In this article, a poetical and performative narrative is shared to examine how the use of stories to critically self‐reflect on oppression facilitates an understanding of critical social theory in nursing education and impacts social justice. A fusion of prose with a poetical narrative is employed; the latter is reserved to capture the immediacy of personal, emotive, and embodied storied experiences. This deeply intimate and dialogical story begins with a pedagogical experiment created to facilitate nursing students' understanding of critical social (...) theory. Drawing upon Paulo Freire's work, the nursing teacher in a professional development course attempted to deconstruct power relations and cultivate an open and safe learning environment by sharing a poem that depicts her oppression. Students then anonymously wrote a word/statement about their oppression. The teacher created a composite poem from students' words and shared it with the class; it was a powerful moment that highlighted their shared humanity. As a way to further explore stories and consider how to preserve these words, a small group of students and the teacher formed the ‘the oppression group’. Towards the end, we conclude an unfinished story by realizing that the chains of oppression are loosening and humanity is surfacing. There is still a camouflaging of an authentic self. There are still stories to be told. The group is not yet certain if a social representation of an authentic self is possible and if all stories can be told. It has become apparent that the personal can play out in social justice as enacted in the classroom between teacher and students and provides an entry point into the development of the capacity to be social agents in nursing. The group simultaneously concludes the story with both an ending and a threshold of social justice. (shrink)

Whether the food movement is most likely to transform the food system through ‘alternative’ or ‘oppositional’ initiatives has been the focus of considerable scholarly debate. Alternative initiatives are widespread but risk reinforcing the conventional food system by supporting neoliberal discourse and governance mechanisms, including localism, consumer choice, entrepreneurialism and self-help. While oppositional initiatives such as political advocacy have the potential for system-wide change, the current neoliberal political and ideological context dominant in Canada poses difficulties for initiatives that explicitly oppose the (...) conventional food system. As such, some argue that the food movement requires convergence between alternative and oppositional initiatives. In this paper, we investigate convergence using survey results from 143 food movement organizations in four Canadian provinces. Results based on cluster analysis and descriptive statistics on organizational discourse, activities and visions of sustainable food systems demonstrate convergence around neoliberal discourse and governance mechanisms. Localism and consumer education characteristics are particularly prominent, with a majority of respondents describing their organizations as ‘local’, engaging in consumer education activities, and stating the importance of consumer education activities, indicating convergence around alternative, rather than oppositional, initiatives. While convergence around these discourse and strategies may limit the transformative potential of the food system when interpreted as neoliberalisation of the movement, such a reading does not demonstrate their full potential, as survey results also indicate trends of transformative visions of change and political engagement, particularly at the municipal level. This research demonstrates that the movement can work simultaneously within, and opposed to, the conventional food system, and provides understanding of both neoliberal leanings and the politics of the possible of the food movement. (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism about the mind. But we can avoid this debate. (...) I show how a more general view of action captures what is central to action without mentioning mental states, and I argue that a group’s members can fulfill the role in group action that mental states play in our actions. Group behavior is explicable in terms of reasons, regardless of whether the group itself cognizes those reasons. After discussing the kind of reasons at issue and arguing that groups can act in light of them without minds, I assess how this account bears on the question of group responsibility. (shrink)

Recent work in experimental philosophy has indicated that intuitions may be subject to several forms of bias, thereby casting doubt on the viability of intuition as an evidential source in philosophy. A common reply to these findings is the ‘expertise defense’ – the claim that although biases may be found in the intuitions of non-philosophers, persons with expertise in philosophy will be resistant to these biases. Much debate over the expertise defense has centered over the question of the burden of (...) proof; must defenders of expertise provide empirical evidence of its existence, or should we grant the existence of philosophical expertise as a ‘default’ assumption? Defenders have frequently appealed to analogy with other fields; since expertise clearly exists in, e.g., the sciences, we are entitled to assume its existence in philosophy. Recently, however, experimentalists have begun to provide empirical evidence that biases in intuition extend even to philosophers. Though these findings don't yet suffice to defeat the default assumption of expertise the analogy argument motivates, they do force any proponent of the analogy argument to provide more specific and empirically informed proposals for the possible nature of philosophical expertise. (shrink)

According to a standard characterization of dispositions, when a disposition is activated by a stimulus, a manifestation of that disposition typically occurs. For example, when flammable gasoline encounters a spark in an oxygen-rich environment, the manifestation of flammability—combustion—occurs. In the dispositions/powers literature, it is common to assume that a manifestation is an effect of a disposition being activated. (I use “disposition” and “power” interchangeably). I address two questions in this chapter: Could all manifestations be effects that involve things acquiring only (...) dispositional properties? And, is thinking of manifestations as contributions to effects preferable to thinking of them as effects? I defend negative responses to both questions. If all properties are dispositional, as the pandispositionalists claim, then any time the activation of a disposition results is something acquiring a new property, it results in something acquiring another disposition. Some worry that a vicious regress ensues (Swinburne, 1980; Bird, 2007a, 2007b: 132-46). While I believe that regress arguments can be addressed, my worry is that, on the pandispositionalist view, manifestations become unobservable. Thinking of manifestations as effects is problematic in cases where what actually occurs is not the kind of effect that the power is a power for, but rather a complex interaction of various powers. Because of this, some prefer to think of manifestations as contributions to effects (Molnar, 2003: 194-8; Mumford, 2009). I argue against this proposal on the ground that it introduces mysterious new entities into our ontology. In the end, the most plausible view is that a single kind of power can have different kinds of effects, some of which involve the instantiation of non-dispositional properties. I proceed as follows. In the first section of this chapter, I show that the philosophical concept of a manifestation is the concept of an effect. In the second section, I argue against the claim that all manifestations involve instantiations of only dispositional properties. In the third section, I argue against the view that manifestations are contributions rather than effects. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between firms’ corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains – employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, (...) however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance (cited concerns) only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Prediction‐based processes appear to play an important role in language. Few studies, however, have sought to test the relationship within individuals between prediction learning and natural language processing. This paper builds upon existing statistical learning work using a novel paradigm for studying the on‐line learning of predictive dependencies. Within this paradigm, a new “prediction task” is introduced that provides a sensitive index of individual differences for developing probabilistic sequential expectations. Across three interrelated experiments, the prediction task and results thereof are (...) used to bridge knowledge of the empirical relation between statistical learning and language within the context of nonadjacency processing. We first chart the trajectory for learning nonadjacencies, documenting individual differences in prediction learning. Subsequent simple recurrent network simulations then closely capture human performance patterns in the new paradigm. Finally, individual differences in prediction performances are shown to strongly correlate with participants’ sentence processing of complex, long‐distance dependencies in natural language. (shrink)

Properties seem to play an important role in causal relations. But philosophers disagree over whether or not properties play their causal or nomic roles essentially. Causal essentialists say that they do, while quidditists deny it. This article surveys these two views, as well as views that try to find a middle ground.

The core of this article is a comparative analysis of the double movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the double movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. In both periods the movement toward allegedly self-regulating markets called forth a countermovement of protection. Nevertheless, important differences exist due, first, to differences in the nature of the hegemonic state and, second, to the greater role of subordinate forces in constraining the movement toward self-regulating markets in the (...) late twentieth century. (shrink)

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine conferring liability from one party onto another because the latter stands in some relationship of authority over the former. Though originally a doctrine of tort law, for the past century it has been used within the criminal law, especially to the end of securing criminal liability for corporations. Here, I argue that on at least one prominent conception of criminal responsibility, we are not justified in using this doctrine in this way. Firms are not (...) answerable for the crimes committed by their employees, because firms cannot answer as to why the crime was committed; they lack the authority to offer the employee’s reasons for action. Though this rules out respondeat superior as a general principle, I show contexts in which vicarious liability is still appropriate in the criminal law, and I respond to a number of other concerns raised by this picture. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, (...) taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach. (shrink)

Public recognition of the fragility of the natural systems on which present and future generations depend has prompted calls for the practice of environmental stewardship —calls widely criticised in the environmental ethics literature. Some argue that stewardship 's historical associations entail that it is inherently sexist, speciesist and/or anthropocentric. Others argue that absent belief in a creator to appoint us as stewards and hold us accountable, talk of 'environmental stewardship ' is empty. I review the concept's recent evolution and provide (...) a tentative definition. I argue that so defined, it is not vulnerable to standard criticisms, but is instead a promising way of construing morally decent conduct towards the environment. (shrink)

Emergence is typically discussed in the context of mental properties or the properties of the natural sciences, and accounts of emergence within these contexts tend to look a certain way. The emergent property is taken to emerge instantaneously out of, or to be proximately caused by, complex interaction of colocated entities. Here, however, I focus on the properties instantiated by the elements of certain systems discussed in social ontology, such as being a five-dollar bill or a pawn-movement, and I suggest (...) that these properties emerge in a distinctive way. They emerge in part because of a system that is far beyond and typically before the object that instantiates them. I characterize how emergence occurs in these cases, juxtaposing it with how emergence is typically discussed. I then consider whether their emergence is best framed as weak or strong as these notions are characterized in the literature, and I reveal what debates are central to answering this question. Though I will not resolve these debates, I do show a collection of views that would vindicate these properties as strongly emergent and downwardly causing. (shrink)

Most business ethicists maintain that corporate actors are subject to a variety of moral obligations. However, there is a persistent and underappreciated concern that the competitive pressures of the market somehow provide corporate actors with a far-reaching excuse from meeting these obligations. Here, we assess this concern. Blending resources from the history of philosophy and strategic management, we demonstrate the assumptions required for and limits of this excuse. Applying the idea of ‘the state of nature’ from Thomas Hobbes, we suggest (...) that corporate actors would be excused from duties if complying with them threatened their vital interests. We show how this excuse is not available for most individuals within firms; instead, it is an excuse perhaps available to firms themselves, but only given substantive assumptions about corporate personhood. For those willing to make these assumptions, we apply the competitive advantage construct to delimit the scope of this excuse. We suggest that firms are excused from fulfilling an obligation when complying leads to a competitive disadvantage, as this imperils the firm’s vital interests. After revealing why this excuse does not generalize, we conclude by considering when we should reform the market to avoid the legitimacy of this excuse. (shrink)

Disposition terms, such as 'cowardice,' 'fragility' and 'reactivity,' often appear in explanations. Sometimes we explain why a man ran away by saying that he was cowardly, or we explain why something broke by saying it was fragile. Scientific explanations of certain phenomena feature dispositional properties like instability, reactivity, and conductivity. And these look like causal explanations - they seem to provide information about the causal history of various events. Philosophers such as Ned Block, Jaegwon Kim, Elizabeth Prior, Robert Pargetter, and (...) Frank Jacksonl have suggested reasons for thinking that dispositions are causally inert. I call this the "Inert Dispositions View." According to this view, the glass's fragility was not responsible for its breaking; the man's cowardice was causally impotent as he fled. The Inert Dispositions View would call many of the explanations we give into question. By employing a disposition in an explanation, we might have thought we were giving a causal explanation of the event. Perhaps we took ourselves to be explaining an effect with some feature of its cause that was responsible for the effect. However, if dispositions are causally inert, we are explaining the event in some other way, or not really explaining it at all. The Inert Dispositions View suggests that something is amiss with many scientific explanations. If properties like conductivity and volatility are causally inert, it is not clear how appealing to them provides us with information about why certain phenomena occur. This is especially problematic if one thinks, as some do, that the fundamental properties that scientists attribute to the ultimate constituents of matter -- things like force, mass, charge, impenetrability -- are dispositional. If, as Simon Blackburn says, "science finds only dispositional properties all the way down,"2 and if dispositions are causally inert, it would seem that science does not provide us with real causal explanations. The Inert Dispositions View implies that there is something amiss with psychological explanations as well. At least some psychological states are dispositional -- being courageous or shy, being such that you would accept a drink if you were offered one. On some views, all mental states are like dispositions, since having a mental state is a matter of having some brain state or other that performs a certain causal role. If mental properties are relevantly similar to dispositions, and dispositions are inert, then mental properties make no difference to what a body does. However, it is natural to think that my believing and desiring certain things has much to do with my body moving in certain ways. It would take powerful arguments to cast these beliefs into serious doubt. In this paper, I defend the causal efficacy of dispositions against two types of arguments that l call "Analyticity Arguments" and "No Work Arguments." According to Analyticity Arguments, there is an analytic or necessary connection between a disposition and its manifestation, and this goes to show that there is no causal connection. I argue, on the contrary, that it shows no such thing. According to No Work arguments, manifestations of dispositions already have sufficient causes, and so there is "no work" for dispositions to do. I claim that these arguments rest on some questionable assumptions. (shrink)

Political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) calls for firms to implement and engage in deliberative democracy processes and structures, addressing governance gaps where governments are unwilling or unable to do so. However, an underlying assumption that the implementation of PCSR will enrich democratic processes in society has been exposed and challenged. In this conceptual article, we explore this challenge by developing a framework to reveal the dynamics of firms’ deliberative democratic processes and structures (meso level), and those at nation state (macro (...) level). Using existing cases as illustrative examples, we demonstrate that despite the public good premise of PCSR theory toward thickening the overall democracy in a society, corporate democratization at meso level can have the opposite effect and may actually erode macro-level democratic control of society and the economy. These findings imply a need for multilevel analysis in PCSR research and greater consideration of state-level public institutions and the responsibilities of business firms toward those institutions. Furthermore, we contribute to the PCSR literature by identifying the disruptive mechanisms associated with these dynamics and outline two alternative perspectives to allow firms to continue to take on political responsibilities. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The book illustrates the concept of action in three different contexts - the justification of actions, people's life history, and pragmatism. The special feature of this book is that a comprehensive view of this kind marks a departure from the atomistic approach of action theory, which in itself raises a number of questions. If actions are not justified by mental states, how can persons then act for reasons? How can persons' actions over time be described, and what is (...) the connection with the question of personal identity? If there is to be a unified understanding of the person, does the practical have to take precedence over the theoretical, and what does this mean for epistemology, for example? The ten contributors to this volume engage in an instructive manner with these and similar questions in the three sections of the book. (shrink)

This book explores Hume's concern with the destructiveness of religious factions and his efforts to develop, in his moral philosophy, a solution to factional conflict. Sympathy and the related capacity to enter into foreign points of view are crucial to the neutralization of religious zeal and the naturalization of ethics. Jennifer Herdt suggests that Hume's preoccupation with religious faction is the key which reveals the unity of his varied philosophical, aesthetic, political and historical works.

Categorical perception (CP) refers to how similar things look different depending on whether they are classified as the same category. Many studies demonstrate that adult humans show CP for human emotional faces. It is widely debated whether the effect can be accounted for solely by perceptual differences (structural differences among emotional faces) or whether additional perceiver-based conceptual knowledge is required. In this review, I discuss the phenomenon of CP and key studies showing CP for emotional faces. I then discuss a (...) new model of emotion which highlights how perceptual and conceptual knowledge interact to explain how people see discrete emotions in others’ faces. In doing so, I discuss how language (emotion words included in the paradigm) contribute to CP. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of the _end user thesis_, which holds that the fundamental goal of the firm is to create products and services that provide a benefit to _the people who ultimately use them._ The argument turns on the interest that employees have in work that is meaningful, in the sense that it is an activity worth spending time doing. I argue that a person’s life is diminished to the extent that work constitutes a central feature, but is (...) not meaningful in this way. I argue further that an employee’s work is fully worth doing only if her fundamental aim is to provide a benefit to the people who ultimately use what she produces, and that this is not possible within an organization that aims to maximize profits. The paper concludes by considering arguments that the efficiency gains generated by assigning the firm the goal of profit-maximization justify structuring the firm in a way that does not enable employees to have work that is fully worth doing. (shrink)

Commentators often claim that medical research subjects are coerced into participating in clinical studies. In recent years, such claims have appeared especially frequently in ethical discussions of research in developing countries. Medical research ethics is more important than ever as we move into the 21st century because worldwide the pharmaceutical industry has grown so much and shows no sign of slowing its growth. This means that more people are involved in medical research today than ever before, and in the future (...) even more will be involved. However, despite the pressing need for reflection on research ethics, it is important to carefully identify the concerns we have about research. Otherwise we run the risk that the moral language we use, and which we hear other people use, may do our moral thinking for us. We argue that many recent claims about the occurrence of coercion in medical research are misguided and misuse the word "coercion." We try to identify the real problems, and urge people to attend carefully to the implications of their descriptions of moral problems in research. (shrink)

James Frederick Ferrier developed his philosophy from a common sense background. However, his rejection of common sense philosophy in particular and Enlightenment philosophy in general results in the development of a system of idealism. In his series of lectures ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness - Parts I to VII’, which appeared in Blackwoods Magazine (1838–39), he outlines the problem with modern philosophy and argues that philosophy should follow a new direction. In his view, the most peculiar and interesting (...) aspect of humanity is consciousness. He contends that the attempt to develop a ‘science of man’ is impossible because it transforms a person into an object of study and thereby fails to capture the most distinctive aspect of humanity, namely, consciousness. According to Ferrier, philosophy should be an extension of consciousness itself; it is: ‘consciousness sublimed’. This paper will outline the central arguments in ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness’ and show that an early example of British idealism was not only developed out of the common sense tradition but shares with common sense philosophy a focus on the immediate evidence of consciousness, placing the relationship between thought and world at the centre of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

The Character Gap by Christian Miller is an excellent discussion of how the empirical research conducted on virtue bears upon the larger question of whether or not people are virtuous, especially when we consider the question through the lens of a philosophically rigorous account of virtue. His conclusion is that overall people are not virtuous—but then, neither are they vicious. In this commentary, I challenge the latter. I explore two alternative ways of conceiving of vice and utilize a range of (...) empirical findings—on topics ranging from bullying, to sexual assault, to factory farming—to argue that perhaps vice is much more prevalent than Miller believes, a worry that deserves our attention and concern. (shrink)

In this collection of original essays, international scholars put Asian traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, into conversation with one or more contemporary feminist philosophies, founding a new mode of inquiry that attends to diverse voices and the complex global relationships that define our world. -/- These cross-cultural meditations focus on the liberation of persons from suffering, oppression, illusion, harmful conventions and desires, and other impediments to full personhood by deploying a methodology that traverses multiple philosophical styles, historical (...) texts, and frames of reference. Hailing from the discipline of philosophy in addition to Asian, gender, and religious studies, the contributors offer a fresh take on the classic concerns of free will, consciousness, knowledge, objectivity, sexual difference, embodiment, selfhood, the state, morality, and hermeneutics. One of the first anthologies to embody the practice of feminist comparative philosophy, this collection creatively and effectively engages with global, cultural, and gender differences within the realms of scholarly inquiry and theory construction. -/- http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16624-9/asian-and-feminist-philosophies-in-dialogue. (shrink)

This volume argues that educational problems have their basis in an ideology of binary opposites often referred to as dualism, and that it is partly because mainstream schooling incorporates dualism that it is unable to facilitate the thinking skills, dispositions and understandings necessary for autonomy, democratic citizenship and leading a meaningful life. Bleazby proposes an approach to schooling termed social reconstruction learning, in which students engage in philosophical inquiries with members of their community in order to reconstruct real social problems, (...) arguing that this pedagogy can better facilitate independent thinking, imaginativeness, emotional intelligence, autonomy, and active citizenship. (shrink)

Businesses often attempt to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by showcasing women in their leadership ranks, most of whom are white. Yet research has shown that organizations confer status and power to women who engage in sexist behavior, which undermines DEI efforts. We sought to examine whether women who engage in racist behavior are also conferred relative status at work. Drawing on theory and research on organizational culture and intersectionality, we predicted that a white woman who (...) expresses anti-Black racism is conferred more status in the workplace than a white woman who does not. A pilot study (N = 30) confirmed that making an anti-Black racist comment at work was judged to be more offensive than making no comment, but only for a white man, not a white woman. Study 1 (N = 330) found that a white woman who made an anti-Black racist comment at work was conferred higher status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man, with perceived offensiveness mediating these effects. Study 2 (N = 235) revealed that a white woman who made an anti-racist/pro-Black Lives Matter comment was conferred lower status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man. Finally, Study 3 (N = 295) showed that people who endorse racist and sexist beliefs confer more status to a white man than to a white woman regardless of speech, but that people low in racism and sexism confer the highest status to a white woman who engages in anti-Black racist speech. These studies suggest that white women are rewarded for expressing support for beliefs that mirror systemic inequality in the corporate world. We discuss implications for business ethics and directions for future research. (shrink)

There are a number of problems associated with the classic notion of beauty understood as an experience of perceptual form. These problems are that there is an apparent incompatibility between beauty’s objectivity and subjectivity; and an incompatibility between the two self-evident theses that (i) there are no principles of beauty and (ii) there are genuine judgements of beauty. There is also the problem of explaining the possibility of a disinterested pleasure. To solve these problems I draw upon the work of (...) Glyn Humphreys & Dietmar Heinke (1998) according to whom the processing of ‘between-object’ relations draws upon view-dependent primitives and the processing of ‘within-object’ relations draws upon view-invariant primitives. I argue that if what we experience as aesthetic form or beauty is some kind of play on the processes involved in processing within-object-relations during the course of perceiving certain objects, then the apparent problems of beauty would be resolved. I speculate that perhaps the perception of certain objects employs perceptual principles in an unprecedented way or in a way which epitomizes their normal operation. The idea is that when perception is employed in such a way that our attention is drawn from the object recognized to the experience of perception as something like a solution to a problem (that is, to the experience of the construction of within-object relations), then we experience what we know of as aesthetic form and beauty. (shrink)

Returning to John P. Reeder's 1978 essay on “Religious Ethics as a Field and Discipline,” this essay explores debates surrounding the original intentions for the Journal of Religious Ethics (JRE) and for the field of religious ethics, as these have played out over the decades among an influential group of scholars involved with the JRE since its inception: Arthur Dyck, Ronald Green, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jeffrey Stout. While the JRE and its founding mission are in need of ongoing critique and (...) transformation, we might well still affirm the journal's ongoing importance as a site for the negotiation of a commons, the identification of possibilities for shared life, imagined beyond exclusion and domination. (shrink)

Numerous laws have passed to move away from criminalising youth who trade sex. Specialised courts have also been established to support youth. Despite proponents' contention that specialised, trauma-informed courts are less punitive than typical interventions, research is limited. This article explores one specialised dependency court's efforts to assist youth ‘at risk’. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations, I argue that laws and trauma-informed court interventions intensify the supervision of youth and families while inadvertently concealing the gendered-racialised effects of child welfare (...) system involvement. Ethnographic findings contribute to sociolegal and anti-carceral feminist research on carceral control beyond the criminal legal system. This work also explores the ethics of carceral-trauma entanglements that accompany decriminalisation’s afterlife. (shrink)

David Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory is one of the most widely argued for of the higher-order accounts of consciousness. I argue that Rosenthal vacillates between two models of the HOT theory. First, I argue that these models employ different concepts of 'state consciousness'; the two concepts each refer to mental state tokens, but in virtue of different properties. In one model, the concept of 'state consciousness' is more consistent with how the term is typically used, both by philosophers and scientists, (...) and in commonsense usage. This model, however, also has its problems. In the second part of the paper, I develop a modified version of Rosenthal's transitivity principle, thereby avoiding some complications that stem from the original transitivity principle. I suggest that Rosenthal occasionally employs this modified model himself, and that the inconsistency identified in the first section of this paper might really reflect Rosenthal's vacillation between these two versions of the transitivity principle. I offer one explanation for how this equivocation may have occurred. These two versions would result if articulations of the transitivity principle employed the term 'mental state' inconsistently, to refer on some occasions merely to mental state types, and on others, to tokened mental states. I conclude by arguing, contrary to Rosenthal and others, that the theory is not incompatible with view that conscious states are uniquely casual efficacious. (shrink)

Background: Not all patients are considered equal. For patients who are considered to be “very important persons,” care can be different from that of other patients with advantages of greater access to resources, special attention from staff, and options for luxurious hospital amenities. While very important person care is common and widely accepted by healthcare administration, it has negative implications for both very important person and non-very important person patients, supports care disparities and inequities, and can create serious ethical dilemmas (...) for healthcare professionals. Very important person care can also result in negative care outcomes for its recipients. Objective: This article sought to explore the implications and ethical considerations of very important person care within the context of United States healthcare system, and integrate bioethical principles and American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses to influence recommendations for managing ethical dilemmas associated with very important person care. Method: A synthesis of the literature on very important person care was undertaken for this article. Ethical considerations: Ethical conduct was considered and respected when performing the literature review, referencing sources, and establishing authorship. Findings: According to the published literature, very important person care bares both positive and negative implications for patients, and negative implications for nurses. Nurses are the most affected by the demands from their administrators to provide special care and attention to patients in the “very important person” category and their families. Very important person care can be disruptive, disorienting, challenging, and stressful to nurses. Conclusion: While physicians and other healthcare professionals have commented on very important person care, limited work has been done in nursing. There have not been any empirical studies on very important person care. Therefore, in order to minimize the negative implications of very important person care, studies of this phenomenon are warranted. Exposing very important person care is important in the development of an ethical healthcare system. Moreover, understanding the ethical principles surrounding the concept of very important person care will empower nurses to effectively manage conflicts and ethical dilemmas that arise with very important person care. (shrink)