Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. In current practice, this involves the death of the foetus. Consequently, the debate on whether those experiencing an unwanted pregnancy have the right to abortion is usually dichotomized as a matter of pro-choice versus pro-life. Pro-choice advocates maintain that abortion is acceptable under various circumstances. The idea that we ought to respect pregnant people’s rights to choose what to do with their bodies – respect for bodily autonomy – is cited as a (...) major reason for granting them abortion rights. Pro-life advocates, on the other hand, claim that abortion is not acceptable under most circumstances. They argue, typically, that the foetus has a right to life. Recent events, such as Poland’s High Court decision in October 2020 to ban most abortions, and the huge protests and outcries this generated around the world, indicate that the abortion debate is far from resolved. (shrink)

In the future, full ectogestation – in which artificial placenta technology would be used to carry out the entirety of gestation – could be an alternative to human pregnancy. This article analyzes some underexplored objections to ectogestation which relate to the possibility for new and continuing forms of social oppression. In particular, we examine whether ectogestation could be linked to an unwarranted de-valuing of certain aspects of female reproductive embodiment, or exacerbate objectionable kinds of scrutiny over the reproductive choices of (...) gestating persons. Without discounting the potential benefits of full ectogestation, we conclude that the socially oppressive potential of ectogestation, on top of other concerns, warrants further critical ethical reflection. (shrink)

:Recent neuroimaging research on disorders of consciousness provides direct evidence of covert consciousness otherwise not detected clinically in a subset of severely brain-injured patients. These findings have motivated strategic development of binary communication paradigms, from which researchers interpret voluntary modulations in brain activity to glean information about patients’ residual cognitive functions and emotions. The discovery of such responsiveness raises ethical and legal issues concerning the exercise of autonomy and capacity for decisionmaking on matters such as healthcare, involvement in research, and (...) end of life. These advances have generated demands for access to the technology against a complex background of continued scientific advancement, questions about just allocation of healthcare resources, and unresolved legal issues. Interviews with professionals whose work is relevant to patients with disorders of consciousness reveal priorities concerning further basic research, legal and policy issues, and clinical considerations. (shrink)

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people (...) spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross‐cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to (...) engage in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended (...) to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions. (shrink)

Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to (...) very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction eds. by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea ViciniTallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeJust Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction Edited by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea Vicini maryknoll, ny: orbis, 2015. 304 pp. $42.00Just Sustainability offers a detailed journey through various Catholic contextual understandings of what ecological sustainability means today in light of the demands of justice. In the first section of (...) the book, called "Locations" (11–53), the contributors put concepts of sustainability into dialog with concerns of socioeconomic, gender, and racial justice from contexts as diverse as Europe, East Asia, India, Africa, and North America. The various locations share common themes, such as the importance of deep meanings of the term "sustainability," the priority of education and advocacy, the resource and energy challenges behind structures of injustice, and the primary role of economics. Yet distinctive emphases emerge from the diverse contexts as well. Examples include the [End Page 200] need for humility instead of the ironic arrogance of nuclear energy in Japan, the widespread challenges of corruption in Africa and Mexico, and the problem of the agriculture lobby in the United States.The second section, "Structures" (57–156), steps back from specific cultural contexts and explores various systemic approaches to the challenge of just sustainability. Using Catholic social teachings, the authors again often speak from diverse global contexts, but with reference specifically to economic and societal systems such as politics, measurements of well-being, urban planning, food and agriculture, and health care. In this section the authors speak of which structures have worked and which have failed to build just and sustainable societies. For example, in the Philippines, more accountability through transparency and regular reporting helped impact energy efficiency. In Kenya and Chad, the authors highlight the need for reliable social systems of access, communication, collaboration, and government in order to counter corruption and build sustainable programs to address HIV, hunger, employment, and food sovereignty. Several authors also describe the positive impact of more democratic and egalitarian participatory structures that involve the people most affected by ecological decisions and policies.The last section, "Theological Stances and Sustainable Relations" (159–268), delves more deeply into Catholic theological resources to provide both a foundation as well as specific practices of just sustainability. The authors wrestle with theocentric, biocentric, and anthropocentric concepts of humanity and the imago Dei, the Eucharist as a potentially powerful way to connect ideas of inequity, the promise of ecofeminist theologies in elevating the wisdom of local peoples to build just sustainability practices, and virtue ethics and Catholic social teachings to foster ecological conversion and build solidarity, hope, and efficacy.The book sets itself a challenging task, to provide a coherent picture of Catholic approaches to building just sustainability while presenting a spectrum of not only diverse cultural and geographical contexts but also diverse theologies. In the end, the book reveals the ways in which Catholic laity and leaders are creatively responding to the challenge of just sustainability across much of the globe by using a combination of ecclesial, theological, and social scientific resources. The book would have benefited from a concluding essay to tie together some of the salient themes from the numerous, somewhat disparate essays, and a chapter from South America would have strengthened the global orientation of the collection. Nonetheless, the reader is left with a more holistic understanding of the difficult task of just sustainability as well as the wealth of work toward this goal from many parts of the Earth. [End Page 201]Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeBoston University School of TheologyCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

Lors de l’atelier organisé dans le cadre de l’atelier et du forum communautaire 2023 de la SCB-SCB, nous avons exploré et problématisé le concept d’ « amélioration » des éthiciens cliniques, dans le contexte plus large des discussions sur la professionnalisation de l’éthique clinique. Ce résumé présente les principaux points de vue d’éthiciens cliniques à travers le Canada sur ce sujet et comprend des suggestions sur les mesures que nous pourrions prendre sur le terrain pour permettre et soutenir l’amélioration des (...) éthiciens cliniques à l’avenir. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to construct a valid new instrument to measure the effect of moral intensity on managers' propensity to manage earnings. More specifically, this study is a pilot study of the impact of moral intensity on financial accountants' propensity to manage earnings. The instrument, once validated, will be used in a full-study of managers in the hotel industry. Different ethical scenarios were presented to respondents in the survey; each ethical scenario was designed in both high or (...) low moral intensity form, to reflect the importance of the moral dilemma at hand. The results were analysed by factor analysis. The findings of this study have positively validated the instrument, with three of the five moral intensity components identified as having appropriate eigenvalues. This indicates that they have a significant influence in the study. The first factor captures the social consensus dimension and one scenario of the proximity dimension. The second factor indicates an interaction between the temporal immediacy and the magnitude of consequences dimension. The third dimension is probability of effect and one scenario of the proximity dimension. In addition, t-tests indicated that the manipulation of high and low conditions within each scenario were also successful. One limitation of the study might be the use of undergraduate accounting students as manager proxies, although prior evidence suggests use of accounting students as proxies is a valid approach in this type of study. This is a highly novel project as most prior studies have focussed on moral intensity and the general ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

"... Fraser and Bartky have brought the encounter between U.S. and French feminism to a new level of seriousness." —Ethics In the last decade, elements of French feminist discourse have permeated and transformed the larger feminist culture in the United States. This volume is the first sustained attempt to revalue French feminism and answer the question: What has been gained and what has been lost as a result of this intercultural encounter? Interviews with Simone de Beauvoir open the book; essays (...) by French feminists Sarah Kofman and Luce Irigaray follow; the North American contributors are Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, Diana J. Fuss, Nancy J. Holland, Eleanor H. Kuykendall, Dorothy Leland, Diana T. Meyers, Andrea Nye, and Margaret A. Simons. (shrink)

‘Op zeker moment in de loop van die stille dagen besliste ik dat dat was wat ik wilde: de geest in al haar complexiteit bestuderen [...] Ik lees in mijn dagboek dat een handschrift, door mij ternauwernood herkend als het mijne, schrijft met heel de kwetsbare overmoed van een haast twintigjarige: ‘Volgens mij is het observeren van het leven, het brein, de ziel enzovoort, net zoiets als het bestuderen van elektronen: de gevolgde methode, de aanvangssituatie, die bepalen de uitslag. (...) Een andere methode kan een andere uitslag opleveren, waarvan je niet kunt zeggen dat die fout is.’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetoric and PluralismAndrea A. LunsfordRhetoric and Pluralism, ed. Frederick J. Antczak; xii & 336 pp. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1995, $59.50.In his (non)conclusion to this volume’s witty Afterword, Wayne Booth remarks on the need to “improve our inquiry into how we inquire together” (p. 307). The fifteen essays collected in Rhetoric and Pluralism are enthusiastically engaged in this project. Although often strikingly different in their methodologies and (...) assumptions, keeping company with Wayne Booth has allowed the contributors to practice—and to try to improve—what inquiry they would preach. Frederick J. Antczak opens with a brief introduction that previews the five sections to come: “Situating Booth”; “Ethics and Fictions”; “Rhetoric and Politics”; “Booth across Disciplines”; and “Booth, Assent, and Argument.” Booth’s Afterword is followed by Lee Artz’s bibliography of Booth’s work.For readers primarily interested in rhetoric, Walter Jost’s “Teaching the Topics: Character, Rhetoric, and Liberal Education” provides a thoughtful exploration of Booth’s contributions to a theory of special topics as well as a strategy for using this theory as a means of integrating liberal education. Those more interested in philosophy may turn first to Alan Brinton’s rereading of Booth’s Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Assent against Brinton’s own understanding of the Cartesian tradition, or to James McOmber’s comparison of Booth, Richard Rorty, and Paul Feyerabend in “Rhetoric without Sophistry.” And those with a primary interest in teaching should be pleased to find that [End Page 276] subject given strong treatment here in Francis-Noel Thomas’s use of Booth’s practice of criticism, and its relationship to the work of all teachers of English, in taking on advocates of a narrowly-conceived cultural literacy. Patsy Callaghan and Ann Dobyns use a Boothian ethics of argument to inform the teaching of first-year English classes.Literature, of course, is featured throughout. Monica Johnstone arrestingly reads Genet’s Querelle against the evaluative model Booth elucidates in The Company We Keep; Susan Shapiro tests Boothian ethical criticism in the case of Elie Wiesel’s post-Holocaust fiction; and Antczak discusses Martin Luther King’s “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.” Two essays, one by Don Bialostosky and one by David Richter, relate Booth’s work to Bakhtinian principles, though with very different ends and effects. Finally, those who wonder whether Booth’s brand of pluralism shies too far away from a rigorous encounter with politics will gain from James Phelan’s careful and convincing extension of Booth’s evaluative criticism and from Barbara Foley’s insistence that Booth’s system of ethical criticism too often ignores or elides issues of class and race.The richest section of this text for me, however, focuses on “Booth across Disciplines.” In three remarkably provocative and highly readable discussions, Peter Rabinowitz, Donald McCloskey, and Eugene Garver take Booth on the road, applying or extending his work to an analysis of the ethics of music (Rabinowitz), the rhetoric of economics (McCloskey), and the significance of the implicit, of “What Goes Without Saying: in Francis Bacon’s Essays (Garver). One mark of important thinkers is surely that they enable creativity, that their thinking sparks the thoughts of many others. Throughout this volume, but particularly in this section, that mark of Booth’s influence is palpably evident.As I read through Rhetoric and Pluralism, and especially when I came to Booth’s playful and multivocalic Afterword, I kept wishing that someone had contributed a piece of oral history to this volume: Booth is still working, still working hard, and there are many more of his range of selves available to us in his spoken voice. Finally, I longed for a detailed analysis of some of Booth’s playful and ironic pieces, which come in for some mention here and there but are not featured in any essay. This openness to play, so much a part of the rhetorical tradition and so necessary to any ethics of postmodernity, is another of Booth’s gifts to all readers.Andrea A. LunsfordOhio State UniversityCopyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo busca analizar y hacer una lectura de la identidad, misión, ubicación y aporte que la parroquia ha venido realizando y tejiendo en relación con el contexto urbano. Al mismo tiempo desea comprender cómo ha incidido dicho fenómeno en el modo en el que la parroquia se ve y se lee, como también la manera en que se evidencian sus exigencias y los retos en tal contexto. Es de gran relevancia la pregunta sobre la identidad y la misión (...) de la parroquia en la ciudad, ya que parecería muchas veces diluirse entre tantas propuestas y dinámicas que ofrece la ciudad y los desafíos que le ofrece el ser humano-urbano y el nuevo estilo de congregante. Por ello urge redescubrir su sentido más profundo, ya que, si la parroquia no tiene una clara identidad en medio de la ciudad, corre el riesgo de permanecer en su autorreferencialidad, perdiendo su dinamismo misionero.This article seeks to analyze and read the identity, mission, location and contribution that the parish has been making and weaving in relation to the urban context, at the same time understanding how this phenomenon has affected the way in which it is seen and it is read, as well, to show what their demands and challenges are in this context. The question about the identity and mission of the parish in the city is of great relevance, since it would seem many times to be diluted between so many proposals and dynamics that the city offers and the challenges that the human-urban being offers and the new style of congregant. For this reason, it is urgent to rediscover its deepest meaning, since if the parish does not have a clear identity in the middle of the city, it runs the risk of remaining in its self-referentiality, losing its missionary dynamism. (shrink)

Weil construyó inteligibilidad mediante una escritura que desenraiza el pensamiento de conceptos habituales. Sus reflexiones sobre la fuerza indican que solo leemos sensaciones que el mundo nos ofrece mediante nuestro cuerpo que resultará determinante para propiciar transposiciones semánticas que modifiquen lo que el ser humano lee en la realidad. De aquí el alcance político de cuerpos y discursos en la conversación transversal de las instituciones y en el interior de los colectivos cuyos dispositivos vuelven más reales las significaciones fijadas a (...) los nombres que las cosas mismas a las que aluden, esta modalidad de fuerza impide el acceso a la verdad impersonal. (shrink)

M. Ally: Why Jaspers gives us Hope: Deconstruc ting the Myth of Cultural Impermeability B. Andrzejewski: Über Kant und Schelling hinaus. Zur Frage der existenziellen Theorie der Kommunikation bei Jaspers A. Cesana: Weltphilosophie und philosophischer Glaube J. M. Cho: Cross-Cultural Adaptations in Karl Jaspers J. Fukaya: The Japanese Moral Framework and Jaspers Philosophy K. Fukui: Karl Jaspers Philosophie aus Sicht der Kyoto-Schule J.-C. Gens: Jaspers Begegnung mit und sein Verhältnis zu China S. Hanyu: The Cross-Cultural Thought in Jaspers Philosophy. In (...) comparison with Kantian Thought in Toward Perpetual Peace K. Hara: Konflikte und Kommunikation der Religionen. Zur Möglichkeit des philosophischen Glaubens A. Hirano: Arendt und Jaspers: Der innere Zusammenhang und die Unterschiede zwischen den Gedanken beider S. C. Kim: Der philosophische Glaube angesichts des religiösen Pluralismus L. Lambrecht: Philosophie gegen den Nationalsozialismus: Hannah Arendt und Karl Jaspers E. Lee: Heidegger and Jaspers on the Public Sphere: Jaspers Theory of Communication as an Antidote to Heideggers Dark Public World W. Lee: Philosophischer Glaube und universale Kommunikation bei Karl Jaspers T. Nakajima: Die Idee der Universität inmitten der Popularisierung" T. Nakayama: Jaspers Philosophie und Buddhismus. Das Denken der Leerheit" C. Olay: Öffentlichkeit bei Jaspers und Hannah Arendt S.-K. Paek: Kants Schrift Zum ewigen Frieden im Spiegel dreier Interpretationen: Volker Gerhardt, Jürgen Habermas, Karl Jaspers E. Park: The Possibility of Social Existenz. A Reinterpretation of the Concept of Existenz in Karl Jaspers F. Peach: Jaspers, Existential Communication and Globalisation C. Piecuch: Welteinheit: Rationale Entscheidung oder kosmische Notwendigkeit? I. Ren: Zwei Wege der philosophischen Logik: Jaspers und Heidegger N. Reyhani: Die Anthropologie-Debatte und der Vorwurf des Positivismus gegen Karl Jaspers I. Sarin: Jaspers on Bridging the Intercultural Gap H.-J. Seideneck: Der Zusammenprall von Kulturkreisen im Weltdorf unter dem Blickwinkel des erhebenden Scheiterns bei Karl Jaspers H. Stelzer: Das Aufbrechen fixierter Weltbilder in der interkulturellen Kommunikation E. Struchholz: Karl Jaspers und Jacob Burckhardt: Existenz und Existenzbild A. Takahashi: Zur Wechselbeziehung zwischen der Kommunikation in der Geschichte und derjenigen in unserer Zeit bei Jaspers M. Wirtz: Die Regionen des Geistes. Zur interkulturellen Relevanz einer Weltphilosophiegeschichtsschreibung nach Karl Jaspers M. Wischke: Kommunikative Übergänge und Grenzsituationen. Über Schuld und Gedächtnis bei Jaspers. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent's autonomy and third-personal determinations of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund's account of dialogical (...) autonomy—on which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

Le sujet de l’article est la situation actuelle de la recherche internationale sur le Cusain et ses perspectives pour l’avenir. Au cours du xxe siècle, la recherche internationale sur Nicolas de Cues a connu une expansion énorme. L’édition historique-critique de son œuvre est achevée. Aujourd’hui, il existe des centres sur le Cusain pas seulement en Allemagne, au Japon et aux États-Unis, mais aussi aux Pays-Bas, en Italie, en Argentine, en Russie et en France. à l’échelle mondiale, beaucoup de thèses de (...) doctorat sont écrites sur Nicolas de Cues, sans parler des nombreux articles le concernant. à l’occasion du 25e anniversaire de l’American Cusanus Society en mai 2008 à Kalamazoo, le philosophe américain Clyde Lee Miller a étudié la recherche sur Nicolas de Cues sous quatre angles différents que l’article reprend pour esquisser les futures perspectives de la recherche sur le Cusain. (shrink)

In the films of the Alien franchise featuring Sigourney Weaver, Ripley's maternal instinct is an integral part of who she is as both survivor and protector—and as a destroyer, too. In Alien, Ripley's misplaced maternal instincts save her from the death‐by‐alien that is the fate of her crew mates as she hurries off in search of the ship's resident cat, Jones. When Ripley hears Jonesy's meow, she responds like a mother to a crying baby. Ridley Scott's Alien begins with an (...) image of near‐naked bodies in capsules, awakening from sleep, slightly dazed, slightly confused—intimating birth, or rebirth. In her theory, Stone harks back to the approach of psychoanalysis, claiming that each experience of motherhood repeats the mother's own infantile past and her own traumatic separation from the maternal body. In Alien: Resurrection, Ripley is reclaimed through a purposeful symbiosis of mother and child; human and alien; self and “other”. (shrink)

In the business ethics literature, a commons paradigm orients theorizing toward how civil society can promote collaboration and collectively govern shared resources, and implicates the common good—the ethics of providing social conditions that enable individuals and collectives to thrive. In the context of representative democracies, the shared resources of a nation can be considered commons, yet these resources are governed in a top-down, bureaucratic manner wherein public participation is often limited to voting for political leaders. Such governance, however, can be (...) motivated by values of solidarity and stewardship, and a bottom-up approach to participation, in ways that are consistent with a social commons ethos. We employ an inductive methodology focused on successes and possibilities, using data from interviews with 93 policy-makers and national-level government leaders in 5 democratic countries, and observational and archival data. We reveal how governments can operationalize a social commons ethos in decision-making. This approach to governance involves stakeholder engagement that is Broad, Deep, and Continual. In this model, leaders engage a wide breadth of stakeholders, engage them deeply and meaningfully throughout the decision-making process, and sustain this engagement in a continual manner. Implications for governance of non-governmental bureaucracies are discussed, including the normative and strategic benefits of engaging stakeholders in this manner. (shrink)

In the course of a note on Aen. VIII. 86 sq. by Dr. J. W. Mackail , the Servian interpretation of line 96 is supported with the observation that 'note should be taken of Virgil's distinctive use of the ablative. “Placidoaequore siluas” in his language is practically equivalent to “placidas aequoreas siluas” just as “pictas abiete puppes” is to “pictas abiegnas puppes” or “uasta uoragine gurges” to “uastus uoraginosus gurges.”’.

Taking a Stand in a Postfeminist World offers an engaged cultural criticism in a postfeminist context.

The expansion of ethics review, beyond its origins in medical research, is the subject of growing critical analysis internationally, especially from social science researchers. Our study builds on this analysis by considering ethics review specifically within tertiary-based educational research. As a foundation for a larger study, we explore the reporting of ethics review within articles from a snapshot of education journals. A cross-sectional review considered 125 articles from 24 journals spanning medical and nurse education, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, (...) and educational technology. Among similar types of research our findings highlight variation in institutional ethical review processes and outcomes. Despite most journals providing guidelines for reporting ethics review, adherence to these guidelines by authors or editors was not always evident, but more likely in health-related education journals. We argue that identified areas of variation may reflect the differing influence and proximity of biomedical values. This influence has been under examined in tertiary-based educational research but may contribute to inequitable learning, researching and publishing experiences, potentially adding to negative sentiment about ethics review. (shrink)

Clarifying the nature of possibility is crucial for an evaluation of the phenomenological approach to ontology. From a phenomenological perspective, it is ontological possibility, and not spatiotemporal existence, that has pre-eminent ontological status. Since the sphere of phenomenological being and the sphere of experienceability turn out to be overlapping, this makes room for two perspectives. We can confer foundational priority to the acts of consciousness over possibilities, or to pre-set possibilities over the activity of consciousness. Husserl’s position on this issue (...) seems to change over time. Ultimately, the establishment of a phenomenological perspective must involve a rejection of any hypostatization of pre-set possibilities, but not all implications of this theoretical step seem to be drawn in Husserl’s texts. This paper is devoted to an illustration of how the phenomenological notion of possibility should change when we reject the hypostatization of possibility, that is, when we reject the idea that all acts of consciousness are to be conceived as realizations of pre-set “ideal forms”. We examine this question, first, by trying to clarify the conceptual constellation of “possibility” in Husserl’s texts. This leads to an overall classification of the features of constituted possibilities. Then we distinguish such constituted possibilities from their constituting conditions, which outlines a different sense of “possibility”. In the last instance two “possibilizing” dimensions are shown to lie at the root of all ontic possibilities. This leads to a final suggestion on the nature of the relation between experience and possibility. Actual experiences create the room for possibility: they are possibilizations. In this sense, experience is to be taken as a generative sphere which goes beyond the customary boundary between epistemic and ontological. From this point of view all experience is to be conceived as emergence. (shrink)

BackgroundHIV prevention research in resource-limited countries is associated with a variety of ethical dilemmas. Key amongst these is the question of what constitutes an appropriate standard of health care (SoC) for participants in HIV prevention trials. This paper describes a community-focused approach to develop a locally-appropriate SoC in the context of a phase III vaginal microbicide trial in Mwanza City, northwest Tanzania.MethodsA mobile community-based sexual and reproductive health service for women working as informal food vendors or in traditional and modern (...) bars, restaurants, hotels and guesthouses has been established in 10 city wards. Wards were divided into geographical clusters and community representatives elected at cluster and ward level. A city-level Community Advisory Committee (CAC) with representatives from each ward has been established. Workshops and community meetings at ward and city-level have explored project-related concerns using tools adapted from participatory learning and action techniques e.g. chapati diagrams, pair-wise ranking. Secondary stakeholders representing local public-sector and non-governmental health and social care providers have formed a trial Stakeholders' Advisory Group (SAG), which includes two CAC representatives.ResultsKey recommendations from participatory community workshops, CAC and SAG meetings conducted in the first year of the trial relate to the quality and range of clinic services provided at study clinics as well as broader standard of care issues. Recommendations have included streamlining clinic services to reduce waiting times, expanding services to include the children and spouses of participants and providing care for common local conditions such as malaria. Participants, community representatives and stakeholders felt there was an ethical obligation to ensure effective access to antiretroviral drugs and to provide supportive community-based care for women identified as HIV positive during the trial. This obligation includes ensuring sustainable, post-trial access to these services. Post-trial access to an effective vaginal microbicide was also felt to be a moral imperative.ConclusionParticipatory methodologies enabled effective partnerships between researchers, participant representatives and community stakeholders to be developed and facilitated local dialogue and consensus on what constitutes a locally-appropriate standard of care in the context of a vaginal microbicide trial in this setting.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN64716212. (shrink)

This essay explores the connection between representation and explanation in the sciences. I suggest that scientific representation schemes be viewed as pragmatic tools for acquiring the sort of articulated awareness that is the hallmark of nontrivial knowledge. Crystal field theory in chemistry illustrates this perspective. Certain representations achieve the status of being paradigmatically explanatory, thereby shaping models of intelligibility. In turn, these explanatory preferences serve largely to define and differentiate disciplinary communities by implicitly endorsing particular epistemic aims and values. In (...) this way, the pragmatic nature of explanatory discourse effectively grants its intellectual utility. (shrink)

Algebraic Art explores the invention of a peculiarly Victorian account of the nature and value of aesthetic form, and it traces that account to a surprising source: mathematics. Drawing on literature, art, and photography, it explores how the Victorian mathematical conception of form still resonates today.

The Material and Ideological Base of the Old Babylonian State: History, Economy, and Politics. By Lukáš Pecha. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. Pp. xvii + 316. $115.

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la inducción analítica como método científico de investigación, es decir, como modo válido de hacer ciencia. En 1934, su creador, el filósofo y sociólogo Florian Znaniecki, afirmó que este era el método que debía ser adoptado en toda investigación sociológica. Su relevancia radica en que se propone encontrar explicaciones globales de los fenómenos sociales a partir de la utilización de técnicas cualitativas de investigación. Aquí adopto una perspectiva histórica que permite inscribir su (...) emergencia y evolución en un contexto mayor del desarrollo de metodologías cualitativas en sociología, para luego reflexionar sobre sus presupuestos epistemológicos y las críticas de las que fue objeto. Por último, realizo un balance de los aportes de esta metodología a la disciplina.: The aim of this article is to study analytic induction as a scientific research method, that is, as a valid way of making science. In 1934, the philosopher and sociologist Florian Znaniecki, its creator, referred to this methodology as the method that should be adopted by any sociological research. Its relevance lies on the fact that its goal is to find global explanations to social phenomena by using qualitative research techniques. I adopt a historical perspective to inscribe this method’s emergency and evolution in a larger context of the development of qualitative methods in sociology, and then reflect upon its epistemological basis and the criticisms made in relation to it. Finally, I evaluate this method’s contributions to the discipline. (shrink)