This review article discusses the conception of collective rights necessary to ground contemporary entrenchments of minority educational rights, Indigenous rights and collective bargaining rights, as discussed in Miodrag Jovanović’s book, Collective Rights: A Legal Theory. Jovanović argues for a role for value collectivism in elucidating a rationale for the entrenchment of rights held by what he conceives of as pre-legally existing groups with interests not reducible to those of their individual members. This approach can offer an explanation for the entrenchment (...) of minority educational rights and Indigenous rights. The article extols Jovanović’s attempt to grapple with an explanation for rights not explained within standard liberal theory, even in Will Kymlicka’s attempt to justify minority rights within liberalism. The review also critiques the argument offered by Jovanović. First, the review argues that a full-fledged adoption of value collectivism is not necessary to provide a justification for irreducibly collective rights and that the unnecessary adoption of such a theoretical construct may, in practical terms, work counter to the ongoing entrenchment of the rights it seeks to justify, thus becoming what it will categorize as a ‘self-threatening theory’. Second, the review argues that Jovanović’s stark division of rights held by pre-legally existing groups and legally constituted collective entities undermines his account’s ability to explain collective bargaining rights of trade unions that are entrenched in some jurisdictions. (shrink)

This article analyses the relationship between liberal multiculturalist political philosophy and religious pluralism, examining Will Kymlicka’s writings as a central example of liberal multiculturalism. The article explains that liberal multiculturalism seeks to reconcile liberalism and cultural diversity by arguing that protections of cultural identity actually protect individuals in a manner compatible with liberalism. It argues that Kymlicka’s writings manifest both an inattention to religious minorities and a misattention that privileges culture over religion. Various examples from his writings suggest that he (...) has treated religion as a side issue and given priority to culture, resulting in some rather particular factual characterizations of examples touching on religion and some practical conclusions that simply do not correspond to the importance of religion and religious diversity. The article argues that these problems constitute a potentially fatal flaw, because they mean that Kymlicka’s writings, rather than bringing together liberalism and multiculturalism, are in tension both with liberal principles of religious toleration and with key theoretical rationales for multiculturalism. Religious freedom is key to liberalism because religious participation is a key means by which believers find meaning in their lives. Multiculturalism’s theoretical rationales for recognizing cultural communities as important components of identity also apply to religious communities. If liberal multiculturalism does not treat religion appropriately, it is in tension with its own foundations. In the concluding section, the article gestures in some theoretical and policy directions, arguing for a much greater openness to religion in the public sphere in an ecumenical dialogue of cultures and religions. (shrink)

Children from low-SES families are known to show delays in aspects of language development which underpin reading acquisition such as vocabulary and listening comprehension. Research on the development of morphological skills in this group is scarce, and no studies exist in French. The present study investigated the involvement of morphological knowledge in the very early stages of reading acquisition (decoding), before reading comprehension can be reliably assessed. We assessed listening comprehension, receptive vocabulary, phoneme awareness, morphological awareness as well as decoding, (...) word reading and non-verbal IQ in 703 French first-graders from low-SES families after 3 months of formal schooling (November). Awareness of derivational morphology was assessed using three oral tasks: Relationship Judgment (e.g., do these words belong to the same family or not? heat-heater … ham-hammer); Lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who runs is a …? (runner)]; and Non-lexical Sentence Completion [e.g., Someone who lums is a…? (lummer)]. The tasks differ on implicit/explicit demands and also tap different kinds of morphological knowledge. The Judgement task measures the phonological and semantic properties of the morphological relationship and the Sentence Completion tasks measure knowledge of morphological production rules. Data were processed using a graphical modeling approach which offers key information about how skills known to be involved in learning to read are organized in memory. This modeling approach was therefore useful in revealing a potential network which expresses the conditional dependence structure between skills, after which recursive structural equation modeling was applied to test specific hypotheses. Six main conclusions can be drawn from these analyses about low SES reading acquisition: (1) listening comprehension is at the heart of the reading acquisition process; (2) word reading depends directly on phonemic awareness and indirectly on listening comprehension; (3) decoding depends on word reading; (4) Morphological awareness and vocabulary have an indirect influence on word reading via both listening comprehension and phoneme awareness; (5) the components of morphological awareness assessed by our tasks have independent relationships with listening comprehension; and (6) neither phonemic nor morphological awareness influence vocabulary directly. The implications of these results with regard to early reading acquisition among low SES groups are discussed. (shrink)

In the case of an intellectually disabled patient, the attending physician was restricted from writing a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) order. Although the rationale for this restriction was to protect the patient from an inappropriate quality of life judgment, it resulted in a worse death than the patient would have experienced had he not been disabled. Such restrictions that are intended to protect intellectually disabled patients may violate their right to equal treatment and to a dignified death.

Experiential education produces numerous benefits to students in terms of higher order thinking skills such as the ability to evaluate, analyze, and synthesizeinformation , engagement , and work-readiness . Partnering with community organizations provides a means to create experiential education opportunities for students. In this symposium, we discussed three examples of experiential education to promote learning around themes of sustainability, providing a brief outline of the activities, the intended outcomes, and the lessons learned from our experiences. We concluded with a (...) meditation on the importance of working with community partners and managing expectations so that students, the community, and the institutions gain the best possible outcomes when creating town-gown partnerships for sustainability education. (shrink)

J. G. Ballard was one of the most original writers of the postwar era. Although he has drawn considerable attention from scholars across various fields, the character of his political thinking remains a puzzle. He has been claimed as both a radical and a conservative, while others suggest that his work expresses no distinct political stance. Drawing on a wide range of source materials, I argue that from the 1960s to the early years of the twenty-first century Ballard developed a (...) bold and intriguing account of liberalism grounded in insights drawn from surrealism and Freudian psychoanalysis. This was an idiosyncratic version of the liberalism of fear. The essay analyzes Ballard’s sociopolitical vision, focusing in particular on his account of human nature, social reality, totalitarianism, and the power of the imagination. (shrink)

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all (...) sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand. (shrink)

In modern Western moral and political theory the notion of the liberal subject has flourished as the locus of moral experience, interpretation and critique. Through this conceptual lens on subjectivity, individuals are enabled to shape and regulate their interactions in arguably desirable ways, e.g. through principles of respect for persons and the constraints of reciprocal rights, and moral education has largely adopted this perspective. However, this article argues that some kinds of morally significant relations—those framed by social groups related to (...) each other through structures of hierarchical power—constitute a different kind of subjectivity that needs more theoretical and empirical attention. In contrast to four core characteristics of liberal subjectivity, a view of subjectivity that can be located in how individuals are members of particular kinds of social groups is offered. It is argued that unless it can accommodate working with attention to this form of subjectivity as well, moral education runs the risk of itself contributing to forms of oppression such as racism, instead of being a means of combating them. (shrink)

Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to cultivate prosocial behavior. However, the lack of diverse representation within both scientific and participant populations in contemplative neuroscience may limit generalizability and translation of prior findings. To address these issues, we propose a research framework calledIntersectional Neurosciencewhich adapts research procedures to be more inclusive of under-represented groups. Intersectional Neuroscience builds inclusive processes into research design using two main approaches: 1) community engagement with diverse participants, and 2) individualized multivariate neuroscience methods to accommodate neural (...) diversity. We tested the feasibility of this framework in partnership with a diverse U.S. meditation center (East Bay Meditation Center, Oakland, CA). Using focus group and community feedback, we adapted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) screening and recruitment procedures to be inclusive of participants from various under-represented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, gender and sexual minorities, people with disabilities, neuropsychiatric disorders, and/or lower income. Using person-centered screening and study materials, we recruited and scanned 15 diverse meditators (80% racial/ethnic minorities, 53% gender and sexual minorities). The participants completed the EMBODY task – which applies individualized machine learning algorithms to fMRI data – to identify mental states during breath-focused meditation, a basic skill that stabilizes attention to support interoception and compassion. All 15 meditators’ unique brain patterns were recognized by machine learning algorithms significantly above chance levels. These individualized brain patterns were used to decode the internal focus of attention throughout a 10-min breath-focused meditation period, specific to each meditator. These data were used to compile individual-level attention profiles during meditation, such as the percentage time attending to the breath, mind wandering, or engaging in self-referential processing. This study provides feasibility of employing an intersectional neuroscience approach to include diverse participants and develop individualized neural metrics of meditation practice. Through inclusion of more under-represented groups while developing reciprocal partnerships, intersectional neuroscience turns the research process into an embodied form of social action. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to review and examine some of the things which G. E. Moore says about the nature of intrinsic value, about the sort of objects which possess it, and about the method of ascertaining the intrinsic values of things. Most of the discussion will be based on Principia Ethica: for in that work Moore stated the substance of his ethical theories once and for all. He explicitly changed his mind later on a few specific issues, (...) which will be noted when they are relevant: and I shall argue in my fourth section that he also changed his mind in one matter without acknowledging that he was doing so. With those exceptions, it seems to me that his later writings differ from Principia chiefly by their style of presentation and by the introduction of some new distinctions, and I shall think myself justified, on most points, in treating them as an aid to amplifying or refining the position which Moore adopted in Principia. The other works to be referred to are Ethics; “The conception of intrinsic value”, written about 40 years ago and published in Philosophical Studies; “Is goodness a quality?” in Arist. Soc. Sup. Vol. 1932; and “A reply to my critics” in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, edited by Schilpp. The last work will be cited as Reply. (shrink)

G. E. Moore famously offered a strikingly straightforward response to the radical sceptic which simply consisted of the claim that one could know, on the basis of one's knowledge that one has hands, that there exists an external world. In general, the Moorean response to scepticism maintains that we can know the denials of sceptical hypotheses on the basis of our knowledge of everyday propositions. In the recent literature two proposals have been put forward to try to accommodate, to varying (...) extents, this Moorean thesis. On the one hand, there are those who endorse an externalist version of contextualism, such as Keith DeRose, who have claimed that there must be some contexts in which Moore is right. More radically still, Ernest Sosa has expanded on this externalist thesis by arguing that, contra DeRose's contextualism, Moore may be right in all contexts. In this paper I evaluate these claims and argue that, suitably modified, one can resurrect the main elements of the Moorean anti-sceptical thesis. (shrink)

What is knowledge? What are the sources of knowledge? What is the value of knowledge? What can we know? _Arguing About Knowledge_ offers a fresh and engaging perspective on the theory of knowledge. This comprehensive and imaginative selection of readings examines the subject in an unorthodox and entertaining manner whilst covering the fundamentals of the theory of knowledge. It includes classic and contemporary pieces from the most influential philosophers from Descartes, Russell, Quine and G.E. Moore to Richard Feldman, Edward Craig, (...) Gilbert Harman and Roderick Chisholm. In addition, students will find fascinating alternative pieces from literary and popular work such as Lewis Caroll, Jorges Luis Borges and Paul Boghossian. Each article selected is clear, interesting and free from unnecessary jargon. The editors provide lucid introductions to each section in which they give an overview of the debate and outline the arguments of the papers. _Arguing About Knowledge_ is an inventive and stimulating reader for students new to the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Physical pain has always been part of human experience, and throughout history it is recorded that doctors and wise men and women have sought to ease pain. The attitudes of those suffering pain, however, have varied from stoical acceptance to sullen endurance. Today, most people consciously seek to avoid pain or to have their pain eased, although they do not always expect what in fact appears to be possible. This study of 13 patients with protracted pain was carried out at (...) The London Hospital by a professional group to see how patients regarded their own pain and the efforts of doctors and nurses to relieve it. The attitudes of the doctors and nurses were also studied, and the results, despite the limitations of the survey, suggest that: [List: see text]. (shrink)

Professor Knox’s translation is, as one would expect, excellent. Even so, understanding this text will present difficulties to anyone who is anything less than expert not only in the philosophy of Hegel, but in those of Kant, Fichte and, especially, Schelling, because Hegel’s philosophy in 1802–3 was still by no means fully-fledged. The result is that the usual difficulties of Hegelian terminology are compounded by the infusion of the terminology and philosophical programme of Schelling; one’s tendency to interpret the text (...) in the light of Hegel’s mature philosophy has to be tempered by the realization that what prima facie looks ‘Hegelian’ is not necessarily so. This makes the initial agonies of a Hegel text even more hellish than usual, and no translator’s notes, no Introduction, however good, can spare one these pains when one starts reading. Perhaps the translator might have been a bit more generous with bracketed or footnoted explanations, for example, of words like ‘divine’, ‘difference’, ‘indifference’, and even more usefully of words that do not look odd in the context, like ‘immediately’ or ‘science’. On the other hand, since in reading a Hegel text for the first time it is usually best to push on regardless, it may be a help not to have too much in the way of explanation of technicalities to hold one up. (shrink)

In “Intrinsic value: some comments on the work of G. E. Moore” , I argued that Moore implies that intrinsic value is measurable, but has never suggested any method of measuring it. In this note I shall outline a method which is derived, but not exactly copied, from some of the analyses which economic theorists have given of “cardinal utility”. A survey of some of the economic discussions is given by S. A. Ozga in “Measurable utility and probability”.

(NEG) is widely accepted both by internalist and by externalists. In fact, there have been very few opponents of (NEG). Timothy Williamson (e.g., 2000) rejects (NEG), for reasons that have by now received a great deal of scrutiny.2 John McDowell also rejects (NEG), but his reasons have not received the scrutiny they deserve. This is in large part because those reasons have not been well understood. We believe that McDowell’s challenge to (NEG) is important, worthy of fair assessment, and maybe (...) even correct. In this paper, we explain McDowell’s challenge to (NEG), and also explain how McDowell can address a seemingly fatal objection to his view. (shrink)

I argue that Hobbes isn't really a materialist in the early 1640s (in, e.g., the Third Objections to Descartes's Meditations). That is, he doesn't assert that bodies are the only substances. However, he does think that bodies are the only substances we can think about using imagistic ideas.