This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 2014, given by Elizabeth Anderson, an American philosopher.

In this commentary, I consider how Giulia Cavaliere’s arguments about the limited reach of the current justifications offered for full ectogenesis in the bioethical literature apply in the context of partial ectogenesis. I suggest that considering the extent to which partial ectogenesis is freedom or equality promoting is more urgent because of the more realistic prospect of artificial womb technology being utilised to facilitate partial gestation extra uterum as opposed to facilitating complete gestation from conception to term. I highlight concerns (...) about potentially harmful social narratives surrounding pregnancy and about the current legal framework surrounding gestation limiting access to technology in the advent of partial ectogenesis. I do not advocate that these concerns mean that we ought not develop artificial wombs, but like Cavaliere I suggest that we must be mindful of these concerns, and I posit that legal reform must accompany technological developments. Ectogenesis as a political perspective, through which we consider the value in social reproduction and the experiences of pregnant people, is useful to prevent political capture of this technology for regressive policies. Using this perspective to examine the law is also a useful tool to expose just how restrictive the law is in relation to gestation and female reproductive health. (shrink)

This book is about what exceeds or resists calculation--in life and in death. Its two parts and nine chapters highlight, in their coupling of Freud and Derrida, the accidents both in and of psychoanalytic writing, and the philosophical question of what limits the openness of our horizon.

This book presents the adoption and use of the activity theory during the evolution of technology in higher education into a more advanced activity, offering a combination of theory and practice.

Discusses the importance of choices and how to go about making them.

I begin by examining the answer to a traditional puzzle concerning supererogatory acts: if they are good to do, why are they not required? The answer often given is that they are optional acts because they cost the agent too much. This view has parallels with the traditional view of religious sacrifice, which involves offering up something or someone valuable as a gift or victim and experiencing a ‘cost’ as part of the ritual. There are problems with the idea that (...) costs justify the optional nature of supererogatory acts, however, and I suggest that these problems mirror the tensions that are found in Christian theology when a traditional view of sacrifice is adopted. (shrink)

An outline of a theory ofvalues-based labeling as a social movementargues that it is motivated by the need tore-embed the agro-food economy in the largersocial economy. A review of some basic premisesof embeddedness theories derived from the workof Karl Polanyi reveals their connection toparticular values-based labeling efforts. Fromthis perspective, values-based labelingpresents itself as primarily an ethical andmoral effort to counter unsustainable trendswithin presently existing capitalism. Theselabels distinguish themselves from ordinarycommercial labels by a focus on processand on quality. Evaluating thetransformative potential (...) and progressive natureof values-based labeling poses a key challenge.One avenue for gauging this potential isconventions theory. This approach can beadapted to consider the decision makingprocesses that go on within values-basedlabeling groups, as well as consumer decisionmaking based on such labels, as instances ofwhat is termed a politics of ethical judgment.The conclusion emphasizes the need for moreresearch in this area and suggests how it couldbe furthered. (shrink)

The human rights that are enshrined in most western democracies are based on enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Although these core principles are inspirational, their application has not necessarily been equitable or complete enough to provide for the stability, safety, health, and security of all citizens. A more modern understanding of human rights encompasses that which is needed to establish human flourishing, including guaranteed access to water, particularly the clean water provided by adequate sanitation. Without confidence in broad (...) safety and health, and established norms for individual protections, it is difficult for a society to be stable and flourish. Although this argument begins with political philosophy, it ends with a case study in Alabama, one of the poorest states in the United States. This study evaluates the dysfunction caused to local communities and greater society when governmental organizations fail to provide sanitation and guarantee public health for their communities. (shrink)

In reconsidering the question of sexual difference, Weed offers a fresh perspective on what is at stake for critical reading in the neoliberal university.

Models of risk-taking as used in the social sciences may be improved by including concepts from life history theory, particularly environmental unpredictability and life expectancy. Community college students completed self-report questionnaires measuring these constructs along with several well-known correlates. The frequency of risk-taking was higher for those with higher future unpredictability beliefs and shorter lifespan estimates (as measured by the Future Lifespan Assessment developed for this study), and unpredictability beliefs remained significant after accounting for standard predictors, such as sex and (...) temperament. The results demonstrate the usefulness of applying concepts from life history theory to enhance our understanding of human behavior. (shrink)

While many books on ethics contain a chapter discussing prisoners’ rights and the ethical dimensions of research involving incarcerated persons, Vulnerability and Incarceration is the first monograph devoted to the subject. Victor interrogates the concept of vulnerability to examine prisoners’ right to medical research from a novel point of view.

This article explores two central notions of ‘dialectics’ and ‘dialogics’ based on the work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin respectively, as well their varying interanimations within Stalin-Marxist Russian societyIt is proposed that these two positions are incommensurably located alongside one another in contemporary education. I argue that Bakhtin offers diametrically oppositional educational provocations to those of Vygotsky.The implications of these interpretations will be explored with consideration of their underlying philosophical incompatibilities and contradictions, as well as the opportunities such a consideration pose (...) for educational practice today. (shrink)

Essentially interdisciplinary in nature, this thesis is both historical and speculative. On the one hand, it is an analysis of the Western conception of reason as it formed through the Renaissance and Enlightenment. On the other hand, it offers a conception of reason developed from the Renaissance magi's and nineteenth century Romanticism's emphasis on imagination. Drawing on Leibniz's and Aristotle's definitions of possibility in relation to those of necessity and choice, it delineates the purpose and nature of metaphysics. Modern philosophy's (...) attempt to secure methodological certainty, specifically the Cartesian concept of a mathesis universalis, is interpreted in the light of classical mechanics and its metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of knowledge. Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, as an example of systematic metaphysics, is presented as the work which culminates the Modern quest for certainty. The Phenomenology is analyzed as articulating most clearly the necessary conditions for objective knowledge, and as demonstrating the impossibility of fulfilling those conditions. Most importantly, however, Hegel's conception of knowldge as a process of consciousness articulated by 'speculative thought' is presented as the significant insight which redefines the task of metaphysics and epistemology. Adopting Hegel's concept of the speculative proposition, the author develops a metaphysical schema which takes as its primary axion the definition of thought as self-constitutive. Using the model of a thought experiment, the author suggests that the hypothetical thinking underlying the scientifc method is fundamentally imaginative, and further, that imaginative thought is a basic dimension of all aspects of human life: the universal that Modern philosophy attempted to secure as the certain ground of knowledge. This hypothesis is amplified and developed through an analysis of language and meaning, focusing specifically on the distinction between literal and figurative language. All language is defined as a figurative image of the constitutive activity of thought, including the scientific language of 'fact' and the metaphysical language of concepts. In conclusion, the author demonstrates that objective knowledge cannot be achieved without the expression of self-constitutive thought. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 585-586, July 2022. Ayelet Shachar's lead essay in The Shifting Border draws out dramatic transformations of bordering practices currently taking place worldwide. These have yielded spatial relocations for bordering, a privatization of enforcement, and legal innovations that tie the border to individual people as they move, among many other changes. Shachar argues in favor of a form of reciprocity, in which states that shape shift their borders are also compelled to (...) recognize rights for people who require humanitarian assistance. In response, Shachar's interlocutors offer an array of reflections and friendly amendments. (shrink)

In this work of sweeping erudition, one of our foremost historians of early Christianity considers a variety of theoretical critiques to examine the problems ...