Biomedical ethics and genetic epidemiology

Biomedical ethics developed in the late twentieth century as a challenge to the self- regulatory ethic that previously governed medical practice. Yet in recent years bioethics has come under scrutiny from the social sciences, which claim that the field relies upon an idealised notion of moral agency and fails to consider the extent to which ethical discourse is embedded in a wider societal context. In addition, bioethical concepts such as patient autonomy and informed consent have also recently been challenged by the rise of genetic medicine. After evaluating debates in the historical and philosophical development of biomedical ethics, this thesis uses a case study in genetic epidemiology (commonly referred to as biobanking) to examine competing normative and empirical claims made by bioethicists and social scientists. The study investigates the views and experiences of potential donors to a biobank in north-west England. Data analysis gives particular emphasis to socio-ethical issues such as consent, genetic donation, altruism, and benefit-sharing. Evidence from the case study illustrates that bioethics is susceptible to many of the charges levelled against it - namely that it lacks proper understanding of the processes by which moral concepts and categories are embedded in ongoing forms of social practice and experience. The thesis concludes with suggestions as to how bioethics may better combine philosophical and sociological methods

What transfers?

This paper explores native language (L1) transfer as a phenomenon, asking what it means to say some element of the L1 transfers in second language (L2) acquisition. Despite advances in linguistic theory, current L2 research is still often couched in descriptive terms, expecting difficulty in L2 acquisition where there are differences between the native and target languages. Improving on this Contrastive Analyis-type approach requires a more fully specified understanding of Language. This paper attempts to elaborate on the question of what transfers by assuming a derivational approach to language and then exploring the idea of transfer by discussing what it means to say that there is transfer of functional morphology

What's in the textbook and what's in the mind : polarity item "any" in learner English

This paper presents an experimental study of the rarely explored question of how input through instruction interacts with L2 acquisition at the level ofmodular linguistic knowledge. The investigation focuses on L2 knowledge of the English polarity itemany, whose properties are only partially covered by typical language-teaching materials. We investigate Najdi-Saudi Arabic-speaking learners' knowledge of the distribution of any in contexts that are taught, contexts that are not taught but may be observable in the input, and contexts that are neither taught nor observable. We further test whether conscious awareness of instructed rules about any correlates with performance. Our findings suggest a role for instruction and for internal, UG-constrained acquisition, and that these two paths interact.We explore our findings in terms of SharwoodSmithandTruscott's (2014a, 2014b) framework ofmodular online growth and use of language, in which cognitive development is driven by processing

Creating the ‘ethics industry': Mary Warnock, in vitro fertilization and the history of bioethics in Britain

Recent decades have seen a shift in the management and discussion of biomedicine. Issues once considered by doctors and scientists are now handled by a diverse array of participants, including philosophers, lawyers, theologians and lay representatives. This new approach, known as ‘bioethics', has become the norm in regulatory committees and public debate. In this article, I argue that bioethics emerged as a valued enterprise in Britain during the 1980s because it fulfilled, and linked, the concerns of several groups. My analysis centres on the moral philosopher Mary Warnock, who chaired a government inquiry into human fertilization and embryology between 1982 and 1984, and became a strong advocate of bioethics. I detail how Warnock's promotion of bioethics tallied with the Conservative government's desire for increased surveillance of hitherto autonomous professions – while fulfilling her own belief that philosophers should engage in public affairs. And I also show that Warnock simultaneously promoted bioethics to doctors and scientists as an essential safeguard against declining political and public trust. This stance, I argue, framed bioethics as a vital intermediary between politics, the public, and biomedicine, and explains the growth and endurance of what the Guardian identified as an ethics industry

Transfer of argument structure and morphology

This paper contests Montrul's (2000) idea of modular transfer, arguing for a strong Full Transfer position instead. A reanalysis of results from her second language (L2) acquisition study of the causative/inchoative alternation with L2 English, Spanish and Turkish speakers leads to the following conclusions: (1) the overgeneralization found in the results represent a stage of development after Full Transfer; (2) if one takes a derivational view of syntax the results no longer support a view of modular transfer in which there is transfer of morphology but not argument structur

Morphological and syntactic transfer in child L2 acquisition of the English dative alternation

This experimental study compares the acquisition of the English to- and for-dative alternation by L1 English, L1 Japanese and L1 Korean children. It is well known that there are restrictions on the verbs that can enter into the dative alternation, e.g., you can show the results to someone and show someone the results; and you can demonstrate the results to someone––but you cannot *demonstrate someone the results. L1 children sometimes overextend the double-object variant to verbs that disallow it. One question we investigate is, Do L2 children, like L1 children, overextend the double-object variant? A second question we probe is, Do L2 children, like L2 adults, transfer properties of the L1 grammar? Japanese disallows all double-accusative constructions. Korean disallows them with analogues of to-dative verbs; but with analogues of for-dative verbs, Korean productively allows them––more broadly, in fact, than English––if the benefactive verbal morpheme cwu- is added. Results from an Oral Grammaticality Judgment task show (i) that all groups allow illicit to-dative double-object forms, and (ii) that the Japanese––but not the Koreans––allow illicit for-dative double-object forms. This bifurcation, we argue, stems from the fact that Korean (but not Japanese) has an overt morphological licensor for double objects. We thus find evidence of both (i) overgeneralization, like in L1 acquisition, and (ii) L1 influence, like in adult L2 acquisition, in this case from the (syntactic) argument-changing properties of overt morphology