This paper explores models of reflexive feminist science studies through the work of Donna Haraway. The paper argues that Haraway provides an important account of science studies that is both feminist and constructivist. However, her concepts of “situated knowledges” and “diffraction” need further development to be adequate models of feminist science studies. To develop this constructivist and feminist project requires a collective research program that engages with feminist reflexivity as a practice.

Males are selectively afflicted with the neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders of childhood, a broad and virtually ubiquitous phenomenon that has not received proper attention in the biological study of sex differences. The previous literature has alluded to psychosocial differences, genetic factors and elements pertaining to male “complexity” and relative immaturity, but these are not deemed an adequate explanation for selective male affliction. The structure of sex differences in neurodevelopmental disorders is hypothesized to contain these elements: Males are more frequently afflicted, (...) females more severely; disorders arising in females are largely mediated by the genotype; in males, by a genotype by environment interaction; complications of pregnancy and delivery occur more frequently with male births; such complications are decisive and influence subsequent development. We hypothesize that there is something about the male fetus that evokes an inhospitable uterine environment. This “evocative principle” is hypothesized to relate to the relative antigenicity of the male fetus, which may induce a state of maternal immunoreactivity, leading either directly or indirectly to fetal damage. The immunoreactive theory thus constructed is borrowed from studies of sex ratios and is the only explanation consistent with negative parity effects in the occurrence of pregnancy complications and certain neurodevelopmental disorders. Although the theory is necessarily speculative, it is heuristic and hypotheses derived from it are proposed; some are confirmed in the existing literature and by the authors' research. (shrink)

Research indicates that people value music primarily because of the emotions it evokes. Yet, the notion of musical emotions remains controversial, and researchers have so far been unable to offer a satisfactory account of such emotions. We argue that the study of musical emotions has suffered from a neglect of underlying mechanisms. Specifically, researchers have studied musical emotions without regard to how they were evoked, or have assumed that the emotions must be based on the mechanism for emotion induction, a (...) cognitive appraisal. Here, we present a novel theoretical framework featuring six additional mechanisms through which music listening may induce emotions: (1) brain stem reflexes, (2) evaluative conditioning, (3) emotional contagion, (4) visual imagery, (5) episodic memory, and (6) musical expectancy. We propose that these mechanisms differ regarding such characteristics as their information focus, ontogenetic development, key brain regions, cultural impact, induction speed, degree of volitional influence, modularity, and dependence on musical structure. By synthesizing theory and findings from different domains, we are able to provide the first set of hypotheses that can help researchers to distinguish among the mechanisms. We show that failure to control for the underlying mechanism may lead to inconsistent or non-interpretable findings. Thus, we argue that the new framework may guide future research and help to resolve previous disagreements in the field. We conclude that music evokes emotions through mechanisms that are not unique to music, and that the study of musical emotions could benefit the emotion field as a whole by providing novel paradigms for emotion induction. (shrink)

Human suicide presents a fundamental problem for the scientific analysis of behavior. This problem has been neither appreciated nor confronted by research and theory. Almost all other behavior exhibited by humans and nonhumans can be viewed as supporting the behaving organism's biological fitness and advancing the welfare of its genes. Yet suicide acts against these ends, and does so more directly and unequivocally than any other form of maladaptive behavior. Four heuristic models are presented here to account for suicide in (...) an evolutionary and sociobiological framework. The first model attributes suicide to the extraordinary development of learning and cultural evolution in the human species. Learning may make human behavior so independent of biological constraints that it can occasionally assume a form entirely contrary to the principles of biological evolution. The second model attributes suicide to a breakdown of adaptive mechanisms in extremely stressful novel environments. The third model involves kin and group selection, arguing that in limited circumstances suicide may occur because of beneficial effects it has on other, surviving individuals who share the suicidal individual's genes. The last model suggests that suicide should be tolerated by evolution when it has no effect on the gene pool. This model holds particular promise in accounting for aspects of suicide not attributable to culture. The evidence indicates that suicide is most common in individuals who are unlikely to reproduce and unable to engage in productive activity; such individuals are least capable of promoting their genes. A complete explanation of suicide may derive only from an analysis of its biological significance. (shrink)

A comparison of E.O. Wilson's On Human Nature and Abraham Heschel's Who Is Man? introduces a discussion of how descriptions and explanations of the human are related to valuations of the human. More intense comparative analysis focuses on Melvin Konner, The Tangled Wing, and Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Similarities of outlook toward life in the world are noted, although the supporting information, concepts, and arguments are radically different. The article illustrates how a subject matter, here the (...) human, that is addressed by different disciplines and methods can yield fruitful interdisciplinary analysis. (shrink)

Once God is no longer recognized as the ground and the enforcer of morality, the character and force of morality undergoes a significant change, a point made by G.E.M. Anscombe in her observation that without God the significance of morality is changed, as the word criminal would be changed if there were no criminal law and criminal courts. There is no longer in principle a God's-eye perspective from which one can envisage setting moral pluralism aside. In addition, it becomes impossible (...) to show that morality should always trump concerns of prudence, concerns for one's own non-moral interests and the interests of those to whom one is close. Immanuel Kant's attempt to maintain the unity of morality and the force of moral obligation by invoking the idea of God and the postulates of pure practical reason are explored and assessed. Hegel's reconstruction of the status of moral obligation is also examined, given his attempt to eschew Kant's thing-in-itself, as well as Kant's at least possible transcendent God. Severed from any metaphysical anchor, morality gains a contingent content from socio-historical context and its enforcement from the state. Hegel's disengagement from a transcendent God marks a watershed in the place of God in philosophical reflections regarding the status of moral obligations on the European continent. Anscombe is vindicated. Absent the presence of God, there is an important change in the force of moral obligation. (shrink)

: This paper explores models of reflexive feminist science studies through the work of Donna Haraway. The paper argues that Haraway provides an important account of science studies that is both feminist and constructivist. However, her concepts of "situated knowledges" and "diffraction" need further development to be adequate models of feminist science studies. To develop this constructivist and feminist project requires a collective research program that engages with feminist reflexivity as a practice.

The values which are definitive of the humanist project, such as freedom and self-determination, are of central concern to environmentalism. This means, according to Lewis P. Hinchman, that environmentalists should seek a rapprochement with humanism, rather than rejecting it for its apparent anthropocentrism. He argues that this requires in turn the acceptance of those approaches to human self-understanding which are central to the hermeneutic traditions and the rejection of naturalist approaches, such as sociobiology, which is accused of producing deterministic, reifying, (...) reductionist, dehumanising forms of understanding of human beings and human life. This paper seeks to show that sociobiology does not pose the kinds of threat to humanism and environmentalism outlined by Hinchman. (shrink)