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112Empathy and the Evolutionary Emergence of GuiltPhilosophy of Science 89 (3): 434-453. 2022.Guilt poses a unique evolutionary problem. Unlike other dysphoric emotions, it is not immediately clear what its adaptive significance is. One can imagine thriving despite or even because of a lack of guilt. In this article, we review solutions offered by Scott James, Richard Joyce, and Robert Frank and show that although their solutions have merit, none adequately solves the puzzle. We offer an alternative solution, one that emphasizes the role of empathy and posttransgression behavior in the e…Read more
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Integrating Ethics across the Curricula: Innovations in Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing EducationIn Ea E. Emerson & Celeste M. Alfes (eds.), Innovative Strategies in Teaching Nursing: Exemplars of Optimal Learning, Springer Publishing. pp. 59-67. 2020.
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2Nurses’ Perspectives on the Dismissal of Vaccine-Refusing Families from Pediatric and Family Care PracticesAmerican Journal of Health Promotion 34 (6): 622-632. 2020.
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Perspectives of Public Health Nurses on the Ethics of Mandated Vaccine EducationNursing Outlook 68 (1): 62-72. 2020.Background Since 2015, Michigan has required parents who request nonmedical exemptions (NMEs) from school or daycare immunization mandates to receive education from local public health staff (usually nurses). This is unlike most other US states that have implemented mandatory immunization counseling, which require physicians to document immunization education, or which provide online instruction. Purpose To attend to the activity and dispositions of the public health staff who provide “waiver ed…Read more
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1Culture and Consent in Clinical Care: A Critical Review of Nursing and Nursing Ethics LiteratureAnnual Review of Nursing Research 37 223-259. 2019.
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33Dismissal Policies for Vaccine Refusal -- A ReplyJAMA Pediatrics 172 (11): 1101-1102. 2018.Marshall and O’Leary’s thoughtful response to our article suggests that dismissal policies are ethically justifiable because they might induce parents to immunize their children. This outcome is conceivable, but we have only anecdotes about how often it occurs. Such evidence became the thin reed on which the American Academy of Pediatrics rested its new policy of tolerating the practice of dismissing vaccine-hesitant parents. It seems likely that relatively few parents would agree to vaccinate b…Read more
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27The Evolutionary Puzzle of Guilt: Individual or Group Selection?Understanding Guilt. 2016.Some unpleasant emotions, like fear and disgust, appear straightforwardly susceptible to evolutionary explanation on account of the benefits they seem to provide to individuals. But guilt is more puzzling in this respect. Like other unpleasant emotions, guilt is often associated with a host of negative effects on the individual, such as psychological suffering and social withdrawal. Moreover, many guilt-induced behaviors, such as revealing one’s offenses and placing oneself before the mercy of o…Read more
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Nurses’ Voices Matter for Decisions about Dismissing Vaccine-Refusing FamiliesAmerican Journal of Nursing 118 (8): 11. 2018.
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52Considering Whether the Dismissal of Vaccine-Refusing Families Is Fair to Other CliniciansJAMA Pediatrics 172 (6): 515-516. 2018.A recent American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) clinical report states that it is an acceptable option for pediatric care clinicians to dismiss families who refuse vaccines. This is a clear shift in guidance from the AAP, which previously advised clinicians to “endeavor not to discharge” patients solely because of parental vaccine refusal. While this new policy might be interpreted as encouraging or recommending dismissal of vaccine-refusing families, it instead expresses tolerance for diverse pro…Read more
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139A flaw in the Stich–Plantinga challenge to evolutionary reliabilismAnalysis 78 (2): 216-225. 2018.Evolutionary reliabilism is the view that natural selection likely favoured reliable cognitive faculties in humans. While ER enjoys some plausibility, Stephen Stich and Alvin Plantinga have presented well-known challenges to the view. Their arguments rely on a common premiss; namely, that natural selection is indifferent to truth. This article shows that this premiss is both imprecise and too weak to support their conclusions and, therefore, that their challenges to ER fail.
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44Geographic Variations in Electronic Cigarette Advertisements on Twitter in the United StatesInternational Journal of Public Health 62 (4): 479-487. 2017.
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Vulnerability in Genetic Counseling and the Ground of NondirectivenessIn Straehle Christine (ed.), Vulnerability, Autonomy, and Applied Ethics, Routledge. pp. 138-156. 2016.
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35An Accessibility Constraint on Parental Refusal of Critical Newborn ScreeningAmerican Journal of Bioethics 16 (1): 24-26. 2016.
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148Dehorning the Darwinian Dilemma for Normative RealismBiology and Philosophy 31 (5): 727-746. 2016.Normative realists tend to consider evolutionary debunking arguments as posing epistemological challenges to their view. By understanding Sharon Street’s ‘Darwinian dilemma’ argument in this way, they have overlooked and left unanswered her unique scientific challenge to normative realism. This paper counters Street’s scientific challenge and shows that normative realism is compatible with an evolutionary view of human evaluative judgment. After presenting several problems that her adaptive link…Read more
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79Guilt by association?Philosophical Psychology 29 (4): 570-585. 2016.Recent evolutionary perspectives on guilt tend to focus on how guilt functions as a means for the individual to self-regulate behavior and as a mechanism for reinforcing cooperative tendencies. While these accounts highlight important dimensions of guilt and provide important insights into its evolutionary emergence, they pay scant attention to the large empirical literature on its maladaptive effects on individuals. This paper considers the nature of guilt, explores its biological function, and…Read more
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University of PittsburghAssociate Professor
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Biomedical Ethics |
Genetic Ethics |