Indispensable for students of Beauvoir’s philosophy and existentialism, Vintges’s book will prove valuable as well in courses on ethics, postmodernism, and feminist theory." —Ethics "... a highly informative book." —Teaching ...

An effective theory in physics is one that is supposed to apply only at a given length scale; the framework of effective field theory describes a ‘tower’ of theories each applying at different length scales, where each ‘level’ up is a shorter-scale theory. Owing to subtlety regarding the use and necessity of EFTs, a conception of emergence defined in terms of reduction is irrelevant. I present a case for decoupling emergence and reduction in the philosophy of physics. This paper develops (...) a positive conception of emergence, based on the novelty and autonomy of the ‘levels’, by considering physical examples, involving critical phenomena, the renormalisation group, and symmetry breaking. This positive conception of emergence is related to underdetermination and universality, but, I argue, is preferable to other accounts of emergence in physics that rely on universality. (shrink)

This paper surveys recent work on moral expertise. Much of that work defends an asymmetry thesis according to which the cognitive deference to expertise that characterizes other areas of inquiry is out of place in morality. There are two reasons why you might think asymmetry holds. The problem might lie in the existence of expertise or in deferring to it. We argue that both types of arguments for asymmetry fail. They appear to be stronger than they are because of their (...) focus on moral expertise regarding all-in judgments about rightness. We reject this emphasis on all-in judgment in favor of an account of moral expertise as typically multi-stranded and domain limited. This account of moral expertise is better able to address the problem of how to identify those who have expertise. It also offers a more nuanced picture of the contrast between accepting a moral claim on one's own and accepting it on testimony. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Mary Astell's contributions to the history of feminism, noting her grounding in and departure from Cartesianism and its relation to women.

As a practicing life scientist, Descartes must have a theory of what it means to be a living being. In this paper, I provide an account of what his theoretical conception of living bodies must be. I then show that this conception might well run afoul of his rejection of final causal explanations in natural philosophy. Nonetheless, I show how Descartes might have made use of such explanations as merely hypothetical, even though he explicitly blocks this move. I conclude by (...) suggesting that there is no reason for him to have blocked the use of hypothetical final causes in this way. (shrink)

This 1994 book examines the development of the ideas of the new Austrian school from its beginnings in Vienna in the 1870s to the present. It focuses primarily in showing how the coherent theme that emerges from the thought of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Lachman, Israel Kirzner and a variety of new younger Austrians is an examination of the implications of time and ignorance for economic theory.

In this paper, we reflect upon shame and humiliation as threats to personal and professional integrity and moral agency within contemporary health care. A personal narrative, written by a nurse about a particular shift in a British National Health Service Accident and Emergency Department, is provided as a case study. This is critically reflected and commented upon in dialogue with insights into the nature of shame and humiliation. It is suggested that Accident and Emergency is a locus that is latently (...) prone to dynamics of shame and humiliation, a potential exacerbated within a culture subject to externally‐determined time targets that are enforced by a top‐down system of surveillance and management. The result is that nurses may lose their sense of professional competence and responsibility, moral agency, and integrity, to their own personal detriment, as well as to the detriment of patients with whom they work. Insofar as examining a small part of a whole may suggest insights into the operation and ethos of a very large system, this very particular case study narrative/reflection has some important implications and lessons for the wider organization and provision of health care in Britain and beyond. (shrink)

The practice of conducting research online is in its infancy. Consequently there is debate concerning the ethical implications of online data collection. We outline three approaches to online data collection and focus specifically on the issues of consent and anonymity of participants. We conclude that ethical issues raised when planning and implementing online data collection are no different to those raised by more traditional approaches to data collection.

“Reasonable hostility” is a norm of communicative conduct initially developed by studying public exchanges in education governance meetings in local U.S. communities. In this paper I consider the norm’s usefulness for and applicability to a U.S. state-level public hearing about a bill to legalize civil unions. Following an explication of reasonable hostility and grounded practical theory, the approach to inquiry that guides my work, I de-scribe Hawaii’s 2009, 18-hour pub-lic hearing and analyze selected segments of it. I show that this (...) par-ticular public hearing raised de-mands for testifiers on the anti-civil union side of the argument that rea-sonable hostility does not do a good job of addressing. Development of a norm of communication conduct for this practice, as well as others, must engage with the culture and time-specific beliefs that a society holds, beliefs that will shape not only how to argue but what may be argued and what must be assumed about particular categories of persons. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine similarities and divergences between Du Châtelet and Descartes on their endorsement of the use of hypotheses in science, using the work of Condillac to locate them in his scheme of systematizers. I conclude that, while Du Châtelet is still clearly a natural philosopher, as opposed to modern scientist, her conception of hypotheses is considerably more modern than is Descartes’, a difference that finds its roots in their divergence on the nature of first principles.

In ethical theory, different concepts of autonomy can be distinguished. In this article we explore how these concepts of autonomy are combined in theory in the citizenship paradigm, and how this turns out in the practice of care for people with acquired brain injury. The stories of a professional caregiver and a client with acquired brain injury show that the combination of various concepts of autonomy in practice leads to tensions between caregivers and clients. These dynamics are discussed from a (...) care ethics perspective, stressing the importance of relationships and interdependence, as well as paying attention to various, sometimes conflicting, perspectives in a deliberative dialogue. (shrink)

New media can change the way that artifacts are constructed and used. Changes in these artifacts, in turn, will be reflected in work practices and processes. This article draws on an empirical investigation of the impact of computer-based technologies on classical scholarship to discuss some of the ramifications that a switch in medium may have for work. The article defines both traditional and computer-based tools as "packages" that consist of artifacts, skill sets, data, beliefs about the work process, and organizational (...) infrastructures, and applies the package metaphor to understand the multiple levels of changes taking place within classics as the use of textual databanks becomes more prevalent. (shrink)

GILLETT K. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 297–307 A critical discourse analysis of British national newspaper representations of the academic level of nurse education: too clever for our own good?This critical discourse analysis examines articles about the academic level of nurse education that appeared in British national newspapers between 1999 and 2009. British newspaper journalists regularly attribute problems with recruitment into nursing and nursing care to the increasing academic nature of nurse education. It is impossible to separate discourse about nurse education (...) from the wider nursing discourse. Many journalists laud a traditional and stereotypical construct of nurse identity and suggest that increasing nurse education produces nurses who are ‘too clever to care’. This article argues that whilst nurses lack a voice in the National press, they have little input into the construction of newspaper discourse about nurse education and subsequently, limited influence on resulting public opinion, government policy and the morale of nurses. (shrink)

This chapter shows how Mary Astell and Margaret Cavendish can reasonably be understood as early feminists in three senses of the term. First, they are committed to the natural equality of men and women, and related, they are committed to equal opportunity of education for men and women. Second, they are committed to social structures that help women develop authentic selves and thus autonomy understood in one sense of the word. Third, they acknowledge the power of production relationships, especially friendships (...) among women, in cultivating fulfilling lives for women. All three forms of feminism promote greater liberty for women. Moreover, the chapter establishes that many of these conclusions are especially forceful given Cavendish’s use of the genre of literature, and given the method that literature allows, namely that of presenting alternate points of view. (shrink)

This research investigates gender differences in employer-sponsored medical insurance coverage among full-time male and female workers in the United States and assesses the relevance of human capital theory and its compensating differentials corollary in predicting coverage. Data are analyzed from a subsample of the Quality of Employment Survey, a national probability sample of workers in the United States. Results indicate that men were more likely to have medical insurance coverage from their employers than were women; however, gender differences were minimized (...) in a multivariate context when human capital and structural variables were controlled. Furthermore, human capital variables are, overall, weak predictors of whether both women and men received coverage. More generally, the data suggest that structural conditions of the occupation, rather than individual human capital, may be most relevant for future research. (shrink)

The authors in this edited volume reflect on their experiences with culturally relevant pedagogy-as students, as teachers, as researchers-and how these experiences were often at odds with their backgrounds and/or expectations.

In the 1930s, socialist economists used the assumptions of equilibrium theory to argue that a central planner could coordinate supply and demand from above. This argument led Hayek, over the years, to try to explain the limitations of equilibrium theory and, conversely, to explain how capitalism functioned without the assumptions of equilibrium being met. In a changing world of agents who are ignorant of the future, how is a functioning market “order” possible? One answer can be found in Hayek's argument (...) that evolved rules make people's future behavior more predictable and, more to the point, that they contain previously accumulated knowledge that provides the building blocks for future economic growth. Hayek's evolutionary theory was flawed, however, in failing to explain how people can know which rules are responsible for their success or failure so that they persist in using those rules and pass them forward in time. However, markets provide immediate feedback about success and failure through profits and losses. An evolutionary explanation of the economy would have permitted Hayek to dispense with the metaphor of general equilibrium, which was increasingly irrelevant to his understanding of economic order. (shrink)

In our dynamic social world, a premium is placed on the individual's ability to innovate and to change . Yet traditional role theory has difficulty accounting for innovation, leaving unanswered the question of how individual level negotiations affect social-structural processes . This study addresses this tension by linking role theory with social cognition. By positioning behavior and cognition as two interrelated continuums, I stretch the meaning of role enactment to include 4 role typologies. I utilize these typologies as a heuristic (...) to chart the processes through which individuals adapt to and affect a role performance over time. I conclude by outlining how sociocognitive role typologies aid social researchers in accounting for individual efficacy in response to social-structural situations. (shrink)

This study investigated the effect of gender stereotypes on evaluator judgments of unethical behavior. Subjects were working adults who completed a mailed survey in which they evaluated unethical behavior depicted in written scenarios. Sex of the transgressor in the scenarios was manipulated. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that there are no stable differences in evaluations of men and women across scenarios. These results suggest that evaluators do not hold different standards of ethical behavior for men and women, they do (...) not make different causal attributions for the behavior of men and women, nor do evaluators treat men and women differently when an ethical transgression has been committed. (shrink)

Why should all nurses and student nurses receive instruction in the subject of torture, its purpose, methods and sequelae on body and soul? One reason is because torture is an atrocity, the most perverted and disgusting act that exists. Some nurses meet torture survivors and their families in their private lives and at work. Many countries have ratified codes and declarations in relation to torture, and are therefore obliged to educate some professional groups in the subject. This article describes how (...) the subject 'Torture' is dealt with at the School of Nursing in Aalborg, Denmark. Aspects of how the course is planned, the placement of the subject, teaching objectives, content of the lessons, teaching methods and teaching materials are mentioned. This article also underlines why it is so important to educate student and qualified nurses about torture. The conclusion is that nurses can help to alleviate the effects of torture in a merciless and unfeeling world. (shrink)

Outside Waco, Texas, on 19 April 1993, a 51-day standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians concluded with a devastating fire. Despite the fact that FBI negotiators talked on the telephone with Koresh or his main spokesman almost every day, the negotiators were unable to bring the standoff to a peaceful end. A frustrating yet persistent aspect for the FBI negotiators was the Davidians' talk about the Bible and their religious beliefs, what agents (...) dismissively described as `Bible babble'. In this study, we analyze several exchanges between Koresh and one of the FBI agents. The analysis shows how the FBI's identifying their problem as `Bible babble' contributed to the negotiation failure. Through their talk, Koresh was positioned as a biblical expert and the FBI agent as a novice. The FBI's talk also supported Koresh's face. These two conversational patterns, we argue, legitimated God as a key party and Koresh as the person who could best speak for him. In the conclusion, we suggest how a renaming of the problem might have reshaped the FBI's moves. (shrink)

An important but unstudied event in US legal institutions is when judges question plaintiff and defense attorneys about the issue that brings them to an appeals hearing before a state supreme court. In this article I analyze judges' questioning during the oral argument phase of the New York Court of Appeals' hearing of Hernandez v. Robles, a case concerning whether the state was violating same-sex couples' constitutional rights by denying them access to marriage. The article's purpose is to show how (...) the content, format, and language style of judges' questioning turns constructs the judges as persons possessing particular attitudes, judicial philosophies, political leanings, and personalities. The article provides a quantitative overview of the 186 questioning turns and analyzes the discourse in selected episodes to evidence how features of questioning generate identity inferences. The conclusion considers how the oral argument phase of Appeals Court proceedings contributes to larger discourses of the law. (shrink)