The Ethics of Capitalism: An Introduction

The textbook covers longstanding problems that are as old as the discussion of capitalism itself, such as wage inequality, global trade, and the connection between paid labor and human flourishing. It also addresses new challenges, such as climate change, the welfare state, and competitive consumption, and provides topical global case studies. Additionally, it includes study questions at the end of each chapter and an author-created companion website to help guide classroom discussion.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/philosophy_books/1024/thumbnail.jp

Driving improvements in emerging disease surveillance through locally-relevant capacity strengthening

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) threaten the health of people, animals, and crops globally, but our ability to predict their occurrence is limited. Current public health capacity and ability to detect and respond to EIDs is typically weakest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Many known drivers of EID emergence also converge in LMICs. Strengthening capacity for surveillance of diseases of relevance to local populations can provide a mechanism for building the cross-cutting and flexible capacities needed to tackle both the burden of existing diseases and EID threats. A focus on locally relevant diseases in LMICs and the economic, social, and cultural contexts of surveillance can help address existing inequalities in health systems, improve the capacity to detect and contain EIDs, and contribute to broader global goals for development

The effect of the dust size distribution on asteroid polarization

We have developed a theoretical description of how of an asteroid's polarization-phase curve will be affected by the removal of the dust from the surface due to a size-dependent phenomenon such as radiation pressure-driven escape of levitated particles. We test our calculations against new observations of four small (D ~ 1 km) near-Earth asteroids [(85236), (142348), (162900) and 2006 SZ_217] obtained with the Dual Beam Imaging Polarimeter on the University of Hawaii's 2.2 m telescope, as well as previous observations of (25143) Itokawa and (433) Eros. We find that the polarization of the light reflected from an asteroid is controlled by the mineralogical and chemical composition of the surface and is independent of dust particle. The relation between the slope of the polarization-phase curve beyond the inversion angle and the albedo of an asteroid is thus independent of the surface regolith size distribution and is valid for both Main Belt and Near-Earth asteroids.Comment: accepted to A

Editorial

The intergenerational transfer of wealth and property attracts a fair amount of controversy. According to some, inheritance (at least when unregulated) is a source of arbitrary material inequality. When some inherit and others do not, the resulting inequalities are apparently due to differences in luck or circumstance. Inequalities of this sort may be harder to justify than those owed to differences in the life choices or levels of effort, such as the sorts of inequalities that might arise in a properly meritocratic labour market. A slightly different, though perhaps complementary view is that the practice of inheritance may, over time, be among the factors maintaining an objectionable class hierarchy. Again, such hierarchies might not be so profound in a society where all incomes were due to individuals’ own efforts. On the other hand, there are reasons to defend intergenerational wealth transfers as a means through which families can retain important assets, like a cherished home, and so that parents can exercise a degree of partiality towards their offspring or other chosen recipients. And then there is the long-standing idea that part of what it means to own something in the first place is to have the power to transfer it to someone else. Current trends suggest that, independent of any moral analysis, the prospects of receiving an inheritance are becoming an increasingly significant determinant of people’s material prospects. This is in part due to the stagnation of earnings from labour, increased life expectancy and cost of aged care, and the increased cost of homeownership for young adults. These facts also remind us that while the study of inherited wealth owes much of its motivation to a concern to work out the degree to which it is compatible with justice, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary approach in which the tools of political philosophy are combined with those of the social sciences. A comprehensive assessment of the place of inheritance in society will draw on some appreciation of such things as how much intergenerational transfers actually increase or decrease wealth inequality over time, the age at which people inherit and the impact it actually has on their lives, and the importance of a right to bequest in shaping the financial planning of older members of society. Similarly, proposals to tax or otherwise regulate inheritance need to be assessed not just in light of these background facts but in terms of what sort of legal reforms are defensible, how the relevant political narratives seem to evolve, and any likely impact on incentives in the jurisdiction in question. This issue comprises three pieces that each offer contributions to an interdisciplinary approach to inherited wealth. In the first piece, Martin Eriksson, Asa Gunnarson and Ann Mumford develop a comparative analysis of the history of inheritance taxation in the United Kingdom and Sweden, with some emphasis on recent trends. As they note, it may come as a surprise to some readers that, of the two, it is only Britain that still has any form of estate tax, with Sweden having abolished its inheritance tax early this century. (That it may be a surprise is due to the tendency to regard the Scandinavian nations as more egalitarian than Britain overall.) Here the authors argue that the Swedish abolition of the tax owes much to the way in which “the identity of the figurative taxpayer” has played a different role in the political narratives around inheritance taxation in both countries. They argue that inheritance taxes are inherently fragile. If this view is right, then both the abolition in Britain and the reinstatement in Sweden could happen in the future. The second article in this issue, from Johannes Stößel, Julian Schneidereit and Sonja Stockburger, focuses on intergenerational capital transfers in Germany. Central to the focus in this article is the constitutional provision in Germany for the protection of family-owned businesses. They emphasise that any legislation, including tax legislation, is bound by the constitutional order and subject to the decisions of the rulings of the constitutional court. The rationale (roughly) for such protection is that an inheritance tax could result in the demise of family businesses when there is insufficient liquidity to pay the tax. The authors argue, however, that the continued existence of transferred enterprises could be secured with a lower level of preferential treatment than is currently the case. Finally, the third article, from Lukas Brenner and Oscar Stolper, studies the relationship between the receipt of intergenerational transfers (bequests or gifts) and the recipient’s private pension savings. Again, the focus is on Germany. Examination of data reveals that there is a sizeable difference in private pension savings between persons who inherit non-trivial fortunes and persons who inherit little or nothing. This suggests, in turn, that inheritance is a major factor in accounting for inequality among the retired segment of the population, something which ought to be of greater concern to political philosophers. The article makes an important contribution to the study of inequalities among people of post-retirement age. Such inequalities have typically been overlooked in political philosophy. The contributions to this issue of the Intergenerational Justice Review represent the sort of work that can enhance the broader study of inherited wealth as a problem of distributive and intergenerational justice, but one where there is much to be learned from attention to the sort of details discussed in these articles.   Daniel Halliday, Guest Edito

Integrating serological and genetic data to quantify cross-species transmission: brucellosis as a case study

Epidemiological data are often fragmented, partial, and/or ambiguous and unable to yield the desired level of understanding of infectious disease dynamics to adequately inform control measures. Here, we show how the information contained in widely available serology data can be enhanced by integration with less common type-specific data, to improve the understanding of the transmission dynamics of complex multi-species pathogens and host communities. Using brucellosis in Northern Tanzania as a case-study, we developed a latent process model based on serology data obtained from the field, to reconstruct Brucella transmission dynamics. We were able to identify sheep and goats as a more likely source of human and animal infection than cattle; however, the highly cross-reactive nature of Brucella spp. meant that it was not possible to determine which Brucella species (B. abortus or B. melitensis) is responsible for human infection. We extended our model to integrate simulated serology and typing data, and show that although serology alone can identify the host source of human infection under certain restrictive conditions, the integration of even small amounts (5%) of typing data can improve understanding of complex epidemiological dynamics. We show that data integration will often be essential when more than one pathogen is present and when the distinction between exposed and infectious individuals is not clear from serology data. With increasing epidemiological complexity, serology data become less informative. However, we show how this weakness can be mitigated by integrating such data with typing data, thereby enhancing the inference from these data and improving understanding of the underlying dynamics

Identifying malnutrition in emergency general surgery:systematic review

Background: Emergency general surgery practice is high risk. Surgery is a key part of treatment, with resultant catabolic stress and frequent need for nutritional support. The aim of this study was to examine the current methods of defining and determining malnutrition in emergency general surgery. This included examining the use of nutrition screening and assessment tools and other measures of malnutrition.Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, trial registries, and relevant journals published between January 2000 and January 2022 were searched for studies of adult patients with any emergency general surgery diagnosis, managed conservatively or operatively, with an assessment of nutritional status. Mixed populations were included if more than 50 per cent of patients were emergency general surgery patients or emergency general surgery results could be separately extracted. Studies in which patients had received nutritional support were excluded. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews (CRD42021285897).Results: From 6700 studies screened, 324 full texts were retrieved and 31 were included in the analysis. A definition of malnutrition was provided in 23 studies (75 per cent), with nutritional status being determined by a variety of methods. A total of seven nutrition screening tools and a total of nine ‘assessment’ tools were reported. To define malnutrition, the most commonly used primary or secondary marker of nutritional status was BMI, followed by albumin level.Conclusion: Wide variation exists in approaches to identify malnutrition risk in emergency general surgery patients, using a range of tools and nutrition markers. Future studies should seek to standardize nutrition screening and assessment in the emergency general surgery setting as two discrete processes. This will permit better understanding of malnutrition risk in surgical patients

The pathogenesis of cingulate atrophy in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

BACKGROUND: Early atrophy of the cingulate cortex is a feature of both behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with degeneration of the anterior cingulate region increasingly recognized as a strong predictor of bvFTD. The total number of neurons in this region, rather than the density of neurons, is associated with mood disturbance in other dementias, although there are no data on the extent and magnitude of neuronal loss in patients with bvFTD. While the density of small populations of neurons in this region has been assessed, it is unlikely that the degree of atrophy of the cingulate cortex seen in bvFTD can be explained by the loss of these subpopulations. This suggests that there is more generalized degeneration of neurons in this region in bvFTD. The present study assesses total neuronal number, as well as characteristic pathologies, in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices of pathologically confirmed bvFTD (N = 11) and AD (N = 9) patients compared with age-matched controls (N = 14). The bvFTD cohort comprised 5 cases with tau pathology (Pick’s disease), and 6 with TDP-43 pathology. RESULTS: At postmortem, atrophy was detected in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices of bvFTD cases, but only in the posterior cingulate cortex of AD cases. As predicted, there was a significant reduction in both the density and total number of neurons in the anterior but not the posterior cingulate cortex of bvFTD cases with the opposite observed for the AD cases. Importantly, neuronal loss in the anterior cingulate cortex was only observed in cases with tau pathology. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms significant neuronal loss in the posterior but not anterior cingulate cortex in AD, and demonstrates that significant neuron loss in bvFTD occurs only in the anterior cingulate cortex but only in cases with tau pathology compared with cases with TDP pathology. We propose that significant neurodegeneration in the anterior cingulate cortex may be useful in differentiating the pathological subtypes in vivo

One health research in Northern Tanzania – challenges and progress

East Africa has one of the world’s fastest growing human populations—many of whom are dependent on livestock—as well as some of the world’s largest wildlife populations. Humans, livestock, and wildlife often interact closely, intimately linking human, animal, and environmental health. The concept of One Health captures this interconnectedness, including the social structures and beliefs driving interactions between species and their environments. East African policymakers and researchers are recognising and encouraging One Health research, with both groups increasingly playing a leading role in this subject area. One Health research requires interaction between scientists from different disciplines, such as the biological and social sciences and human and veterinary medicine. Different disciplines draw on norms, methodologies, and terminologies that have evolved within their respective institutions and that may be distinct from or in conflict with one another. These differences impact interdisciplinary research, both around theoretical and methodological approaches and during project operationalisation. We present experiential knowledge gained from numerous ongoing projects in northern Tanzania, including those dealing with bacterial zoonoses associated with febrile illness, foodborne disease, and anthrax. We use the examples to illustrate differences between and within social and biological sciences and between industrialised and traditional societies, for example, with regard to consenting procedures or the ethical treatment of animals. We describe challenges encountered in ethical approval processes, consenting procedures, and field and laboratory logistics and offer suggestions for improvement. While considerable investment of time in sensitisation, communication, and collaboration is needed to overcome interdisciplinary challenges inherent in One Health research, this can yield great rewards in paving the way for successful implementation of One Health projects. Furthermore, continued investment in African institutions and scientists will strengthen the role of East Africa as a world leader in One Health research

Simulating vocal learning of spoken language: Beyond imitation

Computational approaches have an important role to play in understanding the complex process of speech acquisition, in general, and have recently been popular in studies of vocal learning in particular. In this article we suggest that two significant problems associated with imitative vocal learning of spoken language, the speaker normalisation and phonological correspondence problems, can be addressed by linguistically grounded auditory perception. In particular, we show how the articulation of consonant-vowel syllables may be learnt from auditory percepts that can represent either individual utterances by speakers with different vocal tract characteristics or ideal phonetic realisations. The result is an optimisation-based implementation of vocal exploration – incorporating semantic, auditory, and articulatory signals – that can serve as a basis for simulating vocal learning beyond imitation