“The ‘eyes’ made available in modern technological sciences shatter any idea of passive vision; these prosthetic devices show us that all eyes, including our own organic ones, are active perceptual systems…” (Donna Haraway, 1991). A tool of military surveillance to “love at a distance”? (Caroline Bassett, 2006). Google Earth, a culmination of remote sensing satellite technologies, mega database and 3D animations, is open to both kinds of critique. This paper focuses on the latter, on how the human faculty for compassion (...) might be aligned with and elicited from the ways we search and apprehend the swirling visions of earth that Google Earth makes available. Haraway’s idea that new kinds of “prosthetic” vision constitute “active perceptual systems” resonates strongly with Hansen’s description of the digital image as a new kind of image that is produced through the process of searching rather than from passive viewing. My discussion of the Google Earth site, Crisis in Darfur , investigates the subversive possibilities of compassion in opening up an aesthetic and yet mundane space of respite from the regimes of power inherent to Google Earth, a website with an undeniable prehistory of military surveillance. (shrink)

Since mitochondrial replacement techniques were developed and clinically introduced in the United Kingdom, there has been much discussion of whether these lead to children borne of three parents. In the UK, the regulation of MRT has dealt with this by stipulating that egg donors for the purposes of MRT are not genetic parents even though they contribute mitochondrial DNA to offspring. In this paper, I examine the way that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in the UK manages the question (...) of parentage. I argue that the Act breaks the link typically made between genetic causation and genetic parenthood by redefining genetic causation solely in terms of nuclear genetics. Along with this, mtDNA is construed as a kind of supplement to the nuclear family. Drawing on the account of the supplement developed by Jacques Derrida, I argue that mtDNA and the women who donate it are seen as both essential to establishing the nuclear family but also exterior to and insignificant for it. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the viability of avoiding value judgments encoded in thick concepts when these concepts are used in economic theories. We focus on what implications the use of such thick concepts might have for the tenability of the fact/value dichotomy in economics. Thick concepts have an evaluative and a descriptive component. Our suggestion is that despite attempts to rid thick concepts of their evaluative component, economists are often not successful. We focus on the strategy of explication to (...) remove the evaluative component of thick concepts and argue that often economists either have to make value judgments or are unable to individuate out the phenomenon under analysis. We support our claim with a case study, namely the concept of addiction in Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy’s Theory of Rational Addiction (1988). One consequence of our analysis is that theories containing thick concepts could commit economists to making value judgments and as such undermine the fact/value dichotomy. (shrink)

Why are young women less likely than young men to persist in academic science and engineering? Drawing on 57 in-depth interviews with PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the United States, we describe how, in academic science and engineering, motherhood is constructed in opposition to professional legitimacy, and as a subject of fear, repudiation, and public controversy. We call this the “specter of motherhood.” This specter disadvantages young women and amplifies anticipatory concerns about combining an academic career with motherhood. By (...) specifying the content of cultural discourses about motherhood in academic workplaces and the processes by which these ideas circulate, produce disadvantage, and inform young, childless scientists and engineers’ career plans, our findings offer novel insight into mechanisms contributing to inequality in academic careers. (shrink)

Moira Howes and Catherine Hundleby ABSTRACT: While anger can derail argumentation, it can also help arguers and audiences to reason together in argumentation. Anger can provide information about premises, biases, goals, discussants, and depth of disagreement that people might otherwise fail to recognize or prematurely dismiss. Anger can also enhance the salience of certain premises...

This study contributes to the definition of populism as a significant current of thought in modern China through a focus on the development of the populist ideas of Liang Shuming . It provides an avenue to understanding a major thinker and social activist of modern China. At the same time, through a comparison with Russian Narodism, it develops populism as a general sociohistorical concept, denoting a constellation of ideas which emerges in a specific historical environment and includes a concern with (...) rural society and a critique of the modern West in the context of questions of the moral nature of progress. ;The dissertation describes the origins and development of Liang's ideas, presenting them against the background of major intellectual tendencies of the times. After an early urban, Westernizing focus, Liang arrived at a populist approach relatively late. A persisting habit of thought, involving a metaphor of mind, informed his early concerns, his attention to the ambiguities of progress and to the appeals of socialism, and his later foci on a critique of the West, an historical approach, and a particular concept of the psyche. The events of the 1920's provided the context in which Liang was able to reconcile his disparate concerns and develop a mature populist theory in which the villages provided a practical intersection of individual subjectivity and history. ;In the evolution of his ideas, Liang Shuming shared with other Chinese, Zhang Taiyan, Zhang Shizhao, Li Dazhao, and Mao Zedong, affinities which help define populism as a broad current of thought still important in China. A critique of the West and desire to skip over capitalism on the way to the future have more weight in Chinese populism than does a focus on rural society. In the absence of a specifically populist political movement, the historical importance of Chinese populism has derived from its interpenetration with Marxist ideas. One potential of the legacy of Chinese populism is to provide a self-conscious orientation toward the future from the perspective of a critique of both the Western present and the Chinese past. (shrink)

If the point of argument is to produce conviction, an argument tor a foregone conclusion is pointless. I maintain, however, that an argument makes a variety of cognitive contributions, even when its conclusion is already believed. It exhibits warrant. It affords reasons that we can impart to others. It identifies bases tor agreement among parties who otherwise disagree. It underwrites confidence, by showing how vulnerable warrant is under changes in background assumptions. Multiple arguments for the same conclusion show how our (...) beliefs hang together. (shrink)

Preparers of financial statements are in a position to manipulate the view of economic reality presented in those statements to interested parties. This paper examines two principal categories of manipulative behaviour. The term macro-manipulation is used to describe the lobbying of regulators to persuade them to produce regulation that is more favourable to the interests of preparers. Micro-manipulation describes the management of accounting figures to produce a biased view at the entity level. Both categories of manipulation can be viewed as (...) attempts at creativity by financial statement preparers. The paper analyses two cases of manipulation. First, it describes a recent case of significant and successful lobbying against the accounting regulator in the USA. The second case examines some recent Spanish earnings manipulation to demonstrate the effects of biased reporting at the entity level. Both types of creativity are considered in an ethical context. The paper concludes that the manipulations described in it can be regarded as morally reprehensible. They are not fair to users, they involve an unjust exercise of power, and they tend to weaken the authority of accounting regulators. (shrink)

Conducted among parents of young ice hockey players, this field experiment tested if making salient increasingly popular social norms that promote sportspersonship, learning, and having fun in sports, increases parents’ own self-determined endorsement of these behaviors and values, improves their psychological well-being, and impacts on their children’s on-ice behaviors. Hockey parents were randomly assigned to the experimental condition vs. control condition. Parents’ motivations for encouraging their child to learn and to have fun in hockey were then assessed. Score sheets for (...) the games that followed the study provided access to their children’s on-ice behaviors, as indicators of sportspersonship. Parents in the experimental condition reported higher self-determination for encouraging their child to learn and have fun in hockey compared to parents in the control condition. Furthermore, children of parents in the experimental condition had more assists. A mediation model revealed that the dynamic norms manipulation increased parents’ self-determined motivation for encouraging their child to learn and to have fun in hockey, which in turn, predicted higher psychological well-being. Together, these results provide support for the contention that highlighting increasingly popular social norms that promote sportspersonship, learning, and fun in sports, represents a promising strategy for creating positive social change in this life context. (shrink)

The use of social media platforms (such as Facebook) for research recruitment has continued to increase, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Social media enables researchers to reach diverse communities that often do not have their voices heard in research. Social media research recruitment, however, can pose risks to both potential participants and the researchers. This topic paper presents ethical considerations related to social media recruitment, and offers an example of harassment and hate speech risks when social media is used (...) for research recruitment. We explore the implications of hate speech risks for ethical research. (shrink)

Background: Recent research has demonstrated that depressed individuals show impairments in inhibiting irrelevant emotional material, and that these impairments are linked to rumination. Cognitive inhibition, however, is not a unitary construct but consists of several components which operate at different stages of information processing. The present study was designed to assess two components of inhibition and examine their relation to depression and rumination in a sample of clinically depressed and healthy control participants. Methods: Twenty-two individuals diagnosed with a current depressive (...) episode and 27 never-disordered control participants completed an Emotional Flanker Task to assess individual differences in interference control and a modification of the Working Memory Selection Task to assess individual differences in the ability to discard no longer relevant emotional material from working memory. Participants completed self-report measures to assess depressive symptoms and rumination. Results: Clinically depressed compared to control participants showed significantly reduced interference control of irrelevant negative information. The groups, however, did not differ in their ability to discard no longer relevant negative information from working memory. In contrast, rumination was associated with difficulty removing no longer relevant negative material from working memory but not with deficits in interference control. Conclusions: Results highlight the importance of differentiating among components of inhibition to gain a better understanding of cognitive mechanisms underlying depression and rumination. (shrink)

Les sources bibliques relatives aux rites concernant la pureté et l'impureté attestent que la pureté fut anxieusement cherchée dans le judaïsme ancien comme une façon de faire prévaloir les forces de la vie sur celles de la mort. Pureté et impureté, dont les modernes retiennent surtout les aspects anthropologiques, moraux et politiques, ne sont donc pas pensées comme des essences violemment exclusives l'une de l'autre. Il s'agit de forces en devenir qui peuvent s'altérer l'une l'autre. De nos jours, le désir (...) de plaider la cause censée bénéfique des mélanges, en substitut d'une pureté jugée figée et menaçante, n'a-t-il pas cependant sa part d'illusions néfastes et destructrices? Inversement, le souci de pureté défendu avec une âpreté redoutable et terrible, induit le désir de nier le devenir, de vouloir effacer les aléas de l'histoire et d'en réparer les tares. D'où son fanatisme. Dès lors, il faut analyser "l'autre pureté", une pureté animée par une tension créatrice et altérée par les mélanges qui lui permettent de veiller à l'oeuvre de la création et de faire grandir la vie, en soi et en autrui, sur tous les plans où elle s'exprime. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers advocate expansion of philosophical methods to include empirical investigation into the concepts used by ordinary people in reasoning and action. We propose also including methods of qualitative social science, which we argue serve both moral and epistemic goals. Philosophical analytical tools applied to interdisciplinary research designs can provide ways to extract rich contextual information from subjects. We argue that this approach has important implications for bioethics; it provides both epistemic and moral reasons to use the experiences and perspectives (...) of diverse populations to better identify underlying concepts as well as to develop effective interventions within particular communities. (shrink)

Menu labelling is a public health policy intervention that applies principles of nutrition labelling to the eating out environment. While menu labelling has received a good deal of attention with regard to its effectiveness in shaping food choices for obesity prevention, its premises have not yet been fully explored in terms of its broader applications to social equity and population health. In the following case, we focus on the example of menu labelling within the context of food policy at the (...) local level, a fruitful substantive area of consideration for public health ethics. (shrink)

Introduction We search for origins the way some cats chase their tails. After brief bursts of frenetic spinning, we think we have a grasp of our topic, ...

Recruiting participants from underserved and marginalized communities for behavioral research is an essential yet challenging task. We examined participants' motivation to participate in a focus group about health communication and their beliefs about appropriate remuneration for participation. Twelve focus groups were conducted with low-income African American and Latina adolescent girls and African American women. We utilized a grounded theory approach and thematic analysis to examine views about research participation and remuneration. This study can inform important considerations about the consent process, (...) study recruitment, and remuneration. (shrink)

This text is the edited transcript of Catherine Malabou’s second Critical Inquiry visiting-professorship lecture at the University of Chicago in January 2022.

Within food systems governance spaces, civil society organizations (CSOs) play important roles in addressing power structures and shaping decisions. In Canada, CSO food systems actors increasingly understand the importance of building relationships among settler and Indigenous peoples in their work. Efforts to make food systems more sustainable and just necessarily mean confronting the realities that most of what is known as Canada is unceded Indigenous territory, stolen land, land acquired through coercive means, and/or land bound by treaty between specific Indigenous (...) groups and the Crown. CSOs that aim to build more equitable food systems must thus engage with the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, learn/unlearn colonial histories, and build meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples. This paper explores how settler-led CSOs engage with Indigenous communities and organizations in their food systems governance work. The research draws on 71 semi-structured interviews with CSO leaders engaged in food systems work from across Canada. Our analysis presents an illustrative snapshot of the complex and ongoing processes of settler-Indigenous engagement, where many settler-led CSOs aim to work more closely with Indigenous communities and organizations. However, participants also recognize that most existing engagements remain insufficient. We share CSOs’ practices, tensions, and lessons learned as reflections for scholars and practitioners interested in the continuous journey of building settler-Indigenous partnerships and reimagining more just and sustainable food systems, work which requires iterative and critically reflexive learning. (shrink)

Le 13 novembre 2015, beaucoup d'acteurs politiques, médiatiques ou de témoins des attentats parisiens répétaient en boucle : " Nous sommes en guerre. " Cette expression ambigüe n'a pas permis de mieux comprendre ce qui s'était passé. Elle interroge d'autant plus si l'on considère que, durant les années 2000, l'on avait annoncé la fin de la guerre au profit de l'avènement d'" opérations de police " et d'" états de violence ". En s'attachant à restituer ce qui fut pensé sous (...) le nom de guerre à partir des écrits de Clausewitz, Mao, Schmitt et l'administration Bush, Catherine Hass nous montre que la guerre n'apparaît pas ou ne disparaît pas selon les périodes mais qu'elle change de mode selon la politique à l'oeuvre, redistribuant ses catégories - ami, ennemi, antagonisme, nation, révolution, terrorisme... Le pari de ce livre est que des pensées révolues de la guerre peuvent constituer une forme de recours pour réfléchir notre contemporain, à l'instar de la Syrie ou de Daech. Docteure en anthropologie politique, Catherine Hass est spécialisée dans l'étude du contemporain. Après avoir mené des enquêtes essentiellement sur les jeunes issus des quartiers populaires, ses recherches portent, depuis plus de dix ans, sur le nom de guerre et l'examen de quelques-unes de ses configurations politiques, actuelles comme révolues. (shrink)

La création de « puces synaptiques » qui seraient dotées d’une certaine plasticité ouvre-t-elle la voie à une intelligence artificielle vraiment « intelligente », même si de façon différente des êtres humains? Ou la nature des avancées de ce type, d’une plasticité à des années lumières de celle du cerveau humain, nous contraignent-elles à beaucoup plus de scepticisme? Pour la philosophe Catherine Malabou, l’essentiel est de permettre aux deux intelligences, naturelle et artificielle, de s’enrichir l’une l’autre. De ne jamais (...) fermer la voie des possibles, que ce soit par des réflexions philosophiques, des fictions ou des expérimentations. (shrink)

A leading philosopher shows that if the pursuit of happiness is the question, Epicureanism is the answer Epicureanism has a reputation problem, bringing to mind gluttons with gout or an admonition to eat, drink, and be merry. In How to Be an Epicurean, philosopher Catherine Wilson shows that Epicureanism isn't an excuse for having a good time: it's a means to live a good life. Although modern conveniences and scientific progress have significantly improved our quality of life, many of (...) the problems faced by ancient Greeks -- love, money, family, politics -- remain with us in new forms. To overcome these obstacles, the Epicureans adopted a philosophy that promoted reason, respect for the natural world, and reverence for our fellow humans. By applying this ancient wisdom to a range of modern problems, from self-care routines and romantic entanglements to issues of public policy and social justice, Wilson shows us how we can all fill our lives with purpose and pleasure. (shrink)

In treatments of the relation of Chinese thought to pragmatism, pragmatism most commonly refers to the philosophy of John Dewey, and such treatments look to the Chinese past, whether recent or distant, not to contemporary Chinese philosophy. Nearly a century ago Dewey became the foremost exponent of pragmatism, both in the English-language world and also around the globe. In China, Dewey’s student Hu Shi was a seminal figure in the New Culture Movement. Dewey himself had a direct effect on Chinese (...) intellectuals during the just over two-year period that he spent lecturing and teaching in China between May 1919 and July 1921, his most immediate impact being in the arena of education.1 Beyond studies of... (shrink)

ArgumentIn this paper, I argue that studying school textbooks is a fruitful way to investigate mathematical conceptions in different national contexts. These sources give access to the written production of an extended mathematical milieu whose members write for various audiences. By studying the case of late 1950s French and English textbooks issued for a growing audience of 11- to 15-year-old pupils, I show that a plurality of conceptions was projected at the time onto pupils and their teachers in both national (...) contexts. I link this diversity to contemporaneous debates regarding mathematics teaching and argue that textbooks themselves have to be considered as active agents of such debates. (shrink)

Recent work in feminist and postcolonial rhetoric demonstrates various meanings of silence. Listening rhetorically in order to comprehend silences is particularly difficult in scientific contexts, I argue, because the common ground for scientific discourse assumes a culture of disclosure. Rhetorical listening is also important to science because listening accounts for silence as well as disclosure, and so maximizes the diversity in recognized perspectives that provides scientific objectivity.