Liebe Fräulein Herrmann! An die Möglichkeit, nach knapp zehn Tagen Militärdienst drei Tage Urlaub zu bekommen, glaube ich nicht, und selbst wenn der Sonntag frei wäre, würde es sich für mich nicht lohnen, die Reise nach Heidelberg zu machen. Also treiben Sie Ihre Philosophie ruhig allein; ich werde wahrscheinlich am 6. September irgendwo am Wald in der Sonne liegen und mich darüber freuen, dass ich nichts denken brauche und dass keine Wissenschaft mir die verschiedenen Realitätsschichten auseinander reisst.

Nelkin presents a simple and natural account of freedom and moral responsibility which responds to the great variety of challenges to the idea that we are free and responsible, before ultimately reaffirming our conception of ourselves as agents. Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility begins with a defense of the rational abilities view, according to which one is responsible for an action if and only if one acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. The view is (...) compatibilist -- that is, on the view defended, responsibility is compatible with determinism -- and one of its striking features is a certain asymmetry: it requires the ability to do otherwise for responsibility when actions are praiseworthy, but not when they are blameworthy. In defending and elaborating the view, Nelkin questions long-held assumptions such as those concerning the relation between fairness and blame and the nature of so-called reactive attitudes such as resentment and forgiveness. Her argument not only fits with a metaphysical picture of causation -- agent-causation -- often assumed to be available only to incompatibilist accounts, but receives positive support from the intuitively appealing Ought Implies Can Principle, and establishes a new interpretation of freedom and moral responsibility that dovetails with a compelling account of our inescapable commitments as rational agents. (shrink)

In recent decades, participants in the debate about whether we are free and responsible agents have tended with increasing frequency to begin their papers or books by fixing the terms “free” and “responsible” in clear ways to avoid misunderstanding. This is an admirable development, and while some misunderstandings have certainly been avoided, and positions better illuminated as a result, new and interesting questions also arise. Two ways of fixing these terms and identifying the underlying concepts have emerged as especially influential, (...) one that takes the freedom required for responsibility to be understood in terms of accountability and the other in terms of desert. In this paper, I start by asking: are theorists talking about the same things, or are they really participating in two different debates? Are desert and accountability mutually entailing? I tentatively conclude that they are in fact mutually entailing. Coming to this conclusion requires making finer distinctions among various more specific and competing accounts of both accountability and desert. Ultimately, I argue, that there is good reason to accept that accountability and desert have the same satisfaction conditions. (shrink)

In this paper I reflect upon my personal experience of chronic progressive multiple sclerosis in order to provide a phenomenological account of the human experience of disability. In particular, I argue that the phenomenological notion of lived body provides important insights into the profound disruptions of space and time that are an integral element of changed physical capacities such as loss of mobility. In addition, phenomenology discloses the emotional dimension of physical disorder. The lived body disruption engendered by loss of (...) mobility includes a change in the character of surrounding space, an alteration in one's taken-for-granted awareness of objects, the disruption of corporeal identity, a disturbance in one's relations with others, and a change in the character of temporal experience. The loss of upright posture is of particular significance since it not only concretely diminishes autonomy but affects the way one is treated by others. Such a change in posture is, therefore, particularly disruptive in the social world of everyday life. An understanding of the lived body disruption engendered by disability has important applications for the clinical context in devising effective therapies, as well as for the social arena in determining how best to resolve the various challenges posed by chronic disabling disorders. (shrink)

This essay argues that philosophical phenomenology can provide important insights into the patient-physician relationship. In particular, it is noted that the physician and patient encounter the experience of illness from within the context of different "worlds", each "world" providing a horizon of meaning. Such phenomenological notions as focusing, habits of mind, finite provinces of meaning, and relevance are shown to be central to the way these "worlds" are constituted. An eidetic interpretation of illness is proposed. Such an interpretation discloses certain (...) essential characteristics that pertain to the experience of illness, per se , regardless of its manifestation in terms of a particular disease state. It is suggested that, if a shared world of meaning is to be constituted between physician and patient, the eidetic characteristics of illness must be recognized by the physician. Keywords: phenomenology, patient-physician relationship, illness-as-lived, habits of mind, relevance, eidetic CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Responsibility, blameworthiness in particular, has been characterized in a number of ways in a literature in which participants appear to be talking about the same thing much of the time. More specifically, blameworthiness has been characterized in terms of what sorts of responses are fair, appropriate, and deserved in a basic way, where the responses in question range over blame, sanctions, alterations to interpersonal relationships, and the reactive attitudes, such as resentment and indignation. In this paper, I explore the relationships (...) between three particular theses: (i) the claim that one is blameworthy to the extent that it is fair to impose sanctions, (ii) the claim that one is blameworthy to the extent that one deserves sanctions, and (iii) the claim that one is blameworthy to the extent that it is appropriate to respond with reactive attitudes. Appealing to the way in which luck in the outcome of an action can justifiably affect the degree of sanctions received, I argue that (i) is false and that fairness and desert come apart. I then argue that the relationship between the reactive attitudes and sanction is not as straightforward as has sometimes been assumed, but that (ii) and (iii) might both be true and closely linked. I conclude by exploring various claims about desert, including ones that link it to the intrinsic goodness of receiving what is deserved and to the permissibility or rightness of inflicting suffering. (shrink)

According to the classical Doctrine of Double Effect, there is a morally significant difference between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Versions of DDE have been defended in a variety of creative ways, but there is one difficulty, the so-called “closeness problem”, that continues to bedevil all of them. The problem is that an agent's intention can always be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from almost any situation, including those that have been (...) taken to be paradigmatic instances in which DDE applies to intended harm. In this paper, we consider and reject a number of recent attempts to solve the closeness problem. We argue that the failure of these proposals strongly suggests that the closeness problem is intractable, and that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is not morally significant. Further, we argue that there may be a deeper reason why such attempts must fail: the rationale that makes the best fit with DDE, namely, an imperative not to aim at evil, is itself irredeemably flawed. While we believe that these observations should lead us to abandon further attempts to solve the closeness problem for DDE, we also conclude by showing how a related principle that is supported by a distinct rationale and avoids facing the closeness problem altogether nevertheless shares with DDE its most important features, including an intuitive explanation of a number of cases and a commitment to the relevance of intentions. (shrink)

Professionals within the mental health services face many ethical dilemmas and challenging situations regarding the use of coercion. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the significance of participating in systematic ethics reflection groups focusing on ethical challenges related to coercion. In 2013 and 2014, 20 focus group interviews with 127 participants were conducted. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analysis is inspired by the concept of ‘bricolage’ which means our approach was inductive. Most participants report (...) positive experiences with participating in ethics reflection groups: A systematic and well-structured approach to discuss ethical challenges, increased consciousness of formal and informal coercion, a possibility to challenge problematic concepts, attitudes and practices, improved professional competence and confidence, greater trust within the team, more constructive disagreement and room for internal critique, less judgmental reactions and more reasoned approaches, and identification of potential for improvement and alternative courses of action. On several wards, the participation of psychiatrists and psychologists in the reflection groups was missing. The impact of the perceived lack of safety in reflection groups should not be underestimated. Sometimes the method for ethics reflection was utilised in a rigid way. Direct involvement of patients and family was missing. This focus group study indicates the potential of ethics reflection groups to create a moral space in the workplace that promotes critical, reflective and collaborative moral deliberations. Future research, with other designs and methodologies, is needed to further investigate the impact of ethics reflection groups on improving health care practices. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss Edith Stein's analysis of empathy and note its application in the field of clinical medicine. In identifying empathy as the basic mode of cognition in which one grasps the experiences of others, Stein notes, 'I grasp the Other as a living body and not merely as a physical body'. The living body is given in terms of five distinctive characteristics - characteristics that disclose important facets of the illness experience. Empathy plays an important role in (...) clinical practice in aiding physicians to grasp the content of first-person reports of bodily disorder, and to comprehend the meaning of illness-as-lived. I suggest that an important task for medical education should be that of developing students' capacity for empathic understanding and I note several ways in which this task might be accomplished. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Background: Through the Norwegian ethics project, ethics activities have been implemented in the health and care sector in more than 200 municipalities. Objectives: To study outcomes of the ethics activities and examine which factors promote and inhibit significance and sustainability of the activities. Research design: Two online questionnaires about the municipal ethics activities. Participants and research context: A total of 137 municipal contact persons for the ethics project answered the first survey (55% response rate), whereas 217 ethics facilitators responded to (...) the second survey (33% response rate). Ethical considerations: Based on informed consent, the study was approved by the Data Protection Official of the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Findings: Around half of the respondents found the ethics project to have been highly significant for daily professional practice. Outcomes include better handling of ethical challenges, better employee cooperation, better service quality, and better relations to patients and next of kin. Factors associated with sustainability and/or significance of the activities were sufficient support from stakeholders, sufficient available time, and ethics facilitators having sufficient knowledge and skills in ethics and access to supervision. Discussion: This study shows that ethics initiatives can be both sustainable and significant for practice. There is a need to create regional or national structures for follow-up and develop more comprehensive ethics training for ethics facilitators. Conclusion: It is both possible and potentially important to implement clinical ethics support activities in community health and care services systematically on a large scale. Future ethics initiatives in the community sector should be designed in light of documented promoting and inhibiting factors. (shrink)

Este repertorio registra los artículos sobre Nietzsche que se encuentran en la Hemeroteca de la Biblioteca Central de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. El listado abarca las publicaciones existentes hasta el primer semestre del 2003.

Background: The concept of dignity is recognised as a fundamental right in many countries. It is embedded into law, human rights legislation and is often visible in organisations’ philosophy of care, particularly in aged care. Yet, many authors describe difficulties in defining dignity and how it can be preserved for people living in long term care. Objectives: In this article, Nordenfelt’s ‘four notions of dignity’ are considered, drawing on research literature addressing the different perspectives of those who receive, observe or (...) deliver care in the context of the long-term care environment. Methods: A review of the literature was undertaken using the terms ‘nursing homes’, ‘residential care’ or ‘long-term care’. The terms were combined and the term ‘human dignity’ was added. A total of 29 articles met the inclusion criteria from the United Kingdom (14), United States (2), Australia (1), Sweden (3), Hong Kong (2), Norway (3), Nordic (1), Taiwan (1), Netherlands (1). Ethical Considerations: Every effort has been made to ensure an unbiased search of the literature with the intention of an accurate interpretation of findings. Discussion: The four notions of dignity outlined by Nordenfelt provide a comprehensive description of the concept of dignity which can be linked to the experiences of people living in long-term care today and provide a useful means of contextualising the experiences of older people, their families and significant others and also of staff in long-term care facilities. Of particular interest are the similarities of perspectives of dignity between these groups. The preservation of dignity implies that dignity is a quality inherent in us all. This links directly to the exploration and conclusions drawn from the literature review. Conversely, promoting dignity implies that dignity is something that can be influenced by others and external factors. Hence, there are a number of implications for practice. Conclusion: We suggest that two of Nordenfelt’s notions, ‘dignity of identity’ and ‘dignity of Menschenwüde’, are a common thread for residents, family members and staff when conceptualising dignity within long-term care environments. (shrink)

In order to gain greater insight into the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during a time of crisis, the study examines the commitment of firms to continue to engage in CSR activity despite financial pressures to divert their slack resources elsewhere. The setting of the study is CSR activity during the perhaps unprecedented global crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a qualitative research method approach, both a variety of media sources and the relevant academic literature are reviewed (...) in order to identify examples of CSR activity related specifically to COVID-19. The examples are then categorized and situated according to Professor Archie Carroll’s well-known CSR Pyramid framework describing the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic domains of CSR. As such, this study is the first to extend the rich literature stream utilizing Carroll’s CSR Pyramid within the unique context of a global pandemic. (shrink)

We use the construct of the “other” to explore how hate operates rhetorically within the virtual conclave of Stormfront, credited as the first hate Web site. Through the Internet, white supremacists create a rhetorical vision that resonates with those who feel marginalized by contemporary political, social, and economic forces. However, as compared to previous studies of on-line white supremacist rhetoric, we show that Stormfront discourse appears less virulent and more palatable to the naive reader. We suggest that Stormfront provides a (...) “cyber transition” between traditional hate speech and “reasonable racism,” a tempered discourse that emphasizes pseudo-rational discussions of race, and subsequently may cast a wider net in attracting audiences. (shrink)

The simulations of Steels & Belpaeme (S&B) suggest that communication could lead to color categories that are closely shared within a language and potentially diverge across languages. We argue that this is opposite of the patterns that are actually observed in empirical studies of color naming. Focal color choices more often exhibit strong concordance across languages while also showing pronounced variability within any language.

As a philosophical position, pragmatism can be critiqued to distinguish truth only with methods that bring about desired results, predominantly with scientific enquiry. The article hopes to dismiss this oversimplification and propose that within mental health nursing, enquiry enlightened by pragmatism can be anchored to methods helping to tackle genuine human problems. Whilst pragmatists suggest one reality exists, fluctuating experiences and shifting beliefs about the world can inhabit within; hence, pragmatists propose reality has the potential to change. Moreover, pragmatism includes (...) being cognisant of what works to whom reality concerns, making reality context‐driven, with a view to understand how actions shape experiences so what is generated has usefulness. Hence, it somewhat follows pragmatism can inform mental health nursing, after all, nursing is a discipline of action, and awareness is needed in how actions produce experiences that patients find helpful. Given the principles of recovery are preferably adopted in mental health care, the paper will explore how pragmatism can help nurses move towards that goal; specifically, with patients voicing their experiences. This is because like pragmatism, recovery subscribes to hope that reality can progress, and through meaningful experiences and beliefs, patients have expertise about personal difficulties alongside how life may flourish, despite mental illness. (shrink)

In this article we critically reflect on ‘feminist research methods’ and ‘methodology’, from the perspective of a feminist research unit at a South African university, that explicitly aims to improve gender-based violence service provision and policy through evidence-based advocacy. Despite working within a complex and inequitable developing country context, where our feminist praxis is frequently pitted against seemingly intractable structural realities, it is a praxis that remains grounded in documenting the stories of vulnerable individuals and within a broader political project (...) of working towards improving the systems that these individuals must navigate under challenging social and structural conditions. We primarily do this by working with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing gender-based violence services in research conceptualisation, design and implementation. This raises unique and complex questions for feminist participatory research, which we illustrate through a case study of collaborative, participatory research with NGOs to improve health and criminal justice outcomes for survivors of sexual violence. Issues include the possibility of good intentions/good research designs failing; the suitability of participatory research in sensitive service provision contexts; the degree(s) of engagement between researchers, service providers (collaborators/participants) and research participants; as well as our ethical duties to do no harm and to promote positive, progressive change through personal narratives and other forms of evidence. Given the demands of our context and these core issues, we not only argue that there are no ‘feminist methods’, but also caution against the notion of a universal ‘feminist methodology’. Whilst we may all be in agreement about the centrality of gender to our research and analysis, the fundamental aims and assumptions of mainstream (Western) feminist approaches do not hold true in all contexts, nor are they without variance in mode, ideal degrees of participation and importance to social context. (shrink)

This article is an adaptation of the sixteenth Lewis A. Coser lecture, given virtually in 2021 for the American Sociological Association Meetings. In this article, I pay tribute to Lewis and Rose Laub Coser by engaging with their past work, which inspired a theoretical provocation about what it means to theorize from the margins. I specifically address the questions of who gets to be a theorist and what kinds of theoretical work get marginalized. I outline the process of epistemic oppression (...) involved in trying to publish marginal ideas in mainstream journals. I argue that the relationship between mainstream sociology and what I refer to as “marginal” requires a relational perspective that situates both marginalized scholars and their scholarship in the broader discipline of sociology and examines the epistemic oppression of their theories regardless of their sometimes-powerful institutional positioning in highly ranked departments or as leaders within various professional associations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:...

Starting from one of the classical criticisms of evolutionary thinking accusing it of being based on tautological reasoning and being unable to predict future events, the authors propose an escape route from this attack by programmatically specifying the notion of fitness with reference to three particular aspects: cultural context, individual choice and social networks. Paralleling recent developments in economics, that try to explain preference formation endogeneously, the authors argue for an endogeneous explanation of the evolutionary fitness landscape to explain the (...) evolution of structural complexity. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 197 Seiten: 79-100.

It seems trivial to identify sound sequences as music or speech, particularly when the sequences come from different sound sources, such as an orchestra and a human voice. Can we also easily distinguish these categories when the sequence comes from the same sound source? On the basis of which acoustic features? We investigated these questions by examining listeners’ classification of sound sequences performed by an instrument intertwining both speech and music: the dùndún talking drum. The dùndún is commonly used in (...) south-west Nigeria as a musical instrument but is also perfectly fit for linguistic usage in what has been described as speech surrogates in Africa. One hundred seven participants from diverse geographical locations (15 different mother tongues represented) took part in an online experiment. Fifty-one participants reported being familiar with the dùndún talking drum, 55% of those being speakers of Yorùbá. During the experiment, participants listened to 30 dùndún samples of about 7s long, performed either as music or Yorùbá speech surrogate (n= 15 each) by a professional musician, and were asked to classify each sample as music or speech-like. The classification task revealed the ability of the listeners to identify the samples as intended by the performer, particularly when they were familiar with the dùndún, though even unfamiliar participants performed above chance. A logistic regression predicting participants’ classification of the samples from several acoustic features confirmed the perceptual relevance of intensity, pitch, timbre, and timing measures and their interaction with listener familiarity. In all, this study provides empirical evidence supporting the discriminating role of acoustic features and the modulatory role of familiarity in teasing apart speech and music. (shrink)

Desire is an important philosophical topic that deeply impacts everyday life. Philosophical practice is an emerging trend that uses philosophical theories and methods as a guide to living a eu‐ daimonic life. In this paper, we define desire philosophically and compare different theories of desire in specific Eastern and Western traditions. Based on the Lacanian conceptual–terminological triad of “Need‐Demand‐Desire”, the research of desire is further divided into three dimensions, namely, the subject of desire, the object of desire, and the desire (...) itself. The concept of desire is then an‐ alyzed from this triad and these three dimensions through different philosophical theories. This paper selects Buddhism as the representative of Eastern tradition, and Stoicism as the representative of the West, paying special attention to Stoicism’s “spiritual exercises” following Pierre Hadot. By exploring and comparing the Buddhist paths to liberation from suffering (i.e., the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path) and the two theoretical pillars in Stoicism (i.e., the notions of “living according to nature” and “the dichotomy of control”), practical guidance is then provided for un‐ derstanding and regulating desire in times of crisis. This understanding and regulation of desire constitutes a philosophical therapy for today’s troubles, particularly those caused by excessive or irrational desires. (shrink)

In India culture and religion play important roles in the workforce's perception of work, social ethics, moral discipline, and human relations. Some of these values originate from the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. This article presents selections of Gandhi's teachings and philosophy that are germane to modern- day business management, especially for multinational corporations operating in India. It serves to help foreign managers understand India's culture and work values, as well as offer guidelines for successful total quality management. Three of India's (...) national-level quality awards are used to present the essential concepts of total quality. (shrink)

We expand Chater & Loewenstein's discussion of barriers to s-frames by highlighting moral psychological mechanisms. Systemic aspects of moralized social issues can be neglected because of (a) the individualistic frame through which we perceive moral transgressions; (b) the desire to punish elicited by moral emotions; and (c) the motivation to attribute agency and moral responsibility to transgressors.

This paper examines the situation of rurally rooted cross-border migrant workers from Myanmar during the Covid-19 pandemic. It looks at the circumstances of the migrants prior to the global health emergency, before exploring possibilities for a post-pandemic future for this stratum of the working people by raising critical questions addressed to agrarian movements. It does this by focusing on the nature and dynamics of the nexus of land and labour in the context of production and social reproduction, a view that (...) in the context of rurally rooted cross-border migrant workers necessarily requires interrelated perspectives on labour, agrarian, and food justice struggles. This requires a rethinking of the role of land, not as a factor in either production or social reproduction, but as a central component in both spheres simultaneously. The question is not ‘whether’ it is necessary and desirable to forge multi-class coalitions and struggles against external capital, while not losing sight of the exploitative relations within rural communities and the household; rather, the question is ‘how’ to achieve this. It will require a messy recursive process, going back and forth between theoretical exploration and practical politics. (shrink)

While the story of Stanislav Petrov – the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who likely saved the world from nuclear holocaust in 1983 – is often trotted out to advocate for the view that human beings ought to be kept “in the loop” of automated weapons’ responses, I argue that the episode in fact belies this reading. By attending more closely to the features of this event – to Petrov’s professional background, to his familiarity with the warning system, and to his decisions (...) to defy his protocol – it becomes clear that Petrov was not seamlessly working “in his loop,” but reassessing it entirely. I claim that this exhibits a paradox intrinsic to all automated loops: namely, that their optimum function in fact rests on unforeseen human interventions that cannot be reliably codified ex ante, that is, that good judgment cannot simply be “programmed into” their protocols. This dependence, moreover, reveals automation’s ineluctable need for virtue ethics – not in the usual sense (whereby ethics deliberates about, say, possible damages and loss of life), but in the sense that ethical judgment, rightly understood, entails the reassessment of all of the conditions surrounding a decision, including whether a protocol should be followed at all. (shrink)

Research into how existentially aware nurses and nursing interventions have highlighted the benefits to patients and patient outcomes. Less is known about how existentially based training affects nurses themselves. This project sought to understand if and how a training programme developed to improve nurses' knowledge of existential theory would affect their well‐being. Overall, despite challenges to recruitment, follow‐up and data collection, three key themes were developed from the data: (1) Things Are Difficult, (2) We Need More… and (3) Well‐Being Is (...) Personal. Existentialist philosophy can be an effective way of providing nurses with the tools to develop and express their own definition of well‐being. It can also be useful to healthcare systems and administrators seeking to find ways of reducing burnout and turnover among nursing staff. (shrink)

The purpose of the National Nanotechnology Initiative is to promote nanotechnology in a way that benefits the citizens of the United States. It involves a commitment to support responsible development of nanotechnology. The NNI's enactment of this commitment is critically assessed. It is concluded that there are not adequate avenues within the NNI by which social and ethical issues can be raised, considered, and, when appropriate, addressed.