Traditional health sciences (including nursing) paradigms, conceptual models, and theories have relied heavily upon notions of the ‘person’ or ‘patient’ that are deeply rooted in humanistic principles. Our intention here, as a collective academic assemblage, is to question taken‐for‐granted definitions and assumptions of the ‘person’ from a critical posthumanist perspective. To do so, the cinematic works of filmmaker David Cronenberg offer a radical perspective to revisit our understanding of the ‘person’ in nursing and beyond. Cronenberg's work explores bodily transformation and (...) mutation, with the body as a fragile and malleable vessel. Cronenberg's work allows us to interrogate the body in all its complexity, contingency, and hybridity and provides avenues of rupture within current understandings of ‘the person’. Reinventing the definition of what it means to be human, critical posthumanism offers opportunities to both critique humanist theories and build affirmative futurities. Also drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, specifically, their concept of becoming, we propose a critical posthumanist alternative to the conceptualization of the person in the health sciences, that of the becoming‐mutant, so frequently explored in Cronenberg's films. Such a conceptualization permits the inclusion of various technological interventions of the contemporary subject: The postperson. This position offers the health science disciplines a radical reconceptualization of the conceptual and theoretical approaches, extending beyond those trapped within the quagmire of humanistic principles. (shrink)

Research necessarily entails the close interrelation of concepts and arguments, including solutions to a range of meta-questions, whether acknowledged explicitly or not. Despite this, few detailed accounts currently exist that support researchers to develop their complex conceptual architectures, especially in critical realist spheres. Indeed, many published accounts often omit much of this ‘messiness’ that sits behind, yet is foundational to, research projects. Those accounts that do seek to portray how/why researchers have made decisions (e.g. about connections between research philosophy, methodology, (...) methods, theory and empirical evidence) tend to focus on one set of meta-questions, or occasionally on the relationships between two sets, at a time. Therefore, this paper presents a flexible framework – supported by specific examples from studies – that we hope will be useful in supporting researchers from all traditions, but especially critical realists, to carefully think through and develop more holistic connections in their conceptual architecture. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

Recently, focus groups and qualitative interviews with nurses who provide frontline care for persons living with HIV highlighted the contentiousness surrounding the seemingly innocuous activity of counselling clients about HIV‐status disclosure, hereafter disclosure counselling. These empirical studies highlighted that while some nurses felt they should instruct clients to disclose their HIV‐positive status if HIV transmission were possible, other nurses were equally adamant that such counselling was outside the nursing scope of practice. A review of these opposing perceptions about disclosure counselling, (...) including an examination of the empirical evidence which supports each point, revealed that the dichotomous arguments needed to be nuanced. The empirical evidence about serostatus disclosure neither supported nor refuted either of these assertions; rather, it substantiated parts of each. To create this understanding, both empirical and theoretical works are used. First, the results of empirical studies about serostatus disclosure, or lack thereof and HIV transmission is presented; as part of this, Marks and Crepaz's HIV disclosure and exposure framework is examined. Second, the work of Michel Foucault on disciplinary and pastoral power is drawn from. The outcome is a nuanced understanding about the interrelationships between disclosure counselling and nursing practice and a final interpretation about what this understanding means for public health practice. (shrink)

What is the relationship between trying, desire, and desiring to try? Is it necessary to desire to do something in order to try to do it? Must Dave desire to quit smoking in order to try to quit? I shall defend the view that desiring to do A is necessary for trying to do A. First, Dave needs motivation to quit smoking and motivation comes in the form of desire. So it seems straightforward that when one tries to (...) do something A, one’s desire to do that thing A is one’s motivation. Second, when Dave throws out a pack of cigarettes, this may or may not be part of an attempt to quit smoking. It may be a political protest against R.J.R. Nabisco. Dave’s throwing out the cigarettes only counts as part of his attempt to quit smoking, if it is done for the right reason, out of the right motivation. Again, the right motivation seems to be the desire to quit smoking. Thus, the desire to do A appears to play important roles in the attempt to do A. At the very least, it helps to motivate, guide, and constitute the attempt as the attempt to do A. It is because Dave wants to quit smoking that his throwing out his cigarettes counts as part of his attempt to quit smoking, not as a political protest. (shrink)

This essay examines Perth as portrayed through the lyrics of popular songs written by people who grew up in the city. These lyrics tend to reproduce the dominant myths about the city: that it is isolated, that it is self-satisfied, that little happens there. Perth became the focus of song lyrics during the late 1970s time of punk with titles such as ‘Arsehole of the Universe’ and ‘Perth Is a Culture Shock’. Even the Eurogliders’ 1984 hit, ‘Heaven Must Be There’, (...) is based on a rejection of life in Perth. However, Perth was also home to Dave Warner, whose songs in the 1970s and early 1980s offered vignettes, which is itself a title of one of Warner’s tracks, of the youthful, male suburban experience. The essay goes on to examine songs by the Triffids, Bob Evans, Sleepy Township and the Panda Band. (shrink)

THE INDICATIVE CONDITIONAL. A PROBABILISTIC CRITERION OF SOUNDNESS FOR DEDUCTIVE INFERENCES Our objective in this section is to establish a prima facie case ...

This work is ''a systematic ontology.'' Ontology is the study of being as such, and a systematic ontology is an account of the most fundamental ways of being something or other - of what they are and of how they are related to each other. The questions it pursues are not primarily about what causes things, but about what things are or consist in - though causal questions cannot be totally avoided. The title of the work, What Is, and What (...) Is in Itself, marks the most important distinction in ways of being. What is includes everything there is, but not everything there is included in what is in itself. The first five chapters of the book define and examine the ways of being: in chapters 1 and 2, being actual or existing, or even just being something without existing or being actual; in chapter 3, being an intentional object, and perhaps a merely intentional object; in chapter 4, relations between things and their properties; and in chapter 5, being a thing in itself. Chapter 6 discusses whether only conscious beings are things in themselves, and suggests an affirmative answer. Chapter 7 discusses the epistemology of ontology. Chapters 8 and 9 discuss issues about thisness and identity. And chapters 10 and 11 discuss mainly occasionalist and panentheist answers to questions about the causal unity of the universe. (shrink)

In this paper we defend a direct reference theory of names. We maintain that the meaning of a name is its bearer. In the case of vacuous names, there is no bearer and they have no meaning. We develop a unified theory of names such that one theory applies to names whether they occur within or outside fiction. Hence, we apply our theory to sentences containing names within fiction, sentences about fiction or sentences making comparisons across fictions. We then defend (...) our theory against objections and compare our view to the views of Currie, Walton, and others. (shrink)

I defend affirmative action on the ground that it increases certain people’s ability to exercise their basic liberties, rather than because it rectifies injustice in the narrow context of educational admission procedures. I present this justification using a Rawlsian contractualist framework to forge a “nonideal principle of justice.” Drawing on social science, I argue that this principle supports affirmative-action policies like those in the contemporary U.S., and blocks the objection that such policies are unfair. In closing, I show how my (...) account can be used to refine some features of contemporary affirmative-action policies, and I reflect more generally on the value of nonideal principles of justice for tackling exigent topics. (shrink)

Reflecting on the Inevitable combines evidence from several disciplinary fields to explore the varying ways each of us engages with the prospect of personal mortality. In each chapter the subtleties and applicability of key ideas are enhanced through a series of illustrative narratives built up around the lives of four people at different ages living in two adjacent houses. Reflecting on the Inevitable is relevant not only to academics of death studies, but also those training and practicing in people-helping professions, (...) as well as anyone experiencing or attempting to make sense of major life events. (shrink)

We defend a scalar theory of the relationship between material scarcity and justice. As scarcity increases beyond a specified threshold, we argue that deontological egalitarian constraints should be gradually relaxed and consequentialist considerations should increasingly determine distributions. We construct this theory by taking a bottom-up approach that is guided by principles of medical triage. Armed with this theory, we consider the range of conditions under which justice applies. We argue that there are compelling reasons for thinking that justice applies under (...) a far broader range of conditions than is standardly supposed, including those that could sensibly be labelled as conditions of extreme rather than moderate scarcity. (shrink)

Margaret Cavendish is widely known as a materialist. However, since Cavendishian matter is always in motion, “matter” and “motion” are equally important foundational concepts for her natural philosophy. In Philosophical Letters (1664), she takes to task her materialist rival Thomas Hobbes by assaulting his account of accidents in general and his concept of “rest” in particular. In this article, I argue that Cavendish defends her continuous-motion view in two ways: first, she claims that her account avoids seeing accidents as capable (...) of generation and annihilation, which she argues is inconceivable; and second, she contends that according to Hobbes’s own view “rest” is an absurd conception since it cannot be drawn from experience. Beyond its function as a defense, I claim that Cavendish’s focused criticism of “rest” shows that she is a perceptive reader of Hobbes’s natural philosophy, insofar as her criticisms undercut the two a priori principles of Hobbesian physics. Finally, I show how her views developed in more detail in Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1663) and Observations upon Experimental Philosophy ([1666] 2001) avoid the worries she raises for Hobbesian materialism. (shrink)

Adams offers a theistically-based framework for ethics, based upon the idea of a transcendent, infinite good, which is God, and its relation to the many finite examples of good in our experience. His account shows how philosophically unfashionable religious concepts can enrich ethical thought. "...one of the two most important books in moral philosophy of the last quarter century, the other being After Virtue."--Theology Today.

When a mother kills her child, we call her a bad mother, but, as this book shows, even mothers who intend to do their children harm are not easily categorized as "mad" or "bad." Maternal love is a complex emotion rich with contradictory impulses and desires, and motherhood is a conflicted state in which women constantly renegotiate the needs mother and child, the self and the other. Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone (...) de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between one's own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform. (shrink)

ABSTRACT After the tragedies of the twentieth century, the utopian impulse was subject to searching criticism by a host of liberal intellectuals including Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Jacob Talmon. Looking to history and political philosophy, these thinkers impugned utopianism for so frequently destroying the freedoms it appeared to pursue. Defined by its theoretical contradictions, the utopian project, rooted in the politics of the Enlightenment, bore some responsibility for the totalitarianism and genocide that had shaped their lives. As (...) this critique became liberal orthodoxy, a heretic group of anarchist thinkers challenged these conclusions. While travelling some distance with the liberal critics, for Paul Goodman, Marie Louise Berneri, and Herbert Read, the twentieth century, rather than invalidating the utopian urge made its boldness and experimentalism all the more vital. Their act of heresy was defending utopianism as a central component of their anarchist critique of the present. (shrink)

The distinguished philosopher Robert M. Adams presents a major work on virtue, which is once again a central topic in ethical thought. A Theory of Virtue is a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about the moral evaluation of character, proposing that virtue is chiefly a matter of being for what is good, and that virtues must be intrinsically excellent and not just beneficial or useful.

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 67-68.

Courts and jurors sometimes refuse to assign liability to defendants on the basis of statistics alone, despite their apparent reliability. I argue that this refusal is best understood as a recognition of defendants’ right to security. Understood as a robust good in Philip Pettit’s sense, security requires that someone risking harm to others’ protected interests adopt a disposition of concern that controls against wrongfully harming them. Since trials risk harm, the state must adopt such a disposition. Statistics leave open the (...) possibility of innocence and so wrongful harm in a way that the state cannot ignore; if it does use such statistics, it makes defendants wrongfully insecure. This explanation of the problem of bare statistical evidence is especially apt because security grounds the right to a fair trial and judicial procedural rights more generally. (shrink)

The Law of Civilization and Decay is an overview of history, articulating Brooks' critical view of capitalism. A civilization grows wealthy, and then its wealth causes it to crumble upon itself due to greed.

Robert Merrihew Adams has been a leader in renewing philosophical respect for the idea that moral obligation may be founded on the commands of God. This collection of Adams' essays, two of which are previously unpublished, draws from his extensive writings on philosophical theology that discuss metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical issues surrounding the concept of God--whether God exists or not, what God is or would be like, and how we ought to relate ourselves to such a being. (...) class='Hi'>Adams studies the relation between religion and ethics, delving into an analysis of moral arguments for theistic belief. In several essays, he applies contemporary studies in the metaphysics of individuality, possibility and necessity, and counterfactual conditionals to issues surrounding the existence of God and problems of evil. (shrink)

This chapter delineates two types of ideal theory that are found in Rawls’s corpus of work. The first is ideal-method theory, which is theory constructed using idealizing assumptions that do not directly correspond with the actual world. The second is ideal-content theory, namely criteria for assessing whether something is a perfectly justice institution. The chapter provides an independent justification for both types of theory, arguing that ideal-method theory is valuable within certain parameters; for instance, the idealizing assumption of strict compliance (...) helps to clarify the distinction between distributive and retributive justice. The chapter illuminates the value of ideal-content theory by clarifying and defending Rawls’s claim that nonideal theory depends on ideal-content theory. In particular, it argues that in order to gain a systematic grasp of the more pressing problems of nonideal theory it is plausible to argue that ideal-content theory is necessary. -/- . (shrink)

The standard use of the propositional calculus ('P.C.?) in analyzing the validity of inferences involving conditionals leads to fallacies, and the problem is to determine where P.C. may be ?safely? used. An alternative analysis of criteria of reasonableness of inferences in terms of conditions of justification rather than truth of statements is proposed. It is argued, under certain restrictions, that P. C. may be safely used, except in inferences whose conclusions are conditionals whose antecedents are incompatible with the premises in (...) the sense that if the antecedent became known, some of the previously asserted premises would have to be withdrawn. (shrink)

While women represent the vast majority of participants in religious organizations in the United States, their participation in top leadership positions within Christian congregations remains remarkably low. In this article, the author uses the National Congregations Study to examine the situations that lead to this “stained glass ceiling” effect, prohibiting women from attaining top congregational leadership positions. The author also investigates similar barriers that exist at other levels of congregational leadership. The results suggest that while a queue-like process appears, the (...) specifically religious nature of these organizations produces barriers that are quite different from the traditional glass ceiling conceptualization. (shrink)

Among philosophers, there are at least two prevalent views about the core concept of intentional action. View I (Adams 1986, 1997; McCann 1986) holds that an agent S intentionally does an action A only if S intends to do A. View II (Bratman 1987; Harman 1976; and Mele 1992) holds that there are cases where S intentionally does A without intending to do A, as long as doing A is foreseen and S is willing to accept A as a (...) consequence of S’s action. Joshua Knobe (2003a) presents intriguing data that may be taken to support the second view.1 Knobe’s data show an asymmetry in folk judgements. People are more inclined to judge that S did A intentionally, even when not intended, if A was perceived as causing a harm (e.g. harming the environment). There is an asymmetry because people are not inclined to see S’s action as intentional, when not intended, if A is perceived as causing a benefit (e.g. helping the environment). In this paper we will discuss Knobe’s results in detail. We will raise the question of whether his ordinary language surveys of folk judgments have accessed core concepts of intentional action. We suspect that instead Knobe’s surveys are tapping into pragmatic aspects of intentional language and its role in moral praise and blame. We will suggest alternative surveys that we plan to conduct to get at this difference, and we will attempt to explain the pragmatic usage of intentional language. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to challenge widely accepted views of the relationship among rationality, morality, and prudence. It contends that we cannot understand either the rational or the moral enterprise without a correct philosophical view of the human self, and that such a view of the self is impossible without taking account of the rational and the moral enterprises themselves. The paper concludes that the moral point of view is anchored in the nature of selfhood so that one (...) can be neither rational and immoral nor prudent and immoral. (shrink)

In Notes For Friends, world-renowned photographer Robert Adams explores the possibility of discovering beauty in the compromised landscape of the new American West. His photographs, rendering the landscape in rich black-and-white images, clearly demonstrate that beauty can be found, suggesting a new kind of exploration that could yield a transforming discovery-the basis for a love of home. Pictures in the book reacquaint us with places that we may have lost to habit or prejudice. Robert Adams encourages us to (...) walk minor roads that at first appear inconsequential, but that in fact lead to wonder. Light rains its miracle on fields next to suburban developments, across the slopes of nameless foothills, and onto trees next to expressways. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the flaws of Clark’s extended mind hypothesis. Clark’s hypothesis assumes that the nature of the processes internal to an object has nothing to do with whether that object carries out cognitive processing. The only condition required is that the object is coupled with a cognitive agent and interacts with it in a certain way. In making this tenuous connection, Clark commits the most common mistake extended mind theorists make; alleging that an object becomes cognitive once it is (...) connected to a cognitive agent is a “coupling-constitution fallacy.” From this fallacy, many hastily proceed to the conclusion that the object or process constitutes part of the agent’s cognitive apparatus or cognitive processing. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Individuating Process Types in Science Individuating Processes in Cognitive Psychology A Broader Category of Cognition Conclusion.

This study examines the relationship between gender, class, and race through a case study of the Ontario, Canada dental profession in the first two decades of the twentieth century. During this time period dentists endeavored to solidify their claims to professional status by defining their relations with patients, the public, and with dental assistants. Dentists drew on gender, class, and racial-ethnic relations and ideology in defining these relations and fostering their professional identity. Dentists' use of these relations enabled them to (...) define and defend their claims to professional authority in the area of dental health. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Cognition as Information Processing, as Computation, and as Abiding in the Meaningful Operationalism Is This Merely a Terminological Issue? Conclusion.

In this article I have two primary goals. First, I present two recent views on the distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how (Stanley and Williamson, The Journal of Philosophy 98(8):411–444, 2001; Hetherington, Epistemology futures, 2006). I contend that neither of these provides conclusive arguments against the distinction. Second, I discuss studies from neuroscience and experimental psychology that relate to this distinction. Having examined these studies, I then defend a third view that explains certain relevant data from these studies by positing the (...) double dissociation of knowledge-that and knowledge-how and that is also able to do explanatory work elsewhere. (shrink)

In this essay, I will argue that contemporary ecofeminist discourse, while potentially adequate to deal with the issue of animals, is now inadequate because it fails to give consistent conceptual place to the domination of animals as a significant aspect of the domination of nature. I will examine six answers ecofeminists could give for not including animals explicitly in ecofeminist analyses and show how a persistent patriarchal ideology regarding animals as instruments has kept the experience of animals from being fully (...) incorporated within ecofeminism.2. (shrink)

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)