Trust is pervasive in our lives. Both our simplest actions--like buying a coffee, or crossing the street--as well as the functions of large collective institutions--like those of corporations and nation states--wouldn't be possible without it. Yet, only in the last several decades has trust started to receive focused attention from philosophers as a specific topic of investigation. The Routledge Handbook of Trust and Philosophybrings together XX never before published essays, accessible for both students and researchers, created to cover the most (...) salient topics in the various theories of trust. The Handbookis broken up into four sections: a first on basic foundational and conceptual issues; a second on when trust is warranted; a third on the epistemology of trust; and a fourth on trust and science and technology. Each section is preceded by a short introduction, and each chapter includes a bibliography and cross-references to other entries in the volume. (shrink)

The role of olfaction in kin recognition and parental investment is documented in many mammalian/vertebrate species. Research on humans, however, has only focused on whether parents are able to recognize their children by smell, not whether humans use these cues for investment decisions. Here we show that fathers exhibit more affection and attachment and fewer ignoring behaviors toward children whose smell they can identify than toward those whose smell they cannot recognize. Thus, olfaction might serve as a means for males (...) to determine their genetic relatedness to purported offspring. We also demonstrate that mothers’ olfactory recognition and hedonistic ratings are linked with the use of physical punishment. Mothers report using more punishment with children whose odor they cannot recognize and less with children whose odor they rated as more pleasant. These results provide the first preliminary evidence in humans that olfactory cues may guide parents in the allocation of care. (shrink)

We describe delusional disorder–jealous type (“morbid jealousy”) with the adaptationist perspective used by Darwinian psychiatrists and evolutionary psychologists to explain the relatively common existence and continued prevalence of mental disorders. We then apply the “harmful dysfunction” analysis to morbid jealousy, including a discussion of this disorder as (1) an end on a continuum of normal jealousy or (2) a discrete entity. (Published Online November 9 2006).

In this book, the current debates on Plotinian ethics are being joined and new results are being examined for their relevance for the moral status of the artistic domain.

This paper reports a research project developed in partnership with the Principal and Leadership Team of an Australian secondary school. It monitored a school-based initiative designed to address the underachievement of male students. Students in Year 9 selected single-gender or coeducational classes in mathematics and English during the second half of a school year. Student scores in standardized tests and school-based assessment in these subjects were obtained before and after the establishment of the initiative. Results indicate no significant difference in (...) mathematics achievement that can be attributed to gender or class composition. However, scores in school-based English improved for students in single-gender classes. Improvement for girls in single-gender classes was greater than that for boys in single-gender classes. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy have jealousy mechanisms that are activated at lower thresholds than individuals with normal jealousy, but that these mechanisms produce behavior that is similar to individuals with normal jealousy. We extended previous research documenting these similarities by investigating sex differences in partner-directed violence committed by individuals diagnosed with morbid jealousy. The results support some of our predictions. For example, a greater percentage of men than women diagnosed with morbid jealousy used physical violence, (...) attempted to kill, and actually killed their partners, and used their hands rather than an object to kill their partners. These results replicate results generated for individuals with normal jealousy. Discussion addresses implications of the current research and highlights directions for future research on the psychology of morbid jealousy. (shrink)

Political action requires a concept of humanity grounded in an explicit notion of human nature. Feminists apprehensive about poststructuralism's implications for a feminist politics need methods and discourses that allow feminist politics to proceed toward a vision of human well-being. Recent work by Chris Weedon and Erica Sherover-Marcuse highlights the need for hypotheses that can guide efforts to dismantle oppressed habits of being and help women evaluate and develop political strategies for universal solidarity.

A narrow conception of who counts among the marginalized can blind ethicists to the precarious position of groups who function as middle agents between elites and the lower class. The imposition of middle agency on such groups is a form of oppression that leaves them vulnerable to abandonment and attack. In Rwanda, discourses emanating from colonialism, classism, and racism obscured the Tutsi as middle agents, despite white Catholics' dedication to the poor. By neglecting to recognize middle agency as a type (...) of marginalization, missionaries contributed negatively to the genocide. Liberatory practices are recommended so that ethicists can expose and challenge the dynamics of middle agency and include all the marginalized in liberation strategies. (shrink)

Domestic politics is naturally important in ethnic policies. However, in spite of their potency, domestic political factors are not always the most decisive. International organizations have influenced the Latvian and Estonian governments, and at times the Slovak and Romanian governments. However, the ability of different organizational strategies to overcome domestic opposition and thus bring about their desired policy varies widely. In most cases, actors need to use conditionality and aim it at the appropriate decision makers. In spite of their widespread (...) use, efforts that rely solely on persuasion and diplomacy tend only to work when the domestic opposition is initially quite low or when ethnic minorities themselves have some bargaining power in the government.The key policy implication is that domestic factors do not make failure, or success for that matter, a foregone conclusion. For example, ethnic minority representation within the government coalition is not in itself a guarantee of passage of the policy preferences of the minorities. Conversely, the presence of authoritarian-style leadership does not automatically mean a rejection ethnic minority accommodation either, if organizations present their suggestions so that such leaders view it as being in their greater interests to maintain power. Conditionality that targets incentives to fit goals of the leadership can work. External actors are thus not justified in backing off from action based purely on a domestic analysis. (shrink)

This book explores central issues of modern Russian religious thought by focusing on the work of Soloviev and three religious philosophers who further developed his ideas in the early twentieth century: P. A. Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, and ...

Judith Balso desarrolla en este artículo una visión orgánica de la heteronimia de Fernando Pessoa. En ella aspira a mostrar cómo la poesía afronta con sus propios recursos los desafíos y preguntas propios de la ontología. De ese modo Pessoa se coloca más allá de la tradicional separación entre filosofía y poesía propia de la metafísica occidental. Leer a Pessoa significa encarnar en la escritura las preguntas esenciales de lo humano: la cuestión de la existencia, la pregunta por el (...) ser y la nada, la relación del hombre con la Naturaleza, la interrogación del y por el lenguaje, la relación del hombre con los otros hombres. De ese modo se integran en su campo diversidad de inquietudes que van desde la gnoseología a la estética, de la ética a la literatura, del pensamiento de Dios y los dioses. La idea de Balso es que la crisis propia de la metafísica encuentra en Pessoa no sólo una resonancia sino posibles alternativas de renovación. Su ensayo invita a establecer una relación propositiva y carente de prevenciones entre poesía y filosofía. (shrink)

With the same intellectual courage with which she addressed issues of gender, Judith Butler turns her attention to speech and conduct in contemporary political life, looking at several efforts to target speech as conduct that has become subject to political debate and regulation. Reviewing hate speech regulations, anti-pornography arguments, and recent controversies about gay self-declaration in the military, Judith Butler asks whether and how language acts in each of these cultural sites.

Contains responses from social critic Judith Butler to essays on her work from across the social sciences, humanities, and behavioral sciences.

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_ represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does—or should—religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of (...) "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)