This volume draws together important selections from the rich history of theories and debates about emotion. Utilizing sources from a variety of subject areas including philosophy, psychology, and biology, the editors provide an illuminating look at the "affective" side of psychology and philosophy from the perspective of the world's great thinkers. Part One features classic readings from Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hume. Part Two, entitled "The Meeting of Philosophy and Psychology," samples the theories of thinkers such as Darwin, James, and (...) Freud. The third section presents some of the extensive work on emotion that has been done by European philosophers over the past century, and the final section comprises essays from modern British and American philosophers. (shrink)

This book broadens the inquiry into emotion to comprehend a comparative cultural outlook. It begins with an overview of recent work in the West, and then proceeds to the main business of scrutinizing various relevant issues from both Asian and comparative perspectives. Original essays by experts in the field. Finally, Robert Solomon comments and summarizes.

A rigorous and wide-ranging discussion of the most ballyhooed emotion of all--and its surprising role in making us who we are. With Robert Solomon, Verna Gehring, and John Loughney.

This ethnographic study introduces the term “distressed work” to describe the emergence of chronic frictions between moral imperatives for health care workers to keep working and the dramatic increase in distress during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Interviews and observant participation conducted in a hospital intensive care unit during the Covid‐19 pandemic reveal how health care workers connected job duties with extraordinary emotional, physical, and moral burdens. We explore tensions between perceived obligations of health care professionals and the structural contexts of work. (...) Key findings cluster around the moral imperatives of health care work and the distress that work engendered as work spaces, senses of vocation, patient and family interactions, and end‐of‐life care shifted. While the danger of working beyond limits has long been an ordinary feature of health care work, it has now become a chronic crisis. Assessing this problem in terms of distressed work and its structural contexts can better address effective, worker‐informed responses to current health care labor dilemmas. (shrink)

Death and Philosophy presents a wide ranging and fascinating variety of different philosophical, aesthetic and literary perspectives on death. Death raises key questions such as whether life has meaning of life in the face of death, what the meaning of "life after death" might be and whether death is part of a narrative that can be retold in different ways, and considers the various types of death, such as brain death, that challenge mind-body dualism. The essays also include explorations of (...) Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan perspectives on death and why death in some cultures, such as in Mexico's day of the dead, is celebrated. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that communalism is not uniquely African. It comes in different forms of social and psychological thinking which can be found in any culture and society whether capitalistic or socialistic where the notion of social belongingness through reasoned reflection transcends the desire for personal gratification. We claim that some values of communalism such as altruism, mutual cooperation, complementarity etc., can be useful in shaping a viable system of democracy for Africa, not because communalism is unique to (...) Africa, but because it is not. We contend that part of the challenges of democratic practice in Africa is the inclination to extreme form of individualism embedded in its capitalist roots. We show that the structure of democracy can evolve to adapt to changes mediated by communal values. Using the methods of hermeneutics and conversational thinking, we will argue that democratic practice in Africa can profit from communalism and should be restructured to admit relevant communal values. Keywords: African, Communalism, African Communalism, Democracy, Communalistic Democracy. (shrink)

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) did groundbreaking work that transformed logic and other important aspects of our understanding of mathematics, especially his proof of the incompleteness of formalized arithmetic. This book on different aspects of his work and on subjects in which his ideas have contemporary resonance includes papers from a May 2006 symposium celebrating Gödel's centennial as well as papers from a 2004 symposium. Proof theory, set theory, philosophy of mathematics, and the editing of Gödel's writings are among the topics covered. (...) Several chapters discuss his intellectual development and his relation to predecessors and contemporaries such as Hilbert, Carnap, and Herbrand. Others consider his views on justification in set theory in light of more recent work and contemporary echoes of his incompleteness theorems and the concept of constructible set"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Background Shared decision-making in healthcare is a collaborative process where patients are supported to make informed decisions according to their preferences. Healthcare decisions affect patients' lives which necessitates patients to participate in decisions concerning their health. This study explored experiences and ethical issues related to shared decision-making in a rural healthcare setting. Methods An exploratory qualitative study was conducted at Budumba Health Centre III and Butaleja Health Centre III in rural Eastern Uganda. In this study, 23 in-depth interviews were conducted (...) among 12 healthcare providers and 11 patients. Data was analyzed thematically using NVivo-12 plus software. Results Four themes emerged which included: Paternalistic cultures of care, challenges, strategies for improvement, and ethical issues. Patients at both facilities expressed the need to be involved in decision-making processes. However, many stressed that they are not engaged in decision-making about their health. Many healthcare providers noted that shared decision-making could improve patient prognosis but are faced with challenges related to low male involvement and the influence of cultural and religious practices, including myths and patriarchal attitudes which impact effective patient engagement. Ethical issues identified include concerns about informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, deception, and harm. Conclusions This study highlighted the need for better sensitization of patients and comprehensive training for healthcare providers to minimize and resolve ethical issues that emerge during shared decision-making processes. Therefore, targeted interventions are needed to enhance decision-making processes in rural healthcare including but not limited to developing shared decision-making manual and continuous training of healthcare providers to ethically engage patients. Further research is needed to explore larger facilities with a bigger scope including patients under 18 years of age and and their surrogates. (shrink)

This paper attempts to critique the existential philosophy of Martin Buber’s theory of the “I-Thou” using the Yoruba concept of okun omo iya. The need for the realization of a sustainable environment has been a point of focus for researchers, scholars, and government policy makers. The reason for this realization is not far-fetched. According to a record from World Health Organisation (WHO), one-quarter of all deaths worldwide are attributed to over-exploitation and reckless usage of the environment. This undoubtedly has caused (...) several human-induced disasters such as floods. The reckless usage and abuse of the environment is predicated on the domineering tendency of humans towards the environment. Martin Buber, in his existentialist philosophy, argues that humans should treat their relations as “I-Thou” (as subjects) and not as “I-It” (as objects). It follows that humans must be considerate in relating with each other such that fellow humans should not be treated as a means to an end, rather as ends in themselves. Simply put, fellow humans should not be seen as objects that others can either control, dominate, or subdue. However, Buber’s existentialist philosophy is human-centered, as it excludes the non-human entities and as well, failed to explain the relationship that should exist between humans and non-human entities. Hence, the Yoruba concept of okun omo iya will be used as a paradigm to remodel and re-configure the existentialist philosophy of Buber in a way that is environmentally inclusive. (shrink)

This book addresses the Confucian philosophy of common good and deals with the comparative philosophy on eastern and western understandings of common good. The common good is an essentially contested concept in contemporary moral and political discussions. Although the notion of the common good has a slightly antique air, especially in the North Atlantic discussion, it has figured prominently in both the sophisticated theoretical accounts of moral and political theory in recent years and also in the popular arguments brought for (...) particular political policies and for more general orientations toward policy. It has been at home both in the political arsenal of the left and the right and has had special significance in ethical and political debates in modern and modernizing cultures. This text will be of interest to philosophers interested in Chinese philosophy and issues related to individualism and communitarianism, ethicists and political philosophers, comparative philosophers, and those in religious studies working on Chinese religion. (shrink)

This is a book on business ethics for managers. It is structured around three themes: 1) the idea that how we perceive and think about organizations we work for is a major factor in the framing and atmosphere of those organizations; 2) the idea of the corporation as a community rather than the formalistic, legal and mystical characterizations that currently abound in management books; 3) the various business virtues and vices and their role in the daily practice of business.

The paper starts with an examination and critique of Tarski’s wellknown proposed explication of the notion of logical operation in the type structure over a given domain of individuals as one which is invariant with respect to arbitrary permutations of the domain. The class of such operations has been characterized by McGee as exactly those definable in the language L∞,∞. Also characterized similarly is a natural generalization of Tarski’s thesis, due to Sher, in terms of bijections between domains. My main (...) objections are that on the one hand, the Tarski-Sher thesis thus assimilates logic to mathematics, and on the other hand fails to explain the notion of same logical operation across domains of different sizes. A new notion of homomorphism invariant operation over functional type structures (with domains M0 of individuals and {T, F} at their base) is introduced to accomplish the latter. The main result is that an operation is definable from.. (shrink)

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, writing over two thousand years before Wall Street, called people who engaged in activities which did not contribute to society "parasites." In his latest work, renowned scholar Robert C. Solomon asserts that though capitalism may require capital, but it does not require, much less should it be defined by the parasites it inevitably attracts. Capitalism has succeeded not with brute strength or because it has made people rich, but because it has produced responsible citizens and--however (...) unevenly--prosperous communities. It cannot tolerate a conception of business that focuses solely on income and vulgarity while ignoring traditional virtues of responsibility, community, and integrity. Many feel that there is too much lip-service and not enough understanding of the importance of cooperation and integrity in corporate life. This book rejects the myths and metaphors of war-like competition that cloud business thinking and develops an "Aristotelean" theory of business. The author's approach emphasizes several core concepts: the corporation as community, the search for excellence, the importance of integrity and sound judgment, as well as a more cooperative and humane vision of business. Solomon stresses the virtues of honesty, trust, fairness, and compassion in the competitive business world, and confronts the problem of "moral mazes" and what he posits as its solution--moral courage. (shrink)

Ambiguity is a property of syntactic expressions which is ubiquitous in all informal languages–natural, scientific and mathematical; the efficient use of language depends to an exceptional extent on this feature. Disambiguation is the process of separating out the possible meanings of ambiguous expressions. Ambiguity is typical if the process of disambiguation can be carried out in some systematic way. Russell made use of typical ambiguity in the theory of types in order to combine the assurance of its (apparent) consistency (“having (...) the cake”) with the freedom of the informal untyped theory of classes and relations (“eating it too”). The paper begins with a brief tour of Russell’s uses of typical ambiguity, including his treatment of the statement Cls ∈ Cls. This is generalized to a treatment in simple type theory of statements of the form A ∈ B where A and B are class expressions for which A is prima facie of the same or higher type than B. In order to treat mathematically more interesting statements of self membership we then formulate a version of typical ambiguity for such statements in an extension of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. Specific attention is given to how the“naive” theory of categories can thereby be accounted for. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that the HIV and AIDS pandemic is a global emergency and that cheap, effective treatment should be provided for as many people as possible worldwide. But there are many challenges to rolling out antiretroviral treatment in resource-poor settings. These include the cost of drugs, sustaining their supply and distribution, the complexity of treatment regimens, selection of patients for treatment, shortage of medical and nursing personnel, inadequacy of healthcare facilities, the need for uninterrupted, lifelong treatment, and monitoring (...) for drug resistance. Great efforts, nationally and internationally, are required to meet these challenges. (shrink)

Schimmel, a practicing psychologist, maintains that psychologists and psychotherapists must incorporate many of the ethical and spiritual values of religion and moral philosophy if they are effectively to address the emotional problems faced by modern men and women. The book draws on the psychological insights provided by the Hebrew Bible, the Gospels, Aristotle, Maimonides, Aquinas and others to show what we can learn from their teachings about the relationship between virtue and psychological well-being and vice and emotional distress.

During the nineteenth century, traditional Catholic Spain and its "decadent intellectual climate" was chalenged by liberal Europeanizing influences. It had happened before, but this time the status quo was threatened by Krausism, an idealistic doctrine of universal harmony and rational freedom. In the ensuing culture clash, Francisco Giner de los Rios (1839-1915), a leading exponent of Krausist thought, provided the dominant influence on Spanish intellectuals engaged in the areas of education, law, literature, and science. This outstanding contribution to Spanish cultural (...) history by Solomon Lipp, author of Leopoldo Zea and Three Chilean Thinkers, introduces the political and philosophical reactions to Krausism through the thought and personality of the man who "dreamed one day of a new flowering of Spain"—Francisco Giner de los Rios. (shrink)

This volume collects thirty years worth of articles on the emotions written by the distinguished philosopher Robert Solomon. Solomon's thesis is that we are significantly responsible for our emotions, which are evaluative judgments that in effect we choose. This is the first of several volumes that document work in the emotions.

A new context for ethics and ethics education is evident in a rapidly changing world and our threatened planet. The current focus on considerations of inter-personal ethics within an anthropocentric perspective on life should be extended to embrace considerations of global and ecological ethics within an eco-centric perspective on global and planetary health. The pathway to understanding and adapting to this new context includes promoting shifts in life styles from selfish hyper-individualism and wasteful consumerism towards cautious use of limited resources (...) within an increasingly interdependent world in which the equal moral worth of all and sustainability are valued. Critical scholarly approaches to global politics and to the global political economy could facilitate such change and encourage iterative interactive processes instead of seeking conclusive definitive ‘scientific’ solutions to all problems. Hopefully this shift in perspective could be achieved firstly through sensitization to new and increasingly challenging ethical dilemmas, and then by encouraging rational thinking and action based on global and ecological considerations rather than on false economic dogma and the distorted workings of a market civilization. Moving ahead with these activities must begin with promotion of education, learning and self-reflection to foster the widespread development of a global state of mind. Such a shift would require an expanded ethical discourse, with consideration of ethical dilemmas beyond human inter-personal relationships. These should include intra-institutional and inter-institutional relationships, as well as relational ethics between nations in a post-Westphalian world, and between humans and nature in an era now called the Anthropocene, to ensure survival on a planet undergoing entropy.The adverse effects of intense competition could be reduced by encouraging greater cooperation, linking security issues to global health and social justice issues, and using inspirational narratives and examples of moral imagination/moral leadership. These educational programs should be initiated in schools and become mandatory for all first-year College and University students. Such an agenda is feasible given human ingenuity, determination, resilience and adequate resources, but will also require political and social will as its drivers. (shrink)