Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s award-winning 1985 novel, has been discovered and rediscovered by generations of science fiction fans, even being adopted as reading by the U.S. Marine Corps. Ender's Game and its sequels explore rich themes — the violence and cruelty of children, the role of empathy in war, and the balance of individual dignity and the social good — with compelling elements of a coming-of-age story. Ender’s Game and Philosophy brings together over 30 philosophers to engage in wide-ranging (...) discussion on issues such as: the justifiability of pre-emptive strikes; how Ender’s disconnected and dispassionate violence is mirrored in today’s drone warfare; whether the end of saving the species can justify the most brutal means; the justifiability of lies and deception in wartime, and how military schools produce training in virtue. The authors of Ender’s Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront the challenges that Ender’s Game presents, bringing new insights to the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, and the serious work of playing games. (shrink)

This book examines influential conceptions of sport and then analyses the interplay of challenging borderline cases with the standard definitions of sport. It is meant to inspire more thought and debate on just what sport is, how it relates to other activities and human endeavors, and what we can learn about ourselves by studying sport.

When we judge an action as morally right or wrong, we rely on our capacity to infer the actor's mental states. Here, we test the hypothesis that the right temporoparietal junction, an area involved in mental state reasoning, is necessary for making moral judgments. In two experiments, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt neural activity in the RTPJ transiently before moral judgment and during moral judgment. In both experiments, TMS to the RTPJ led participants to rely less on the (...) actor's mental states. A particularly striking effect occurred for attempted harms : Relative to TMS to a control site, TMS to the RTPJ caused participants to judge attempted harms as less morally forbidden and more morally permissible. Thus, interfering with activity in the RTPJ disrupts the capacity to use mental states in moral judgment, especially in the case of attempted harms. (shrink)

Universalistic claims about the nature of justice are presumed to require larger commitments from a global perspective than partialist claims. This essay departs from standard partialist accounts by anchoring partialist claims in a different account of the nature of responsibility. In contrast to substantive responsibility, which is akin to an obligation and derived from principles, relational responsibilities grow out of relationships and their complex intertwining. While such accounts of responsibility are less clear cut, they will prove in the long run (...) to be more valuable in thinking about global ethics. I illustrate this point by considering the moral issue surrounding abandoned relationships. The approach offered here—partiality that rests upon relational responsibilities—makes the responsibilities owed by those in higher income countries towards lower income countries much richer and more complex than is usually presumed. (shrink)

L'ambition de cet ouvrage est d'illustrer à la fois comment la philosophie conceptualise le conflit et comment elle s'efforce d'en résoudre les dangers inhérents. Plutôt que de proposer un aperçu purement abstrait de la notion de « conflit », l'ensemble des travaux se focalise sur la confrontation des philosophes à des problèmes historiques tels que la guerre, la dissension sociale, la tyrannie, ou encore le sport. -/- .

The emergence of AI is posing serious challenges to standard conceptions of moral status. New non-biological entities are able to act and make decisions rationally. The question arises, in this regard, as to whether AI systems possess or can possess the necessary properties to be morally considerable. In this chapter, we have undertaken a systematic analysis of the various debates that are taking place about the moral status of AI. First, we have discussed the possibility that AI systems, by virtue (...) of its new agential capabilities, can be understood as a moral agent. Discussions between those defending mentalist and anti-mentalist positions have revealed many nuances and particularly relevant theoretical aspects. Second, given that an AI system can hardly be an entity qualified to be responsible, we have delved into the responsibility gap and the different ways of understanding and addressing it. Third, we have provided an overview of the current and potential patientist capabilities that AI systems possess. This has led us to analyze the possibilities of AI possessing moral patiency. In addition, we have addressed the question of the moral and legal rights of AI. Finally, we have introduced the two most relevant authors of the relational turn on the moral status of AI, Mark Coeckelbergh and David Gunkel, who have been led to defend a relational approach to moral life as a result of the problems associated with the ontological understanding of moral status. (shrink)

In this paper, we shall consider the question of whether, in a context such as that of Spain that is, a context where a particular religion has been historically dominant, and within the boundaries of political liberalism, it is possible to find a reasonable argument in favour of what is termed positive laicism . In order to do so, we must first brie fly clarify what this type of laicism consists of. Below we shall explore some of the arguments which (...) could be used to defend it. We shall attempt to demonstrate that the majority of these arguments are lacking in some relevant aspect. The only defence of positive laicism that seems reasonable is one based on reasons of a politico-cultural nature which, in the context mentioned, mean that said positive laicism must be asymmetric. (shrink)

This title offers an ethical framework for end-of-life decision making in healthcare settings. Its objective is to foster and support ethically and legally sound clinical practice in end-of-life treatment and care in Ireland.

Deux constats sont à l'origine de ce livre. Le débat dans le monde académique autour du lien entre religions, sciences et espace public semble s'être fixé sur l'idée de 'post-sécularité'. Or, sous couvert de rendre les sociétés plus hospitalières aux religions, cette idée profite essentiellement à des courants politico-religieux absolutistes et fondamentalistes. Et la solide expertise francophone qui s'est développée sur le philosophe américain John Dewey (1859-1952) néglige trop souvent ses nombreux écrits consacrés à la critique des religions. Joan (...) Stavo-Debauge retrace donc la généalogie de l'idée de 'post-sécularité' et détaille les méfaits qu'elle peut masquer, comme les mobilisations contre l'avortement, les droits des personnes LGBT, l'expertise scientifique ou encore les politiques écologiques. Il s'appuie ensuite sur les écrits de John Dewey pour remettre au jour la pleine puissance de sa critique des religions fondée sur une pensée naturaliste et pragmatiste et la présenter comme un antidote efficace aux fondamentalismes religieux. (shrink)

The goal of our work has been to better understand how Engaged Philosophical Inquiry can be used with young children on topics related to our local forest environment as part our foundation curriculum on sustainability. Theoretically we draw on the work of Matthew Lipman ; Philosophy for Children ; Phillip Cam, ; John Dewey, ; Gunilla Dahlberg and Peter Moss to discuss democratic community building, and ethical pedagogical approaches related to EPI and young children. Working with children of this age (...) holistically on the topic of sustainability has not been systematically researched to date. Our findings therefore contribute to better understandings of EPI and: 1) democratic community building processes; 2) the use of context to focus our discussions; 3) group membership and group size; and 4) turn taking and the role of the moderator. (shrink)

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision not only upended constitutional protections for abortion in the United States but also bolstered legislative and cultural int...

Virtual Futures explores the ideas that the future lies in its ability to articulate the consequences of an increasingly synthetic and virtual world. New technologies like cyberspace, the internet, and Chaos theory are often discussed in the context of technology and its potential to liberate or in terms of technophobia. This collection examines both these ideas while also charting a new and controversial route through contemporary discourses on technology; a path that discusses the material evolution and the erotic relation between (...) humans and machines. Virtual Futures brings together diverse fields such as cyberfeminism, materialist philosophy, postmodern fiction, computing culture and performance art, with essays by Sadie Plant, Stelarc and Manuel de Landa (to name a few). The collection heralds the death of humanism and the ride of posthuman pragmatism. The contested zone of debate throughout these essays is the notion of the posthuman, or the possibility of the cyborg as the free human. Viewed by some writers as a threat to human life and humanism itself, others in the collection describe the posthuman as a critical perspective that anticipates the next step in evolution: the integration or synthesis of humans and machines, organic life and technology. This view of technology and information is heavily influenced by Anglo American literature, especially cyberpunk, Pynchon and Ballard, as well as the materialist philosophies of Freud, Deleuze, and Haraway, Virtual Futures provides analyses by both established theorists and the most innovative new voices working in conjunction between the arts and contemporary technology. (shrink)

In this paper we trace the historical exclusion of women from the legal profession in Canada. We examine women’s efforts to gain entry to law practice and their progress through the last century. The battle to gain entry to this exclusive profession took place on many fronts: in the courts, government legislature, public debate and media, and behind the closed doors of the law societies. After formal barriers to entry were dismantled, women continued to confront formidable barriers through overt and (...) subtler forms of discrimination and exclusion. Today’s legal profession in Canada is a contested one. Women have succeeded with large enrolments in law schools and growing representation in the profession. However, women remain on the margins of power and privilege in law practice. Our analysis of contemporary official data on the Canadian legal profession demonstrates that women are under-represented in private practice, have reduced chances for promotion, and are excluded from higher echelons of authority, remuneration, and status in the profession. Yet, the contemporary picture of the legal profession also reveals that women are having an important impact on the profession of law in Canada by introducing policy reforms aimed at creating a more humane legal profession. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the topic of “soft skills” as an intrinsic part of successful leadership. The first part of the paper presents a literature review about the shift in perspective in recent years on what matters in leadership, and the significant changes this prompted in some areas of education and corporate recruitment. In the second part, the findings of a year round study conducted among Los Angeles based workforce members in an MBA program are presented. By utilizing a multi-method (...) approach, consisting of a survey model with three open ended, interview style questions, and data analysis in phenomenological trend, a number of interesting findings emerged, supporting the literature reviewed, that soft leadership skills, such as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, are steadily on the rise, and that greater attention should be apportioned to strengthen these skills in future leaders. (shrink)

Not only can the influence of Gottlob Frege be found in contemporary work in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of language, but his projects—and the very terminology he employed in pursuing those projects—are still current in contemporary philosophy. This is undoubtedly why it seems so reasonable to assume that we can read Frege' s writings as if he were one of us, speaking to our philosophical concerns in our language. In Joan Weiner's view, however, Frege's words (...) can be accurately interpreted only if we set that assumption aside. Weiner here offers a challenging new approach to the philosophy of this central figure in analytic philosophy. Weiner finds in Frege's corpus, from Begriffsschrift on, a unified project of remarkable ambition to which each of the writings in that corpus makes a distinct contribution—a project whose motivation she brings to life through a careful reading of his Foundations of Arithmetic. The Frege that Weiner brings into clear view is very different from the familiar figure. Far from having originated one of the standard positions on the nature of reference, Frege turns out not to have had positive doctrines on anything like what contemporary philosophers mean by "reference." Far from having served as a standard-bearer for those who take the realists' side of contemporary disputes with anti-realists, Frege turns out to have had no stake in either side of the controversy. Through Weiner's lens, Frege emerges as a thinker who has principled reasons for challenging the very assumptions and motivations that animate philosophers to dispute these doctrines. This lucidly written and accessible book will generate controversy among all readers with an interest in epistemology, philosophy of language, history of philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Scott shows that the gender equality invoked today as a fundamental principle was not originally associated with the term "secularism" when it first entered the nineteenth century. The inequality of the sexes was fundamental to the articulation of the separation of church and state that inaugurated Western modernity. Western nation-states imposed a new order of women's subordination, assigning them to a feminized familial sphere meant to complement the rational masculine realms of politics and economics. It was not until the question (...) of Islam arose in the late twentieth century that gender equality became a primary feature of the discourse of secularism. (shrink)

It may be the case that the most challenging moral problem of the twenty‐first century will be the relationship between the individual moral agent and the practices and institutions in which the moral agent is embedded. In this paper, we continue the efforts that one of us, Joan Liaschenko, first called for in 1993, that of using feminist ethics as a lens for viewing the relationship between individual nurses as moral agents and the highly complex institutions in which they (...) do the work of nursing. Feminist ethics, with its emphasis on the inextricable relationship between ethics and politics, provides a useful lens to understand the work of nurses in context. Using Margaret Urban Walker's and Hilde Lindemann's concepts of identity, relationships, values, and moral agency, we argue that health care institutions can be moral communities and profoundly affect the work and identity and, therefore, the moral agency of all who work within those structures, including nurses. Nurses are not only shaped by these organizations but also have the power to shape them. Because moral agency is intimately connected to one's identity, moral identity work is essential for nurses to exercise their moral agency and to foster moral community in health care organizations. We first provide a brief history of nursing's morally problematic relationship with institutions and examine the impact institutional master narratives and corporatism exert today on nurses’ moral identities and agency. We close by emphasizing the significance of ongoing dialogue in creating and sustaining moral communities, repairing moral identities, and strengthening moral agency. (shrink)

The best framework for moral and political thought is the one that creates the best climate for good political judgments. I argue that universalistic theories of justice fall short in this regard because they cannot distinguish idealization from abstraction. After describing how an ethic of care guides judgments, I suggest the practical effects that make this approach preferable. The ethic of care includes more aspects of human life in making political judgments.

This study considers the potential for influencing business students to become ethical managers by directing their undergraduate learning environment. In particular, the relationship between business students’ academic cheating, as a predictor of workplace ethical behavior, and their approaches to learning is explored. The three approaches to learning identified from the students’ approaches to learning literature are deep approach, represented by an intrinsic interest in and a desire to understand the subject, surface approach, characterized by rote learning and memorization without understanding, (...) and strategic approach, associated with competitive students whose motivation is the achievement of good grades by adopting either a surface or deep approach. Consistent with the hypothesized theoretical model, structural equation modeling revealed that the surface approach is associated with higher levels of cheating, while the deep approach is related to lower levels. The strategic approach was also associated with less cheating and had a statistically stronger influence than the deep approach. Further, a significantly positive relationship reported between deep and strategic approaches suggests that cheating is reduced when deep and strategic approaches are paired. These findings suggest that future managers and business executives can be influenced to behave more ethically in the workplace by directing their learning approaches. It is hoped that the evidence presented may encourage those involved in the design of business programs to implement educational strategies which optimize students’ approaches to learning towards deep and strategic characteristics, thereby equipping tomorrow’s managers and business executives with skills to recognize and respond appropriately to workplace ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

Holobionts, consisting of a host and diverse microbial symbionts, function as distinct biological entities anatomically, metabolically, immunologically, and developmentally. Symbionts can be transmitted from parent to offspring by a variety of vertical and horizontal methods. Holobionts can be considered levels of selection in evolution because they are well-defined interactors, replicators/reproducers, and manifestors of adaptation. An initial mathematical model is presented to help understand how holobionts evolve. The model offered combines the processes of horizontal symbiont transfer, within-host symbiont proliferation, vertical symbiont (...) transmission, and holobiont selection. The model offers equations for the population dynamics and evolution of holobionts whose hologenomes differ in gene copy number, not in allelic or loci identity. The model may readily be extended to include variation among holobionts in the gene identities of both symbionts and host. (shrink)

Standard accounts on the nature of the firm are highly dependent on explanations by Coase, coupled with inputs from agency theory and shareholder theory. This paper carries out their critique in light of personalist and common good postulates. It shows how personalist and common good principles create a framework that not only accommodates business ethics better but also affords a more compelling understanding of business as a whole.

This text is the first Polish translation of Joan Riviere’s renowned article Womanliness as a Masquerade, first published in 1929 in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. The title of the work refers to the dreams of a patient whose story Riviere recounts in the article. In her dreams, figures appear wearing masks to avoid disaster and harm. The titular “womanliness,” according to Riviere, is akin to such a mask—adopted to conceal masculinity and prevent retribution should its presence be revealed. (...) Riviere posits that women desiring masculinity might don a “mask of womanliness” to evade anxiety and potential punishment from men. The text is particularly significant as it blurs the boundary between what could be considered authentic womanliness and masquerade. Riviere further argues that both masquerade and womanliness serve as defensive mechanisms to protect against anxiety and should not be seen as primary forms of sexual enjoyment. This work has resonated profoundly within psychoanalytic and philosophical circles. It influenced Jacques Lacan—both in his early and later teachings—regarding femininity and its connections to castration and the phallus. Sixty years after its publication, the article became a cornerstone of third-wave feminist thought, inspiring scholars like Judith Butler and her poststructuralist perspective on gender performativity. Today, the text continues to be a critical reference not only in feminist, queer, and gender studies but also for philosophical and psychoanalytic inquiries. Thinkers like Alenka Zupančič, exploring the philosophical dimensions of sex, frequently draw upon Riviere's analyses, even when critically engaging with them. (shrink)

Recent events around the globe reflect the tensions and ethical dilemmas of the postmodern, postcolonial and neocolonial world that have far reaching implications for health, well-being, and human suffering. As we consider what is at stake, and what this means for local lives and human relationships, we need to examine whether the theories we draw on are adequate to further our understanding of health, and the social and material conditions of human suffering. In this paper I begin to explore the (...) question, ‘Can postcolonial feminist theories provide an inclusive scholarship that would further our understanding of human suffering and open up a path to healing?’ At issue here is whether this scholarship adds another dimension to a praxis-oriented nursing science. (shrink)

Frege begins Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, the work that introduces the project which was to occupy him for most of his professional career, with the question, 'What is the number one?' It is a question to which even mathematicians, he says, have no satisfactory answer. And given this scandalous situation, he adds, there is small hope that we shall be able to say what number is. Frege intends to rectify the situation by providing definitions of the number one and the (...) concept of number. But what, exactly, is required of a definition? Surely it will not do to stipulate that the number one is Julius Caesar - that would change the subject. It seems reasonable to suppose that an acceptable definition must be a true statement containing a description that picks out the object to which the numeral '1' already refers. And, similarly, that an acceptable definition of the concept of number must contain a description that picks out precisely those objects that are numbers - those objects to which our numerals refer. Yet, while Frege writes a great deal about what criteria his definitions must satisfy, the above criteria are not among those he mentions. Nor does he attempt to convince us that his definitions of '1' and the other numerals are correct by arguing that these definitions pick out objects to which these numerals have always referred. Yet, while Frege writes a great deal about what criteria his definitions must satisfy, the above criteria are not among those he mentions. Nor does he attempt to convince us that his definitions of ‘1’ and the other numerals are correct by arguing that these definitions pick out objects to which these numerals have always referred. There is, as we shall see shortly, a great deal of evidence that Frege’s definitions are not intended to pick out objects to which our numerals already refer. But if this is so, how can these definitions teach us anything about our science of arithmetic? And what criteria must these definitions satisfy? To answer these questions, we need to understand what it is that Frege thinks we need to learn about the science of arithmetic. (shrink)

The Question of the Self Perhaps the clearest access to the question of the self in Dogen lies in the fascicle of Shobogenzo entitled "Genjo-koan. ...

In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work.jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational (...) thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodied organizational structures and work relations is part of the larger strategy of control in industrial capitalist societies, which, at least partly, are built upon a deeply embedded substructure of gender difference. (shrink)

This volume explores facets of Nietzsche relatively untouched by the majority of the vast literature on him.

__Winner of the 2013 Sigourney Award!__ Psychoanalysis seen through Bion's eyes is a radical departure from all conceptualizations which preceded him. In this major contribution to the series _Makers of Modern Psychotherapy_, Joan and Neville Symington concentrate on understanding Bion's concepts in relation to clinical practice, but their book is also accessible to the educated reader who wishes to understand the main contours of Bion's thinking. Rather than following the chronological development of Bion's ideas, each chapter looks in depth (...) at an important theme in his thinking and describes how this contributes to his revolutionary model of the mind. (shrink)