Written shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, this essay expresses the ambivalent emotions of a Palestinian American who, despite her longing for peace, reconciliation, and an end to bloodshed, realizes with profound sadness that “Oslo” merely legitimizes the Israeli aggression. A true reconciliation, writes Majaj, must safeguard its claim to the future by working through and resolving the past, but the Oslo Accord ignores both the historical origin of the conflict and its all-too-real outcome.

In this article I ask whether elaborated and systematized delusions emerging in the context of schizophrenia have the potential for epistemic innocence. Cognitions are epistemically innocent if they have significant epistemic benefits that could not be attained otherwise. In particular, I propose that a cognition is epistemically innocent if it delivers some significant epistemic benefit to a given agent at a given time, and if alternative cognitions delivering the same epistemic benefit are unavailable to that agent at that time. Elaborated (...) and systematized delusions in schizophrenia are typically false and exemplify failures of rationality and self-knowledge. Empirical studies suggest that they may have psychological benefits by relieving anxiety and enhancing meaningfulness. Moreover, these delusions have been considered as adaptive in virtue of the fact that they enable automated learning to resume after a significant disruption caused by incorrect prediction-error signalling. I argue that such psychological benefits and adaptive features also have positive epistemic consequences. More precisely, delusions can be a means to restoring epistemic functionality in agents who are overwhelmed by hypersalient experiences in the prodromal stage of psychosis. The analysis leads to a more complex view of the epistemic status of delusions than is found in the contemporary philosophical literature and has some implications for clinical practice. 1 Introduction2 Types of Delusions3 What Is Wrong with Elaborated and Systematized Delusions?4 Finding Life Meaningful5 Learning Resumed6 Epistemic Innocence7 Epistemic Benefit8 No Alternatives9 Conclusions and Implications. (shrink)

Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on Delusions.

Education-migration, or the multi-step recruitment and retention of international students as immigrants, is an increasingly important component of both higher education and so-called highly-skilled migration. This is particularly true in Canada, a country portrayed as a model for highly-skilled migration and supportive of international student mobility. However, education-migration remains under-analyzed from a social justice perspective. Using a mobility justice framework, this paper considers COVID-19’s impact on Canada’s education-migration system at four scales: individuals, education institutions, state immigration regimes, and planetary geoecologies. (...) It identifies ethical tensions inherent to Canada’s education-migration from a systems-level and suggests that a multi-scalar approach to social justice can both usefully complexify discussions and introduce unsettling paradoxes. It also stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to reimagine rather than return. (shrink)

While Roman Catholic feminist ethicists typically endorse moral realism and crosscultural standards of justice, they also have been influenced by the postmodern interrogation of abstract reason and moral universalism. As theologians writing after the Second Vatican Council, they are increasingly sensitive to the communal and ecclesial dimensions of morality and of Christian ethics, and to the integral relation of Christian faith and ethics. This essay will consider two approaches to Catholic feminist ethics that differ in the relative weight they give (...) to constructive work for social justice, or to the grounding of ethics in prayer and mysticism. Using critical feminist reappropriations of the theology and ethics of Aquinas as examples, this essay will argue that the two approaches are overlapping and interdependent. (shrink)

This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative argument); probe, question and refine our understanding of values (valuational argument); and uncover (...) underlying social ontologies (ontological argument). The contribution of ethnography to normative theory is distinguished from that of other forms of empirical research, and the dangers of perspectival absorption, bias and particularism are addressed. (shrink)

I briefly introduce Moral Failure as a book that brings together philosophical and empirical work in moral psychology to examine moral requirements that are non-negotiable and that contravene the principle that “ought implies can.” I respond to Rivera by arguing that the process of construction that imbues normative requirements with authority need not systematize or eliminate conflicts between normative requirements. My response to Schwartzman clarifies what is problematic about nonideal theorizing that limits itself to offering action-guidance. In response to Kittay, (...) I defend my rejection of “ought implies can,” and consider the implications of the concept of unfair moral requirements. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Locke now joins the long list of titles available in this excellent series. As we have come to expect, the contributors to this Companion are distinguished and the result is comprehensive and eminently useful. This volume is one of the more accessible in the series, with most of the chapters pitched at a level accessible to advanced undergraduates and especially helpful to beginning graduate students. Many of the chapters will be of considerable interest to scholars; here (...) I myself think especially of Edwin McCann’s chapter on Locke’s philosophy of body, which considerably advances our understanding of the place of mechanism in Locke’s thought. In addition, the notes, selective bibliography, and index of passages cited will serve as resources for readers at all levels of expertise. (shrink)

Pope Francis both grants the right to use armed force in self-defense and regards all war as ‘a defeat for humanity’. This seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that what is a theoretically just use of force (according to the criteria of just war theory) inevitably results in unjust violence when carried out in practice. The undertaking, processes and practices of war are highly susceptible to what Augustine called the libido dominandi. The theory of just war is carried (...) forward in institutions of actual war-making that foster escalation, discourage restraint, and adapt the theory itself to accommodate increasing violence. ‘Just war’ fails to embody the social and institutional virtue of justice. Thus, as Pope Francis exhorts, the Christian ethics of war and peace should prioritize the theory of just peace and the cultivation of peacebuilding dispositions, practices, and institutions. These strategies favor justice, but success is not guaranteed. (shrink)

In philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive science, definitions of clinical delusions are not based on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of delusions. Some of the defining features of delusions are epistemic and focus on whether delusions are true, justified, or rational, as in the definition of delusions as fixed beliefs that are badly supported by evidence). Other defining features of delusions are psychological and they focus on whether delusions are harmful, as in the definition of delusions as beliefs that disrupt (...) good functioning. Even if the epistemic features go some way towards capturing what otherwise different instances of clinical delusions have in common, they do not succeed in distinguishing delusions as a clinical phenomenon from everyday irrational beliefs. Focusing on the psychological features is a more promising way to mark the difference between clinical and non-clinical irrational beliefs, but there is wide variability in the extent to which delusions are psychologically harmful, and some everyday irrational beliefs can affect functioning in similarly negative ways. In this chapter we consider three types of belief that share similar epistemic features and exhibit variation with respect to how psychologically harmful they are: (1) delusions of thought insertion, (2) alien abduction beliefs, and (3) self-enhancing beliefs. In the light of the similarities and differences between these cases, we highlight the difficulty in providing an answer to what makes an irrational belief delusional. (shrink)

The pervasive effects of early childhood experiences on health at older ages, documented with methods from life course epidemiology, have served to refocus many public health efforts towards understanding the impact of both cumulative disadvantage and what are known as "sensitive periods" and "critical periods" in shaping health trajectories. While the impact of early childhood experiences has been well-studied, much less attention has been focused on other periods of the life course that might also serve as critical junctures in shaping (...) exposures and risks, periods that may also influence biological pathways leading to poor health in late life. This is especially important as we examine social and economic... (shrink)

In philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive science, definitions of clinical delusions are not based on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of delusions, since there is no consensus yet on what causes delusions. Some of the defining features of delusions are epistemic and focus on whether delusions are true, justified, or rational, as in the definition of delusions as fixed beliefs that are badly supported by evidence. Other defining features of delusions are psychological and focus on whether delusions are harmful, as (...) in the definition of delusions as beliefs that disrupt good functioning. Even if the epistemic features go some way towards capturing what otherwise different instances of clinical delusions have in common, they do not succeed in distinguishing delusions as a clinical phenomenon from everyday irrational beliefs. Focusing on the psychological features is a more promising way to mark the difference between clinical and non-clinical irrational beliefs, but there is wide variability in the extent to which delusions are psychologically harmful, and some everyday irrational beliefs can affect functioning in similarly negative ways. In this chapter we consider three types of belief that share similar epistemic features and exhibit variation with respect to how psychologically harmful they are: (1) delusions of thought insertion, (2) alien abduction beliefs, and (3) self-enhancing beliefs. In the light of the similarities and differences among these cases, we highlight the difficulty in providing an answer to what makes an irrational belief delusional. (shrink)

Bicchieri (The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of norms, 2006, xi) presents a formal analysis of norms that answers the questions of "when, how, and to what degree" norms affect human behavior in the play of games. The purpose of this paper is to apply a variation of the Bicchieri norms analysis to generate a model of norms-based play of the traditional deterrence game (Zagare and Kilgour, Int Stud Q 37: 1-27, 1993; Morrow, Game theory for political scientists, (...) 1994), the paradigmatic model of conflict initiation in International Relations. The deterrence game is modeled here as a sequential decision problem. As such, our analysis is an adaptation of Bicchieri's game-theoretic formalization of norms to what we will call the norms account of the game. We find that the standard account of the traditional deterrence game is a special case of the norms account of the game. We also show that the adaptation of Bicchieri's analysis of social norms yields new and interesting claims regarding when, how, and to what degree norms operate as a constraint on risk-related behavior in the traditional deterrence game. Moreover, we discuss how the results of the model provide testable propositions of relevance to the role of norms in international interactions. (shrink)

This descriptive case study explores how on cohort of 17 White elementary preservice teachers examined counter-narratives of racism and Whiteness in selected documentary films using a historical inquiry approach. Findings indicate that by joining documentary film and historical inquiry in elementary social studies education, teacher educators can foster preservice teachers' engagement with perspective recognition while developing historical content knowledge. This study also documents White preservice teachers' acceptance of racism and resistance towards unpacking their White privilege and racism as status quo. (...) Implications for using this approach with preservice teachers and the dilemma of White avoidance in social studies education are discussed. (shrink)

This paper considers the bioethics of estranged biological kin, who are biologically related people not in contact with one another (due to adoption, abandonment, or other long-term estrangement). Specifically, I am interested in what is owed to estranged biological kin in the event of medical need. A survey of current bioethics demonstrates that most analyses are not prepared to reckon with the complications of having or being estranged biological kin. For example, adoptees might wonder if a lack of contact with (...) biological kin could someday affect their medical care (or affect the medical care of their biological relatives). Estranged biological kin, such as adoptees, present us with a chance to think about human connection. After sketching several organ-donation and adoption tropes, I argue that a feminist analysis of vulnerability and dependency is helpful for understanding the confusing ties of estranged biological kin. I conclude by proposing a medical registry that would put adoptees and others in touch with their estranged biological kin on a medically as-needed basis. (shrink)

Through her own words, Mary Hamilton demonstrates the rich resources available for the study of an elite womans life during the latter part of the eighteenth-century and allows us to resurrect more fully the life of a member of an elite circle of women during this period. Her diaries reveal the many opportunities that she had to meet with a number of the significant figures of her day, and shed light on how her academic efforts were perceived by those around (...) her. This article shows how her writings offer researchers an insight into eighteenth-century society as viewed and lived by a woman who was close not only to the centre of high society but also to the intellectual elite of the day. It considers how valuable a resource the diaries and papers are as a potential research tool not only for the study of women‘s history but as a rich resource for the period. (shrink)

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Digital technology has transformed the way that we visualise the natural world, the art we create and the stories we tell about our environments. Exploring contemporary digital art and literature through an ecocritical lens, Digital Vision and the Ecological Aesthetic (1968-2018) demonstrates the many ways in which critical ideas of the sublime, the pastoral and the picturesque have been renewed and shaped in (...) digital media, from electronic literature to music and the visual arts. The book goes on to explore the ecological implications of these new forms of cultural representation in the digital age and in so doing makes a profound contribution to our understanding of digital art practice in the 21st century. (shrink)

Anthony Celano argues that after Thomas Aquinas the flexibility of Aristotle’s ethics gives way to the universal codes of Christian morality. His argument posits that the Schoolmen adopted a line of moral reasoning that follows a Platonic tradition of taking universal moral principles as the basis of moral reasoning. While Thomas does work in a tradition that, resemblant of the Platonic tradition, incorporates inerrant principles of moral reasoning in the habit of _synderesis_, his understanding of those principles is distinctly Aristotelian (...) in character and thus the flexible moral reasoning of Aristotle’s _phronimos_ is retained. For Thomas _synderesis_ is the first principle of practical reason and is the source rather than the inhibitor of personal and spontaneous moral reasoning. This article will first outline Celano’s position, detail the thought of Thomas’ predecessors, and then show how Thomas employs the principle of _synderesis_ in a distinctly Aristotelian framework. (shrink)

Individuals often describe objects in their world in terms of perceptual dimensions that span a variety of modalities; the visual (e.g., brightness: dark–bright), the auditory (e.g., loudness: quiet–loud), the gustatory (e.g., taste: sour–sweet), the tactile (e.g., hardness: soft vs. hard) and the kinaesthetic (e.g., speed: slow–fast). We ask whether individuals use perceptual dimensions to differentiate emotions from one another. Participants in two studies (one where respondents reported on abstract emotion concepts and a second where they reported on specific emotion episodes) (...) rated the extent to which features anchoring 29 perceptual dimensions (e.g., temperature, texture and taste) are associated with 8 emotions (anger, fear, sadness, guilt, contentment, gratitude, pride and excitement). Results revealed that in both studies perceptual dimensions differentiate positive from negative emotions and high arousal from low arousal emotions. They also differentiate among emotions that are similar in arousal and valence (e.g., high arousal negative emotions such as anger and fear). Specific features that anchor particular perceptual dimensions (e.g., hot vs. cold) are also differentially associated with emotions. (shrink)

What about Confucian bioethics should compel our interest? Apart from the fact that Confucianism grounds the belief system of a great number of people, a Confucian bioethics poses a profound challe...

In the 17th and 18th centuries, mathematics was understood to be the science that systematized our knowledge of magnitude, or quantity. But the mathematical notion of magnitude and the methods used to investigate it underwent a period of radical transformation during the modern period, which forced philosophers of mathematics to confront a changing mathematical landscape. In this context, the modern philosopher of mathematics had to provide an account of the apriority and applicability of mathematical reasoning, as such reasoning was then (...) understood. Early modern mathematical reasoning and the accounts of such reasoning offered by Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant are explained and discussed. (shrink)

Social policy questions in the U.S. are often framed in terms of individual rights, valorizing individual freedom and self‐determination. But this focus obscures the social and economic bases of health and disease. U.S. bioethics, as its counterparts in Africa and Asia have done, needs to restructure its philosophical framework and expand its moral criteria to consider how to define a global ethics.

Clinical ethics consultation is on the horns of a dilemma. One horn skewers the field for its lack of standards, while the other horn skewers it for proposing arbitrary or deeply contested foundations. I articulate the dilemma by discussing several critiques of the field and the challenge of formulating standards and suggest that the solution lies, at least until a robust consensus emerges, with establishing a list of proscriptive standards to guide the field.

This article reviews how behavioral methods, event-related potentials, and functional magnetic resonance imaging are used to understand the acquisition of perceptual expertise in both adult and developmental populations. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the research focused on understanding the role and nature of experience in both the acquisition of perceptual expertise and the development of expert face processing. Behavioral tasks designed to assess perceptual expertise in adults include: perceptual discrimination and matching tasks and the (...) categorization and recognition memory tasks. Training studies are used to mimic the natural acquisition of face and non-face perceptual expertise. Using these various methods and techniques, studies of perceptual expertise prove useful to the understanding of specialization of perceptual skills and categorization abilities and expands our understanding of the function and plasticity of the visual system. (shrink)

This article explores how theoretical arguments in relation to the concepts of embodiment and identity can allow one to analyse and explore the cultural and psychological significance of a contemporary set of practices of the `hallucinatory self', exemplified by members of the Hearing Voices Network. The article considers work in `critical psychology', which has largely been ignored by media and cultural theory. Through specific analysis of the ways in which a group of voice-hearers are enacting their identities outside of the (...) frameworks of the `psy' disciplines, the limits of current theories of identity will be exemplified. The article suggests that cultural and social theory must move beyond `consumption' as one of the key sites of subjectification, and begin to explore the significance of sites organized through divisions made between the normal and the abnormal. This will involve developing theories of subject formation which can adequately theorize the relations between truth, power and desire, and can pay attention to those situated practices which produce the various possibilities of experience in relation to contemporary forms of selfhood. (shrink)

Building rapport is considered important in investigative interviewing of children about alleged sexual abuse, but theoretical understanding of the nature of rapport and how to judge its presence remains sketchy. This article argues that the conversation analytic concept of progressivity may provide empirical tractability to the concept of rapport and indeed may be partially what people are detecting when they judge the presence of rapport. A single case is analysed, drawn from a corpus of 11 video-taped interviews with children conducted (...) by police in an Australian sexual crime unit. Analysis focuses on how the interviewer responds when progressivity breaks down, and how restoration is collaboratively achieved. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future work that might investigate a more thoroughly social interactional account of rapport, and in terms of new ideas about what might constitute skilful interviewing practices amongst investigative interviewers. (shrink)