Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing (...) how each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard. (shrink)

Christine Korsgaard has become one of the leading interpreters of Kant's moral philosophy. She is identified with a small group of philosophers who are intent on producing a version of Kant's moral philosophy that is at once sensitive to its historical roots while revealing its particular relevance to contemporary problems. She rejects the traditional picture of Kant's ethics as a cold vision of the moral life which emphasises duty at the expense of love and value. Rather, Kant's work is (...) seen as providing a resource for addressing not only the metaphysics of morals, but also for tackling practical questions about personal relations, politics, and everyday human interaction. This collection contains some of the finest current work on Kant's ethics and will command the attention of all those involved in teaching and studying moral theory. (shrink)

Christine M. Korsgaard is one of today's leading moral philosophers: this volume collects ten influential papers by her on practical reason and moral psychology ...

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals. She offers challenging answers to such questions as: Are people superior to animals, and does it matter morally if we are? Is it all right for us to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets?

Metaethics is traditionally understood as a non-moral discipline that examines moral judgements from a standpoint outside of ethics. This orthodox understanding has recently come under pressure from anti-Archimedeans, such as Ronald Dworkin and Matthew Kramer, who proclaim that rather than assessing morality from an external perspective, metaethical theses are themselves substantive moral claims. In this paper, I scrutinise this anti-Archimedean challenge as applied to the metaethical position of expressivism. More precisely, I examine the claim that expressivists do not avoid moral (...) commitments when accounting for moral thought, but instead presuppose them; they do not look at ethics from the outside, but operate from within ethics. This paper defends the non-moral status of expressivism against anti-Archimedeanism by rejecting a new anti-Archimedean challenge which, on the basis of Hume’s Law, aims to exploit expressivist explanations of supervenience in order to show that expressivism is a substantive moral position. (shrink)

The idea of dignity is often taken to be a foundation for principles of justice and democracy. In the West it has numerous formulations and conceptualisations. Within the capabilities approach to justice theorists have expanded the concept of dignity to encompass animals and ecological communities. In this article I rework the idea of dignity to include the Māori philosophical concepts of Mauri, tapu and mana – something I argue is necessary if the capabilities approach is to decolonise in the Aotearoa (...) context. Furthermore, the article links the nation’s recognition of three extensive geographical regions – Te Awa Tupua, Te Urewera and Mt Taranaki – as legal persons to Mātauranga Māori and nonhuman dignity. In doing so, I identify the potential that this understanding of dignity and these legal moves have to decolonise democracy within the settler state. (shrink)

Culture drives cognitive evolution by supporting the transmission and intergenerational accumulation of skills and knowledge, based on social learning and teaching: Later generations benefit from what their predecessors acquired. Taking a metaperspective on those experimental studies that explore the mechanisms underlying cultural transmission, Caldwell discusses their potential for generating valuable insights, their possible limitations, and their generalizability to other species.

Christine Battersby is a leading thinker in the field of philosophy, gender studies and visual and literary aesthetics. In this important new work, she undertakes an exploration of the nature of the sublime, one of the most important topics in contemporary debates about modernity, politics and art. Through a compelling examination of terror, transcendence and the ‘other’ in key European philosophers and writers, Battersby articulates a radical ‘female sublime’. A central feature of _The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference_ is (...) its engagement with recent debates around ‘9/11’, race and Islam. Battersby shows how, since the eighteenth century, the pleasures of the sublime have been described in terms of the transcendence of terror. Linked to the ‘feminine’, the sublime was closed off to flesh-and-blood women, to ‘Orientals’ and to other supposedly ‘inferior’ human types. Engaging with Kant, Burke, the German Romantics, Nietzsche, Derrida, Lyotard, Irigaray and Arendt, as well as with women writers and artists, Battersby traces the history of these exclusions, while finding resources within the history of western culture for thinking human differences afresh _The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference_ is essential reading for students of continental philosophy, gender studies, aesthetics, literary theory, visual culture, and race and social theory. (shrink)

The term “Socratic method” is so pervasive in education across the disciplines that it has largely lost its meaning, and it has lost its roots in its originator—the historical Socrates. In this article we draw from the original source, Plato's ancient dialogues, to understand the theory and principles behind the questioning used in Socratic method. A deep understanding of Socratic method is particularly timely now as nursing leaders call for increased use of theory‐based debriefing across the nursing curriculum. Socratic questioning (...) is ideally suited as a method for debriefing in nursing classrooms because of its ability to enhance critical thinking and self‐reflection of the learner and because of its basis in care for the learner through a learner‐centred design. We present an analysis of the Socratic method in Plato's works and provide an overview of the key Socratic principles and techniques. We illustrate these principles and techniques with examples of how Socratic teaching can be applied in the nursing classroom, and we address the challenges and rewards for nursing faculty implementing Socratic method. Learning about Socratic method directly from Plato's dialogues can provide a richer and more robust understanding of this key pedagogical technique and help nurse educators practice more intentional and informed Socratic questioning and debriefing. (shrink)

The integrative memory model formalizes a new conceptualization of memory in which interactions between representations and cognitive operations within large-scale cerebral networks generate subjective memory feelings. Such interactions allow to explain the complexity of memory expressions, such as the existence of multiples sources for familiarity and recollection feelings and the fact that expectations determine how one recognizes previously encountered information.

Der vorliegende Band enthält Predigten zu 56 Terminen des Jahres 1824 sowie ergänzend 28 dazugehörige Liederblätter Schleiermachers. Mit Ausnahme der zahlreichen Kasualpredigten und zweier im Urlaub gehaltener Kanzelreden ist Schleiermachers Predigttätigkeit damit für das genannte Jahr lückenlos dokumentiert. Die Editionsbasis bilden neben Drucktexten und einem Autograph Schleiermachers mehrheitlich die qualitativ hochwertigen Nachschriften des Theologiestudenten Johann Gottfried Andrae. Zu 22 Terminen existierte bislang keine Predigtveröffentlichung; zu 34 Terminen liegen bereits Drucke vor. Für 12 der insgesamt 15 von Schleiermacher selbst redigierten und (...) publizierten Texte konnte allerdings eine abweichende Vorlage ausgemacht und ediert werden, wodurch ein besonderes Licht auf seine Vorgehensweise bei der Herstellung der literarischen Predigten fällt. (shrink)

Animal ethics is generating growing interest both within academia and outside it. This book focuses on ethical issues connected to animals who play an extremely important role in human lives: companion animals, with a special emphasis on dogs and cats, the animals most often chosen as pets. Companion animals are both vulnerable to and dependent upon us. What responsibilities do we owe to them, especially since we have the power and authority to make literal life-and-death decisions about them? What kinds (...) of relationships should we have with our companion animals? And what might we learn from cats and dogs about the nature and limits of our own morality? The contributors write from a variety of philosophical perspectives, including utilitarianism, care ethics, feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the genealogy of ideas. The eighteen chapters are divided into two sections, to provide a general background to ethical debate about companion animals, followed by a focus on a number of crucial aspects of human relationships to companion animals. The first section discusses the nature of our relationships to companion animals, the foundations of our moral responsibilities to companion animals, what our relationships with companion animals teach us, and whether animals themselves can act ethically. The second part explores some specific ethical issues related to crucial aspects of companion animals' lives-breeding, reproduction, sterilization, cloning, adoption, feeding, training, working, sexual interactions, longevity, dying, and euthanasia. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work traverses new territory by providing a cutting-edge overview of the work of classic and contemporary theorists, in a way that expands their application and utility in social work education and practice; thus, providing a bridge between critical theory, philosophy, and social work. Each chapter showcases the work of a specific critical educational, philosophical and/or social theorist including: Henry Giroux, Michel Foucault, Cornelius Castoriadis, Herbert Marcuse, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Joan Tronto, Iris (...) Marion Young, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci and many others to elucidate the ways in which their key pedagogic concepts can be applied to specific aspects of social work education and practice. The text exhibits a range of research-based approaches to educating social work practitioners as agents of social change. It provides a robust and much needed, alternative paradigm to the technique-driven ‘conservative revolution’ currently being fostered by neoliberalism in both social work education and practice. The volume will be instructive for social work educators who aim to teach for social change, by assisting students to develop counter-hegemonic practices of resistance and agency, and reflecting on the pedagogic role of social work practice more widely. The volume holds relevance for both postgraduate and undergraduate/qualifying social work and human services courses around the world. (shrink)

This chapter describes the development of a workshop series focused on helping students develop research lab ethics guidelines. The workshop was developed through a National Science Foundation-funded project that situates ethics education within the research environment. Students in four departments at a private research university were recruited to join a Student Ethics Committee that collaboratively developed context-specific codes-of-ethics-based guidelines for their departments. These bottom-up developed guidelines were revised in an iterative process, including feedback from faculty, other graduate students, and the (...) original Student Ethics Committee. The goal of the workshops was to promote the cultivation of an ethical culture in experimental laboratories by integrating research stakeholders in a bottom-up approach to developing context-specific guidelines and to identify factors that students consider relevant to the ethical conduct of research. After describing the workshop series, this chapter presents a qualitative content analysis of the guidelines. The guidelines developed by the Student Ethics Committees reflect the current culture of experimental labs in these departments and the ethical issues that students think are important. The content of these guidelines and the ethical issues the students focused on contrast in some key ways with what ethical issues faculty who head research groups saw as paramount. The chapter describes the first two iterations of the ethics education workshop module, a qualitative analysis of the first draft of these guidelines, and finally reflects on future work in this area of in situ ethics education. (shrink)

Student researchers encounter ethical issues daily, but little is known about their unique perspectives. This article presents the results of 30 qualitative semi-structured interviews exploring students’ views and experiences around ethical issues in research groups. During the interviews, students were asked to describe challenges and successes they have encountered in their lab, their conception of what counts as an “ethical issue in research,” and how they handle these issues when they arise. Against this background, the article discusses students’ conceptions of (...) ethical issues in research environments, the types of issues students reported facing, how these issues were ultimately resolved, and finally, the factors, internal qualities, and lessons learned that help students thrive in research environments, as well as some of the challenges students face – especially international students. Many of the ethical challenges interviewees discussed focused on interpersonal issues, highlighting the intense collaboration most graduate students have with their colleagues and supervisors. Findings from this study point to the need for targeted training programs for students and faculty supervisors focusing on building mentoring relationships and finding space in the lab where open communication can occur around ethical research practices. (shrink)

Much can be learned about (old) age-identity and age-related oppression by noting their similarities to, respectively, impairment and ableism. Drawing upon the work of Shelley Tremain, I show that old age, like impairment, is not a biological given but is socially constructed, both conceptually and materially. I also describe the striking similarities and connections between ableism and ageism as systems of oppression. That disability and aging both rest upon a biological given is a fiction that functions to excuse and perpetuate (...) the very social mechanisms that perpetuate ableist and ageist oppression. (shrink)

À chacune/chacun, son image de la fille en garçon, et la panoplie vestimentaire qui va avec : complet trois pièces, salopette, cuirasse, strass, smoking, perfecto, bloomer, pourpoint, monocle, lévite de bure, chevelures rases, musculatures gonflées... Qui n'a pas rêvé de Katherine Hepburn dans Sylvia Scarlett et de Greta Garbo en Christine de Suède, de Jeanne Moreau entre Jules et Jim, de Barbara Streisand jouant Yentl, de Sarah Bernhardt faisant l'Aiglon, sans parler d'héroïnes plus...

This paper proposes a new method of measuring excess risk of child mortality in cross-sectional surveys, which is applied to DHS I data for Burundi, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The expected child mortality experience is estimated for each mother on the basis of child's age, mother's age at child's birth and her parity, and compared with her observed experience. Mothers who exceed their expected child mortality experience and also had more than one child die are considered to have excess child mortality. (...) Zimbabwe had the greatest concentration of child deaths as measured by a simple ratio of mothers to deaths, but when observed experience was compared with expected it had less than half as many excess deaths as Uganda and Burundi. In all three countries mother's education had a strong negative association with the risk of excess child mortality, and in Zimbabwe and Burundi there were significant regional differences. (shrink)

Across the countries of Europe and within the European Union, there seems to be no end to discussions of policies related to migrants – from the labor migrants who came to Europe more than 40 years ago to the continued requests from prospective migrants who want to immigrate for asylum and family formation. The discussions on what those policies should be, range from multiculturalism to integration and assimilation. Shifts in policies have occurred because of the slow economic and educational progress (...) made by some migrants; by the post-9/11 changes in attitudes and behavior among some Muslim migrants, and by concerns over the increased size of the migrant population. (shrink)

This paper will explore some moral and conceptual aspects of the practice of surrogate motherhood. Although I put forward a number of criticisms of existing ideas about this subject, I do not claim to offer a fully developed position. Instead what I have tried to do is to call into question what seem to be some generally accepted assumptions about surrogate motherhood, and to lend plausibility to my view that surrogate motherhood may be morally troubling for reasons not always fully (...) recognized by other writers on this issue. These reasons go beyond the fairly obvious consequentialist concerns about its effects on the persons - particularly the child — involved. A concern for the well being of a child produced by a surrogate is, I believe, entirely justified, but my focus in this paper will be upon the surrogate mother herself. (shrink)

Reproductive technology has become virtually synonymous with new reproductive choices for women. We are led to believe these technological practices will primarily enable women to conceive and bear the children they previously could not. The presentation of this as fact urges us to support the advancement of reproductive technology so that future techniques may be perfected. The Future of Human Reproduction critically assesses the social, moral, legal, and political impact of reproductive technology on women's lives. Through a feminist analysis, writers (...) explore how the implications of technology are much more complex and far reaching than we think. The writers uncover a number of issues that need to be addressed and challenged rather than assume reproductive technology is being pursued safely and in the best interests of all women. (shrink)

L'ouvrage de Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie vient combler une lacune de l'historiographie en proposant la première synthèse sur le veuvage féminin dans la France d'Ancien Régime. Se plaçant dans une perspective d'histoire sociale, l'auteure a mené un travail ambitieux, résultat d'une habilitation à diriger des recherches, dans laquelle elle a volontairement croisé les approches. Partant d'une étude des discours, dans la première partie consacrée à la figure mythique de la veuve, elle ab...

Cet ouvrage collectif, qui réunit 14 articles et une riche bibliographie aborde l'histoire récente de l'extrême droite pour mettre en lumière une dimension fondamentale et pourtant occultée de son idéologie et de sa pratique : le sexisme. Il est pour l'essentiel consacré au cas français, même si trois articles traitent de l'Allemagne, de l'Italie et de la Belgique. L'article de Caroline Fourest sur « les féministes contre l'extrême droite » expose d'une certaine façon la genèse intelle...

Deux « scandales » raniment la guerre civile à Nantes en 1927. En janvier, une « surprise-party » très mondaine dégénère en « partouze » : les autorités ne parviennent pas totalement à étouffer l'affaire, exploitée par la gauche et par les chansonniers de la ville. Le 11 novembre, des anciens combattants membres des Jeunesses patriotes s'attaquent à coups de hache à la statue de la Délivrance, femme nue qu'ils jugent indécente et déplacée. Si ces deux scandales se prêtent aisément (...) à un... (shrink)

The article examines the emergence in the 1990s of the issue of “Comfort women” and the conditions that led to the holding of The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery. It argues that it was a response both to victims’ needs and to the prevailing revisionism concerning the violence committed during the Asian-Pacific war by the Japanese army, which had been the subject of the Tokyo war crimes trials of 1946-1948. The women’s tribunal (...) represents a significant moment in the recognition and condemnation of the specific violence perpetrated against women in wartime and during armed conflicts: it is both the result of of new paradigms in women’s history and oral history, and the starting point for active support for women victims of violence. L’article examine les conditions qui ont permis la tenue du Tribunal international des femmes de Tokyo pour juger du système de l’esclavage sexuel institué par l’armée impériale japonaise pendant la guerre d’Asie-Pacifique (1937-1945). Il considère qu’il a été à la fois une réponse aux besoins des victimes et au révisionnisme ambiant sur les questions des violences commises pendant la guerre d’Asie-Pacifique et jugées lors du procès militaire de Tokyo en 1946-1948. Moment important pour la reconnaissance et la condamnation des violences exercées à l’encontre des femmes en temps de guerre et lors des conflits armés, il est à la fois l’aboutissement de nouveaux paradigmes en histoire des femmes et histoire orale, et le point de départ pour un soutien actif aux femmes victimes de violence. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.