Compassionate care is a foundation of the National Health Service. However, several high-profile inquiries into healthcare failures in the NHS suggest compassion is often absent in our hospitals. Ensuing policies mandate healthcare professionals to ‘show more compassion’ but, as the psychological evidence-base indicates, this instruction neglects the complexity of this social emotion. This paper applies the psychological research on compassion to modern healthcare settings with the aim of creating a better understanding of the pathways leading to uncompassionate care. A review (...) of the empirical evidence suggests a range of psychological factors modulate compassion. In particular, the psychological literature indicates the human compassion system is adaptive, highly attuned to its environment. As such, a healthcare professional’s ability to experience and display compassionate behaviour will be, in part, determined by the environment in which they practise; that is, aspects of the organisational environment will either facilitate or inhibit compassion. This paper argues that the typical organisational set-up of a modern healthcare setting seriously undermines compassionate care. Organisational features frequently associated with uncompassionate care include the understaffing of hospital wards, excessive working shift patterns and the dogged focus on achieving service efficiencies—each has been identified as contributing to the alarming breakdown of compassionate care at the centre of several healthcare failings. Policies focusing on culture change in the NHS neglect the growing psychological evidence base on compassion, but by applying a psychological understanding of compassion to healthcare settings, we can begin to adequately understand and address the real causes of uncompassionate care. (shrink)

The National Health Service (NHS) has, for over four decades, been beset with numerous ‘scandals’ relating to poor patient care across several diverse clinical contexts. Ensuing inquiries proceed as though each scandal is unique, with recommendations highlighting the need for more staff training, a change of culture within the NHS based upon a ‘duty of candour’, and proposed criminal sanctions for employees believed to breach good patient care. However, mistakes reoccur and failings in patient safety continue. While inquiries describe _what_ (...) went awry in each case, questions of _how_ and _why_ such failures came to be remain unanswered. Psychology has a role in answering these questions. Applying psychological theory can guide an understanding of the _causes_ that lead to catastrophic failures in healthcare settings. Indeed, what is often neglected in inquiries is the role of human behaviour in contributing to these failures. Drawing upon behavioural, social and cognitive theories, a psychological analysis of key factors, typically present in clinical contexts where serious failures of care occur, is presented. Applying theory and models from the field of psychology can guide further understanding of the precipitants to poor care. (shrink)

Argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education and public benefits create a permanent under-caste based largely on race. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It is not a straightforward text on Kant’s methodology. Rather, the author uses Kant’s methods of analysis and synthesis as a backdrop in order to “complete the task where Kant left off”. The “task” is varyingly described by the author as that of leading us back to the “engendering archê” or the “originary”. This journey back to the originary will presumably allow us to explain the “world’s worlding”. The book draws on a (...) broadly phenomenological interpretation of Kant and thus emphasizes, a la Heidegger, the role of the imagination in Kant’s philosophy. Indeed, according to the author, Kant’s first Critique heralds the deep and profound notion that the “way to truth” is through the imagination. Again echoing Heidegger, the author takes it to be an unfortunate fact that Kant “shrunk back from this abyss”. Despite Kant’s timidity, however, the Critique is nevertheless said to provide us with the resources for a robust phenomenology. (shrink)

The idea for this special issue came from our mutual interest in research education and the development of future researchers. Our shared program of research has led us to discover the potentials, complexities, and dilemmas associated with research assistantships where newcomers assist more experienced researchers to conduct research projects. We considered a wide range of proposals and papers addressing different aspects of research assistantships. The resulting collection includes self-studies and analyses of others, as well as policy reviews and recommendations. The (...) pieces consider research assistantships involving bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students in four different countries (Canada, Denmark, South Africa, United States) and across a range of disciplines. (shrink)

Some critical philosophers of race have argued that whiteness can be understood as a technology of affect and that white supremacy is comprised partly of unconscious habits that result in racialized perception. In an effort to deepen our understanding of the affective and bodily dimensions of white supremacy and the ways in which affective habits are socially produced, I look to insights from situated affectivity. Theorists in this field maintain that affective experience is not simply a matter of felt inner (...) states, but rather socially and environmentally embedded and fundamentally relational. Jan Slaby presents the concept of an ‘affective arrangement’ as a way to approach affectivity in terms of relational dynamics unfolding within a particular setting. Applying this concept to the societal level, Paul Schuetze introduces the notion of ‘affective milieu.’ I argue that these notions of ‘affective arrangement’ and ‘affective milieu,’ together with an organicist account of habit, can help to illuminate the workings of white supremacy in the United States. My proposed account highlights the extent to which white supremacy is an affective, bodily phenomenon and how racist habits are formed over the course of learning and ongoing affective engagement, in the context of various social settings. Crucially, these affective habits are fully bound up with habits of appraisal, interpretation, and judgment, and therefore inseparable from how subjects come to see and understand their world. (shrink)

What is given to us in conscious experience? The Given is an attempt to answer this question and in this way contribute to a general theory of mental content. The content of conscious experience is understood to be absolutely everything that is given to one, experientially, in the having of an experience. Michelle Montague focuses on the analysis of conscious perception, conscious emotion, and conscious thought, and deploys three fundamental notions in addition to the fundamental notion of content: the (...) notions of intentionality, phenomenology, and consciousness. She argues that all experience essentially involves all four things, and that the key to an adequate general theory of what is given in experience lies in giving a correct specification of the nature of these four things and the relations between them. (shrink)

Embodied Selves and Divided Minds examines how research in embodied cognition and enactivism can contribute to our understanding of the nature of self-consciousness, the metaphysics of personal identity, and the disruptions to self-awareness that occur in case of psychopathology. The book reveals how a critical dialogue between Philosophy and Psychiatry can lead to a better understanding of important issues surrounding self-consciousness, personal identity, and psychopathology.

We assessed the attitudes, perceptions, and stereotypes toward Latino immigrants among 247 mental health professionals across 32 U.S. states. We also randomly presented two versions of an attitude measure that varied in their references to immigrants. Participants reported that they did not agree with the anti-immigration law Arizona SB 1070 and other similar bills. Also, greater multicultural awareness was related to positive attitudes and fewer stereotypes toward immigrants. Furthermore, participants who were asked to think about “undocumented immigrants” viewed Latino immigrants (...) more positively than those who were asked think about “illegal aliens.” Findings show the continued need for multicultural awareness and competence training for mental health professionals, which align with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Limitations and future directions for research are discussed. (shrink)

Few theorists would challenge the idea that affect and emotion directly influence decision-making and moral judgment. There is good reason to think that they also significantly assist in decision-making and judgment, and in fact are necessary for fully effective moral cognition. However, they are not sufficient. Deliberation and more reflective thought processes likewise play a crucial role, and in fact are inseparable from affective processes. I will argue that while the dual-process account of moral judgment set forth by Craigie (2011) (...) has great merit, it fails to appreciate fully the extent to which affective and reflective processes are not only integrated, but also mutually interdependent. Evidence from psychopathy indicates that when reflective processes are not assisted adequately by what I will call ?affective framing?, and moral cognition is of the ?cooler,? less emotionally-informed variety, what results is not effective cognitive functioning, but rather psychopathology. My proposed account of affective framing aims to make sense of the way in which affect plays a strictly necessary and integral role not just in intuitive moral responses, but also in reflective moral judgments, so that moral cognition is accomplished by the joint operation of affective processes and reflective reasoning processes. (shrink)

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often‐ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science—including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes—can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. (...) SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a “sensitive” phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk‐benefit profile. (shrink)

Beginning with the view that human consciousness is essentially embodied and that the way we consciously experience the world is structured by our bodily dynamics and surroundings, the book argues that emotions are a fundamental manifestation of our embodiment, and play a crucial role in self-consciousness, moral evaluation, and social cognition.

Building on contemporary research in embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind, this book explores how social institutions in contemporary neoliberal nation-states systematically affect our thoughts, feelings, and agency. Human beings are, necessarily, social animals who create and belong to social institutions. But social institutions take on a life of their own, and literally shape the minds of all those who belong to them, for better or worse, usually without their being self-consciously aware of it. Indeed, in contemporary neoliberal societies, (...) it is generally for the worse. In The Mind-Body Politic, Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna work out a new critique of contemporary social institutions by deploying the special standpoint of the philosophy of mind—in particular, the special standpoint of the philosophy of what they call essentially embodied minds—and make a set of concrete, positive proposals for radically changing both these social institutions and also our essentially embodied lives for the better. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

(2013). Herding, social influence and expert opinion. Journal of Economic Methodology: Vol. 20, Methodology, Systemic Risk, and the Economics Profession, pp. 35-44. doi: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.774845.

In this paper I consider the uses to which certain psychological phenomena—e.g. cases of seeing as, and linguistic understanding—are put in the debate about cognitive phenomenology. I argue that we need clear definitions of the terms ‘sensory phenomenology’ and ‘cognitive phenomenology’ in order to understand the import of these phenomena. I make a suggestion about the best way to define these key terms, and, in the light of it, show how one influential argument against cognitive phenomenology fails.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 1, Page 67-77, February 2022.

The author argues that well-known forms of relativism are unable to accommodate, at once, a set of three highly intuitive theses about the distinctive character of moral reasons. Yet the author argues it is possible to formulate a novel form of normative relativism that has the power to accommodate these claims. The proposed view combines the relativist idea that the normative facts are attitude-dependent with the insight that there are non-human agents to which it makes sense to attribute the kinds (...) of attitudes that give rise to normative reasons. Societies, too, can possess reasons to pursue their aims. What distinguishes moral reasons from reasons of practical rationality is that the former apply directly to societies in virtue of aims held by each society as a group, while the latter apply directly to persons in light of their own individual interests. (shrink)

Franz Brentano’s theory of emotion is tightly bound up with many of his other central claims, in such a way that one has to work out how it relates to these other claims if one is to understand its distinctive character. There are two main axes of investigation. The first results from the fact that Brentano introduces his theory of emotion as part of his overall theory of mind, which consists of a number of closely interconnected theses concerning the nature (...) of mental phenomena, the nature of consciousness, and the classification of mental phenomena into fundamental kinds (Brentano 1874/1973a). The second derives from the fact that his theory of emotion also forms the foundation of his epistemology of objective value, which he elaborates in a framework constituted by an epistemic theory of truth and an extended analogy he draws between emotions and judgments (Brentano 1889/1969). I will consider both of these axes in what follows. (shrink)

Awe has been defined as an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that overwhelm current mental structures, yet facilitate attempts at accommodation. Four studies are presented showing the information-focused nature of awe elicitors, documenting the self-diminishing effects of awe experience, and exploring the effects of awe on the content of the self-concept. Study 1 documented the information-focused, asocial nature of awe elicitors in participant narratives. Study 2 contrasted the stimulus-focused, self-diminishing nature of appraisals and feelings associated with a prototypical awe (...) experience with the self-focused appraisals and feelings associated with pride. Study 3 found that dispositional awe-proneness, but not dispositional joy or pride, was associated with low Need for Cognitive Closure, and also documented a relationship between dispositional awe and increased emphasis on membership in “universal” categories in participants’ self-concepts. Study 4 replicated the self-concept finding from Study 3 using experimentally elicited awe. Implications for future work on awe are discussed. (shrink)

The emergence of environmental governance practices raises a fundamental question as to whether they are substantive or symbolic. Toward that end, we analyze the relationship between a firm’s environmental governance and its environmental management as reflected in its ultimate outcome, environmental performance. We posit that substantive practices would bring changes in organizations, most notably in terms of improved environmental performance, whereas symbolic practices would portray organizations as environmentally committed without making meaningful changes to their operations. Focusing on a sample of (...) environmentally sensitive firms, results are consistent with environmental governance mechanisms being predominantly part of a symbolic approach to manage stakeholder perceptions on environmental management, having little substantial impact on organizations. Statistical analyses show mostly that there is no relation between environmental governance mechanisms and environmental performance, measured in terms of regulatory compliance, pollution prevention, and environmental capital expenditures. However, there is some indication that environmental incentives are associated with pollution prevention. Interviews with corporate directors shed further light on these results by underlining that environmental governance mechanisms are employed at the board level to protect the organization from reputational and/or regulatory harm, but are not necessarily intended to proactively improve environmental performance. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

In an earlier paper I argued that J.G. Fichte (rather than Kant or Hegel or some amalgam) was the primary historical model for the ethical standpoint described in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or II . There I offered a list of reasons for thinking that Hegel was less important than some believed and that Kierkegaard addressed Kantianism largely in its Fichtean form. In the interim I have discovered another reason to add to that list: as it happens, there was a quite general consensus (...) among philosophers in the 1830s, ’40s and ’50s not just that Fichte’s ethics was Kantian ethics in its most perfect form, but even that it was the best example available of normative ethics on a philosophical (rather than a religious) foundation. So Kierkegaard’s use of Fichte as a foil was the perfectly obvious choice in the context. That is a curious fact, given the complete obscurity of Fichte’s ethics today, and one whose interest should not be confined to Kierkegaard scholars. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 233-250 [Access article in PDF] Narrative Theory and Function: Why Evolution Matters Michelle Scalise Sugiyama I It may seem a strange proposition that the study of human evolution is integral to the study of literature, yet that is exactly what this paper proposes. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the practice of storytelling is ancient, pre-dating not only the advent of writing, (...) but of agriculture and permanent settlement as well. Secondly, narrative is ultimately a product of the mind, which in turn is the product of a long history of evolution by natural selection. Thus, an understanding of why and how humans create and consume narrative requires an understanding of (1) features of ancestral environments and (2) features of the mind that made the emergence of this phenomenon possible.There can be little doubt that narrative emerged in human prehistory. Language, an obvious prerequisite for storytelling, is likely to have emerged by at least 50,000 and possibly 250,000 years ago, depending upon whether one places one's trust in archaeological or anatomical evidence. 1 The most reasonable estimate is offered by Geoffrey Miller, who points out that, given its universality, the language faculty must have emerged by the time ancestral Homo sapiens began migrating out of Africa approximately 100,000 years ago. 2 Although the oldest known written narrative (The Epic of Gilgamesh) dates back only 5,000 years, the written literary traditions of many ancient cultures are known to be rooted in longstanding oral traditions. 3 The fact that many modern foraging peoples have rich and complex oral traditions further suggests that the emergence of narrative is not linked to the development of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Moreover, other forms of symbolic expression, such as the cave paintings, Venus figurines, and engraved bone [End Page 233] and antler that have been found at various sites throughout Europe, date back approximately 30,000 years, and rock paintings in Australia may date back even farther. 4 Since humans were physiologically capable of speech long before they began producing these artifacts, storytelling is likely to be at least as ancient as these other representational forms. Indeed, one scholar situates the "dawn of the oral tradition" within this period (Pfeiffer, p. 189). Given, then, that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) have been in existence for approximately 100,000 years 5 and are the only hominid species or subspecies known for certain to exhibit storytelling behavior, we can safely say that oral narrative is a product of our hunting-and-gathering past, likely to have emerged between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago.The universality of narrative is further testimony to its being an ancient cognitive phenomenon. Literate or not, all known cultures, past and present, practice storytelling. 6 Moreover, all normally developing humans acquire the ability to process and generate stories: studies of Western children indicate that the ability to tell stories emerges spontaneously between the ages of two-and-a-half and three, and children as young as thirty months can distinguish between narrative and non-narrative uses of language. 7 In contrast to reading, writing, and arithmetic, no special education is required for narrative competence to develop, nor is there any evidence that oral literacy is acquired through contact with other cultures; although subject matter is often exchanged between groups, the practice of storytelling itself arises independently among even the most isolated peoples. Nor does any type of culture have a monopoly on narrative sophistication: the stories of hunter-horticulturalist societies are no less observant, insightful, or artful than those of agrarian or industrial societies.As with language, narrative takes the same basic form across cultures, which David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson define as "a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time." Given the preponderance of human agents in narrative, most narrative theorists would probably modify this barebones description to include character (usually understood to have a human psychology), goal-oriented action, and resolution. Frank Kermode, for example, defines the "proprieties" of narrative as "connexity, closure, and character," and John... (shrink)

The long-standing debate between cognitive and feeling theories of emotion stems, in part, from the assumption that cognition and thought are abstract, intellectual, disembodied processes, and that bodily feelings are non-intentional and have no representational content. Working with this assumption has led many emotions theorists to neglect the way in which emotions are simultaneously bodily and cognitive-evaluative. Even hybrid theories, such as those set forth by Prinz and Barlassina and Newen, fail to account fully for how the cognitive and bodily (...) elements of emotion are integrated. As a result, such accounts are unable to provide an adequate characterization of the intentionality or phenomenology of emotions. I will argue that an enactive account of emotions, one which characterizes them as a way of engaging with and making sense of one’s surroundings, can help us to overcome this false dichotomy between cognitive and body elements. What I call ‘ affective framing’ is at the core of emotional experience. It is the way in which we engage with and appraise our surroundings in and through bodily feelings of caring, so that the bodily and cognitive elements of emotion necessarily are fused. The notion of affective framing not only helps to clarify the relationship between bodily and cognitive elements of emotion, but also offers a useful way to make sense of both the intentional directedness and phenomenal character of emotional experience. (shrink)

Are epistemic reasons merely a species of instrumental practical reasons, making epistemic rationality a specialized form of instrumental practical rationality? Or are epistemic reasons importantly different in kind? Despite the attractions of the former view, Kelly (2003) argues quite compellingly that epistemic rationality cannot be merely a matter of taking effective means to one’s epistemic ends. I argue here that Kelly’s objections can be sidestepped if we understand epistemic reasons as instrumental reasons that arise in light of the aims held (...) by social collectives of which we are members, rather than being fixed by our own individual goals. This social version of epistemic instrumentalism would not be subject to counterexamples that point to the failure of individual people to possess desires or goals that would account for all of the epistemic reasons we find it natural to attribute to them. I conclude by comparing the proposed view to the alternative version of instrumentalism defended by Kornblith (1993). I argue that the social view I sketch here has one noteworthy advantage. It better accounts for the intuitive distinctness of our practical and epistemic reasons for belief in cases where flouting epistemic norms would better help us to achieve our own individual goals. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to transcend the assumption that stakeholder engagement is necessarily a responsible practice. Stakeholder engagement is traditionally seen as corporate responsibility in action. Indeed, in some literatures there exists an assumption that the more an organisation engages with its stakeholders, the more it is responsible. This simple 'more is better' view of stakeholder engagement belies the true complexity of the relationship between engagement and corporate responsibility. Stakeholder engagement may be understood in a variety of different (...) ways and from a variety of different theoretical perspectives. Stakeholder engagement may or may not involve a moral dimension and, hence, is primarily a morally neutral practice. It is therefore argued that stakeholder engagement must be seen as separate from, but related to, corporate responsibility. A model that reflects the multifaceted relationship between the two constructs is proposed. This model not only allows the coincidence of stakeholder engagement with corporate responsibility, but also allows for the development of the notion of corporate irresponsibility. (shrink)

'Propositionalism' is the widely held view that all intentional mental relations-all intentional attitudes-are relations to propositions or something proposition-like. Paradigmatically, to think about the mountain is ipso facto to think that it is F, for some predicate 'F'. It seems, however, many intentional attitudes are not relations to propositions at all: Mary contemplates Jonah, adores New York, misses Athens, mourns her brother. I argue, following Brentano, Husserl, Church and Montague among others, that the way things seem is the way they (...) are, and that propositionalism must be abandoned. (shrink)