This collection of original essays opens up a novel area of inquiry: the distinctively ethical dimension of women's experiences of aging. Fifteen distinguished contributors here explore assumptions, experiences, practices, and public policies that affect women's well-being and dignity in later life.The book brings to the study of women's aging a reflective dimension missing from the empirical work that has predominated to date. Ethical studies of aging have so far failed to emphasi...

'A passionate defence of the enduring power of human nature ... both life-affirming and deeply satisfying' Daily TelegraphRecently many people have assumed that we are blank slates shaped by our environment. But this denies the heart of our being: human nature. Violence is not just a product of society; male and female minds are different; the genes we give our children shape them more than our parenting practices. To acknowledge our inna...

Now available in paperback?a provocative new look at biology, evolution, and human behavior ?as disturbing [as it is] fascinating? (Publishers Weekly).Why are most neurosurgeons male and most kindergarten teachers female? Why aren?t there more women on death row? Why do so many male politicians ruin their careers with sex scandals? Why and how do we really fall in love? This engaging book uses the latest research from the field of evolutionary psychology t...

Is a baby whose personality has been chosen from a gene supermarket still a human? If we choose what we create what happens to morality? Is this the end of human nature? The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction. It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening. For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose thei...

While procreation is ubiquitous, attention to the ethical issues involved in creating children is relatively rare. In Debating Procreation, David Benatar and David Wasserman take opposing views on this important question. David Benatar argues for the anti-natalist view that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence. He argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that even if it were not always so, the risk of serious harm is sufficiently great to make procrea...

Winner, 2022 PSA Women's Caucus Prize in Feminist Philosophy of Science AwardThe public has voiced concern over the adverse effects of vaccines from the moment Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. The controversy over childhood immunization intensified in 1998, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Although Wakefield’s findings were later discredited and retracted, and medical and scientific evidence suggests routine immunizations h...

"A wonderful antidote to the gene hysteria that is now so dominant! . . . What is most exciting about this book is the authors' ability to move seamlessly from research on how the brain works, to sociology, history, and philosophy. And that, I believe, is exactly how we need to understand gender--neither nature nor nurture, but a complex interplay." - Dr. Lynda Birke, author of Feminism and the Biological BodyThis work moves beyond the old nature/nurture debate concerning ...

The first book in the new series Diversity and Aging, Laura Hurd Clarke's Facing Age examines the relationship between aging and women in a culture obsessed with youthfulness. From weight gain, to wrinkles, to sagging skin, to gray hair, the book explores older women's complex and often contradictory feelings about their bodies and the physical realities of growing older. Although the women in the book express discontent about their aging visage, they also emphasize the importance...

In a culture where beauty is currency, women’s bodies are often perceived as measures of value and worth. The search for visibility and self-acceptance can be daunting, especially for those on the cultural margins of “beauty.”Becoming Women offers a thoughtful examination of the search for identity in an image-oriented world. That search is told through the experiences of a group of women who came of age in the wake of second and third wave feminism, featuring voi...

An argument against the “lifeboat ethic” of contemporary bioethics that views medicine as a commodity rather than a tradition of care and caring.Bioethics emerged in the 1960s from a conviction that physicians and researchers needed the guidance of philosophers in handling the issues raised by technological advances in medicine. It blossomed as a response to the perceived doctor-knows-best paternalism of the traditional medical ethic and today plays a critical role...

Human behavior is a subject so vast that it would seem to defy one's ability to comfortably and confidently grasp its varieties, nuances, shapes, and dynamics. But in this wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of the contexts of human behavior, Dennis Saleebey examines the different social science approaches to understanding the way humans react to and are affected by their environment.Using a biopsychosocial perspective, this book demonstrates that there are many paths of knowledg...

Decisive biotechnological interventions in the lottery of human life--to enhance our bodies and brains and perhaps irreversibly change our genetic makeup--have been widely rejected as unethical and undesirable and have often met with extreme hostility. But in Enhancing Evolution leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering stem-cell research designer babies and cloning to make a forthright sweeping and rigorous ethical case for using biotechnology to im...