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Description
With the number of internationally-run clinical drug trials increasing, the double standards between those in developed nations and those in developing nations are being scrutinized under the ethical microscope. Many argue that several pharmaceutical companies and researchers are exploiting developing nation participants. Two issues of concern are the use of a placebo control when an effective alternative treatment exists and the lack of drug availability to the country that hosted the clinical trial should the experimental drug prove effective. Though intuitively this seems like an instance of exploitation, philosophically, exploitation theories cannot adequately account for the wrongdoing in these cases. My project has two parts. First, after explaining why the theories of Alan Wertheimer, John Lawrence Hill, and Ruth Sample fail to explain the exploitation in clinical drug research, I provide an alternative account of exploitation that can explain why the double standard in clinical research is harmful. Rather than craft a single theory encompassing all instances of exploitation, I offer an account of a type, or subset, of exploitation that I refer to as comparative exploitation. The double standards in clinical research fall under the category of comparative exploitation. Furthermore, while many critics maintain that cases of comparative exploitation, including clinical research, are mutually beneficial, they are actually harmful to its victims. I explain the harm of comparative exploitation using Ben Bradley's counterfactual account of harm and Larry May's theory of sharing responsibility. The second part of my project focuses on the "standard of care" argument, which most defenders use to justify the double standard in clinical research. I elaborate on Ruth Macklin's position that advocates of the "standard of care" position make three faulty assumptions: placebo-controlled trials are the gold standard, the only relevant question responsive to the host country's health needs is "Is the experimental product being studied better than the 'nothing' now available to the population?", and the only way of obtaining affordable products is to test cheap alternatives to replace the expensive ones. In the end, I advocate moving towards a universalizing of standards in order to avoid exploitation.
ContributorsFundora, Danielle (Author) / McGregor, Joan (Thesis advisor) / Brake, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Portmore, Douglas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Principles of climate mitigation in environmental ethics often draw on either considerations of fairness and forward-looking concerns, or on justice and backward-looking concerns. That is, according to some theorists, considerations of the current distribution of climate benefits and burdens are foremost, while others take repairing historic wrongs as paramount. Some theorists integrate considerations of fairness and justice to formulate hybrid climate principles. Such an integrative approach is promising particularly in the context of environmental harm to indigenous subsistence peoples, who are among those suffering the most from climate change. I argue that existing integrative climate principles tend not to sufficiently emphasize considerations of backward-looking justice. This is a problem for indigenous peoples seeking reparations for environmental harm and violations of their human rights. Specifically, indigenous people in the Arctic suffer a cultural harm from climate change as they lose their land, and their way of life, to erosion, cementing their status as climate refugees. I argue that the current climate situation facing Native Arctic people is unfair according to Rawls' second principle of justice. In addition, the situation is unjust as indigenous people suffer from emissions by others and few attempts are made for reparations. Thus, Rawlsian fairness combined with reparative justice provide a befitting theoretical framework. I conclude that an acceptable climate principle will adequately integrate considerations of both fairness and justice, both forward-looking and backward-looking considerations.
ContributorsSweetland, Lauren (Author) / Brake, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Portmore, Douglas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The sacred San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona have been at the center of a series of land development controversies since the 1800s. Most recently, a controversy arose over a proposal by the ski area on the Peaks to use 100% reclaimed water to make artificial snow. The current state of the San Francisco Peaks controversy would benefit from a decision-making process that holds sustainability policy at its core. The first step towards a new sustainability-focused deliberative process regarding a complex issue like the San Francisco Peaks controversy requires understanding the issue's origins and the perspectives of the people involved in the issue. My thesis provides an historical analysis of the controversy and examines some of the laws and participatory mechanisms that have shaped the decision-making procedures and power structures from the 19th century to the early 21st century.
ContributorsMahoney, Maren (Author) / Hirt, Paul W. (Thesis advisor) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / White, Dave (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The purpose of this writing is to explore the relationship students have with popular media as well as the call to implement a Critical Media Skills course at the high school level. The research was interested in finding what images from popular media students were taking into their personal lives and how implementing a Critical Media Skills course could make positive benefits into their lives. From casual observations, informal student interviews, and the creation of an online survey in which 72 high school students participated I was able to collect data about the extent students were consuming popular media and how they believed that skills teaching them to analyze media would be beneficial. From these findings I was able to build upon Patricia Hill Collins (2009) to develop techniques for a classroom in which critical dialogue would be a focus. This exploratory study takes into account student voices, as well research from others in the field of Education and Media Literacy.
ContributorsGonzales, David (Author) / Ovando, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Surbeck, Elaine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
In The Archive and the Repertoire, Diana Taylor discusses how performance, gestures, resistances within a community holds an embodied memory and enacts the transmission of knowledge within that community. Taylor discusses how this embodied memory is alternative to the written archive of history, history of interaction, history of meaning, history of language. Through the consideration of performance, Taylor urges her reader to reconsider oral and performative transmission of culture, knowledge, customs, traditions, and resistance. This project considers whether this reconsideration can be extended or expanded to oral and performative transmission of law within a community. Specifically, this research explores the conflict between the project of nationality and the reality of social organizing on a community/collective level. It asserts that this conflict is manifested most dramatically within border communities. The dissertation examines how the role of written law in the borderlands divides land and inhabitants and reconstructs a new understanding of the borderlands through oral histories and resistance by border communities. The overall goal of the dissertation is to challenge current scholarship to address the conceptual and sociopolitical task of a world in which legal representations and abstractions supersede the complex reality of community relations. As legal anthropologist Sally Falk Moore identified, we must consider carefully whether or not law controls the social context and what this means for our own definitions of community, what are the boundaries and borders of communities, and the seemingly limitedness of social interaction that becomes based on such legal definitions. The dissertation analyzes the defining disconnect of law from the social context that manifests itself amongst border communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. By exploring how law creates, sustains, molds, and connects the phenomenon of sovereignty, economy, and international borders, we can begin to understand how actions of border communities along the U.S.-Mexico border define the disconnect of law from the social context by redefining community itself.
ContributorsNatividad, Nicholas (Author) / Lauderdale, Pat (Thesis advisor) / Quan, Helen T. (Thesis advisor) / Gomez, Alan E. (Committee member) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The presence of language minority students in American schools is a growing phenomenon in present-day times. In the year 2008, almost 11 million school-age children spoke a language other than English at home. Educational language policy is largely influenced by the attitudes that society holds regarding the presence of language minority speakers in the community. One of the sources of these attitudes is the written press. This research aimed at identifying and analyzing the ideologies that newspapers display in connection with language minority speakers. The underlying assumption of the study was that the English language occupies a dominant position in society, thus creating a power struggle in which speakers of other languages are disenfranchised. Using critical theory as the theoretical framework enabled the study to identify and oppose the ideologies that may reproduce and perpetuate social inequalities. The methodological approach used was critical discourse analysis (CDA) which aligns with the main tenets of critical theory, among them the need to uncover hidden ideologies. The analysis of articles from English-language (The Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune) and Spanish-language (La Prensa Hispana) newspapers allowed for the identification of the ideologies of the written press in connection to two main hypothetical constructs: education and immigration. The analysis of the results revealed that the three newspapers of the study held specific ideologies on issues related to the education of language minority students and immigration. Whereas the East Valley Tribune showed an overarching ideology connected to the opposition of immigrant students in schools, the hegemonic position of theEnglish language, and a belligerent stance toward the immigrant community, The Arizona Republic showed a favorable attitude to both English Language Learners and immigrants, based on reasons mainly related to the economic interest of the state of Arizona. La Prensa Hispana, on the other hand, showed ideologies favorable to the immigrant community based on humanitarianism. In summary, the results confirm that newspapers hold specific ideologies and that these ideologies are reflected in the content and the manner of their information to the public.
ContributorsGonzález-Carriedo, Ricardo (Author) / Ovando, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT This study focuses on second language acquisition process amongst East Asian adult learners at an English and Culture Acquisition Program (ECAP) classroom. To understand their English learning experience, this study employs classroom observation, participant interview and document collection as research methods. The findings of this work suggest that ECAP does intend to help learners acquire English language proficiency in ways that were responsive to both the sociocultural backgrounds and individual needs of participants. ECAP also respects and promotes the learners' autonomy in the learning process. However, the program administrators and teachers still need to deepen their understanding of East Asian learners' sociocultural heritage and individual needs and improve facilitation accordingly.
ContributorsMi, Ximin (Author) / Danzig, Arnold (Thesis advisor) / Ovando, Carlos (Committee member) / Szecsy, Elsie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This paper examines the strength of a recent argument made against democracy. The notion of epistocracy, a system of government where the wise or the knowers rule, has garnered some attention of late. These theories of epistocracy have traditionally struggled with questions of political legitimacy and authority. In Against Democracy, Jason Brennan articulates an alternative theory for epistocracy which may prove more promising. Brennan argues instead that democracy faces objections of political legitimacy which epistocracy avoids because democracy either harms or violates rights as a result of granting political power to the incompetent. This negative argument against democracy hopes to make epistocracy the preferable option in comparison. I will argue, however, that if we take this comparative approach then we ought to prefer democracy---or, rather, democratic reform---over epistocracy as the best solution in addressing the concerns which Brennan raises. It is not enough to merely point to flaws in democracy. For this argument to be successful, it must also be shown that epistocracy avoids those flaws at an acceptable cost. I claim that, upon examination, epistocratic theories fail to make this case. Rather, it is evident from this examination that there are various institutional mechanisms available with which democracy may manage the risks and harms which might arise from imbuing the incompetent with political power. This in turn suggests ways by which we might reform democracy to achieve similar results hoped for by epistocrats without the effort, risk, and cost of tearing down and rebuilding our fundamental political institutions.
ContributorsZhang, Alexander (Author) / Brake, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Portmore, Douglas (Committee member) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
In their criticism of various approaches to upbringing and related American family law jurisprudence, liberal theorists tend to underweight the interests of parents in directing the development of children’s values. Considered through the lens of T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism, providing a good upbringing is not a matter of identifying children’s “best interests” or acting in accordance with overriding end-state principles. Rather, children should be raised in accordance with principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement. The process of ascertaining such principles requires an understanding of relevant values; a good upbringing is what children receive when parents properly value their children, enabling them to appropriately recognize what it is that they have reason to do given the roles that they play. By developing the account of upbringing hinted at in Scanlon’s contractualist monograph, What We Owe to Each Other, this project identifies and responds to some common mistakes in contemporary liberal theorizing on childhood, suggests that contractualism yields a more plausible account of upbringing than alternative approaches, and along the way identifies some implications of contractualism for public policy where individuals properly value the children of others in their community.
ContributorsPike, Kenneth (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Brake, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Abstract
On a daily basis I am bombarded with images in every walk of life. I encounter images crossing my path constantly through media such as the internet, television, magazines, radio, social media, even in the grocery store line on screens intended to capture our attention. As I drive down the roadways, I am invaded by images that at times can be distracting with their dazzling displays, attempting to get our attention and get us to consume their product or service or understand a historical meaning. In this dissertation I intend on looking at murals and two social studies textbooks to focus types of media; then construct an argument about how these media impact social studies curricula in the communities in which they are located taking into consideration race, social class, language, location, and culture. The intent is to critically analyze traditional curricula and curricula found in public pedagogy in communities located on the borderlands. I also asked local high school-aged students, teachers, artists, and activists from both sides of the border analyze the images through photo elicitation and traditional interviews. Students were interviewed with a focus on interpreted meanings of images presented. Teachers and artists were interviewed to discover their intended meanings as displayed through their production and circulation of intended meanings via lessons and the images they select or create. Activists were interviewed to discover local history, images, and history of the educational space where the artwork and schools are located. I used these data to create an argument as to how these forms of media impacts school curricula in the areas on both sides of the United States/Mexico border. The study was conducted in border cities El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua. The ultimate goal was to look at how academics and curricula developers can use this information to decolonize curricula in the field of curricula studies. Moreover, this information can be used to create decolonized ideologies in curricula that can be used at the school sites to promote diversity and social justice for students in their schooling experience.
On a daily basis I am bombarded with images in every walk of life. I encounter images crossing my path constantly through media such as the internet, television, magazines, radio, social media, even in the grocery store line on screens intended to capture our attention. As I drive down the roadways, I am invaded by images that at times can be distracting with their dazzling displays, attempting to get our attention and get us to consume their product or service or understand a historical meaning. In this dissertation I intend on looking at murals and two social studies textbooks to focus types of media; then construct an argument about how these media impact social studies curricula in the communities in which they are located taking into consideration race, social class, language, location, and culture. The intent is to critically analyze traditional curricula and curricula found in public pedagogy in communities located on the borderlands. I also asked local high school-aged students, teachers, artists, and activists from both sides of the border analyze the images through photo elicitation and traditional interviews. Students were interviewed with a focus on interpreted meanings of images presented. Teachers and artists were interviewed to discover their intended meanings as displayed through their production and circulation of intended meanings via lessons and the images they select or create. Activists were interviewed to discover local history, images, and history of the educational space where the artwork and schools are located. I used these data to create an argument as to how these forms of media impacts school curricula in the areas on both sides of the United States/Mexico border. The study was conducted in border cities El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua. The ultimate goal was to look at how academics and curricula developers can use this information to decolonize curricula in the field of curricula studies. Moreover, this information can be used to create decolonized ideologies in curricula that can be used at the school sites to promote diversity and social justice for students in their schooling experience.
ContributorsGonzales, Darlene M (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Ovando, Carlos (Committee member) / Malewski, Erik (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018