Rape, claims Ann J. Cahill, affects not only those women who are raped, but all women who experience their bodies as rapable and adjust their actions and self-images accordingly. Rethinking Rape counters legal and feminist definitions of rape as mere assault and decisively emphasizes the centrality of the body and sexuality in a crime which plays a crucial role in the continuing oppression of women.

Kevin M. Cahill reclaims one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's most passionately pursued endeavors: to reawaken a sense of wonder around human life and language and its mysterious place in the world. Following the philosopher's spiritual and cultural criticism and tying it more tightly to the overall evolution of his thought, Cahill frames an original interpretation of Wittgenstein's engagement with Western metaphysics and modernity, better contextualizing the force of his work. Cahill synthesizes several approaches to Wittgenstein's life and thought. (...) He stresses the nontheoretical aspirations of the philosopher's early and later writings, combining key elements from the so-called resolute readings of the _Tractatus_ with the "therapeutic" readings of _Philosophical Investigations_. Cahill shows how continuity in Wittgenstein's cultural and spiritual concerns informed if not guided his work between these texts, and in his reading of the _Tractatus_, Cahill identifies surprising affinities with Martin Heidegger's _Being and Time_--a text rarely associated with Wittgenstein's early formulations. In his effort to recapture wonder, Wittgenstein both avoided and undermined traditional philosophy's reliance on theory. As Cahill relates the steps of this bold endeavor, he forms his own innovative, analytical methods, joining historicist and contextualist approaches to text-based, immanent readings. The result is an original, sustained examination of Wittgenstein's thought. (shrink)

In this article I will revisit the question of what I term the continuum of heteronormative sexual interactions, that is, the idea that purportedly ethically acceptable heterosexual interactions are conceptually, ethically, and politically associated with instances of sexual violence. Spurred by recent work by psychologist Nicola , I conclude that some of my earlier critiques of Catharine MacKinnon's theoretical linkages between sexual violence and normative heterosex are wanting. In addition, neither MacKinnon's theory nor my critique of it seem up to (...) the task of providing an ethical account of the examples of “unjust sex” that Gavey has described. I come to the conclusion that an ethical analysis of sexual interactions requires a focus on sexual desire, but that desire cannot take on the by now heavily criticized role of consent. Rather than looking for the presence or absence of sexual desire prior to sexual encounters as a kind of ethical certification of them, we ought instead to focus on the efficacy of that sexual desire, that is, its ability (or lack thereof) to shape an encounter in substantial and meaningful ways. (shrink)

Several discourses about theology, church, and politics are occurring among Christian theologians in the United States. One influential strand centers on the communitarian theology of Stanley Hauerwas, who calls on Christians to witness faithfully against liberalism in general and war in particular. Jeffrey Stout, in his widely discussed "Democracy and Tradition" (2004), responds that religious people ought precisely to endorse those democratic and liberal American traditions that join religious and secular counterparts to battle injustice. Hauerwas, Stout, and many of their (...) interlocutors envision liberal U.S. culture as the context of Christian social ethics. The ensuing debate rarely incorporates Catholic scholars, feminist scholars, scholars of color, or international and liberationist voices. Their inclusion could enhance an understanding of the role of the church in society, and support a common morality in the face of global pluralism. More importantly, it could broaden the scope of discourse on religion and politics to envision global Christian social ethics. (shrink)

Moral injury results from the violation of deeply held moral commitments leading to emotional and existential distress. The phenomenon was initially described by psychologists and psychiatrists associated with the US Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs but has since been applied more broadly. Although its application to healthcare preceded COVID-19, healthcare professionals have taken greater interest in moral injury since the pandemic’s advent. They have much to learn from combat veterans, who have substantial experience in identifying and addressing moral injury—particularly (...) its social dimensions. Veterans recognise that complex social factors lead to moral injury, and therefore a community approach is necessary for healing. We argue that similar attention must be given in healthcare, where a team-oriented and multidimensional approach is essential both for ameliorating the suffering faced by health professionals and for addressing the underlying causes that give rise to moral injury. (shrink)

The relationship between emotional arousal and long-term memory is addressed in two experiments in which subjects viewed either a relatively emotionally neutral short story or a closely matched but more emotionally arousing story and were tested for retention of the story 2 weeks later. Experiment 1 provides essential replication of the results of Heuer and Reisberg and illustrates the common interpretive problem posed by the use of different stimuli in the neutral versus emotional stories. In Experiment 2, identical slides were (...) used in both the neutral and arousal stores. Two different stories were created by varying the narration that accompanied each slide. In both experiments, subjects who viewed the arousal story both experienced a greater emotional reaction to the story than did the subjects who viewed the neutral story, and subsequently exhibited enhanced memory for the story. Subjects in Experiment 2 who viewed the arousal story also recalled more slides than did the subjects who viewed the neutral story. This effect was greatest for story phase 2, the phase in which the emotional slide narration occurred. Because this enhanced retention of the story slides cannot be explained by any differences in the slides themselves, the results provide new evidence to support the contention that emotional arousal influences long-term memory in normal human subjects. (shrink)

This article returns to a philosophical conundrum that has troubled feminist theory since the topic of sexual violence has been taken seriously, what I call the problem of the “heteronormative sexual continuum”: how sexual assault and hegemonic heterosex are conceptually and politically related. I continue my response to the work of Nicola Gavey, who has argued for the existence of a “gray area” of sexual interactions that are ethically questionable without rising to the category of sexual assault, but whose analysis (...) did not explicitly articulate what these two categories share or what distinguishes them from each other. After summarizing Gavey's position, I summarize my previous articulation of the common ground between instances of sexual assault and examples of sexual interactions in the “gray area.” I then develop a theoretical account of how the two categories differ, arguing that the victim's agency plays different roles in the two types of interactions. Both the fact of that distinction—that we are capable of providing a philosophical account of the difference between sexual interactions that fall into the gray area and those that constitute sexual assault—and its particular content are crucial for the development of a tenable feminist sexual ethics. (shrink)

Feminist theory has produced a robust literature on embodiment that explores phenomena such as maternity, mobility, ability, and aging. However, the field has produced surprisingly few analyses of the bodily phenomenon of voice; references to voice in the context of critical theory are almost entirely metaphorical in nature, a relegation that obscures the philosophical relevance of voice as embodied phenomenon. Using insights garnered from the fields of sound studies and musicology, I argue that contemporary feminist theory should address the social, (...) political, and ethical meanings of the bodily, material phenomenon of vocality. Specifically, I argue that vocality is better understood as intervocality, that it is an existentially significant aspect of identity, and that it is implicated in systematic inequality and social relations in meaningful ways. I critique Adriana Cavarero’s approach to vocal justice, demonstrating that it does not sufficiently take up the challenges of intervocality. The article concludes with some preliminary remarks regarding a conceptualization of vocal justice. (shrink)

This paper explores the conditions under which feminine beautification constitutes a feminist practice. Distinguishing between the process and product of beautification allows us to isolate those aesthetic, interapos;Subjective, and embodied elements that empower rather than disempower women. The empowering characteristics of beautification, however, are difficult and perhaps impossible to represent in a sexist context; therefore, while beautifying may be a positive experience for women, being viewed as a beautified object in current Western society is almost always opposed to women's equality (...) and autonomy. (shrink)

Criminalizing arson is both easy and hard. On the substantive merits, the conduct of damaging property by fire uncontroversially warrants criminal sanction. Indeed, punishment for such conduct is overdetermined, as the conduct threatens multiple harms of concern to the criminal law: both damage to property and injury to people. Yet the same multiplicity of harms or threats that makes it easy to criminalize arson (in the sense of deciding to proscribe the underlying behavior) also makes it hard to criminalize arson (...) (in the sense of formulating the offense(s) that will address that behavior). This article asks whether adopting one or more arson offenses is the best way for criminal law to address the conduct in question, or whether that conduct is more properly conceptualized, criminalized, and punished as multiple distinct offenses. (shrink)

In response to Gilbert Meilaender 's innovative interpretation of Augustine and of Roman Catholic teaching, the author suggests that Meilaender attributes to Augustine a more positive view of sexual pleasure than the texts will support, that modern Roman Catholic teaching suggests that love should have priority over procreation as a meaning of sex; and that the moral logic of Meilaender's argument does not require a rejection of all reproductive technologies. Nonetheless, the author agrees that a more critical attitude should be (...) adopted toward the reasons for which technologically assisted reproduction is promoted and undertaken, as well as toward its social impact. (shrink)

A new, provocative study of the ethical, political, and social meanings of the everyday voice. Utilising the framework of feminist philosophy, authors Ann J. Cahill and Christine Hamel approach the phenomenon of voice as a lived, sonorous and embodied experience marked by the social structures that surround it, including systemic forms of injustice such as ableism, sexism, racism, and classism. By developing novel theoretical constructs such as "intervocality" and "respiratory responsibility," Cahill and Hamel cut through the static between (...) theory and praxis and put forward exciting theories on how human vocal sound can perpetuate -- and challenge -- persistent inequalities. Sounding Bodies presents a powerful model of how the seemingly disparate disciplines of philosophy and voice/speech training can, in conversation with each other, generate illuminating insights about our vocal lives and identities. (shrink)

This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and original analyses of three important philosophical topics: relativism, skepticism, and naturalism in the social sciences. Kevin Cahill's approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond's and James Conant's work on (...) the early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell's work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences. Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Pope Francis both grants the right to use armed force in self-defense and regards all war as ‘a defeat for humanity’. This seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that what is a theoretically just use of force (according to the criteria of just war theory) inevitably results in unjust violence when carried out in practice. The undertaking, processes and practices of war are highly susceptible to what Augustine called the libido dominandi. The theory of just war is carried (...) forward in institutions of actual war-making that foster escalation, discourage restraint, and adapt the theory itself to accommodate increasing violence. ‘Just war’ fails to embody the social and institutional virtue of justice. Thus, as Pope Francis exhorts, the Christian ethics of war and peace should prioritize the theory of just peace and the cultivation of peacebuilding dispositions, practices, and institutions. These strategies favor justice, but success is not guaranteed. (shrink)

Objectification is a foundational concept in feminist theory, used to analyze such disparate social phenomena as sex work, representation of women's bodies, and sexual harassment. However, there has been an increasing trend among scholars of rejecting and re-evaluating the philosophical assumptions which underpin it. In this work, Cahill suggests an abandonment of the notion of objectification, on the basis of its dependence on a Kantian ideal of personhood. Such an ideal fails to recognize sufficiently the role the body plays (...) in personhood, and thus results in an implicit vilification of the body and sexuality. The problem with the phenomena associated with objectification is not that they render women objects, and therefore not-persons, but rather that they construct feminine subjectivity and sexuality as wholly derivative of masculine subjectivity and sexuality. Women, in other words, are not objectified as much as they are derivatized, turned into a mere reflection or projection of the other. Cahill argues for an ethics of materiality based upon a recognition of difference, thus working toward an ethics of sexuality that is decidedly ­and simultaneously ­incarnate and intersubjective. (shrink)

This article attempts to articulate a grounding of animal rights based on inherent worth as the most fitting way to draw attention to the moral status of animals. The primary objective is to identify the proper grounds of those rights. To that end, two influential philosophical accounts of animal rights are first surveyed: Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach and Tom Regan’s deontological argument. These are followed by two theistic accounts of rights put forth by Andrew Linzey and Nicholas Wolterstorff. It is (...) argued that the latter two complementary accounts based on inherent worth bestowed by God develop a stronger grounding than versions grounded on intrinsic capacities. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a concern among theological bioethicists that secular debate has grown increasingly "thin," and that "thick" religious traditions and their spokespersons have been correspondingly excluded. This essay disputes that analysis. First, religious and theological voices compete for public attention and effectiveness with the equally "thick" cultural traditions of modern science and market capitalism. The distinctive contribution of religion should be to emphasize social justice in access to the benefits of health care, challenging the for-profit global marketing of (...) research and biotechnology to wealthy consumers. Second, religion and theology have been and are still socially effective in sponsoring activism for practical change, both locally and globally. This claim will be supported with specific examples; with familiar concepts like subsidiarity and "mid- dle axioms"; and with recent analyses of "participatory democracy" and of emerging, decentralized forms of global governance. (shrink)

Paulin and Cahill‐Lane explore the origins of event processing and event prediction in animal evolution. They propose that the evolutionary benefit of being able to predict and thus to quickly react to anticipated events may have triggered the evolution of the earliest nervous systems.

Cahill addresses the ethics of sexuality, marriage, parenthood and family from a feminist Christian standpoint. She wants to reaffirm the traditional unity of sex, love and parenthood, not as an absolute norm, but a guiding framework. The book also develops the significance of New Testament models of community and of moral formation, to argue that the human values associated with sex and family should be embodied in a context of concern for society's poor and marginalized. Roman Catholicism receives special (...) but not exclusive attention. (shrink)

Some feminist theorists have argued that emphasizing women's self-defense mistakenly emphasizes women's behavior and choices rather than male aggression as a cause of sexual violence. I argue here that such critiques of self-defense are misguided, and do not sufficiently take into account the ways in which feminist self-defense courses can constitute embodied transformations of the meanings of femininity and rape. While certainly not sufficient to counter a rape culture by themselves, self-defense courses should remain a crucial element in feminist anti-rape (...) activism. (shrink)

Lisa Sowle Cahill; Catholic Consensus on Critical Care, Patient Welfare and the Common Good, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Vo.

This fresh analysis of the "state of the question" in Christian ethics charts the course for future study and exploration in the field. Written in honor of James Gustafson, who provides a conclusion, these 22 original and tightly argued essays examine hotly debated controversies on a wide range of topics, from sources of theological ethics to the moral life. At the core of these complementary perspectives is the ever-increasing tension between the particularly of religious and philosophical traditions and the universality (...) of moral discourse. Designed for classroom use. (shrink)

There is a broad recognition that moral norms are most usefully justified not as mere transcriptions of biblical rules, or even as sophisticated references to key narrative themes, but rather as coherent social embodiments of a community formed by Scripture.

: he commercialization of biotechnology, especially research and development by transnational pharmaceutical companies, is already excessive and is increasingly dangerous to distributive justice, human rights, and access of marginal populations to basic human goods. Focusing on gene patenting, this article employs the work of Margaret Jane Radin and others to argue that gene patenting ought to be more highly regulated and that it ought to be regulated with international participation and in view of concerns about solidarity and the common good. (...) The mode of argument called for on this issue is more pragmatic than logical, emphasizing persuasion based on evidence about the reality and effects of control of genetic research by profit-driven biotech companies. (shrink)

Our recent theory of intervocality (Cahill and Hamel 2018, 2021) provided a new model of voice as material, relational, and socially constructed. However, our work did not substantially address the complex relationship between voice and emotion, or how that complex relationship could be taken up more effectively and ethically in actor training and the theater studio. Utilizing insights from affect theory, cultural psychology, and affective neuroscience, this article argues for the need for pedagogies that substantively engage with the cultural (...) specificity of emotion, affect, and voice to create more just practices and experiences within the training studio and in performance. (shrink)

Existing accounts of meaning in reproductive contexts, especially those put forward in debates concerning abortion, tend to focus on the (moral) status of the fetus. This issue on miscarriage, pregnancy loss, and fetal death accomplishes a shift this conversation, in the direction of pushing past embryo-centric value judgments. To put it bluntly, the miscarried embryo is not the one who has to live with the experience. The essays in this special issue are a significant addition to the scarce literature on (...) miscarriage and fetal death. Contributions are from specialists in continental and analytical philosophy, feminism, bioethics, theoretical and applied ethics, social and political philosophy, social epistemology and philosophy of language, narrative, aesthetics, popular culture, and gender studies. As guest editors, we sought to offer a variety of approaches to the topic, to further the understanding of miscarriage and fetal death as important to many areas of philosophy, especially social philosophy. We suggest that the unchosenness and invisibility of miscarriage are central to its seeming irrelevance to social identities and social norms of testimony, recognition, and ascription of significance to experiences. (shrink)

This article presents a novel perspective, arguing for a virtue-based weak version of political realism in Ottoman political thought (OPT). By recognizing realist elements in human nature and poli- tics in OPT tradition, we can gain a deeper understanding of the place of morality in politics. Challeng- ing the common sense understanding of morality that pervades all areas of politics, this paper provides compelling evidence to show how the understanding of the nature of politics in OPT was ever-chang- ing, singular, (...) and, to a certain extent, free of morality. This unique framing of politics and human na- ture in the OPT tradition makes it a realist one. Finally, I delve into the role of universals in explaining the intricate relationship between politics and morality through various analytical distinctions. (shrink)

It has long been the habit of philosophers, and is still a common failing of ordinary playgoers, to see tragedy through the coloured spectacles of an acquired philosophical or religious outlook, and to commend or condemn rather from the standpoint of partiality for a certain view about life in general than from that of one assessing the intrinsic merits of a work of art. Because we all, whether laymen or specialists, theorize about the nature and destiny of that mysterious universe (...) which, for a brief span, our minds illumine, and because the working hypothesis so engendered is inevitably tinged by our personal idiosyncrasies of temperament and taste, there have been—and, building on such a foundation, there must be—almost as many different theoretical explanations of the tragic as theoreticians speculating on this high theme. Besides introducing that personal equation which has always been anathema to science, the distorted vision for which philosophical preconceptions are responsible brings with it minor illusions that are scarcely less injurious; the reading into a play or a novel of notions that had never entered the poet's brain, or the interpolation of history with incidents that never really occurred, the discarding of much that is genuinely tragic because it happens not to fit into the mould shaped by our own ideas, and the acceptance of much that is not merely untragic, but actually inartistic—pacifist, or communist, or feminist, or religious propaganda—because it happens to display the native hue of our own convictions. (shrink)

The use of psychometric tools to investigate the impact of school-based wellbeing programs raises a number of ethical issues around students’ rights, confidentiality and protection. Researchers have explicit ethical obligations to protect participants from potential psychological harms, but guidance is needed for effectively navigating disclosure of identifiable confidential information that indicates signs of psychological distress. Drawing on a large-scale study examining student, school, and system-based factors that impact the implementation of a school-based social and emotional learning program, we describe patterns (...) of distress attained from quantitative and qualitative questions and describe the process that we evolved to monitor and disclose sensitive mental health information, providing one example of how researchers might effectively address the responsibilities that emerge when collecting sensitive information from students within an education system. The patterns and processes that emerged illustrate that the inclusion of mental distress information can elicit important insights, but also brings responsibilities for minimising risks and maximising benefits. (shrink)

on reproductive technologies and the OTA report, Infertility , both use "rights" language to advance quite different views of the same subject matter. The former focuses on the rights and welfare of the embryo, and the protection of the family, while the latter stresses the freedom and rights of couples. This essay uses the work of Alasdair Maclntyre and Jeffrey Stout to consider the different traditions grounding these definitions of rights. It is proposed that a potentially effective mediating language could (...) be that of "human nature", and argued that donor methods raise more serious moral objections than homologous ones. Keywords: Infertility, Vatican, dualism, nature, Stout CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Pour l'A., il n'existe aucune preuve tangible qui permette de relier la proskynèse et les segmenta. La description la plus complète de la proskynèse est disponible dans le traité de Constantin VII Porphyrogénète, le De cerimoniis, qui est un récit du cérémonial de la cour byzantine à son apogée. Andreas Alföldi a suggéré que l'introduction du rite du baiser du genou de l'empereur impliquait la présence de morceaux de tissus sur les vêtements de l'empereur au niveau du genou. Ces segmenta (...) n'apparaissent pas exclusivement sur les vêtements impériaux. (shrink)