Food security scholarship and policy tends to embrace the nutrition status of individual men, women and children as the end-goal of food security efforts. While there has been much value in investigating and trying to ensure sufficient nutrition for struggling households around the world, this overriding emphasis on nutrition status has reduced our understandings of what constitutes food adequacy. While token attention has been paid to more qualitative ideas like “cultural appropriateness,” food security scholars and policy makers have been unable (...) to understand the broader value of food, which exceeds its caloric and nutrient counts. Drawing on empirical work from Medellín, Colombia, the paper argues that having adequate food means much more than simply sufficient nutrient intake, perhaps especially among marginalized groups. Exploring the case of food insecure women from Colombia who were forcibly displaced from rural to urban, we demonstrate how understandings of food adequacy must consider the social and environmental imaginaries of marginalized groups. (shrink)

The Bishop of Cloyne, George Berkeley, was the sort of philosopher who, although most genial himself, was quite apt to embroil opponents and critics of his time and of our own in long-lasting and sometimes unresolved controversies. In attacking the “infidel mathematicians”, the “minute philosophers” among the scientists, Berkeley initiated a controversy on behalf of religion by taking to task the theory of fluxions held by Sir Isaac Newton, his friends, and followers which, beginning with Berkeley's Analyst and replies to (...) it by Jurin and Walton, was continued on over one hundred years by subsequent writers. Florian Cajori in his History of Mathematics , commenting on the affair has written: ‘We must not neglect to express our appreciation of the fact that Berkeley withdrew from the controversy after he had said all that he had to say on his subject. Some of the debates that came later were almost interminable, because the participants continued writing even after they had nothing more to say.’. (shrink)

In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council banned priestly involvement in the unilateral judicial ordeal, thus effectively bringing to an end the centuries-old practice of appealing to the judicium Dei as a means of resolving legal disputes. This article explores the reasons behind this seminal development in Western legal history; its principal theme is that they are more complex than modern scholars have allowed. Detailed consideration is given to the canonico-theological criticisms specifically aimed at the ordeal by contemporary critics, as well (...) as to the sweeping reforms of ecclesiastical criminal procedure initiated by Pope Innocent III in the closing years of the 12th century. It will be argued that although these factors contributed to the demise of the ordeal, they do not account for the decision to abandon it. When placed in its proper legislative context, it will be seen that that decision was a product of a long-standing campaign by Church reformers to secure the spiritual mission of the clergy by establishing a clear division of labour between the ecclesiastical order and the secular world. Finally, it will be argued that the ordeal was abandoned because Church reformers regarded it as irrational and, consequently, that the claim that it only came to be seen as irrational because it was abandoned, should be rejected. (shrink)

Building on evidence for embodied representations, we investigated whether Spanish spatial terms map onto the NEAR/FAR perceptual division of space. Using a long horizontal display, we measured congruency effects during the processing of spatial terms presented in NEAR or FAR space. Across three experiments, we manipulated the task demands in order to investigate the role of endogenous attention in linguistic and perceptual space mapping. We predicted congruency effects only when spatial properties were relevant for the task but not when attention (...) was allocated to other features. Results showed faster responses for words presented in Near-space in all experiments. Consistent with our hypothesis, congruency effects were observed only when a reaching estimate was requested. Our results add important evidence for the role of top-down processing in congruency effects from embodied representations of spatial terms. (shrink)

The phrase ‘person‐centred care’ (PCC) reminds us that the fundamental philosophical goal of caring for people is to uphold or promote their personhood. However, such an idea has translated into promoting individualist notions of autonomy, empowerment and personal responsibility in the context of consumerism and neoliberalism, which is problematic both conceptually and practically. From a conceptual standpoint, it ignores the fact that humans are social, historical and biographical beings, and instead assumes an essentialist or idealized concept of personhood in which (...) a person is viewed as an individual static object. From a practical standpoint, the application of such a concept of personhood can lead to neglect of a person's fundamental care needs and exacerbate the problems of social inequity, in particular for older people and people with dementia. Therefore, we argue that our understanding of PCC must instead be based on a dynamic concept of personhood that integrates the relevant social, relational, temporal and biographical dimensions. We propose that the correct concept of personhood in PCC is one in which persons are understood as socially embedded, relational and temporally extended subjects rather than merely individual, autonomous, asocial and atemporal objects. We then present a reconceptualization of the fundamental philosophical goal of PCC as promoting selfhood rather than personhood. Such a reconceptualization avoids the problems that beset the concept of personhood and its application in PCC, while also providing a philosophical foundation for the growing body of empirical literature that emphasizes the psychosocial, relational, subjective and biographical dimensions of PCC. (shrink)

In his “Space, supervenience and substantivalism”, Le Poidevin proposes a substantivalism in which space is discrete, implying that there are unmediated spatial relations between neighboring primitive points. This proposition is motivated by his concern that relationism suffers from an explanatory lacuna and that substantivalism gives rise to a vicious regress. Le Poidevin implicitly requires that the relationist be committed to the “only x and y ” principle regarding spatial relations. It is not obvious that the relationist is committed to this (...) principle in such a context. An additional motivation for Le Poidevin's argument, that space should be considered to be discrete, is that he believes that substantivalists are committed to a vicious regress. I show that the regress is in fact not of the vicious variety. These two main arguments show that Le Poidevin's suggestion that we drop the density postulate for space is unnecessary. (shrink)

This paper develops and extends the concept of ecological identity work through an investigation of issues of identity among students studying the environment at one US university. We conceptualize identity work as both an individual and group process through which students locate themselves in relation to particular, relatively preformed ecological identities, while also attempting to redefine the boundaries of ecological identity itself. Using interview and participant observation data we ask what kinds of ecological identity work takes place among students and (...) who is involved in defining and policing ecological identities. We argue that this approach can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between environmental education, philosophy and action. (shrink)

We address a previous finding in the business ethics literature in which accounting professionals in higher rank levels, i.e., “manager” or “partner” of auditing firms, appear to have lower moral reasoning ability than their junior counterparts. Prior investigations have relied upon a similar methodology for estimating ethical beliefs, namely testing “moral reasoning ability” using either the Moral Judgment Interview or Defining Issues Test. In the present study, we use a multiple vignettes approach to test for the existence of the inverse (...) rank-ethical beliefs effect. With only 2 of the 30 vignettes resulting in both managers and partners being more accepting of the ethically charged behaviors, the results presented here using this alternative methodology are generally not supportive of the inverse rank-ethical beliefs phenomenon. We also use a multivariate analysis in order to control for demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that the most robust predictor of ethical attitudes among accounting practitioners is age, not rank within a firm. (shrink)

Recent ethical breeches by corporate governorsat the highest levels have called into questionwhether ethical attitudes have changed sincethe Corporate Raider scandals of the mid-1980s. We exploit a unique opportunity to follow-up ona previous investigation of college students inthe mid-1980s to analyze this question. Usinga similar survey instrument, we find thatstudents surveyed in 2001 are significantlyless accepting of the ethically questionablesituations in seven of 15 scenarios and moreaccepting in only one. Seven scenarios showedno significant change. We conclude that,overall, ethical attitudes of (...) students in 2001appear to have become higher over time. To theextent that current students are futurebusiness leaders, we find these results to beencouraging for the long term. (shrink)

Ethical decision making in medicine has recently seen calls to move towards less prescriptive- based approaches that consider the particularities of each case. The main alternative call from the literature is for better understanding of phronesis concepts applied to decision making. A well-cited phronesis-based approach is Kaldjian’s five-stage theoretical framework: goals, concrete circumstances, virtues, deliberation and motivation to act. We build on Kaldjian’s theory after using his framework to analyse data collected from a three-year empirical study of phronesis and the (...) medical community. The data are a set of narratives collected in response to asking a medical community what making ethically wise decisions means to them. We found that Kaldjian’s five concepts are present in the accounts to some extent but that one of the elements, motivation, is constructed as playing a different, though still crucial role. Rather than being an end-stage of the process as Kaldjian’s framework suggests, motivation was constructed as initiating the process and maintaining the momentum of taking a phronesis-based approach. The implications for medical ethics decision-making education are significant as motivation itself is a highly complex concept. We therefore theorise that motivation is required for leading in, continuing and completing the actions of the ethical decision taken. Appreciating the central importance of motivation through the whole of Kaldjian’s framework has implications for cultivating the virtues of phronesis and courage to take the right course of action. (shrink)

In considering what it means to lead organizations effectively and ethically, the literature comprising spirituality at work and spiritual leadership theory has become highly influential, especially in the USA. It has also attracted significant criticism. While in this paper, we endorse this critique, we argue that the strand of literature which purportedly takes a Christian standpoint within the wider SAW school of thought, largely misconstrues and misapplies the teaching of its founder, Jesus. As a result, in dismissing the claims and (...) application of SAW and SLT, there is a real risk that we lose the vital contribution of Christian thought, not least some of the timeless counter-cultural wisdom of Jesus which, we contend, offers a vital foundation to the practice of ethical leadership and business ethics in organizations. In proposing a way forward, two thorny issues which face all leaders are addressed: dealing with ego and closing the gap between what we say and what we do. The more we understand about the dynamics of human nature, the more we learn about the profundity of Jesus’ teachings. We then propose a number of ways in which Jesus-centred ethical leadership can be practised. Each is radical and each implies risk: both the personal risk of inner renewal arising from repentance as a doorway to personal integrity, as well as the risk of opposing unethical practices and promoting the excellence of core practices in the workplace. (shrink)

Recent highly publicized ethical breaches including those at Enron and WorldCom have focused attention on ethical behavior within the accounting profession. At the heart of the debate is whether ethical attitudes of accountants are to blame. Using a nationally representative sample of accounting practitioners and a multidisciplinary student sample at two Southern United States universities, we compare sample responses to 25 ethically charged vignettes to test whether they differ. Overall, we find no significant difference - even for a specific "accounting (...) tricks" vignette, which resembles the Enron and WorldCom situations. We do find, however, that the practitioners were more accepting of vignettes that involved physical harm to individuals and those that were legal. We postulate that accounting practitioners may apply a legalistic framework to their assessment of the acceptability of each vignette. Focusing on an "accounting tricks" vignette, we also find no significant difference between auditors and institutional practitioners compared to all other types of accountants in the sample. We conclude that ethical attitudes of accounting practitioners do not differ significantly by specialty area. (shrink)

Aesthetics and Environment: Variations on a Theme is collection of essays that lends emphasis to, and in some cases sheds new light on, Arnold Berleant's distinctive approach to aesthetic theory. T...

We survey students at two Southern United States universities (one public and one private, religiously affiliated). Using a survey instrument that includes 25 vignettes, we test two important hypotheses: whether ethical attitudes are affected by religiosity (H1) and whether ethical attitudes are affected by courses in ethics, religion or theology (H2). Using a definition of religiosity based on behavior (church attendance), our results indicate that religiosity is a statistically significant predictor of responses in a number of ethical scenarios. In seven (...) of the eight vignettes for which religiosity is significant, the effect is negative, implying that it reduces the acceptability of ethically-charged scenarios. Completion of ethics or religion classes, however, was a significant predictor of ethical attitudes in only two of the 25 vignettes (and in the expected direction). We also find that males and younger respondents appear to be more accepting of the ethically-questionable vignettes. We conclude that factors outside of the educational system may be more influential in shaping responses to ethical vignettes than are ethics and religion courses. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 73-74.

This book is a qualitative, interpretive, phenomenological, and interdisciplinary, examination of food and food practices and their meanings in the modern world. Each chapter thematically focuses upon a particular food practice and on some key details of the examined practice, or on the practice’s social and cultural impact.

In medical ethics, a large body of work exists on the virtues that enable good medical practice. Medical virtue ethics singles out a number of virtues of the good doctor for attention; among others, these include empathy, care, truthfulness, and justice. According to medical ethicists like Pellegrino and Thomasma, however, phronesis, or “practical wisdom,” occupies a special place among these virtues. For Pellegrino and Thomasma, phronesis is “indispensable” to good medical practice, because it coordinates all the different moral virtues that (...) the doctor must bring to ethical decisions as part of wise moral action.... (shrink)

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the control of home education. In the first part of the essay, Conroy explores some general questions about the relation between politics and populism, and (...) the consequences for the prerogatives of parents. In the second part of the essay, he interrogates constructivist accounts of the family and offers something of a historical corrective to the widely held view that the very conceit of the family is a “modern” invention. This analysis leads Conroy to conclude that, while states do have a proper locus in the upbringing of children, they must make certain presumptions in favor of the parent if governmental responses to home education are to be considered political rather than populist and “controlling.”. (shrink)

This article explores how anticipations of parenthood differentially affect the career aspirations and choices of women and men who have not had children. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted separately with 60 coupled young adults, I find that women in my sample were disproportionately likely to think and worry about future parenthood in their imagined work paths. Moreover, women were more likely than men to alter or downshift their present-day career goals in anticipation of the changes in preferences and responsibilities that (...) accompany new parenthood. Because men were unlikely to engage in the mental work of anticipating parenthood, they were also free from its emotional and behavioral consequences. In this way, gendered anticipations of parenthood, which begin relatively early in an individual’s career path, are likely to play a key role in reproducing patterns of labor market inequality even before the real constraints of parenthood have set in. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Interest in the relationship between race and the expanded reproduction of capitalism has exploded across the social sciences and humanities over the past several years. Despite this widespread appreciation and interest, profound disagreement, debate, and analytical impression persists, not least regarding the relationship between race and the necessary ‘laws of motion’ of capitalist society. This article begins by tracing the core approaches to the race and capitalism conversation, paying particular attention to their understanding of the necessity/contingency distinction. It then proceeds (...) to make the case for race as a contingent – which, emphatically, does not mean local or insignificant – relatively autonomous, and historically path-dependent terrain of struggle in capitalist society, which has largely functioned to maintain capital’s necessary disequilibrium between the value form and its value relations, but need not do so. It closes by exploring the implications of this claim in relation to recent historical-geographical research on post-1898 US imperialism. (shrink)

Conceptually integrating Selfish Goal Theory with modern evolutionary psychology amplifies theoretical power. Inconsistency, a key principle of Selfish Goal Theory, illustrates this insight. Conflicting goals of seeking sexual variety and successful mate retention furnish one example. Siblings have evolved goals to cooperate and compete, a second example. Integrating Selfish Goal Theory with evolutionary theory can explain much inconsistent goal-directed behavior.

The ethical teacher Ivan Snook, 2003, Palmerston North, New Zealand, Dunmore Press, $34.95 (pbk), 199 pp. ISBN 0‐86469‐432‐6 This work by the well known New Zealand scholar offers a useful survey o...

The purpose of this article is to suggest how philosophy might play a key, if precisely delineated, role in the shaping of policy that leads educational development. The argument begins with a reflection on the nature of confidence in the relationship between philosophy and policy. We note the widespread resistance to abstract theorising in the policy community, disguising the enormous potential of a philosophical approach. Defending a philosophically equipped approach to policy, which is inevitably theoretically laden, we argue that philosophical (...) investigation should be construed not as an initial step anterior to the task of research, but as a way of standing in relation to evidence and policy making throughout the process of investigation and adjudication. To illustrate the distinctive contribution philosophy can make, we propose five interrelated stages where philosophical thinking plays a constitutive role in the full process of policy development, critique and instantiation. (shrink)

In considering what it means to lead organizations effectively and ethically, the literature comprising spirituality at work and spiritual leadership theory has become highly influential, especially in the USA. It has also attracted significant criticism. While in this paper, we endorse this critique, we argue that the strand of literature which purportedly takes a Christian standpoint within the wider SAW school of thought, largely misconstrues and misapplies the teaching of its founder, Jesus. As a result, in dismissing the claims and (...) application of SAW and SLT, there is a real risk that we lose the vital contribution of Christian thought, not least some of the timeless counter-cultural wisdom of Jesus which, we contend, offers a vital foundation to the practice of ethical leadership and business ethics in organizations. In proposing a way forward, two thorny issues which face all leaders are addressed: dealing with ego and closing the gap between what we say and what we do. The more we understand about the dynamics of human nature, the more we learn about the profundity of Jesus’ teachings. We then propose a number of ways in which Jesus-centred ethical leadership can be practised. Each is radical and each implies risk: both the personal risk of inner renewal arising from repentance as a doorway to personal integrity, as well as the risk of opposing unethical practices and promoting the excellence of core practices in the workplace. (shrink)

In this paper, we use qualitative and quantitative research, along with reference to current philosophical literature to consider the question of whether the sport of free-soloing is inherently immoral given the unavoidable extreme risk taken by the climber and imposed upon others not directly participating in the sport. The first thing we look at is what kind of values climbers see in free-soloing and show, through interviews we conducted with soloers and through a review of the literature on the philosophy (...) of extreme sports, that climbers derive what might be called ‘higher pleasures’ from free-soloing. We then argue that despite its inherent riskiness, free-soloers ought to be allowed the autonomy and freedom to choose to engage in the sport, provided they are doing so in a conscientious manner. To show that they are, we again appeal to interviews we conducted to demonstrate that soloers decide to attempt a free-solo in a thoughtful manner, as prescribed by philosophers who work on the morality... (shrink)

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’, the latest version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the crude language in (...) which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’ and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self-aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features. (shrink)

Evolutionary approaches to the emotions have traditionally focused on a subset of emotions that are shared with other species, characterized by distinct signals, and designed to solve a few key adaptive problems. By contrast, an evolutionary psychological approach (a) broadens the range of adaptive problems emotions have evolved to solve, (b) includes emotions that lack distinctive signals and are unique to humans, and (c) synthesizes an evolutionary approach with an information-processing perspective. On this view, emotions are superordinate mechanisms that evolved (...) to coordinate the activity of other programs in the solution of adaptive problems. We illustrate the heuristic value of this approach by furnishing novel hypotheses for disgust and sexual arousal and highlighting unexplored areas of research. (shrink)

The study of landscape and place has become an increasingly fertile realm of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences. In this new book of essays, selected from presentations at the first annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Geography, scholars investigate the experiences and meanings that inscribe urban and suburban landscapes. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi bring philosophy and geography into a dialogue with a host of other disciplines to explore a fundamental dialectic: while our collective and personal (...) activity modifies the landscape, in turn, the landscape modifies human identities, and social and environmental relations. Whether proposing a peripatetic politics, conducting a sociological analysis of building security systems, or critically examining the formation of New York City's municipal parks, each essay sheds distinctive light on this fascinating and engaging aspect of contemporary environmental studies. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas' Commentary on the Metaphysics has long been con sidered by many as one of the most interesting, most rewarding of all his works. Yet strangely enough, there has been no extensive study of this work, at least none that has ever reached print. It is in the hope of partially filling this gap in medieval research that the present study of the metaphysical system of the Commentary was conceived. However, the discussion of the Commentary's metaphysics must simultaneously be (...) an investigation into the reasons which motivated Aquinas in the composition of his work. Did he wish to expose only the theories of Aristotle, or did he simultaneously intend to present his own metaphysical views? Obviously, we must learn the answer to this before we can proceed to disentangle the metaphysical system, or systems, operative in Aquinas' Commentary. Up to the present day this problem, the nature of Aquinas' exposition has not been answered in a manner acceptable to all. Generally speak ing, three theories have been advanced. A first one would see the 1 Commentary as an objective exposition of Aristotle. A second opinion views Aquinas' exposition as an attempt to express his own personal 2 theories on metaphysics. And finally, the third view divides within the Commentary paragraphs containing Aquinas' personal thought ... (shrink)