Adam Briggle

Natural science and economics are regularly used as means for adjudicating environmental controversies. But can these become stalking-horses for other concerns? Might some environmental controversies be aesthetic in nature and likely to resist resolution unless and until we acknowledge this? This paper uses the case study of a proposed wind farm to examine the relationships between the humanities, sciences, and stakeholders in environmental decision making. After providing background on wind power and the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, it addresses four questions: What does “aesthetics” mean? Howwere aesthetic concerns expressed in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and what were the shortcomings of the EIS process? How could it be improved? This last question raises issues about how to rationally adjudicate matters of aesthetics in environmental policy making. The paper concludes with some thoughts on why this is such an important (and thorny) issue and what role humanists should play in environmental disputes.

While education in ethics and the responsible conduct of research is widely acknowledged as an essential component of graduate education, particularly in the STEM disciplines, little consensus exists on how best to accomplish this goal. Recent years have witnessed a turn toward the use of games in this context. Drawing from two NSF-funded grants, this paper takes a critical look at the use of games in ethics and RCR education. It does so by: setting the development of research and engineering ethics games in wider historical and theoretical contexts, which highlights their promise to solve important pedagogical problems; reporting on some initial results from our own efforts to develop a game; and reflecting on the challenges that arise in using games for ethics education. In our discussion of the challenges, we draw out lessons to improve this nascent approach to ethics education in the STEM disciplines

Several presidents have created bioethics councils to advise their administrations on the importance, meaning and possible implementation or regulation of rapidly developing biomedical technologies. From 2001 to 2005, the President's Council on Bioethics, created by President George W. Bush, was under the leadership of Leon Kass. The Kass Council, as it was known, undertook what Adam Briggle describes as a more rich understanding of its task than that of previous councils. The council sought to understand what it means to advance human flourishing at the intersection of philosophy, politics, science, and technology within a democratic society. Briggle's survey of the history of U.S. public bioethics and advisory bioethics commissions, followed by an analysis of what constitutes a "rich" bioethics, forms the first part of the book. The second part treats the Kass Council as a case study of a federal institution that offered public, ethical advice within a highly polarized context, with the attendant charges of inappropriate politicization and policy irrelevance. The conclusion synthesizes the author's findings into a story about the possible relationships between philosophy and policy making. "Adam Briggle has written a rich and sympathetic account of the President's Council on Bioethics led by Leon Kass. It puts in historical context the efforts of this council to move beyond the limited 'instrumentalist' approaches to bioethics taken by earlier commissions, toward a more philosophically serious effort to deliberate on the human goods put in play by modern biomedicine. In the process it answers many of the charges of politicization and corrects the record concerning the council's work." --_Francis Fukuyama, The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies_ "What an eloquent, humane, and wise book. Briggle discovers an imperfect yet fascinating effort to bring the world of biomedical research into the domain of public philosophy. His scholarship and generosity make clear that a democratic society need not be morally shackled to the realm of the possible that science is constantly expanding." --_Daniel Sarewitz, Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, Arizona State University _ "This is the most persuasive and thoughtful reconstruction of the Kass Council's goals and rationale that I have seen. Adam Briggle's account of the notion of a 'richer' bioethics is comprehensive an well-reasoned." --_Jonathan D. Moreno, University of Pennsylvania _ "Adam Briggle has written a fine book on a complex, controversial topic. He shows the wisdom of the approach to bioethics taken by the Kass Council, sets right the unfair and often nasty attacks on the council and Kass himself, and offers a perceptive and wide-ranging look at the terrain of ethics." --_Daniel Callahan, The Hastings Center _

The demand for greater public accountability is changing the nature of ex ante peer review at public science agencies worldwide. Based on a four year research project, this essay examines these changes through an analysis of the process of grant proposal review at two US public science agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Weaving historical and conceptual narratives with analytical accounts, we describe the ways in which these two agencies struggle with the question of incorporating considerations of societal impact into the process of peer review. We use this comparative analysis to draw two main conclusions. First, evaluation of broader societal impacts is not different in kind from evaluation of intellectual merit. Second, the scientific community may actually bolster its autonomy by taking a broader range of considerations into its peer review processes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to aid in understanding and evaluating love online. The framework maps the territory of online love by identifying important issues and providing a mechanism for combining relevant theoretical perspectives.Design/methodology/approachInterdisciplinary literature is reviewed and related through normative and descriptive conceptual analysis.FindingsA diverse and complex set of practices, technologies, intentions, and behaviors comprise love online. Theoretical works on love and mediation can be combined to improve conceptual clarity.Practical implicationsThe framework provides a simple but powerful tool for making sense of and critiquing the existing literature as well as outlining avenues for future research.Originality/valueThe framework puts diverse strands of scholarly work into an interdisciplinary discussion about an important phenomenon in new media societies.