Peter Alward’s rigorous introductory text functions as a roadmap for students, laying out the key issues, positions, and arguments of academic philosophy. The book covers central topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. An introductory chapter presents the foundations of philosophical discourse and offers a primer on the basics of logic. Those argumentative tools are then employed to address classic philosophical issues such as the relationship between body and mind, skepticism, the possibility of free will, and the existence (...) of God. Later chapters engage issues of morality, justice, and liberty, as well as moral questions concerning abortion and the practice of punishment. Throughout, Alward aims for clarity, providing summaries, diagrams, and reflective questions to assist the student reader. (shrink)

performances. But comparatively little work has been by way of elucidating such speech acts,[1] and without an adequate account of them, such comparisons will ultimately prove to be empty. In this paper, I will defend an illocutionary pretense view, according to which actors pretend to perform various kinds of illocutionary acts rather than genuinely performing them. This is, of course, a fairly intuitive position to take. What I want to argue, however, is that this is the route one must take: (...) there are simply no tenable alternatives. (shrink)

In _Politics with Beauvoir_ Lori Jo Marso treats Simone de Beauvoir's feminist theory and practice as part of her political theory, arguing that freedom is Beauvoir's central concern and that this is best apprehended through Marso's notion of the encounter. Starting with Beauvoir's political encounters with several of her key contemporaries including Hannah Arendt, Robert Brasillach, Richard Wright, Frantz Fanon, and Violette Leduc, Marso also moves beyond historical context to stage encounters between Beauvoir and others such as Chantal Akerman, (...) Lars von Trier, Rahel Varnhagen, Alison Bechdel, the Marquis de Sade, and Margarethe von Trotta. From intimate to historical, always affective though often fraught and divisive, Beauvoir's encounters, Marso shows, exemplify freedom as a shared, relational, collective practice. _Politics with Beauvoir_ gives us a new Beauvoir and a new way of thinking about politics—as embodied and coalitional. (shrink)

How educators and students process and respond to emotions can either enhance or impede the development of the whole child. Social and emotional learning (SEL) refers to the processes of developing social and emotional competencies, which depend on individuals’ capacity to recognize, understand, and manage emotions (i.e., emotional intelligence or EI). Consensus across disciplines about the importance of EI highlights the need to advance the science of how to teach SEL. RULER, an evidence-based approach to teaching EI, provides an educational (...) framework that encompasses a set of practices for comprehensive SEL integration across a school or district. In this article, we describe RULER, explain how it teaches EI, and summarize evidence of its effectiveness. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue, contra Perry, that the existence of locating beliefs does not require the abandonment of the analysis of belief as a relation between subjects and propositions. I argue that what the "problem of the essential indexical" reveals is that a complete explanation of behaviour requires both an explanation of the type of behaviour the agent engaged in and an explanation of why she engaged in it in the circumstances that she did. And I develop an account (...) of belief which encompasses both explanatory roles and which still treats belief as a two-place relation between subjects and propositions. (shrink)

Is there something distinctive about humanity that justifies the idea that humans have moral status while non-humans do not? Providing an answer to this question has become increasingly important among philosophers as well as those outside of philosophy who are interested in our treatment of non-human animals. For some, answering this question will enable us to better understand the nature of human beings and the proper scope of our moral obligations. Some argue that there is an answer that can distinguish (...) humans from the rest of the natural world. Many of those who accept this answer are interested in justifying certain human practices towards non-humans—practices that cause pain, discomfort, suffering, and death. This latter group expects that in answering the question in a particular way, humans will be justified in granting moral consideration to other humans that is neither required nor justified when considering non-human animals. In contrast to this view, an increasing number of philosophers have argued that while humans are different in a variety of ways from each other and other animals, these differences do not provide a philosophical defense for denying non-human animals moral consideration. What the basis of moral consideration is and what it amounts to has been the source of much disagreement. (shrink)

Kim has defended a solution to the exclusion problem which deploys the «causal inheritance principle» and the identification of instantiations of mental properties with instantiations of their realizing physical properties. I wish to argue that Kim's putative solution to the exclusion problem rests on an equivocation between instantiations of properties as bearers of properties and instantiations as property instances. On the former understanding, the causal inheritance principle is too weak to confer causal efficacy upon mental properties. And on the latter (...) understanding, the identification of mental and physical instantiations is simply untenable. (shrink)

According to Tiedke, in order for an act to be free it must satisfy two requirements: (PR) The agent must have been the source of the action. (PAP) It must have been possible for the agent to have done otherwise. Different accounts of freedom cash these conditions out in different ways. The Standard Compatibilist offers the following versions of these principles: (PRSC) The agent's choice was a link in the chain of events that caused her to perform the action (PAPSC) (...) If the agent had chosen differently, she would have acted differently. What is important to note is that there is no requirement that the agent in fact have the ability to choose other than she does. Peacocke's version of compatibilist freedom differs from the standard account in exactly this regard. According to (Tiedke's reconstruction of) Peacocke, an act is free just in case the following conditions are satisfied: (PRPC) The agent must be able to conceptualize/reflect upon the factors influencing her decision to.. (shrink)

There comes a time in every young philosopher.

In this paper, I argue that Thomson's famous attempt to reconcile the fetus's putative right to life with robust abortion rights is not tenable. Given her view, whether or not an abortion violates the fetus's right to life depends on the abortion procedure utilised. And I argue that Thomson's view implies that any late term abortion that involves feticide is impermissible. In particular, this would rule out the partial birth abortion technique which has been so controversial of late.

Val Plumwood urged us to attend to earth others in non-dualistic ways. In this essay I suggest that such attention be promoted through what I call "engaged empathy." Engaged empathy involves critical attention to the conditions that undermine the well being or flourishing of those to whom empathy is directed and this requires moral agents to attend to things they might not have otherwise. Engaged empathy requires gaining wisdom and perspective and, importantly, motivates the empathizer to act ethically.

This study examined differences between university students who were caught and sanctioned for cheating, students admitting to cheating but who were not caught, and students reporting that they had never cheated. Our findings showed that noncheaters are older, have better grade point averages, and have more sophisticated moral and epistemological reasoning skills. Qualitative analyses revealed that denial of responsibility and injury were the most common neutralization techniques and differed between the sanctioned and self-reported cheaters. We discuss the need to examine (...) the extent to which reasoning skills have a causal impact on cheating behaviors. (shrink)

In this comprehensive introduction to animal ethics, Lori Gruen weaves together poignant and provocative case studies with discussions of ethical theory, urging readers to engage critically and empathetically reflect on our treatment of other animals. In clear and accessible language, Gruen provides a survey of the issues central to human-animal relations and a reasoned new perspective on current key debates in the field. She analyses and explains a range of theoretical positions and poses challenging questions that directly encourage readers (...) to hone their ethical reasoning skills and to develop a defensible position about their own practices. Her book will be an invaluable resource for students in a wide range of disciplines including ethics, environmental studies, veterinary science, women's studies, and the emerging field of animal studies and is an engaging account of the subject for general readers with no prior background in philosophy. (shrink)

Some bioethicists argue that conscientious objectors in health care should have to justify themselves, just as objectors in the military do. They should have to provide reasons that explain why they should be exempt from offering the services that they find offensive. There are two versions of this view in the literature, each giving different standards of justification. We show these views are each either too permissive (i.e. would result in problematic exemptions based on conscience) or too restrictive (i.e. would (...) produce problematic denials of exemption). We then develop a middle ground position that we believe better combines respect for the conscience of healthcare professionals with concern for the duties that they owe to patients. Our claim, in short, is that insofar as objectors should have to justify themselves, they should have to do it according to the standard that we defend rather than according to the standards that others have developed. (shrink)

meaning of a proper name is simply its referent.[1] This thesis, however, brings with it a whole host of problems. One particularly thorny difficulty is that of negative existentials, sentences of the form ‘N does not exist’ (where ‘N’ is a proper name). Intuitively, some such sentences are true, but the direct reference theory seems to imply that they must be either false or meaningless. After all, if the meaning of a name is just its referent, then a sentence such (...) as ‘Mary does not exist’ is meaningless unless there exists a person Mary who is the referent of the name ‘Mary’. But if such a person exists, then the sentence denying her existence must be false.            Now it might be suggested that negative existentials involve a rather rare and specialized use of names, for which an alternate analysis might well be appropriate. One might, for example, have independent reasons for thinking that existence is not a predicate. Even if this is right, however, the analysis of fictional discourse poses difficulties for the direct reference theory that cannot be so easily avoided. The trouble is that fictional names—‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Bilbo Baggins’, for example—lack referents; fictional characters do not exist. As a result, a simple application of the direct reference view to fictional discourse is entirely untenable—this would entail that claims regarding fictional characters are not only never true, but always meaningless.            The tendency in the philosophy of language has been to treat fictional discourse as a peripheral case, posing little threat to the direct reference view. And, as such, the fact that the analysis of fiction seems to run into intractable difficulties has been downplayed, and the fact the analyses on offer tend to be ad hoc has been tolerated. Typical strategies include treating fictional names as abbreviations for definite descriptions, supposing that fictional names occur within the scope of tacit fictive operators of various sorts, or taking them to directly refer to non-existent objects.. (shrink)

Abstract:To date, our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of moral judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done involving cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the problem of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human morality by applying a recently developed construct—moral approbation—to illuminate the link between moral judgment and moral action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the effect that organizations have on ethical (...) behavior in terms of the moral approbation construct. (shrink)

_Issues in Religion and Education, Whose Religion?_ is a contribution to the dynamic and evolving global debates about the role of religion in public education. It provides a cross-section of the debates over religion.

The knowledge production of researchers interested in improving the health‐care of young clients through the employment of emancipatory research methodologies may be limited by the complexity that working with young children presents to the research process. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether emancipatory research methodologies have application within the context of research with children. Critical examination of the challenges inherent in emancipatory research with children reveals that the application of aspects of these approaches presents possibilities for contributing (...) significantly to our knowledge development for the nursing of children. (shrink)

The millennial vision quest -- Who are the changers? -- The great name debate -- How to read this book -- Magicians, manipulators, and muses -- The trouble with generalization -- History speaks -- The world of men and everyday affairs -- First things first -- Coming to your senses -- Hearing -- Smell -- Taste -- Sight -- Touch -- Emotion -- What to do with all of this information -- Activities -- Allies -- The importance of support -- (...) The ally relationship -- Who are the allies? -- Who allies are not! -- Ally-inviting conversations -- A note to you allies out there -- Strength : a warning label -- Ambivalence -- The trouble with change -- Safety first -- Building a net -- Walking against traffic -- Among other things -- Confidence and doubt -- A word about cultural ambivalence -- Structure and routine -- Morning, noon, and night -- Realistic routines -- Breaking it down -- When the heart is hurting -- When nothing seems to work -- The forest for the trees -- Living the daily life -- Stages of growth -- The stages of change -- Identifying your stage -- The stuff of myth and legend -- Haunted by the past -- The way-back-when time -- Rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations -- Setting goals -- Rules for successful goals -- Rewarding growth -- Inviting witnesses -- Obstacles to goals and growth -- Failure -- Boredom -- Giving away credit -- Reaffirming vows -- The final chapter. (shrink)

This article discusses the ways in which the ambiguous concept of equality has been used in the British debate regarding the financing of political election campaigns. It identifies three concepts of equality commonly used in that debate: ‘equality of arms’ between political parties, ‘equality of influence’ between citizens, and ‘equality of access’ to the so‐called ‘marketplace of ideas’. The article than discusses each of these concepts of equality in greater detail, and, in doing so, identifies four broader principles underlying the (...) use of these concepts in the election financing debate. The article concludes that, although the language of equality is used often and with great effect in the election financing debate, the concepts of equality being invoked are rarely independently valuable concepts. Instead, the concepts of equality used are valued in the election financing debate because they promote one of the four underlying principles. These principles themselves, however, involve complex questions of democracy and distributional fairness, and are not uncontroversial. I thus suggest that future debates regarding election financing could be enhanced by a more direct discussion of the merits of these underlying principles. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that Husserl's writings provide an inspiration for considering art today. More specifically we ask here whether Husserl's description of aesthetic attitude is rich and original. The comparisons he draws between the aesthetic attitude and the phenomenological attitude always aim to clarify the phenomenological attitude and thus take it for granted that the typical features of the aesthetic attitude are well known. In this way Husserl presupposes and retrieves the teaching of Kant, although in certain working notes (...) he clarifies and intensifies the formal and reflective characteristics of Kant's description of the aesthetic judgment. (shrink)

"In Entangled Empathy, scholar and activist Lori Gruen argues that rather than focusing on animal rights, we ought to work to make our relationships with animals right by empathetically responding to their needs, interests, desires, vulnerabilities, hopes, and unique perspectives. Pointing out that we are already entangled in complex and life-altering relationships with other animals, Gruen guides readers through a new way of thinking about and practicing animal ethics. Lori Gruen is Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of Wesleyan (...) Animal Studies at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Ethics and Animals and co-editor, with Carol Adams, of Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Animals and the Earth."--Back cover. (shrink)

Satz posed the term "legal gerrymandering for human interest," referring to the redrawing of the natural baseline of protections for other animals to further human use of them. One of the domains where this exists most clearly is in scientific research on animal models. An animal model is sufficiently like humans in anatomy, physiology, or psychology to be used in research considered too harmful or risky for humans. I argue that the use of animal models is, by its very nature, (...) ethical gerrymandering and a corruption of the self-correcting component of the scientific process. (shrink)

This article examines the implications of the escalation in institutional inves power and heterogeneity for two dominant theories of corporate governanceagency theory and stakeholder theory. From this analysis, a new view of the agency relationship between institutional investors and their portfolio firms emerges, which recognizes the institutions’ market power, complex role as financial intermediaries, and possible involvement in simultaneous and opposing agency contracts. We also conclude that stakeholder theorists should reconsider these newly empowered shareholders’moral standing in relation to their portfolio (...) firms, and they should reexamine the identities and goals of these modern investors. To that end, we demonstrate that a novel, intragroup application of Mitchell, Agle, and Wood’s stakeholder framework to heterogeneous institutional investors illuminates their varying levels of stakeholder salience. (shrink)

Rumination is a maladaptive form of emotion regulation associated with psychopathology. Research with adults suggests that rumination covaries with diurnal cortisol rhythms, yet this has not been examined among adolescents. Here, we examine the day-to-day covariation between rumination and cortisol, and explore whether trait rumination is associated with alterations in diurnal cortisol rhythms among adolescent girls. Participants provided saliva samples 3 times per day over 3 days, along with daily reports of stress and rumination, questionnaires assessing trait rumination related to (...) peer stress, and diagnostic interviews assessing depression and anxiety. Greater rumination than usual during the day was associated with lower cortisol awakening responses the following morning, but this effect was not significant after accounting for wake time and an objective measure of adherence to the saliva sampling protocol. Trait rumination was associated with lower average cortisol levels at waking and flatter diurnal slopes, accounting for wake time, protocol compliance, and other factors. These patterns may help to explain why rumination is related to the development of psychopathology. (shrink)

two-dimensional modal framework introduced by Evans [2] and developed by Davies and Humberstone. [3] This framework provides Chalmers with a powerful tool for handling the most serious objection to conceivability arguments for dualism: the problem of..

Establishing that nature has intrinsic value has been the primary goal of environmental philosophers. This goal has generated tremendous confusion. Part of the confusion stems from a conflation of two quite distinct concerns. The first concern is with establishing the moral considerability of the natural world which is captured by what I call "intrinsic value p ." The second concern attempts to address a perceived problem with the way nature has traditionally been valued, or as many environmentalists would suggest, undervalued, (...) what I call "intrinsic value v ." In this paper I argue against further development of both types of theories of the intrinsic value of nature. There are, I believe, intermediate valuations that have been almost entirely overlooked in discussions of value. Much of the confusion currently plaguing environmental ethics can be avoided by abandoning intrinsic value and refocusing environmental ethics. (shrink)

Recent debates between modernists and postmodernists have shaken the foundations of modern social science. The epistemological assumptions of long-established procedures for constructing and validating knowledge claims have been called into question. This article discusses how two major contributors to the “new feminist epistemologies”—Dorothy Smith and Patricia Hill Collins—selectively integrate premises of modernist and postmodernist thought into their standpoint approaches. However, the particular premises they select result in significant ontological and epistemological differences between their works. These differences reflect major controversies over (...) materialism versus idealism, as well as essentialism versus diversity. As such, these different standpoints have important implications for feminist scholarship and political practice. (shrink)

This article compares Hannah Arendt's famous essay on Adolf Eichmann's trial in Israel in 1961 to Simone de Beauvoir's little studied piece, "An Eye for an Eye," on the trial of Robert Brasillach in France in 1945. Arendt and Beauvoir each determine the complicity of individuals acting within a political order that seeks to eliminate certain forms of otherness and difference, but come to differing conclusions about the significance of the crimes. I explain Beauvoir's account of ambiguity, on which she (...) draws in her judgment of Brasillach and elaborates in her 1948 Ethics of Ambiguity, ana measure it against Arendt's account of Eichmann's thoughtlessness and its effects on the destruction of conditions of worldly plurality. Linking the failure of ethical judgment on the part of individuals to prior systemic political conditions, Beauvoir helps us recognize struggles over the meaning of bodies and conditions of inequality as central to politics. (shrink)

Catholic hospitals and health systems have proliferated and succeeded in American healthcare; they now operate four of the largest health systems and serve nearly one in six hospital patients. Like other religious entities that Wuest and Last write about in this issue, in their article Church Against State, they have benefited by and supported the long reach of conservative efforts to undermine the administrative state.

My original reaction to Yosh’s paper was to grumble. It seemed to me to contain a number of terminological infelicities, unpersuasive arguments, and counterintuitive implications. And while I think that some of my superficial complaints are worth pointing out (and I can’t help myself), a commentary consisting only of grumbling would be neither interesting nor helpful. Paul Viminitz would describe such a commentary as “unseemly”. And so I revisited Yosh’s paper with a more sympathetic eye. My second reaction was to (...) suppose that what Yosh had actually done was to provide a Russellian analysis of sentences containing descriptions but in a 2nd order logical system – a system in which quantification over properties is permitted and in which 1st order quantifiers are reinterpreted as 2nd order properties. This would be an interesting albeit modest contribution to the description literature. But as I reread Yosh’s paper in preparation for writing this commentary, I realized that given the account of individual kinds that was being developed this wasn’t right. Individual kinds are not properties at all, they are a new sort of individual – teams of one. Yosh’s proposal is hardly modest at all. So, in these comments, I am going to focus on the notion of an individual kind and whether or not we ought to endorse such entities in our semantic theorizing. But first, some preliminary grumbling – I really can’t help myself. (shrink)

BackgroundMedical aid in dying was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 at two (...) Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend. (shrink)

John Cassian, an Egyptian monk in the early fifth century offers splendid wisdom and counsel regarding many spiritual disciplines. This reflection describes a personal experience of journeying with Cassian's prayer. In the most frequently quoted excerpt from his Conferences, Cassian raises up a prayer formula using Psalm 70:1 as a verse to facilitate unceasing prayer of the heart: “O God, come to my assistance; Lord, make haste to help me. “ In an unexpected and surprising way, this verse from Psalm (...) 70 comes to appear in the Liturgy of the Hours, as a preamble verse to Morning, Daytime, and Evening Prayer. Over the centuries, this simple verse from the Psalms has carried an entire prayer tradition, rooted in the spirituality of the desert. Cassian's elucidation of this verse reminds us how a formative reading of Scripture is integrally bound to the soul's progress in prayer. (shrink)