Ethical codes have been hailed as an explicit vehicle for achieving more sustainable and defensible organizational practice. Nonetheless, when legal compliance and corporate governance codes are conflated, codes can be used to define organizational interests ostentatiously by stipulating norms for employee ethics. Such codes have a largely cosmetic and insurance function, acting subtly and strategically to control organizational risk management and protection. In this paper, we conduct a genealogical discourse analysis of a representative code of ethics from an international corporation (...) to understand how management frames expectations of compliance. Our contribution is to articulate the problems inherent in codes of ethics, and we make some recommendations to address these to benefit both an organization and its employees. In this way, we show how a code of ethics can provide a foundation for ethical sustainability, while addressing management intentions and employees’ ethical satisfaction. (shrink)

The last thirty years have seen a resurgence of interest in virtue among philosophers, psychologists, and educators. This co-authored book brings an interdisciplinary response to the study of virtue: it not only provides a framework for quantifying virtues, but also explores how we can understand virtue in a philosophically-informed way that is compatible with the best current thinking in personality psychology. The volume presents a major contribution to theemerging science of virtue and character measurement.

This book employs contemporary philosophy, scientific research, and clinical reports to argue that pain, though real, is not an appropriate object of scientific generalisations or an appropriate target for medical intervention. Each pain experience is instead complex and idiosyncratic in a way which undermines scientific utility. In addition to contributing novel arguments and developing a novel position on the nature of pain, the book provides an interdisciplinary overview of dominant models of pain. The author lays the needed groundwork for improved (...) models and targeted treatments at a time when pain science, pain medicine, and philosophy are explicitly searching for both and failing to find them. The Complex Reality of Pain will be of interest to a broad range of researchers and students, including those working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, cognitive science, neuroscience, medicine, health, cognitive and behavioural psychology, and pain science. (shrink)

Unknowing is at the center of spiritual life. It is only by creating a space in which anything can happen that we allow God to speak; only by stepping back that we allow space for that unpredictable Spirit that brings us gifts beyond any of our imaginings.

Private sector engagement (PSE) is increasingly acknowledged in both literature and practice as a necessary mechanism to sustainably address development challenges. Despite increased practitioner and academic interest in these partnerships, there have been negligible attempts to systematically investigate cross‐sector partnerships to distill best practices from the multiple environments in which they are employed. This manuscript presents a robust review of the social science and business literatures on cross‐sector partnerships, yielding an interdisciplinary, evidence‐based framework detailing archetypes of three prominent partnership characteristics (...) of purpose, context, and relationship enablers. This work integrates a wide range of best practices and values pertinent to businesses and society, enabling researchers, practitioners, and partnership managers to characterize and evaluate partnerships systematically. The introduced framework also enables partners to situate and evaluate their partnership activities to optimize outcomes for each partner and impact on the challenge at hand. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

[First Paragraph] Unlike so many other distinctions in philosophy, H P Grice's distinction between what is said and what is implicated has an immediate appeal: undergraduate students readily grasp that one who says 'someone shot my parents' has merely implicated rather than said that he was not the shooter [2]. It seems to capture things that we all really pay attention to in everyday conversation'this is why there are so many people whose entire sense of humour consists of deliberately ignoring (...) implicatures. ('Can you pass the salt?' 'Yes.') Unsurprisingly, it was quickly picked up and put to a wide variety of uses in not only in philosophy but also in linguistics and psychology. What is surprising, however, is that upon close inspection Grice's conception of implicature turns out to be very different from those at work in the literature which has grown out of his original discussion. This would not be much of a criticism of this literature were it not for the fact that discussions of implicature explicitly claim to be using Grice's notion, not some other one inspired by him (generally going so far as to quote one of Grice's characterisations of implicature). This still would not be terribly interesting if the notion Grice was actually carving out had little theoretical or practical utility. But I will argue here that Grice's own notion of implicature, one quite different from the ones most of us have come to work with, is in fact far more interesting and subtle than that which has been attributed to him. (shrink)

Anglophone attention to issues of race and racism, with particular attention to Kant and other members of the German Enlightenment, has long been hampered by a lack of critical editions in English. While this is no longer significantly true for Kant studies, it continues to be the case for many of the most relevant works by Georg Forster and Christoph Meiners. This is a problem for philosophers working exclusively in English, and it is one that is only exacerbated by the (...) field’s general lack of interest in not just the intellectual history of philosophy and its figures, but in analyses published in languages other than English today. Ahistorical, monolinguistic approaches become especially problematic, however, when it comes to the philosophical analysis of race and racism, given the need to approach such topics from multiple angles at once—historical, political, cultural, economic, and legal—a fact that is no less true for scholarship on the figures of the eighteenth century than it is for the study of the present one. My aim in what follows therefore is to fill in a bit of the bigger picture, the specific context within which a writer like Georg Forster and his cohort were working, in order to better frame the kinds of specialised discussions of Kant’s philosophy of race that we find today. (shrink)

Since 1969, when Dennett introduced a distinction between personal and sub- personal levels of explanation, many philosophers have used 'sub- personal ' very loosely, and Dennett himself has abandoned a view of the personal level as genuinely autonomous. I recommend a position in which Dennett's original distinction is crucial, by arguing that the phenomenon called mental causation is on view only at the properly personal level. If one retains the commit-' ments incurred by Dennett's early distinction, then one has a (...) satisfactory anti-physicalistic, anti-dualist philosophy of mind. It neither interferes with the projects of sub- personal psychology, nor encourages ; instrumentalism at the personal level. (shrink)

Stories are an important indicator of our vision of the future. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), dominant stories are polarized between notions of threat and myopic solutionism. The central storytellers—big tech, popular media, and authors of science fiction—represent particular demographics and motivations. Many stories, and storytellers, are missing. This paper details the accounts of missing AI narratives by leading scholars from a range of disciplines interested in AI Futures. Participants focused on the gaps between dominant narratives and the (...) untold stories of the capabilities, issues, and everyday realities of the technology. One participant proposed a “story crisis” in which these narratives compete to shape the public discourse on AI. Our findings indicate that dominant narratives distract and mislead public understandings and conceptions of AI. This suggests a need to pay closer attention to missing AI narratives. It is not simply about telling new stories, it is about listening to existing stories and asking what is wanted from AI. We call for realistic, nuanced, and inclusive stories, working with and for diverse voices, which consider (1) story-teller; (2) genre, and (3) communicative purpose. Such stories can then inspire the next generation of thinkers, technologists, and storytellers. (shrink)

In American Nietzsche, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's philosophy, and America’s reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal.

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values assembles papers that consider relations among science, ethics, and justice. The papers are drawn from a 2011 National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop that brought together interdisciplinary scholars to consider, incorporate, and attend to the meanings, uses, and social consequences of ethical questions and justice ideals in technoscientific projects. The papers included in this special issue examine key areas that emerged from this workshop, including public participation, the production of knowledge, what counts as (...) consent, ownership of biomaterials, and others. Together, the papers raise questions about new directions and articulations of power, justice, and inequalities in science and technology studies. (shrink)

Insider trading is illegal, and is widely believed to be unethical. It has received widespread attention in the media and has become, for some, the very symbol of ethical decay in business. For a practice that has come to epitomize unethical business behavior, however, insider trading has received surprisingly little ethical analysis. This article critically examines the principal ethical arguments against insider trading: the claim that the practice is unfair, the claim that it involves a misappropriation of information and the (...) claim that it harms ordinary investors and the market as a whole. The author concludes that each of these arguments has some serious deficiencies; no one of them by itself provides a sufficient reason for outlawing insider trading. This does not mean, however, that there are no reasons for prohibiting the practice. The author argues that the real reason for outlawing insider trading is that it undermines the fiduciary relationship that lies at the heart of American business. (shrink)

What kind of reasons for belief are provided by the testimony of experts? In a world where we are often inundated with fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, this question is more pressing than ever. A prominent view in the philosophical literature maintains that the reasons provided by experts are preemptive in that they normatively screen off, or defeat, other relevant reasons. In this paper, I raise problems for this conception of expertise, including a wholly new one that I call (...) the Problem of the Predatory Expert, which targets both original versions of preemption as well as new, modified ones that aim to avoid some of the standard objections. (shrink)

In forming groups—corporations, teams, academic departments, juries—humans gain new ways of acting in the world. Jennifer Lackey argues that groups need to be held responsible for their actions, and therefore need to be subject to epistemic evaluation. To criticize receptive or reckless behavior on the part of a corporation, for example, we need some account of what it is for a group to believe something, and for a group belief to be justified. In Lackey’s account, group epistemic states are (...) a function of the states of individual operative members. After raising some difficulties for her formulation of this function, this article raises questions about Lackey’s operative-member account can apply to new types of group agent, with a particular focus on the epistemic status of algorithmic systems that harvest human data. (shrink)

A promising development in the philosophy of causation analyzes actual causation using structural equation models, i.e., “causal models”. This paper carefully considers what it means for an interpreted model to be accurate of its target situation. These considerations show, first, that our existing understanding of accuracy is inadequate. Further, and more controversially, they show that any causal model analysis is committed to a kind of relativism – a view whereby causation is a three-part relation holding between a cause, an effect, (...) and something else. In particular, insofar as a causal model analysis construes causation mind-and-language independently, it must treat causation as relative to a specification of background possibilities – i.e., a ‘modal profile.’ Or, so I argue. (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)

Aristotle's requirement that virtuous actions be chosen for themselves is typically interpreted, in Kantian terms, as taking virtuous action to have intrinsic rather than consequentialist value. This raises problems about how to reconcile Aristotle's requirement with (a) the fact that virtuous actions typically aim at ends beyond themselves (usually benefits to others); and (b) Aristotle's apparent requirement that everything (including virtuous action) be chosen for the sake of eudaimonia. I offer an alternative interpretation, based on Aristotle's account of loving a (...) friend for herself, according to which choosing a virtuous action for itself involves choosing it on account of those features of it that make it the kind of action it is, where these features include its intended consequences (such as the benefits it seeks to provide to others). I then suggest that Aristotle may take these consequences (including benefits to others) as contributing (and contributing non-instrumentally) to the agent's own eudaimonia, and that there is no conflict here with Aristotle's view that eudaimonia is an activity of the soul. For just as my activity of teaching is actualized in my students (provided they learn from me), so too my virtuous activity can be actualized in its beneficiaries. If this is right, then Aristotle's view is far from the Stoic (and proto-Kantian) view often attributed to him. (shrink)

In 1786 Georg Forster published a widely read critique of Immanuel Kant’s theory of race. Since then, the dispute between Forster and Kant on the unity of mankind has been widely discussed in light of both Forster’s essay and Kant’s decision to write a lengthy response to Forster in 1788. In this discussion I widen the frame for considering the two positions by focusing on Kant’s lectures on Physical Geography. In these notes Kant emerges as an ethnographer asking many of (...) the same questions posed by Forster himself, a man who had become famous since his time spent onboard James Cook’s second voyage to the South Pacific (1772-1775). Placing Kant’s ethnography in closer conversation with Forster reveals the many similarities (and some well-known differences) between the two. By including some of Forster’s other writings from the 1780s in an assessment of their debate, a much fuller picture can be had regarding natural historical investigations into the unity and difference of mankind at the time. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo describe reporting of informed consent in pragmatic trials, justifications for waivers of consent and reporting of alternative approaches to standard written consent. To identify factors associated with (1) not reporting and (2) not obtaining consent.MethodsSurvey of primary trial reports, published 2014–2019, identified using an electronic search filter for pragmatic trials implemented in MEDLINE, and registered in ClinicalTrials.gov.ResultsAmong 1988 trials, 132 (6.6%) did not include a statement about participant consent, 1691 (85.0%) reported consent had been obtained, 139 (7.0%) reported a (...) waiver and 26 (1.3%) reported consent for one aspect (eg, data collection) but a waiver for another (eg, intervention). Of the 165 trials reporting a waiver, 76 (46.1%) provided a justification. Few (53, 2.9%) explicitly reported use of alternative approaches to consent. In multivariable logistic regression analyses, lower journal impact factor (p=0.001) and cluster randomisation (p<0.0001) were significantly associated with not reporting on consent, while trial recency, cluster randomisation, higher-income country settings, health services research and explicit labelling as pragmatic were significantly associated with not obtaining consent (all p<0.0001).DiscussionNot obtaining consent seems to be increasing and is associated with the use of cluster randomisation and pragmatic aims, but neither cluster randomisation nor pragmatism are currently accepted justifications for waivers of consent. Rather than considering either standard written informed consent or waivers of consent, researchers and research ethics committees could consider alternative consent approaches that may facilitate the conduct of pragmatic trials while preserving patient autonomy and the public’s trust in research. (shrink)

Humans have distinctive powers of reflection: no other animal seems to have anything like our capacity for self-examination. Many philosophers hold that this capacity has a uniquely important guiding role in our cognition; others, notably Hilary Kornblith, draw attention to its weaknesses. Kornblith chiefly aims to dispel the sense that there is anything ‘magical’ about second-order mental states, situating them in the same causal net as ordinary first-order mental states. But elsewhere he goes further, suggesting that there is something deeply (...) misleading about reflection’s first-person view of cognition. This chapter takes a closer look at the conditions under which reflection is misleading. Even if humans are the only reflective animals, we are no longer the only creatures that can be questioned about their claims. Chatbots can also be asked to explain themselves, and by studying the conditions under which they produce clarification as opposed to confabulation, we can develop a non-skeptical account of the epistemic value of reflection. I argue that this capacity naturally supports the distribution of complex problem solving among multiple agents. (shrink)

Philosophical Issues, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 188-209, October 2021.

This paper provides a general introduction to the use of causal models in the metaphysics of causation, specifically structural equation models and directed acyclic graphs. It reviews the formal framework, lays out a method of interpretation capable of representing different underlying metaphysical relations, and describes the use of these models in analyzing causation.

Poverty has traditionally been conceived of as a state of deprivation. To be poor is to lack something essential to human flourishing. How that something is understood—in terms of welfare, resources, or capabilities—and how it is measured—in absolute terms or relative to a social standard—has been the subject of much debate within the development literature. In this paper, I put forward an account of poverty rooted in the philosophy of action. I argue that poverty essentially involves being in a context (...) in which a reasonable agent’s future-directed agency is systemically undermined. Centering this dimension of poverty allows us to attend to aspects of poverty that are easily overlooked on existing accounts. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what constitutes an apt interpreted model for the purpose of analyzing causation. I first collect universally adopted aptness principles into a basic account, flagging open questions and choice points along the way. I then explore various additional aptness principles that have been proposed in the literature but have not been widely adopted, the motivations behind their proposals, and the concerns with each that stand in the way of universal adoption. I conclude that the remaining (...) work of articulating aptness for a SEM analysis of causation is tied up with issues to do with modality, ontology, and mereology. Continuing this work is therefore likely to shed light on the relationship between these areas and causation more generally. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the processes by which entrepreneurial opportunities are cocreated between entrepreneurs and their stakeholders. The longitudinal case study of de novo firm Wakefield Seafoods seeks to understand the underlying dynamics of phenomena that play out over time as stakeholders emerge and their contributions become essential to the opportunity formation process. The king crab data show that under conditions of uncertainty, characterized by incomplete or missing knowledge, entrepreneurial processes of experimentation, failure, and learning were effective in forming (...) and exploiting an opportunity. Moreover, contrary to existing literature that either emphasizes heroic entrepreneurs or downplays their value, this article shows that both the vision of the entrepreneur and the stakeholder contributions are critical. This detailed examination of process data shows that the cumulative actions made by entrepreneurs in concert with their stakeholders formed an opportunity that coalesced into a new market. (shrink)

Since 1997 there has been a significant increase in the number and percentage of Kansas farmers who are women. Using Reskin and Roos’ model of “job queues and gender queues” I analyze changes in the agricultural industry in Kansas that resulted in more women becoming “principal farm operators” in the state. I find there are three changes largely responsible for women increasing their representation in the occupation: an increase in the demand for niche products, a decrease in the average farm (...) size, and greater societal acceptance of women as farmers. This study adds to the growing literature on women principal farm operators in developed countries, and is among the first to explore why women are becoming a larger percentage of the occupation in the United States. (shrink)

Lavoie and Talwar examine the phenomenon of prosocial lie telling: lying with the intention to benefit others. They investigate how well children aged 4 to 11 are able to conceal information about a surprise gift from their parents based on these children’s responses to their parents’ questions. Lavoie and Talwar conclude that, as children’s theory of mind abilities and working memory improve, their ability to conceal information from others also develops.

Eighteenth-century German writers with broad interests in natural history, and in particular, in the kind of ethnographic reports typically included in travel and expedition narratives, had to be able to access and read the original reports or they had to work with translations. The translators of these reports were, moreover, typically forced more than usual into the role of interpreter. This was especially the case when it came to accounts wherein vocabulary did not exist or was at least not settled, (...) and more importantly where scientific understanding was uncertain or altogether lacking, a situation that could only make the creation of semantic categories all the more significant. With this state of affairs in mind, this essay concentrates on Immanuel Kant’s work to develop a specialised racial vocabulary, and does so in a manner that reveals the importance of Buffon’s account of variation as a resource for Kant, even as Kant sought to position the new vocabulary as an improved template for transforming taxonomy or Naturbeschreibung into a genuine historical science or Naturgeschichte. (shrink)

My thanks to Anik Waldow and Charles Wolfe for their work in producing a volume celebrating our late dear friend Stephen Gaukroger (1950-2023): The Shaping of the Sciences: Essays in Honour of Stephen Gaukroger, edited by Charles Wolfe and Anik Waldow (Springer, 2024). This is my contribution, pp. 187-195 / ISBN: 978-3-031-76036-5 / eBook ISBN 978-3-031-76037-2.

Feelings associated with grief are regularly described as painful, but in what respect are they to be understood as pain? The acute pain of easily located tissue damage has long been the paradigm of pain in scientific and philosophical analysis, a dominance serving to obscure features the pain of grief might share not only with chronic pain but with some depressive suffering. Two examples of such commonalities are explored (ways pain feelings are experienced as in and of the body; and (...) are often recessed to the background of consciousness). These features are introduced to illustrate how a preliminary search for additional pain paradigms might proceed, and in so doing to offer some support for the proposal that pain endured as part of grieving may be real pain, not merely 'pain'. (shrink)

Feminist metaphysics is simultaneously feminist theorizing and metaphysics. Part of feminist metaphysics concerns social ontology and considers such questions as, What is the nature of social kinds, such as genders? Feminist metaphysicians also consider whether gendered perspectives influence metaphysical theorizing; for example, have approaches to the nature of the self or free will been conducted from a masculinist perspective, and would a feminist perspective yield different theories? Some feminist metaphysicians develop metaphysical theories with the aim of furthering certain social goals, (...) such as gender equality. Despite these and other intriguing research projects, feminist metaphysics faces challenges from two flanks: one might argue that "feminist metaphysics" is not metaphysics, or one might argue that it is not feminist. Recently, Elizabeth Barnes has made the case that, since contemporary accounts of the nature of metaphysics focus primarily on the fundamental, they have the problematic implication that feminist metaphysics is not, properly speaking, metaphysics. However, less emphasis has been paid, of late, to the idea that major strands of feminist thought also problematize feminist metaphysics. I will briefly assess the metaphysician's case against feminist metaphysics in Section 2 of this chapter. Then, in Section 3, I will examine in more detail possible feminist concerns over metaphysics. In Section 4, I sketch a different conception of metaphysics that avoids both mainstream and feminist challenges to feminist metaphysics. (shrink)

In his paper, in this journal, Sterelney claims that cases of extended mind are limiting cases of environmental scaffolding and that a niche construction model is a more helpful, general framework for understanding human action. He further claims that extended mind cases fit into a corner of a 3D space of environmental scaffolds of cognitive competence. He identifies three dimensions which determine where a resource fits into this space and suggests that extended mind models seem plausible when a resource is (...) highly reliable, individualised/entrenched and a single-user resource. Sterelney also claims that the most important cognition-enhancing resources are provided collectively by one generation to the next. In this paper, I argue that Sterelney is both right and wrong and this because he focuses primarily on external, physical resources and construes scaffolding as exclusively unidirectional and diachronic. Using examples of unfamiliar tool use, visual processing and human emotional ontogenesis, I argue, respectively, that extended mind cases include those which fail to meet Sterelney’s dimensional criteria; that the most important cognition—enhancing resources are those which actually build brains; that these are provided on a one-to-one basis in emotional ontogenesis; and, this depends on bidirectional and synchronic cognitive scaffolding. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a surge in popularity of the fair-trade industry, which seeks to improve trading conditions and to promote the rights of marginalized workers. Although research suggests that fair-trade products are perceived as promoting social and economic responsibility, some individuals—namely, those who seek to maintain existing group inequalities or those induced to think inequality is a good thing—may not share this perception. Across three studies, we found that SDO relates negatively to fair-trade consumption, and this relationship (...) is mediated by the tendency for high-SDO individuals to see fair-trade products as less compatible with their conception of social justice. Our findings held after controlling for related individual-differences variables, and regardless of whether SDO was measured or manipulated. Implications for how to maximize the likelihood that people will perceive fair-trade products as “fair” are discussed. (shrink)

Without proper recognition of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism that Asian Americans and other racial minorities in the United States are facing, we cannot successfully address structural b...

Environmental releases of gene edited (GEdOs) and gene drive organisms (GDOs) will likely occur under conditions of high uncertainty and in complex socioecological systems. Therefore, public deliberation is especially important to account for diverse interpretations of safety, risks, and benefits; to draw on experiential and public wisdom in areas of proposed release; to ameliorate dangers of technological optimism; and to increase the public legitimacy of decisions. Yet there is a “democratic deficit” in the United States' oversight system for GEdOs and (...) GDOs, as unconflicted experts, publics, and skeptical stakeholders are most often excluded from decision‐making and unavailable to critically examine potential risks and benefits or raise broader concerns about socioeconomic or cultural impacts. This article argues for the need to open up decision‐making for GEdOs and GDOs, discusses the challenges for doing so within the current oversight framework, and finally, proposes institutional, policy, and attitudinal changes that are likely important for overcoming barriers to public deliberation. (shrink)

Wherever philosophers disagree, one of the things at issue is likely to be what they disagree about, itself. In addition to asking whether moral realism is true, and which forms of moral realism are more likely to be true than others, we can also ask what it would mean for some form of moral realism to be true. The usual aspiration of such inquiry is to find definitions that all can agree on, so that we can use terms in a (...) uniform way. But we doubt that this aspiration is always possible, or even desirable. It will be our goal in this chapter to sketch out some of our reasons for such skepticism, and to lay out a picture of what philosophical inquiry can look like in metaethics and beyond, even when it is impossible to reach uniform agreement on the terms of the debate. (shrink)

Mental disorder (earlier entitled “illness” or “disease”) is ascribed to deviations from normal thoughts, reasoning, feelings, attitudes, and actions that are considered socially or personally dysfunctional and apt for treatment. Schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder are core examples. The concept of mental disorder plays a role in many domains, including medicine, social sciences such as psychology and anthropology, and the humanities, including literature and philosophy. Philosophical discussions are the primary focus of the present entry, which differs from the entry on (...) Philosophy of Psychiatry in noting several different approaches—not only those of the philosophy of science and mind, but also those arising from phenomenology and social theory. -/- Mental disorder is a widely contested concept and there are longstanding debates on whether disorders are biological or social in nature. Even uncontroversial disorders, such as those listed above, were not always regarded as disorders in the past (Porter 2002). Moreover, the status of mental disorder has frequently indicated ethical, as much as other deficiency (Irwin 2013). Such reminders direct our attention to contemporary medical psychiatry’s sometimes uncompromisingly neurobiological, and avowedly value-free “medical model”, with its incumbent analogies and assumptions, and to the general question of how the taxa of psychiatric classifications are to be viewed as objects of natural science. This model has received intensive philosophical scrutiny, including arguments that deny these conditions are deficiencies at all. Along with issues arising from cognitive psychology and the neurosciences, such foundational matters make up much of the following entry. Because of their focus on issues central to the philosophy of mind and ethics (e.g., the mind-body problem, moral responsibility, agency and identity), analyses of mental disorder have extensive implications for those fields. As clinical phenomena, they also reflect an inescapable, everyday, social reality, giving theoretical inquiries additionally urgent practical, moral, and legal implications. (shrink)

When faced with an ambiguous pronoun, comprehenders use both multimodal cues and linguistic cues to identify the antecedent. While research has shown that gestures facilitate language comprehension, improve reference tracking, and influence the interpretation of ambiguous pronouns, literature on reference resolution suggests that a wide set of linguistic constraints influences the successful resolution of ambiguous pronouns and that linguistic cues are more powerful than some multimodal cues. To address the outstanding question of the importance of gesture as a cue in (...) reference resolution relative to cues in the speech signal, we have previously investigated the comprehension of contrastive gestures that indexed abstract referents – in this case expressions of personal preference – and found that such gestures did facilitate the resolution of ambiguous statements of preference. In this study, we extend this work to investigate whether the effect of gesture on resolution is diminished when the gesture indexes a statement that is less likely to be interpreted as the correct referent. Participants watched videos in which a speaker contrasted two ideas that were either neutral or moral acceptable). A gesture to the left or right side co-occurred with speech expressing each position. In gesture-disambiguating trials, an ambiguous phrase was accompanied by a gesture to one side or the other. In gesture non-disambiguating trials, no third gesture occurred with the ambiguous phrase. Participants were more likely to choose the idea accompanied by gesture as the stimulus speaker’s preference. We found no effect of scenario type. Regardless of whether the linguistic cue expressed a view that was morally charged or neutral, observers used gesture to understand the speaker’s opinion. This finding contributes to our understanding of the strength and range of cues, both linguistic and multimodal, that listeners use to resolve ambiguous references. (shrink)

In this introduction to the edited volume, we briefly describe some of the current challenges faced by public mental health initiatives, at both the national and global level. We also include several general remarks on interdisciplinary methodology in public mental health ethics, followed by short descriptions of the chapters included in the volume.

I examine a passage from Heidegger’s 1922 overview of a proposed book on Aristotle wherein he addresses the importance of Aristotle’s treatment of accidental (sumbebēkos) causes in the Physics II.4-6. My analysis shows that this passage plays a key role within the account of Aristotle’s ontology presented in the overview insofar as it allows Heidegger to open up a new way of reading Aristotle, one that both diagnoses and pushes through the inheritance of being understood as technē in order to (...) retrieve originary insights about the movement of factical human life, world, and care. Rather than subordinate tuchē and automaton (chance) to the four ‘real’ causes they would remain merely incidental to or derivative of, Heidegger asks that we recognize the priority of praxis, whose archē unfolds as care toward and within a world of accidents. (shrink)