This volume presents an exploration of the intersection between the work of Michel Foucault and feminist theory, focusing on Foucault's theories of sex/body, identity/subject, and power/politics. Like the other books in this series, this volume seeks to bring a feminist perspective to bear on the interpretation of a major figure in the philosophical canon. In the case of Michel Foucault, however, this aim is somewhat ironic because Foucault sees his work as disrupting that very canon. Since feminists see their work (...) as similarly disruptive, Foucault and feminism would seem to find much common ground, but, as the contributors to this collection reveal, the matter is not so simple. Foucault, like many feminists, is centrally concerned with questions related to sexuality and the body. This concern has led both Foucault and feminists to challenge the founding concept of the modernist philosophical canon: the disembodied transcendental subject. For both Foucault and feminists, this subject must be deconstructed and a new concept of identity articulated. The exciting possibilities of a Foucaultian approach to issues of the subject and identity, especially as they relate to sex and the body, are detailed in several of the essays collected here. Despite these possibilities, however, Foucault's approach has raised serious questions about an equally crucial area of feminist thought-politics. Some feminist critics of Foucault have argued that his deconstruction of the concept "woman" also deconstructs the possibility of a feminist politics. Several essays explore the implications of this deconstruction for feminist politics and suggest that a Foucaultian feminist politics is not viable. Overall, this collection illustrates the range of interest Foucault's thought has generated among feminist thinkers and both the advantages and liabilities of his approach for the development of feminist theory and politics. Contributors are Nancy Fraser, Nancy Hartsock, Judith Butler, Ellen L. McCallum, Linda Alcoff, Honi Haber, Jana Sawicki, Jon Simons, Monique Deveaux, Moya Lloyd, Amy Allen, and Terry Aladjem. (shrink)

Who should decide? In When Doctors Say No, philosopher and bioethicist Rubin examines this controversial issue.

Feminist ethics and medical ethics are critical of contemporary moral theory in several similar respects. There is a shared sense of frustration with the level of abstraction and generality that characterizes traditional philosophic work in ethics and a common commitment to including contextual details and allowing room for the personal aspects of relationships in ethical analysis. This paper explores the ways in which context is appealed to in feminist and medical ethics, the sort of details that should be included in (...) the recommended narrative approaches to ethical problems, and the difference it makes to our ethical deliberations if we add an explicitly feminist political analysis to our discussion of context. It is claimed that an analysis of gender is needed for feminist medical ethics and that this requires a certain degree of generality, i.e. a political understanding of context. (shrink)

At the end of Section III of “Freedom and Resentment,” just after he has drawn our attention to the reactive attitudes, P. F. Strawson remarks, “The object of these commonplaces is to try to keep before our minds something it is easy to forget when we are engaged in philosophy, especially in our cool, contemporary style, viz., what it is actually like to be involved in ordinary inter-personal relationships, ranging from the most intimate to the most casual.” It is striking, (...) then, that the proponent of so thoroughly naturalistic an account of moral responsibility seems himself largely to ignore the fact that moral agents do not spring into existence ab initio. The adult moral agent, who is the central character of normative theory and of accounts of moral responsibility, was once a child. Our juvenile selves get a mention in Strawson’s paper, but only as examples of creatures who are paradigmatically not responsible or who inhabit “a borderline, penumbral area ” with respect to responsibility. Thus it remains a mystery, on Strawson’s account, how we become the morally responsible creatures he takes us to be. (shrink)

Suppose it is 2025 and being a technophile, you purchase brain enhancements as they become readily available. First, you add a mobile internet connection to your retina, then, you enhance your working memory by adding neural circuitry. You are now officially a cyborg. Now skip ahead to 2040. Through nanotechnological therapies and enhancements you are able to extend your lifespan, and as the years progress, you continue to accumulate more far-reaching enhancements. By 2060, after several small but cumulatively profound alterations, (...) you are a “posthuman.” To quote philosopher Nick Bostrom, posthumans are possible future beings, “whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards” (Bostrom 2003c). At this point, your intelligence is enhanced not just in terms of speed of mental processing; you are now able to make rich connections that you were not able to make before. Unenhanced humans, or “naturals,” seem to you to be intellectually disabled—you have little in common with them—but as a transhumanist, you are supportive of their right to not enhance (Bostrom 2003c; Garreau 2005; Kurzweil 2005). (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 247-279.

The everyday experience of someone, or something, getting in one’s face reveals a depth that is the difference between a world that is intrusive and a world that is respectful. This depth, I argue, should be conceived, not in feet and inches, but in terms of violation and honor. I explore three factors that contribute to this depth’s emergence. First, I examine our body’s capacity, at the level of sense experience, for giving the world a figure/ground structure; this structure insures (...) that most of the world we are in constant contact with, nonetheless, keeps its distance as background. I demonstrate the importance of this figure/ground structure to the depth of our world by considering the experience of people with autism; for those with autism, this structure seems to be, if not entirely missing, at least substantially less robust than our own. Next, I examine our body’s ability, at the level of more personal experience, to handle the world; our handling of the world, which rests on the acquisition of specific skills, transforms things that could easily assault us into the usually motionless objects we tend to take for granted. I demonstrate the importance of these skills to the depth of our world by considering the experience of Gregg Mozgalla; until recently, Mozgalla, who has cerebral palsy, could only lurch, rather than walk, through the world. Finally, I draw on the work of the artist Mierle Ukeles to examine the maintenance work that other people, at a broader social level, perform; other’s maintenance work keeps in good condition a world that, by falling into bad condition, could easily intrude on us. (shrink)

How can an art practice based upon lens imaging help us to question landscape as a pictorial category fixed in space and time? This article proposes that we practise landscape as an ongoing process that always surpasses human spatial and temporal framing while enfolding the activity of the human within it. Starting with reference to a specific geographic, geological and environmental site, the article tracks a process of situated making using the smartphone camera as the fulcrum of a performative activity.

I reflect on the past, present, and future of the field of bioethics. In so doing, I offer a very situated overview of where bioethics has been, where it now is, where it seems to be going, where I think we could do better, and where I dearly hope the field will be heading. I also propose three ways of re‐orienting our theoretic tools to guide us in a new direction: (1) adopt an ethics of responsibility; (2) explore the responsibilities (...) of various kinds of actors and relationships among them; (3) expand the types of participants engaged in bioethics. (shrink)

situation is one in which all are in great peril and someone must be sacrificed lest all perish. In such situations, it is permissible to do things which would be considered wrong under less drastic circumstances. Proponents of animal rights such as Tom Regan agree that in such circumstances it may be necessary to sacrifice a dog in order to save human life. Is such an admission consistent with calling for the abolition of all scientific research on animals? That is, (...) is scientific research a ‘lifeboat’? The analogy is tempting but flawed. The demand for abolition of animal research is not marred by consistency on this score. Keywords: abolition, animal research, animal rights, lifeboat cases, Tom Regan CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

I defend a form of preventive detention through the creation of an offence of ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’. This differs from alternative proposals and actual habitual offender laws that impose extra periods of incarceration on offenders after they have completed the sentence for their most recent crime or as a result of a certain number of prior convictions. I, instead, would make ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’ an offence itself. Persons to be preventively detained would be tried (...) and convicted of this offence. My approach would then have one significant advantage: provided the elements of being a PVDO could be rendered sufficiently determinate, punishing persons under such an offence would comport with central rule of law values, most importantly legality and fair notice, as well as principles of proportionality in sentencing. (shrink)

The latest Gallup poll (Gallup and Newport 1991) shows that about a third of Americans believe in telepathy and about a quarter claim to have experienced it themselves. Rather fewer have experienced clairvoyance or psychokinesis (PK), but still the numbers are very high and have not been decreasing over the years. Previous surveys have found similar results and also that the most common reason for belief in the paranormal is personal experience (Palmer 1979; Blackmore 1984).

Responsibilities of the data monitoring committee and motivating illustrations -- Composition of a data monitoring committee -- Independence of the data monitoring committee : avoiding conflicts of interest -- Confidentiality issues relating to the data monitoring committee -- Data monitoring committee meetings -- Data monitoring committee interactions with other trial components or related groups -- Statistical, philosophical and ethical issues in data monitoring -- Determining when a data monitoring committee is needed -- Regulatory considerations for the operation of data monitoring (...) committees -- Legal considerations for DMCs. (shrink)

Narratives of Egypt and the Ancient Near East: Literary and Linguistic Approaches. Edited by Fredrik Hagen; John Johnston; Wendy Monkhouse; Kathryn Piquette; John Tait; and Martin Worthington. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 189. Louvain: Peeters, 2011. Pp. xxxvi + 558. €89.

The Republic’s political discussion begins with the construction of two contrasting cities: a ‘healthy’ city and a ‘city with a fever’; one defined by environmentally sustainable subsistence practices and the other by ‘luxurious’ over consumption that exceeds the carrying capacity of its land. Plato’s characters proceed to cure the inflamed city of its fever, resulting in the delineation of the ideal political constitution, the Kallipolis, which recovers the virtues of the original, healthy city in an altered form. This paper develops (...) an ecological reading of the Republic, highlighting Plato’s optimism regarding humans’ ability to limit their material consumption in accordance with the limits of the natural world. The conventional interpretation of the Republic’s first city, known as ‘the city of pigs’, is reconsidered in light of new socio-ecological research on traditional resource management systems. (shrink)

Sixty-five computer science and computer information systems students were surveyed to ascertain their ethical beliefs on seven scenarios and nineteen ethical problems. All seven scenarios incorporated computer-related problems facing programmers and managers in the high tech world. Hypotheses were tested for significant differences between the students'' beliefs and the beliefs of experts in the field who responded to the same scenarios. The first two hypothesis tested whether female and male high tech students have the same ethical beliefs as the experts (...) who first examined these scenarios. The female students did not agree with the experts in seven of the nineteen problems while the male students did not agree with the experts in eight of the nineteen problems. Both computer information systems and computer science majors disagreed with the experts in ten cases. The last three hypotheses tested whether students from different income levels agreed with the experts. All three groups disagreed significantly with the experts on eight problems. (shrink)

There is tension between the adversarialism of the U.S. legal culture and the investigative procedures of the sciences, and between the law's concern for finality and the open‐ended fallibilism of science. A long history of attempts to domesticate scientific testimony by legal rules of admissibility has left federal judges with broad screening responsibilities; recent adaptations of adversarialism in the form of court‐appointed experts have been criticized as “inquisitorial,” even “undemocratic.” In exploring their benefits and disadvantages, it would make sense to (...) look to the experience of other legal systems. (shrink)

To say that man is made up of strength and weakness, pettiness and grandeur, is not to draw up an indictment against him: it is to define him.Denis Diderot Introduction Not long ago, I was startled to read in my morning paper that legislators in North Carolina were nearing consensus on how to compensate roughly 3,000 people who had been involuntarily sterilized under the state’s eugenics laws – the first of which was enacted in 1919, and the most recent of (...) which wasn’t repealed until 2003. Un... (shrink)

Because its business is to resolve disputed issues, the law very often calls on those fields of science where the pressure of commercial interests is most severe. Because the legal system aspires to handle disputes promptly, the scientific questions to which it seeks answers will often be those for which all the evidence is not yet in. Because of its case-specificity, the legal system often demands answers of a kind science is not well-equipped to supply; and, for related reasons, constitutes (...) virtually the entire market for certain fields of forensic science and for certain psychiatric specialties. Because of its adversarial character, the law tends to draw in scientists who are more willing than most to give an opinion on less-than-overwhelming evidence; and the more often such a witness testifies, the more unbudgeably confident he may become in his opinion. Legal rules can make it impossible to bring potentially useful scientific information to light, and the legal penchant for “indicia” and the like can transform scientific subtleties into legal shibboleths. And because of its concern for precedent, and the desideratum of finality, the law sometimes lags behind scientific advances. (shrink)

This article considers the recent Court of Appeal decision of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (Overseas) Ltd v Akindele. In this case, the Court of Appeal was required to consider a claim that the defendant should be held liable as a constructive trustee for dishonestly assisting in breaches of fiduciary duty, or knowingly receiving property traceable to a breach of fiduciary duty. The decision is important as the Court of Appeal proposed a new liability test for the claim of (...) knowing receipt. It was held that the test should no longer be based on knowledge. Instead, the court should now determine the claim on the basis of whether the defendant received the property unconscientiously. This article reviews the law, and suggests that the test of unconscientious receipt is preferable to the test of knowledge, as it has a flexibility which was not available under the knowledge‐based test. But, the notion of unconscientiousness, or unconscionability, is too subjective and requires some structure. In the article, economic analysis is used to give the concept of unconscionability the necessary structure. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 6, December 2024, Page 1448-1456.