socio-political forces which the majority of the world’s inhabitants experience as an arbitrary constraint.

Progress towards national self-sufficiency in organ transplants

The federal shariat court of Pakistan recently upheld the country’s 2007 Transplantation of human organs and tissue ordinance.1 A courageous campaign had originally established this legislation in Pakistan,2 a country in which poor people once received a pittance for selling their organs, while some organ brokers, doctors and hospitals became rich. The ordinance prohibits commercial organ donation, legalizes deceased donation, excludes donations to foreigners from unrelated Pakistani donors and establishes a human organ transplant authority to monitor transplantation activities and ensure transparency. The transplant authority – at the Ministry of Health – must implement and enforce ethical practices and combat the resurgence of clandestine organ trafficking. Advocates of commercial transplantation and transplant tourism have openly sought to challenge the law. A society of transplant professionals interested in the sale of kidneys and the provision of transplantation services to tourists from abroad petitioned the federal shariat court on various grounds, including a claim that the prohibition against payment constituted a hurdle to the saving of human lives. This petition exemplifies the persistent threats to ethical transplantation practice globally, highlighting the commercial appeal of paying vulnerable organ vendors to provide organs for distant elites. For example, patients from Saudi Arabia were regularly reported as clients of kidney transplantation clinics in Pakistan before the introduction of the 2007 ordinance. Saudi Arabia has since mirrored the Pakistani response to this threat, with both governments demonstrating that the pursuit of national self-sufficiency in human organs is the only way to progress towards equitable transplantation practice on a global level. The number of Saudi patients transplanted abroad has steadily decreased and donations from deceased donors increased to unprecedented levels in 2008.3 The Saudi authorities are clearly taking responsibility for meeting transplantation needs in the Kingdom, thereby minimizing the harmful effects of transplant tourism. Other countries once recognized as transplant tourism destinations – such as Egypt and the Philippines – have recently adopted or are now considering draft laws banning commercial transplants.4,5 Countries that have previously resorted to transplant tourism have established – or are pursuing – self-sufficiency at the national or sub-regional level, for example in Israel, Japan and the Republic of Korea.6–8 Meeting transplantation needs at the national level avoids predatory behaviour at the expense of underprivileged populations in other countries. However, this goal can only be achieved by increasing deceased donations through efficient organ procurement organizations, as well as safely developing live-related kidney donation. The Member States of the World Health Organization were urged to do so in Resolution 57.18 of the 2004 World Health Assembly.9 Advocates of payment for living donation claim that altruism has been shown to be inefficient and insufficient, yet some countries, provinces and states have shown that self-sufficiency is within reach. Some countries have achieved success in the absence of paid donation, thus avoiding exploitative practices that shift the burden of organ donation to the poor. The pursuit of national self-sufficiency in human material for transplantation is the collective responsibility of all citizens, inasmuch as they are necessary participants in the prevention and management of all diseases leading to the need for transplantation. The shariat court judgment was a victory for the federal government and dedicated medical professionals in Pakistan seeking to establish and maintain ethical standards in organ procurement and transplantation. It was also a powerful affirmation of Islamic bioethics in harmony with the universal values expressed in the WHO guiding principles on human cell, tissue and organ transplantation and the Declaration of Istanbul.10,11 By putting a stop to the exploitation of vulnerable human beings and equipping the country with the legislation necessary to establish donation and transplantation services using organs from deceased donors, Pakistan has adopted the path to national self-sufficiency by which the health authorities invite citizens to donate organs after death. Potential donors are also reminded that they themselves may be potential beneficiaries of organs from deceased donors. In the pursuit of self-sufficiency, altruism, reciprocity and civic consciousness are the main motivations for donation. ■

Research with vulnerable human beings

Some categories of human beings are particularly vulnerable vis-à-vis medical research. Vulnerability could be considered as the liability to be harmed, exploited, deceived, cheated, wronged, or otherwise unfairly treated, in roughly that descending order of importance. Vulnerable human beings obviously include the incompetent (minors and mentally handicapped adults), the desperately poor, ill or ignorant, prisoners, refugees, pregnant women, subordinates in highly authoritarian systems, etc. Vulnerability in itself does not imply that no research whatsoever should be carried out with such categories of humans but only that it should be carried out only under very special conditions. In this paper I treat of vulnerability in research of particularly developing world populations; of the types of research which exploit such vulnerability, and of why and how research subjects should be protected. The aim in this paper is to stimulate practical reflection on the possible vulnerabilities of potential research subjects that researchers or investigators need to avoid exploiting rather than on an adequate theoretical treatment of the issue.

Consumable Metaphors: Attitudes Towards Animals and Vegetarianism in Nineteenth-Century France by Ceri Crossley

MLR,I02.2, 2007 515 treatmentof the immediate past both from ideas and philosophers of theEnlighten ment into fiction and from the spillover of real-life drama of revolution into staged drama. The collection contains avariety of approaches: close textual readings of fiction and plays, a quantitative analysis of play titles,and exploration of concepts (patois) and paradigms (volcanoes and the sublime). The relatively limited range of genres under scrutiny provides coherence. Three chapters discuss very differentquestions in fiction; the threeon politics and theatre come to quite differentconclusions. NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY MAIRE F. CROSS Consumable Metaphors: Attitudes towardsAnimals and Vegetarianism inNineteenth Century France. By CERI CROSSLEY. (French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, I7) Bern: Peter Lang. 2005. 322 pp. ?37. ISBN 978 3-03-9IOI90-0. The last decade has seen the spectacular growth of awide range of publications often gathered under theumbrella termof 'Animal Studies'. The majority of these publica tions areAnglo-Saxon, so Ceri Crossley's book is awelcome addition to the relatively small corpus of French research into animals. The title,Consumable Metaphors, implies that animal representation rather than attitudes to real creatures is the focus of the study.Yet, even though some consi deration is given to literary and other cultural representations of animals, the sub title expresses more accurately the fact that the book is essentially concerned with nineteenth-century attitudes towards animals inFrance, particularly moral questions of cruelty and exploitation. This is, of course, another way of envisaging animals metaphorically, and the authormentions inhis conclusion that thebook has 'more to do with themoral and social preoccupations of the French nineteenth century than with the animals themselves' (p. 289). Animal studies encompass awide range of is sues, such as relationships between human and non-human, the definition of human and non-human beings, (non-)ethical attitudes towards animals, theplace of animals in the natural world, associations of animals with vulnerable human beings, and the meanings and presence of animals inhuman culture. These are, of course, often in terrelated. In addition, thepresence of contrasting views on animals, particularly on theirmoral status, has to be emphasized in any study retracing a history of ideas in this field.Nevertheless, a tighter thematic focusmight have given thebook a stronger feel of unity.As the author himself points out, advocates of vegetarianism are often more concerned with human health thanwith animal welfare. The volume isstructured as fifteen chapters centred either on a relevantauthor or on a theme, and evolves chronologically inorder 'to investigate thedifferentdefinitions of animal nature proposed by nineteenth-century currents of thought inFrance' (p. i i). The introductory pages ask the essential questions explored through the book and place thework in the context of recent publications inFrench and English on animal issues,which gives it a useful contemporary relevance. Emerging ideologies regard ing animal protection and vegetarianism aswell as attitudes towards natural history explored at the end of the eighteenth century by both famous writers and unknown eccentrics are then considered. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 present thinkerswith entirely opposing views on themoral status of animals: Jean-Antoine Gleizes's philosophy of vegetarianism, JeanReynaud's visions of a humankind born to control animals and animal passions, seen as dangerously immoral, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's theories of domestication and their influence on nineteenth-century perceptions of human animal relationships. The remaining chapters bring the vital question of animals in relation topolitics and religion to the fore,firstintroducing us to thework ofAlphonse 5I6 Reviews de Lamartine, Alexis Godin, Alphonse Toussenel, and JulesMichelet, then consi dering the vivisection debate. Chapters 13 and I4 discuss how, in the latterpart of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century, in spite of the lack of success of vegetarianism, French society opened itself to the cause of the animals. In some ways this book is a perfect French sequel toKeith Thomas's Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes inEngland I500-I800 (London: Allen Lane, I983). A few omissions are surprising (Zola is not considered, for example, Cuvier and Lamarck hardly mentioned), but the numerous and relevant referenceswhich illustrate the arguments show an impressive knowledge of the topic. Indeed, one of the strong points of the book is to examine...

Human Rights – Human Bodies? Some Reflections on Corporate Human Rights Distortion,The Legal Subject, Embodiment and Human Rights Theory

This paper responds to the subversion of international human rights discourse by corporations. It begins by placing such subversion in three contexts: the ascendance of human rights as the dominant discourse of contemporary moral and political life; the emerging challenges to human rights posed by other-than-natural-human entities; and ambiguity in the relationship between the legal subject and the human being. The author suggests that in order to resist corporate human rights distortion it is important to reclaim the language of the human for the natural human being, despite complex philosophical and definitional challenges attending the designation of the term ‘human.’ The author suggests that by re-attending to the implications of human embodiment for human rights theory it might be possible to re-invigorate the protective potential of human rights for vulnerable human beings and communities against powerful disembodied legal persons (corporations).

Mental health of sex counsellors and of sex therapists: Some guidelines

Sex counsellors and sex therapists are human beings: vulnerable human beings with a permanent exposure to professional stress: specific professional stress. Indeed, clinical experience and statisti...

Freedom of Scientific Research and its Restrictions in German Constitutional Law

The German Constitution guarantees freedom of scientific research. This guarantee raises questions, such as its legal definition and scope, as well as possible conflicts with other constitutional rights. This Article suggests that in order to have normative legal consequences, the constitutional concept of science must have an ethical dimension—the importance of the value of research and research for nonbiased “truth.” Such an ethically-loaded definition of science gives rise to internal restrictions, by placing forgery, manipulation, plagiarism and other forms of improper scientific practice outside the scope of constitutional protection. Restrictions to constitutional protection can also be derived from other constitutional rights, such as the right to privacy, environmental protection, and the life and health of others. Another arguably important restriction is derived from the right to human dignity, particularly as it touches upon biomedical questions of human cloning and embryo research. This paper argues that the Kantian proscription of treating human beings as a means to an end, which lies at the heart of the right to human dignity, imposes significant restrictions on current trends in biomedicine. These restrictions warn against an implicit utilitarianism that devalues the rights of vulnerable human beings.