Bodily Integrity,Embodiment, and the Regulation of Parental Choice

In this article we develop a new model of bodily integrity that we designate ‘embodied integrity’. We deploy it to argue that non‐therapeutic interventions on children should be considered within a decision‐making framework that prioritizes embodied integrity. This would counter the excessive decision‐making power that law currently accords to parents, protecting the child's immediate and future interests. Focusing on legal responses to genital cutting, we suggest that current legal understandings of bodily integrity are impoverished and problematic. By contrast, adoption of an ‘embodied integrity’ model carves out a space for children's rights, while avoiding these negative consequences. We propose that embodied integrity should trump competing values in any best‐interests assessment where a non‐therapeutic intervention is requested. Drawing on Drucilla Cornell and Joel Feinberg's theories we argue that protecting a child's embodied integrity is essential to guarantee his/her right to make future embodied choices and become a fully individuated person.     

The Neurobiology of Fairness and Social Justice: An Introduction

The study of social justice has always been an interdisciplinary undertaking, but in recent years neurobiologists have joined scholars and scientists from other areas to tackle complex questions concerning fairness, empathy, equality, hierarchy, and ideological conflict and polarization. By synthesizing insights from multiple, mutually informative levels of analysis, it is possible to shed new light on basic biological processes that reflect, inspire, and inhibit the pursuit of a more just society. With this special issue we highlight groundbreaking research on the neurobiology of fairness and social justice, bringing together six articles that address core themes of social justice, including individual variability in definitions of fairness, the genetic basis of economic egalitarianism, neural bases of empathy in environmental and intergroup domains, and the neural and genetic correlates of ideological polarization. Taken in conjunction, these diverse contributions bring multiple theoretical perspectives and research methods to bear on the shared goal of understanding and promoting social justice.     

Michael Harris, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation (Science Essentials)</Emphasis>

This is a review of mathematician Michael Harris’s book “Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation.”     

Changing chancellors in West Germany

All political systems encounter the need for leadership change at some point. This article examines how the change of chancellors has been accomplished in the Federal Republic of Germany. It argues that the connection between parliamentary elections and the subsequent election of a chancellor has not been the primary reason for a change. Rather, the changes which have occurred reflect the role of the Bundestag and the primary influence of the parliamentary parties in leadership change. The politics of the parliamentary term, rather than past Bundestag election campaigns, emerge as the decisive setting for chancellor change in West Germany.