The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

This paper explores how the "environmental turn" for the last 25 years has been shaping remembrance of the destruction of Europe's Jewish populations. I argue that climate change is not just one more catastrophe to pass into the broad analogical field of the Holocaust. In fact, international Holocaust consciousness and understandings of what we now call the Anthropocene have long been intertwined and mutually constitutive. The paper starts in the 1990s with acclaimed writers Anne Michaels and W.G. Sebald, who (...) sought to recast the Holocaust's significance to modernity against a long backdrop of geologic time. Their memorial fiction, which grounds the history of the Holocaust in the eroding landscapes of Europe, reflects a growing and urgent global concern for the vulnerability of the environment and a sense of man's responsibility for preserving human and biological life. The paper then moves through more contemporary examples of the sublimation of Holocaust memory in discourse about global warming—evident in terms like "climate change denial" and calls to "bear witness" to mass extinction events. For better or worse, journalists and scholars who write about environmental activism frequently call on memory of World War II and genocide in order to redefine what constitutes "grievable life." Example authors include historian Timothy Snyder, who has predicted that climate change may lead to new genocidal wars over Lebensraum ; scientist James Lovelock, who has urged nation states to consider how to limit the coming influx of climate refugees; theorist Bruno Latour, who has argued, via Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt, that we must "name our enemies" in the new climate wars; and essayist Ari Brostoff who has attempted to think climate catastrophe through Walter Benjamin's meditations on the angel of history. The implicit question in all of their work is this: What histories and philosophical traditions can help us redefine humanity's entangled relationship to nature in order to take political responsibility for saving life on Earth? In other words, the Anthropocene requires "a usable past"—but what will that usable past be? (shrink)

This study compares two autobiographical descriptions of illness – the seventeenth-century John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and the twentieth-century Cornelius and Kathryn Ryan's A Private Battle . I begin by identifying the basic structure in both narratives as parallel to that of the case history, and then show how each individual's experience is shaped by the conditions of illness appropriate to their respective cultures. Lastly, I discuss the way in which both authors understand and represent sickness, as well (...) as their respective therapies, in terms of a particular metaphoric construct: for Donne, it is the analogy between illness of the body and illness of the soul; for Ryan it is the analogy between Ulness and war. The stance of each towards his illness is conditioned by this metaphoric model: Donne's is one of acceptance, of conforming to the will of God; Ryan's is one of resistance, of fighting heroically until the very end. Thus these metaphors are functional as well as aesthetic: they serve as figural modalities whereby the patient/author hopes to transcend his illness. Keywords: illness, patients, autobiography CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

A range of themes—race and gender, sexuality, otherness, sisterhood, and agency—run throughout this collection, and the chapters constitute a collective discourse at the intersection of Black feminist thought and continental philosophy, converging on a similar set of questions and concerns. These convergences are not random or forced, but are in many ways natural and necessary: the same issues of agency, identity, alienation, and power inevitably are addressed by both camps. Never before has a group of scholars worked together to examine (...) the resources these two traditions can offer one another. By bringing the relationship between these two critical fields of thought to the forefront, the book will encourage scholars to engage in new dialogues about how each can inform the other. If contemporary philosophy is troubled by the fact that it can be too limited, too closed, too white, too male, then this groundbreaking book confronts and challenges these problems. -/- Table of Contents -/- Foreword Beverly Guy-Sheftall Acknowledgments Introduction: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 1. Black Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Contested Character of Experience Diane Perpich -/- 2. Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy Kathryn T. Gines -/- 3. The Difference That Difference Makes: Black Feminism and Philosophy Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 4. Antigone’s Other Legacy: Slavery and Colonialism in Tègònni: An African Antigone Tina Chanter -/- 5. L Is for . . . : Longing and Becoming in The L-Word’s Racialized Erotic Aimee Carrillo Rowe -/- 6. Race and Feminist Standpoint Theory Anika Maaza Mann -/- 7. Rethinking Black Feminist Subjectivity: Ann duCille and Gilles Deleuze Maria del Guadalupe Davidson -/- 8. From Receptivity to Transformation: On the Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Aesthetic in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Robin M. James -/- 9. Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women Traci C. West -/- 10. Madness and Judiciousness: A Phenomenological Reading of a Black Woman’s Encounter with a Saleschild Emily S. Lee -/- 11. Black American Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis: Reading Patricia Hill Collins with Michel Foucault Camisha Russell -/- 12. Calling All Sisters: Continental Philosophy and Black Feminist Thinkers Kathy Glass -/- Afterword: Philosophy and the Other of the Second Sex George Yancy Contributor Notes Index. (shrink)

Religious texts and historical narratives are instrumental in defining appropriate emotions and moral reasoning in a culture. In the Bhagavad Gītā, the warrior Arjuna is faced with a twofold dilemma: are his emotions appropriate and should emotions influence his actions? The Gītā is thought to be a redacted text with three primary layers: the original verses, the Sāmkhya/Yoga layer, and the devotional bhakti layer. Cross-cultural psychological theories of emotions are employed to analyze the layers of the Gītā. It is argued (...) that each of the three layers corresponds with one of three possible moral codes as proposed by R. A. Shweder and his colleagues (1997; 2000): the Ethic of Autonomy (promoting personal well-being and avoiding shame); the Ethic of Community (maintaining social order and emotional detachment); and the Ethic of Divinity (upholding cosmic order and endorsing emotional devotion). These three perspectives remain relevant for deciding emotionally laden moral dilemmas today. (shrink)

This edited collection provides a comprehensive, global, invitational, and accessible overview of contemporary issues in the field of philosophy of education. It includes a wide range topics, ideas, and diverse perspectives from around the world. Each chapter is an in-depth exploration of a philosophic topic or issue relevant to teaching, education, pedagogy, and/or schooling. Authors include well-known and emerging scholars who write in invitational ways to a non-specialist audience. Taken together, the chapter authors illuminate the kinds of questions that philosophers (...) ask about education and schooling, and the tools and resources they bring to bear on these questions. They show the ways in which educational philosophers uncover fundamental assumptions, describe relationships among ideas, analyze concepts, unpack taken-for-granted claims, connect disparate viewpoints, identify the validity and consistency of claims, unsettle commonsense, propose hypothetical experiments, provide critical commentary on ideas, render givens as contingent, explore the interactions of ideas and experience, and offer alternative possibilities. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 116-118.

Existing accounts of meaning in reproductive contexts, especially those put forward in debates concerning abortion, tend to focus on the (moral) status of the fetus. This issue on miscarriage, pregnancy loss, and fetal death accomplishes a shift this conversation, in the direction of pushing past embryo-centric value judgments. To put it bluntly, the miscarried embryo is not the one who has to live with the experience. The essays in this special issue are a significant addition to the scarce literature on (...) miscarriage and fetal death. Contributions are from specialists in continental and analytical philosophy, feminism, bioethics, theoretical and applied ethics, social and political philosophy, social epistemology and philosophy of language, narrative, aesthetics, popular culture, and gender studies. As guest editors, we sought to offer a variety of approaches to the topic, to further the understanding of miscarriage and fetal death as important to many areas of philosophy, especially social philosophy. We suggest that the unchosenness and invisibility of miscarriage are central to its seeming irrelevance to social identities and social norms of testimony, recognition, and ascription of significance to experiences. (shrink)

Canadians take pride in being good citizens of the world, yet our failure to meet global commitments raises questions. Do Canadians need to transcend national loyalties to become full global citizens? Is the idea of rooted cosmopolitanism simply a myth that encourages complacency about Canada's place in the world? This volume assesses rooted cosmopolitanism both in theory and practice. By exploring how Canadians are accommodating "the world" in areas such as multiculturalism, climate change, and humanitarian intervention, the contributors test the (...) possibility of reconciling national allegiances with commitments to human rights, global justice, and international law. (shrink)

Digital communication between a patient and their clinician offers the potential for improved patient care, particularly for young people with long term conditions who are at risk of service disengagement. However, its use raises a number of ethical questions which have not been explored in empirical studies. The objective of this study was to examine, from the patient and clinician perspective, the ethical implications of the use of digital clinical communication in the context of young people living with long-term conditions. (...) A total of 129 semi-structured interviews, 59 with young people and 70 with healthcare professionals, from 20 United Kingdom -based specialist clinics were conducted as part of the LYNC study. Transcripts from five sites were read by a core team to identify explicit and implicit ethical issues and develop descriptive ethical codes. Our subsequent thematic analysis was developed iteratively with reference to professional and ethical norms. Clinician participants saw digital clinical communication as potentially increasing patient empowerment and autonomy; improving trust between patient and healthcare professional; and reducing harm because of rapid access to clinical advice. However, they also described ethical challenges, including: difficulty with defining and maintaining boundaries of confidentiality; uncertainty regarding the level of consent required; and blurring of the limits of a clinician’s duty of care when unlimited access is possible. Paradoxically, the use of digital clinical communication can create dependence rather than promote autonomy in some patients. Patient participants varied in their understanding of, and concern about, confidentiality in the context of digital communication. An overarching theme emerging from the data was a shifting of the boundaries of the patient-clinician relationship and the professional duty of care in the context of use of clinical digital communication. The ethical implications of clinical digital communication are complex and go beyond concerns about confidentiality and consent. Any development of this form of communication should consider its impact on the patient-clinician-relationship, and include appropriate safeguards to ensure that professional ethical obligations are adhered to. (shrink)

Does asking about trauma history create participant distress? If so, how does it compare with reactions to other personal questions? Do participants consider trauma questions important compared to other personal questions? Using 2 undergraduate samples (Ns = 240 and 277), the authors compared participants' reactions to trauma questions with their reactions to other possibly invasive questions through a self-report survey. Trauma questions caused relatively minimal distress and were perceived as having greater importance and greater cost-benefit ratings compared to other kinds (...) of psychological research in an undergraduate human subjects pool population. These findings suggest that at least some kinds of trauma research appear to pose minimal risk when compared to other minimal risk research topics, and that participants recognize the importance of research about trauma. (shrink)

Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to communicate about (...) antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

Working memory is the system responsible for maintaining and manipulating information, in the face of ongoing distraction. In turn, WM span is perceived to be an individual-differences construct reflecting the limited capacity of this system. Recently, however, there has been some evidence to suggest that WM capacity can increase through training, raising the possibility that training can functionally alter the neural structures supporting WM. To address the hypothesis that the neural substrates underlying WM are targeted by training, we conducted a (...) meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of WM training using Activation Likelihood Estimation. Our results demonstrate that WM training is associated exclusively with decreases in blood oxygenation level-dependent responses in clusters within the fronto-parietal system that underlie WM, including the bilateral inferior parietal lobule, middle and superior frontal gyri, and medial frontal gyrus bordering on the cingulate gyrus. We discuss the various psychological and physiological mechanisms that could be responsible for the observed reductions in the BOLD signal in relation to WM training, and consider their implications for the construct of WM span as a limited resource. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

The unique mix of modern Western and traditional Confucian values in Singapore presents young people with contradictory views on duties to aging parents. It remains to be seen whether the changing demands of modern life will result in new generations giving up Confucian family ethics or whether the Confucian dynamic will find a way to adapt to the new pressures. It is the opinion of this author that the Confucian family structure has mixed potential for the growing crisis of elder (...) care. Alone, both Confucian traditions and typical Western institutional approaches toward elder care fall short of what is necessary for intergenerational social justice, yet a hybrid of the two has great potential for the growing aging crisis. To demonstrate this, I first give a brief account of the history of filial piety in Confucianism as well as the social environment from which it originated. Then I turn my attention to the present issues of an aging population and elder care that face much of the developed world in the twenty-first century. Finally, I show how adherence to Confucian filial traditions can both help to address many of these issues and how it can potentially leave unjust gaps in elder care. Ultimately, I conclude that the crisis of elder care may be best dealt with through a hybrid of Confucian values and Western approaches. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants provide a range of services in hospital settings and in teaching environments. Training to achieve the skills needed to meet the expectations of employers comes in various forms, ranging from on-the-job training to formal fellowship training programs. We surveyed graduates of clinical ethics fellowships to evaluate their self-reported preparedness for their first job after fellowship training. The results indicated several areas of need, including greater exposure to program-building skills, quality improvement skills, and approaches to working with members (...) of higher administration. These data will be of use to educators as well as to fellows who advocate for elements of training in preparation for their first position. (shrink)

This article explores the fit between the lived reality in entrepreneurial organizations and the Buddhist concept of the bodhisattva in order to see whether the juxtaposition of these two very different realities can shed light on the impact of spiritual values in the workplace. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with an array of entrepreneurs who have been practising Buddhists for over three years to see whether they were using core elements of this concept in their daily work and, if so, how (...) they experienced the value and impact of these notions. The interviews showed that it was very much a part of the participants’ daily work lives and seems to be a force in creating a happier, more nourishing work environment. All participants brought up the notion unasked and provided stories describing how their relationships at work were influenced by this and other fundamental aspects of their spiritual practice. The data have implications at the levels of both individual action and societal change. Buddhism has shown a strong ability to retain its core concepts while developing new practices as it moved from one culture to another over the centuries. Perhaps Western societies will prove to be as conducive an environment for the further evolution of Buddhist teachings as was eighth-century Tibet. As Tibet's unique form of aliveness was infused into Buddhism without changing the core constructs or values, perhaps what is alive about Western culture (such as entrepreneurialism) will nourish analogous new forms. (shrink)

Building upon Thornton's (1991) work on teachers as “curricular-instructional gatekeepers,” the author explores what guided the curricular decision-making for one novice teacher concerning controversial issues that center on race, social class, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues. Qualitative case study revealed context, student demographics, and teacher positionality as influencing this teacher's choices regarding these themes in her curriculum. Findings indicated that this teacher was willing and able to challenge racist views in her classroom when she was a student (...) teacher and her students more closely mirrored her own race and social class. When she was a full-time teacher of students who were of a different racial and class background, she was unable to similarly challenge their homophobic beliefs. Implications for teacher education are discussed. (shrink)

It is argued that the question of whether or not one is required to be or become a strict vegetarian depends, not upon a rule or ideal that endorses vegetarianism on moral grounds, but rather upon whether one's own physical, biological nature is adapted to maintaining health and well-being on a vegetarian diet. Even if we accept the view that animals have rights, we still have no duty to make ourselves substantially worse off for the sake of other rights-holders. Moreover, (...) duties to others, such as fetuses and infants, may require one to consume meat or animal products. Seven classes of individuals who are not required to be or become vegetarians are identified and their examption is related to nutritional facts; these classes comprise most of the earth's population. The rule of vegetarianism defines a special or provisional duty rather than any general or universal rule, since its observance it based upon the biological capacities of individual humans whose genetic constitution and environment makes them suitably herbivorous. It is also argued that generalizing the vegetarian ideal as a social goal for all would be wrongful because it fails to consider the individual nutritional needs of humans at various stages of life, according to biological differences between the sexes, and because it would have the eugenic effect of limiting the adaptability of the human species. The appeal to the natural interests of omnivores will not justify any claim that humans may eat amounts of meat or animal products in excess of a reasonable safety margin since animals have rights-claims against us. (shrink)

The Institute of Medicine reporting on the quality of health care in America recommends six aims for achieving the health care system we could have. Together with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim initiative, a framework has emerged to challenge providers, educators, and policymakers to remake the health care system according to specific objectives: to provide care that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable to more people at a price we can afford. Complicating this mission of better (...) prevention and better care at a lower cost is a daunting demographic: January of 2011 marked the month and year that the first of the baby boomers turned 65. The U.S. Census Bureau in May 2010 projected the number of Americans of this age and over to reach 88 million by 2050, more than double the current figure of 40.2 million. Parekh and Barton forecast in stark detail what it will be like to address these burgeoning numbers of older Americans with comorbidities, including the fact that over 20% of the population currently experiences at least two chronic medical conditions. (shrink)

From whence spring the sparks of creativity? It is to this very question that the field of depth psychology--especially that of C.G. Jung and his intellectual descendants--has much to contribute. Just as the Muses were the offspring of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, our memories are the ancestors of our creativity that finds its multifaceted expression in the written word, image, theater, dance, and music. The Unconscious Roots of Creativity seeks to push the investigation into that domain of memory that (...) is beyond our conscious reach. With articles from 16 contributors, the "red thread" running through each of the offerings in this volume is that, whatever its ultimate expression, the creative impulse has its roots deep in the psyche. Edited By Kathryn Madden, Leonard Cruz and Steven Buser with articles by Linda Carter, Anna Maria Costantino, Carol Thayer Cox, Leonard Cruz, Lisa Raye Garlock, James Hollis, Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Ian Livingston, Kathryn Madden, Jordan S. Potash, Susan Rowland, Murray Stein, Ann Ulanov, Tjeu van den Berk, Robin van Loben Sels, and Heidi S. Volf. (shrink)

There is conflicting experimental evidence about whether the “stakes” or importance of being wrong affect judgments about whether a subject knows a proposition. To date, judgments about stakes effects on knowledge have been investigated using binary paradigms: responses to “low” stakes cases are compared with responses to “high stakes” cases. However, stakes or importance are not binary properties—they are scalar: whether a situation is “high” or “low” stakes is a matter of degree. So far, no experimental work has investigated the (...) scalar nature of stakes effects on knowledge: do stakes effects increase as the stakes get higher? Do stakes effects only appear once a certain threshold of stakes has been crossed? Does the effect plateau at a certain point? To address these questions, we conducted experiments that probe for the scalarity of stakes effects using several experimental approaches. We found evidence of scalar stakes effects using an “evidence seeking” experimental design, but no evidence of scalar effects using a traditional “evidence-fixed” experimental design. In addition, using the evidence-seeking design, we uncovered a large, but previously unnoticed framing effect on whether participants are skeptical about whether someone can know something, no matter how much evidence they have. The rate of skeptical responses and the rate at which participants were willing to attribute “lazy knowledge”—that someone can know something without having to check—were themselves subject to a stakes effect: participants were more skeptical when the stakes were higher, and more prone to attribute lazy knowledge when the stakes were lower. We argue that the novel skeptical stakes effect provides resources to respond to criticisms of the evidence-seeking approach that argue that it does not target knowledge. (shrink)

In this anthology of new and classic articles, fifteen noted feminist philosophers explore contemporary ethical issues that uniquely affect the lives of women. These issues in applied ethics include autonomy, responsibility, sexual harassment, women in the military, new technologies for reproduction, surrogate motherhood, pornography, abortion, nonfeminist women and others. Whether generated by old social standards or intensified by recent technology, these dilemmas all pose persistent, 'nagging,' questions that cry out for answers.

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence.

Predictive processing has begun to offer new insights into the nature of conscious experience—but the link is not straightforward. A wide variety of systems may be described as predictive machines, raising the question: what differentiates those for which it makes sense to talk about conscious experience? One possible answer lies in the involvement of a higher-order form of prediction error, termed expected free energy. In this paper we explore under what conditions the minimization of this new quantity might underpin conscious (...) experience. Our suggestion is that the minimisation of Expected Free Energy is not in itself sufficient for the occurrence of conscious experience. Instead, it is relevant only insofar as it helps deliver what Ward et al. ( 2011 ) have previously described as a _sense of our own poise over an action space_. Perceptual experience, we will argue, is nothing other than the process that puts current actions in contact with goals and intentions, enabling some creatures to know the space of options that their current situation makes available. This proposal fits with recent work suggesting a deep link between conscious contents and contents computed at an ‘intermediate’ level of processing, apt for controlling action. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted an increasing amount of attention, both positive and negative. Its potential applications in healthcare are indeed manifold and revolutionary, and within the realm of medical imaging and radiology (which will be the focus of this paper), significant increases in accuracy and speed, as well as significant savings in cost, stand to be gained through the adoption of this technology. Because of its novelty, a norm of keeping humans “in the loop” wherever AI mechanisms are deployed (...) has become synonymous with good ethical practice in some circles. It has been argued that keeping humans “in the loop” is important for reasons of safety, accountability, and the maintenance of institutional trust. However, as the application of machine learning for the detection of lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) in this paper’s case study reveals, there are some scenarios where an insistence on keeping humans in the loop (or in other words, the resistance to automation) seems unwarranted and could possibly lead us to miss out on very real and important opportunities in healthcare—particularly in low-resource settings. It is important to acknowledge these opportunity costs of resisting automation in such contexts, where better options may be unavailable. Using an AI model based on convolutional neural networks developed by a team of researchers at NUH/NUS medical school in Singapore for automated detection and classification of the lumbar spinal canal, lateral recess, and neural foraminal narrowing in an MRI scan of the spine to diagnose LSS, we will aim to demonstrate that where certain criteria hold (e.g., the AI is as accurate or better than human experts, risks are low in the event of an error, the gain in wellbeing is significant, and the task being automated is not essentially or importantly human), it is both morally permissible and even desirable to kick the humans out of the loop. (shrink)

In the paper “An archeology of corruption in medicine”, Miles Little, Wendy Lipworth, and Ian Kerridge present an account of corruption and describe its prevalent forms in medicine. In presenting an individual-focused account of corruption found within “social entities”, Little et al. argue that these entities are corruptible by nature and that certain individuals are prone to take advantage of the corruptibility of social entities to pursue their own ends. The authors state that this is not preventable, so the way (...) to remedy corruption is via management and, where necessary, punishment. This commentary will briefly lay out the key features and functions of corruption as presented by Little et al., before providing a critical discussion that will focus on whether corruptibility is a necessary feature of social entities. I will propose that it is not a necessary feature, though it may frequently arise where individualistic values are unchecked. Corruption can be prevented within social entities by enhancing structures that direct toward virtue and which promote and reward cooperation instead of competition. (shrink)

Ann Whittle offers a fresh approach to questions about whether our actions are free and whether we are morally responsible for them. She argues that the answers to these questions depend on the contexts in which we make claims about our abilities and our control over our actions.

Open Access: Social media participation undermines individual autonomy in ways that ought to concern ethicists. Discussions in the philosophical literature are concerned primarily with egregious conduct online such as harassment and shaming, keeping the focus on obvious ills to which no one could consent; this prevents a wider understanding of the risks and harms of quotidian social media participation. Two particular concerns occupy me: social media participation carries the risks of (1) negatively formative experiences and (2) continuous partial attention due (...) to our habituation to the variable rewards that social media platforms provide. Although social media offer benefits as well as risks, self-knowledge of whether one benefits more than one suffers from one’s social media participation is vexed by the very processes involved in participating. We are not as free to leave social media as we are to enter. I conclude with a consideration and rejection of the objections that the ubiquity of the practice indicates implied consent to risks, and that users of social media can simply choose not to use such communication technologies at all. I argue that we cannot be said to consent to enter into social media usage meaningfully, even implicitly, and we do not all have equally easy options to avoid the contexts that provide the stimuli of persistent desires. (shrink)

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence. By situating (...) discourse about reconciliation within the context of Girardian thought, it becomes clear that like Peter who vowed he would never deny Jesus but ended up doing it three times any of us is susceptible to the siren call of angry resentment and retaliation. It is with a profound awareness of the power of violence that the emergence of mimetic discourse around reconciliation takes on particular urgency.". (shrink)

Who gets to decide what it means to live a healthy lifestyle, and how important a healthy lifestyle is to a good life? As more governments make preventing obesity and diet-related illness a priority, it's become more important to consider the ethics and acceptability of their efforts. When it comes to laws and policies that promote healthy eating--such as special taxes on sugary drinks and the banning of food deemed unhealthy--critics argue that these policies are paternalistic, and that they limit (...) individual autonomy over food choices. In Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach, Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti show that both paternalistic justifications for healthy eating efforts and anti-paternalistic arguments against them can be grounded in perfectionist views that overly prioritize some values over others. The authors therefore propose a more inclusive, public reason approach to healthy eating policy that will be appealing to those who take pluralism and cultural diversity seriously, by providing a framework through which different kinds of values, including but not limited to autonomy and health, can be factored into the public justification for healthy eating efforts. Additionally, the book adopts a 'farm to fork' approach to the ethics of healthy eating efforts: it engages with theories and debates in political philosophy, considers the implications of different theoretical positions for healthy eating efforts, and then develops a concrete tool for assessing policies that will be of interest to both scholars and policymakers. As well as offering a novel normative analysis of healthy eating policy, the authors offer a new theoretical framework that will be applicable to a wide range of public policy scenarios. (shrink)

This long-awaited two-volume set constitutes the definitive presentation of the system of classifying moral judgment built up by Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates over a period of twenty years. Researchers in child development and education around the world, many of whom have worked with interim versions of the system, indeed, all those seriously interested in understanding the problem of moral judgment, will find it an indispensable resource. Volume I reviews Kohlberg's stage theory, and the by-now large body of research on (...) the significance and utility of his moral stages. Issues of reliability and validity are addressed. The volume ends with detailed instructions for using the forms in Volume 2. Volume 2, in a specially-designed, user-friendly format, includes three alternative functionally-equivalent forms of the scoring system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 75-95 [Access article in PDF] "Not heretofore extant in print": Where the Mad Ranters Are Kathryn Gucer In 1654 Ephraim Pagitt published the fifth edition of Heresiography, subtitled "a Description of the Hereticks and Sectaries of these latter times." On the title page Pagitt promoted this latest edition of the catalog by stressing the "Additions" he had made. Among the (...) new targets of his anti-sectarian polemic were the Ranters, whom he introduced in a pithy character sketch as "an unclean beast much of the make with our Quaker." 1 But although Pagitt claimed to introduce the sect, Ranters had been around in print since Gerrard Winstanley attacked them in defense of his group, the Diggers, in 1649. 2 In fact writers had been attacking the sects generally--Anabaptists, Seekers, Brownists, Familists--in brief pamphlets like Winstanley's Vindication and in tome-like catalogs of sectarian "errours" since the outbreak of the Civil War. The anti-Ranter pamphlets were thus an incursion into an ongoing printed dialogue about the sects in general. Pagitt himself had been an interlocutor in this dialogue, having published four previous editions of his list. Why had he not marked the Ranters in 1649 and 1650 when Winstanley and others first noticed them?This essay will answer this question by arguing that the Ranters arose in dialogue across time, that they did not emerge spontaneously in Pagitt's 1654 text. When Pagitt introduced the sect in 1654, he was in fact responding to a heated discussion about the Ranters that had been developing for four years. He thus entered the debate a moment after "Ranters" and "ranting" had been defined by other pamphleteers. In this debate about the Ranters we can see the process by which pamphleteers invented a linguistic means of talking about religious diversity before it was an accepted feature of English society. At the same time that writers were exposing the Ranters' blasphemous excesses, they were also crafting a political identity for the group by attaching characteristic words and [End Page 75] behaviors to them in print. The printed controversy over the Ranters thus raises interesting questions about the relation between textual signification and actual politics. What were the processes by which pamphleteers invented new ways of talking about groups--sects and parties--in the period? What did labeling have to do with political identity?In fact the collective dialogue about the Ranters centered on a label that pamphleteers consistently attached to the group, their "madness." Although each writer identified the Ranters with a variety of creeds and practices, anti-Ranter pamphleteers all told their readers to view the group as an absence of reason. They claimed that Ranters were incapable of recognizing and conveying God's truth to their audience. Pagitt himself participated in the cooperative assault on Ranter madness. He consistently borrowed this language from his fellow interlocutors, branding the Ranters with terms such as "nonsensicall" and "absurd." Yet I argue that the label itself was largely a red herring. Writers shrewdly focused on Ranter unreason in order to persuade their readers not to use their own reason to consider the sectarian claims to authority. Moreover, writers shaped and reshaped what they meant by Ranter unreason in order to modulate its rhetorical effect on their readers. Thus it is not surprising that the precise construction of Ranter unreason shifted with the various responses these writers wanted to elicit from their readers. 3The explosion of anti-Ranter tracts, many of which had sensational titles showcasing the word "Ranters," indicated that the sect had particular rhetorical purchase on the public in the early 1650s: The Ranters Religion (11 October 1650), The Routing of the Ranters (19 November 1650), The Ranters Bible (9 December 1650), The Ranters Recantation And their Sermon (20 December 1650), The Joviall Crew, or the Devill turn'd RANTER (6 January 1651), Ranters of both Sexes, Male and Female (3 June 1651), RANTERS MONSTER (30 March 1652). 4 Although talk about Ranters was neither confined to print nor to... (shrink)

Charles J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson, in their writings together and individually, have proposed that human behaviors, whether moral or nonmoral, are governed by innate constraints (which they have termed epigenetic rules). I propose that if a genetic component of moral behavior is to be discovered, some sorting out of specifically moral from nonmoral innate constraints will be necessary. That some specifically moral innate constraits exist is evidenced by virtuous behaviors exhibited in nonhuman mammals, whose behavior is usually granted to (...) be importantly governed by genetic factors. Propensities for such virtuous behaviors may have been passed to humans as highly conserved mammalian genes and continue to influence us. I propose that these constitute at least a rudimentary morality and may account in part for the moral intuitions. But other innate constraints which are nonmoral in nature interact with the specifically moral innate constraints and with culture to yield human moral decisions and actions. Any model which aims to identify the genetic component of moral behaviors or behaviors with moral import must provide not only a delineation of cultural causes but must also distinguish between those genetic causes which may have their origin in innate moral constraints from others which are fundamentally nonmoral because the critical faculty necessary to higher level human morality itself arises in part from innate constraints of a nonmoral type; i.e., the processes of inductive reasoning common to both ethics and science. Finally, humans who could bring the nonmoral evaluative capacities to bear upon whatever moral intuitions might be genetically conserved in mammalian heritage would have an advantage over similar beings who could not. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Infertility Treadmill: Feminist Ethics, Personal Choice, and the Use of Reproductive Technologies by Karey HarwoodKathryn Lilla CoxThe Infertility Treadmill: Feminist Ethics, Personal Choice, and the Use of Reproductive Technologies Karey Harwood Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 221pp. $22.00Karey Harwood’s The Infertility Treadmill, published in the University of North Carolina’s Studies in Social Medicine series, fills a lacuna in the infertility literature. Harwood takes (...) an interdisciplinary approach examining “assisted reproductive technologies” (ART) using current scientific, philosophical, theological, and—most importantly—her own ethnographic research. By way of a thick description of women’s experiences of infertility, she draws the reader into a rich ethical conversation regarding ARTs.Harwood “seeks first and foremost to offer an interpretation of the ethical significance of the increasing use of ART by bringing a particular set of normative or evaluative lenses to bear on a particular set of descriptive data” (8). She engaged in this study because of her desire to explore the connections between decisions to use ART and such factors as paid employment, delayed childbirth, and the ongoing balancing of work and family life. Harwood gathered her descriptive data by spending a year with the Atlanta chapter of RESOLVE (The National Infertility Association): attending monthly meetings and listening to speakers and participants as well as appraising RESOLVE’s national and local literature. She also conducted nine interviews with eight women and one man. Focusing on work and family conflicts in light of questions related to gender justice and the interplay between social and communal norms theories, on the one hand, and private and individual choice, on the other, Harwood teases out the ethical complexity surrounding ARTs.After surveying philosophical and theological literature relevant to her topic, Harwood names and examines existential concerns that emerged from her observations, conversations, and interviews with RESOLVE members. Clustered thematically, these concerns include the painful isolation of infertility, the stigma attached to using ARTs, people’s moralizing, how much treatment to pursue, what is the value in trying one more thing, socioeconomic status, and emotional awareness (62–97). Throughout her discussion of these concerns, [End Page 209] Harwood reminds ethicists of the importance of personal narratives for any treatment of an ethical issue like this.Moreover, her research leads Harwood to deduce that RESOLVE helps people with meaning-making, questions of purpose, language clarification, and various options surrounding infertility and ARTs. She asserts that the infertility experience can be a transformative one for the infertile. The decision-making process regarding the use of ARTs functioned as a type of ritual—albeit “a consumeristic ritual”—that aided people in working through the grief of infertility (157). Religious institutions have not always helped the infertile in these areas. Nonetheless, Harwood’s study leads her to conclude that RESOLVE members and leaders tend to be deficient in their capacities for challenging and critically examining how individual decisions intertwine with larger social contexts.Harwood acknowledges that her methodological decision to focus on one RESOLVE chapter limited her demographics (63–64). Moreover, although for the most part balanced, Harwood’s assessment of her findings is at times partial, even bordering on advocacy. For example, she clearly seeks to make the case that ethical analyses of infertility need to be more nuanced—incorporating more personal narrative—and that RESOLVE needs to be more open to critical self-reflection, especially the critical questioning of the “treadmill of infertility” (133). In her analysis of her findings, Harwood demonstrates how personal narratives help nuance ethical analysis. Less clear is whether RESOLVE can be or wants to be more self-critical and more questioning of its own core premises. Nonetheless, these limitations do not detract from Harwood’s important insights regarding “the infertility treadmill” and the host of issues related to ARTs—including consumerism, the role of rituals, meaning-making, suffering and grief, and gender justice, among others.Those struggling with infertility or considering ARTs will find Harwood to be an empathetic dialogue partner. Others will gain a deeper understanding of infertility’s toll by reading this book. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students will benefit from Harwood’s analysis of how personal decisions have wide-ranging... (shrink)

Philosophers of science are increasingly arguing for and addressing the need to do work that is socially and scientifically engaged. However, we currently lack well-developed frameworks for thinking about how we should engage other expert communities and what the epistemic benefits are of doing so. In this paper, I draw on Collins and Evans' concept of ‘interactional expertise’ – the ability to speak the language of a discipline in the absence of an ability to practice – to consider the epistemic (...) benefits that can arise when philosophers engage scientific communities. As Collins and Evans argue, becoming an interactional expert requires that one ‘hang out’ with members of the relevant expert community in order to learn crucial tacit knowledge needed to speak the language. Building on this work, I argue that acquiring interactional expertise not only leads to linguistic fluency, but it also confers several ‘socio-epistemic’ benefits such as the opportunity to cultivate trust with scientific communities. These benefits can improve philosophical work and facilitate the broader uptake of philosophers' ideas, enabling philosophers to meet a variety of epistemic goals. As a result, having at least some philosophers of science acquire interactional expertise via engagement will likely enhance the diversity of epistemic capacities for philosophy of science as a whole. For some philosophers of science, moreover, the socio-epistemic benefits identified here may be more important than the ability to speak the language of a discipline, suggesting the need for a broader analysis of interactional expertise, which this paper also advances. (shrink)

This book places the philosophy of Simone Weil into conversation with contemporary environmental concerns in the Anthropocene. The book offers a systematic interpretation of Simone Weil, making her ethical philosophy more accessible to non-Weil scholars. Weil's work has been influential in many fields, including politically and theologically-based critiques of social inequalities and suffering, but rarely linked to ecology. Kathryn Lawson argues that Weil's work can be understood as offering a coherent approach with potentially widespread appeal applicable to our ethical (...) relations to much more than just other human beings. She suggests that the process of 'decreation' in Weil is an expansion of the self which might also come to include the surrounding earth and a vast assemblage of others. This allows readers to consider what it means to be human in this time and place, and to contemplate our ethical responsibilities both to other humans and also to the more-than-human world. Ultimately, the book uses Weil's thought to propose a decreative ecological ethics that decenters the human being by cultivating human actions towards an ecological ethics. This book will be useful for Simone Weil scholars and academics, as well as students and researchers interested in environmental ethics in departments of comparative literature, theory and criticism, philosophy, and environmental studies. (shrink)

In this article it will be argued that François Furet's attempt in Interpreting the French Revolution to provide a conceptual history of the French Revolution through a synthesis of Tocqueville and Cochin's historical and sociological accounts fails methodologically. It does so in two ways: Firstly, in its aim to distinguish between conceptual, explanatory history and empirical, narrative history, and secondly, in its distinction between revolution as process and revolution as act. Drawing on Claude Lefort and Paul Ricoeur's interventions in the (...) historiographical debate, I demonstrate that these seemingly methodological concerns, conceal a deeper historical and political question concerning the nature of the ‘event’ of revolution. In response to Furet's oblique turn to Hegel in his later work, this article traces the nature of the ‘conceptual inversion’ Furet claims to find in Hegel and Marx's accounts of the French Revolution. In relation to Marx, it is argued that Furet's critique fails to capture the allegorical nature of the political in Marx's thought, and underplays the significance of revolution as the basis for both the separation of the social and the political and their attempted unity. The article ends with some remarks on the importance of language and culture in rethinking the relationship between Hegel and Marx. (shrink)

Historically, the sociology of emotion has been relatively long on theory and short on methods. This collection of articles seeks to remedy this by introducing new ways to capture the four factors of emotion, as articulated by Thoits (1989): meaning, expression, label, and physiology. As a group, these studies reify existing dichotomies in the literature—that is, emotional experience versus emotional expression—and seek to reconcile them. Additionally, they all champion the use of mixed methods—either simultaneously or sequentially—adopting some combination of direct (...) or indirect observation, subjective understanding/experience, and physiological change. Using examples drawn for their own research, the authors provide new ways to capture emotion that will carry emotion scholars into the next four decades of research. (shrink)