Although contract sugarcane farming is the most dominant and popular land use among farmers in Nzoia Sugarbelt, results from a 2007 study suggests that the intended goal of increasing farmers’ incomes seems to have failed. With a mean monthly income of Kenya Shillings 723 (US $ 10) from an average cane acreage of 0.38 hectares, it would be difficult for a household of eight family members to meet their basic needs and lead a decent life. Analysis of farmer statements showed (...) that up to 86% of the changes in net income were significantly determined by six cost variables as a group (i.e., acreage, tillage costs, seedcane costs, transport costs, yield, and farmer’s education level). Area under sugarcane had the greatest influence on net income whereby an increase in one hectare under cane would result in an increase of Kenya Shillings 110,427 in net income (per crop cycle of 21 months), holding other variables constant. This translates into Kenya shillings 5,258 per month (or 175 per day per household, or for a family of eight people—KES 22 or US $ 0.3) per member, which is far below the international standard of absolute poverty. Key net income depressors were tillage, seedcane, and transportation costs, all of which were determined by the company with no input from farmers. To bridge income gaps between the company and farmers in favor of sustainable community livelihoods, this paper argues strongly for the need to institutionalize Corporate Social Responsibility within the daily operations of the company particularly to address net-income depressors. Ten key building blocks for such a policy for Nzoia Sugar Company are suggested, based on farmers’ responses and ethical considerations. (shrink)

Although it has been shown that immersive virtual reality can be used to induce illusions of ownership over a virtual body , information on whether this changes implicit interpersonal attitudes is meager. Here we demonstrate that embodiment of light-skinned participants in a dark-skinned VB significantly reduced implicit racial bias against dark-skinned people, in contrast to embodiment in light-skinned, purple-skinned or with no VB. 60 females participated in this between-groups experiment, with a VB substituting their own, with full-body visuomotor synchrony, reflected (...) also in a virtual mirror. A racial Implicit Association Test was administered at least three days prior to the experiment, and immediately after the IVR exposure. The change from pre- to post-experience IAT scores suggests that the dark-skinned embodied condition decreased implicit racial bias more than the other conditions. Thus, embodiment may change negative interpersonal attitudes and thus represent a powerful tool for exploring such fundamental psychological and societal phenomena. (shrink)

This analysis examines the practice of care providers in residential aged care lying to residents with dementia. Qualitative data were collected through multiple methods. Data here represents perceptions from registered and enrolled nurses, personal care assistants, and allied health professionals from five residential aged care facilities located in Queensland, Australia. Care providers in residential aged care facilities lie to residents with dementia. Lying is conceptualized as therapeutic whereby the care provider’s intent is to eliminate harm and also control behaviour. Care (...) providers of residents with dementia in RACFs need guidance around lying. An ethical framework cognisant of an ethical theory of good and ethical theory of right supplemented by a theory of virtue is proposed. A complimentary four stage communication strategy that promotes truth telling as a first option while also recommending the lie as a suitable strategy is also promoted. (shrink)

In an era when the public and shareholders increasingly demand greater accountability from institutions for racial injustice and slavery, scholarship on corporate reparations is more and more essential. This article argues that corporations have played a significant role in the cultural dehumanization of Blackness and therefore have a particular responsibility to make repair. Cultural dehumanization refers to embedding anti-Blackness into US culture in service of capitalist profit accumulation, which has resulted in status and material inequalities between Blacks and whites that (...) have persisted from slavery to the present. More specifically, the article argues corporations have a moral duty to offer reparations to Black Americans regardless of any redress offered by other perpetrators of anti-Blackness. It appeals to tort law in providing a moral justification for corporate reparations to Black Americans. (shrink)

How is it that we think and refer in the first-person way? For most philosophers in the analytic tradition, the problem is essentially this: how two apparently conflicting kinds of properties can be reconciled and united as properties of the same entity. What is special about the first person has to be reconciled with what is ordinary about it. The range of responses reduces to four basic options. The orthodox view is optimistic: there really is a way of reconciling these (...) apparently contradictory properties as contained within the same thing. The heretical views are pessimistic and content to be so: there is no such way, and that is because there is simply nothing to reconcile – because there is really nothing special about what is in question; or there is really nothing ordinary about it; or there is really nothing …. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 70-72.

One of the key insights of Scheler’s approach to the topic intersubjectivity is to recognise that the problem of intersubjectivity is in fact several problems. In The Nature of Sympathy, Scheler lays out an order of precedence in which these problems need to be addressed. One of his major criticisms against analogical arguments and theories of empathy is that they violate this order. Specifically, they provide accounts of what the Other is thinking, but treat this as a solution to how (...) we recognise the Other as Other. In responding to Scheler, Schutz takes up this order of precedence but then makes the signifi cantly bolder claim that intersubjectivity as possibility is not problematic and does not require a solution. The purpose of this paper is to show that Schutz’s argument relies on a Husserlian reading of Scheler’s use of “transcendental psychology” and that rather than sidestepping the problem Schutz in fact tacitly presupposes a solution in the form of the human prejudice. Significantly, this solution radically overturns the aims of Scheler’s phenomenology and even that of the broader Phenomenological Movement. (shrink)

In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: the difference between man and animal; the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this (...) has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz. (shrink)

An ethic of the fitting: a conceptual framework for nursing practiceNurses are expected to act within an ethos of care cognisant of duty, the right, and the good. Concepts of virtue theory, utilitarianism and deontology are used to outline a conceptual ethical framework for nurses in practice. This ‘Moebius’ framework aims to locate the virtues in a symbiotic relationship with the principles of utilitarianism and deontology. Under this framework, fitting ethical responses are sought. Within an ethic of the fitting, rules (...) and principles do not guarantee the most ethically justifiable outcomes. Within the Moebius approach, the nurse ought to respond with a sense of compassion that befits the moment rather than adhere to a rule at all costs. (shrink)

This article reviews the literature on deception to illuminate the phenomenon as a background for an appraisal within nursing. It then describes nursing as a practice of caring. The character of the Good Samaritan is recommended as indicative of the virtue of compassion that ought to underpin caring in nursing practice. Finally, the article concludes that a caring nurse, responding virtuously, acts by being compassionate, for a time recognizing the prima facie nature of the rules or principles of truth telling.

Rapid advances in the domain of science and technology are having an unprecedented effect upon the provision of higher education in universities throughout the world, the pace of change often being so fast as to make planning for the development of the “classroom of the future” an extremely difficult task. The Mobile Multimedia University (MMU) project, a collaborative action between four leading UK based research facilities, has been established to investigate these issues. Included amongst its aims is the use of (...) novel research methodologies to determine the factors which will influence the shape and form of future education provision, and thus the distribution of knowledge to society, such as mobility, telecommunications and multimedia services. This paper describes the use of a Delphi survey in predicting the technological trends and innovations which will affect university education in the near future. It describes the theory underpinning the Delphi method, illustrating this with examples of how such a technique has been successfully used in the past. It then details the specific application of the Delphi approach within the current MMU research project, detailing the preliminary results and discussing the implications of these findings for the future of universities and other institutes of higher education. (shrink)

To date, the study of “religion” and “martial arts” is a lacuna of the field in Religious Studies in which the depth of association has long gone unrecognised. What little study there is, however, suffers from a practitioner’s bias in that those writing on martial arts are also attempting to promote the agenda of their own discipline. This paper attempts a more critical approach to show the study of martial arts can contribute to the ongoing problematisation of “religion” as an (...) analytic category, particularly in its relation to “the secular” and “nationalism”. To do this I will draw on the philosophical phenomenology of Husserl, Sartre and Schutz to argue that “religions”, “nationalisms” and “martial arts” are all names given to modes of naturalisation. By this I mean they are means by which a person “fits” within their life-world and deals with the problems of surviving and thriving. In this case of martial arts, these can be seen as modes of naturalisation through debates on “sportification”. As commonly conceived, the sportification of a martial art risks impeding its “spiritual” aspects. It is the martial artists’ understanding of “spiritual” as something public and serious that mark it out as a mode of naturalisation. In the case of “religion” and “nationalism” these are ideological means of categorising modes of naturalisation, primarily as a means of “Othering”. By looking at the case of Kendo and its origins in the samurai, this paper will show the fluidity with which these ascriptions can be applied to a single “tradition” depending on context. (shrink)

Actor network theory and supply chainmanagement theory provide suggestive researchdirections for understanding regional agri-foodnetworks. These theories claim that relationshipsbased upon trust and cooperation are critical to thestrength and vitality of the network. This means thatexploring and detailing these relationships among thesuppliers, producers, workers, processors, brokers,wholesalers, and retailers within specific regionalgeographies of these networks are critical forfurthering cooperation and trust. Key areas ofcooperation include resource sharing andapprenticeship programs. Employing food networks as akey unit of contextual analysis will deepen ourunderstanding of how (...) to enhance their resiliency andvibrancy. Important questions can be raised about thedifference gender makes for farmers, brokers,entrepreneurs, and workers in local food networks. (shrink)

Lucy Allais presents an original interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. She argues that his distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. Kant is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he does not (...) assert the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects. On Allais's account, we cannot understand Kant's idealism without a clear account of his notion of intuition and of the role of intuition in cognition: she understands Kantian intuitions as representations that give us acquaintance with the objects of thought. This enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. (shrink)

We are pleased to inaugurate a new feature to appear three times annually. “Capital Report” is designed to keep readers abreast of bioethics debates in Congress, federal agencies, and other branches of the federal government. Tabitha M. Powledge, a former Center associate, brings to the Report her experience as founding editor of The Scientist and as editor of AAAS Observer. Ms. Powledge is currently a contributing editor to Issues in Science and Technology.

How do we know when what is happening between two people should be called psychoanalysis? What is a psychoanalytic process and how do we know when one is taking place? _Psychoanalysis Comparable and Incomparable_ describes the rationale and ongoing development of a six year programme of highly original meetings conducted by the European Psychoanalytic Federation Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods. The project comprises over seventy cases discussed by more than five hundred experienced psychoanalysts over the course of sixty workshops. (...) Authored by a group of leading European psychoanalysts, this book explores ways for psychoanalysts using different approaches to learn from each other when they present their work to fellow psychoanalysts, and provides tools for the individual practitioner to examine and improve his or her own approach. As described in detail in its pages, sticking to the task led to some surprising experiences, raising fundamental questions about the way clinical discussion and supervision are conducted in psychoanalysis. Well known by many in the psychoanalytic community and the object of much interest and debate, this project is described by those who have had the closest contact with it and will satisfy a widely held curiosity in psychoanalysts and psychotherapists throughout the world. David Tuckett is winner of the 2007 Sigourney Award. (shrink)

In this book, Lucy Jane Ward argues that although contemporary scholarship tends to divide Agnes Heller's work chronologically in terms of her “Marxist” and subsequent “post-Marxist” periods, a closer reading reveals her work as a continuing engagement both with and against Marx's idea of the human being rich in need.

Moral distress has been widely reviewed across many care contexts and among a range of disciplines. Interest in this area has produced a plethora of studies, commentary and critique. An overview of the literature around moral distress reveals a commonality about factors contributing to moral distress, the attendant outcomes of this distress and a core set of interventions recommended to address these. Interventions at both personal and organizational levels have been proposed. The relevance of this overview resides in the implications (...) moral distress has on the nurse and the nursing workforce: particularly in regard to quality of care, diminished workplace satisfaction and physical health of staff and increased problems with staff retention. (shrink)

Like any discipline, bioethics is a developing field of academic inquiry; and recent trends in scholarship have been towards more engagement with empirical research. This ‘empirical turn’ has provoked extensive debate over how such ‘descriptive’ research carried out in the social sciences contributes to the distinctively normative aspect of bioethics. This paper will address this issue by developing a practical research methodology for the inclusion of data from social science studies into ethical deliberation. This methodology will be based on a (...) naturalistic conception of ethical theory that sees practice as informing theory just as theory informs practice – the two are symbiotically related. From this engagement with practice, the ways that such theories need to be extended and developed can be determined. This is a practical methodology for integrating theory and practice that can be used in empirical studies, one that uses ethical theory both to explore the data and to draw normative conclusions. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Japanese philosopher Tetsurō Watsuji’s phenomenology of aidagara (“betweenness”) and use his analysis in the contemporary context of online space. We argue that Watsuji develops a prescient analysis anticipating modern technologically-mediated forms of expression and engagement. More precisely, we show that instead of adopting a traditional phenomenological focus on face-to-face interaction, Watsuji argues that communication technologies — which now include Internet-enabled technologies and spaces — are expressive vehicles enabling new forms of emotional expression, shared experiences, (...) and modes of betweenness that would be otherwise inaccessible. Using Watsuji’s phenomenological analysis, we argue that the Internet is not simply a sophisticated form of communication technology that expresses our subjective spatiality (although it is), but that it actually gives rise to new forms of subjective spatiality itself. We conclude with an exploration of how certain aspects of our online interconnections are hidden from lay users in ways that have significant political and ethical implications. (shrink)

The concept of dignity is widely used in society, particularly in reference to human rights law and bioethics. Several conceptions of dignity are identified, falling broadly within two categories: full inherent dignity (FID) and non-inherent dignity (NID). FID is a quality belonging equally to every being with full moral status, including all members of the human natural kind; it is permanent, unconditional, indivisible and inviolable. Those beings with FID ought to be treated deferentially by others by virtue of their belonging (...) to a noble caste. FID grounds fundamental human rights, such as the rights to freedom and equality.The concept of dignity forms a network of interconnected ideas related to worth and value particularly within legal and ethical discourse; it is a rich and meaningful concept, irreducible to one or two quasi-legal principles. Fundamentally, dignity matters because it forms the foundation of civilized society; without it, serious abuse of people is more likely to occur. (shrink)

In a recent article, Ethan Bradley and Mark Navin (2021) argue that vaccine refusal is not akin to free riding. Here, I defend one connection between vaccine refusal and free riding and suggest that, when viewed in conjunction with their other arguments, this might constitute a reason to mandate Covid-19 vaccination.

Depression is an affective disorder involving a significant change in an individual’s emotional and affective experiences. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition mentions that social impairment may occur in depression, first-person reports of depression consistently name isolation from others as a key feature of depression. I present a phenomenological analysis of how certain interpersonal relations are experienced in depression. In particular, I consider whether depressed individuals are able to enter into “we-experiences” with other people. We-experiences (...) are experiences had with two or more people as a we, experiences that allow one to enter into robustly shared experiences with others. I claim that the ability to enter into we-experiences is eroded in depression due to an overwhelming feeling of being different to and misunderstood by others. As such, I suggest that depression should be conceived of as fixing an individual in their first-person singular perspective, thus inhibiting their ability to experience in the first-person plural and to feel a sense of connectedness or togetherness with others as part of a we. By attending to on-going impacts of a diminished ability to enter into we-experiences, we can provide a situated and more nuanced account of the changes of interpersonal relations in depression that captures the progressive nature of the disorder. In turn, this analysis furthers our understanding of the emergence, frustration, and erosion of actual and habitual we-experiences. (shrink)

Anscombe thought that practical knowledge – a person’s knowledge of what she is intentionally doing – displays formal differences to ordinary empirical, or ‘speculative’, knowledge. I suggest these differences rest on the fact that practical knowledge involves intention analogously to how speculative knowledge involves belief. But this claim conflicts with the standard conception of knowledge, according to which knowledge is an inherently belief-involving phenomenon. Building on John Hyman’s account of knowledge as the ability to use a fact as a reason, (...) I develop an alternative, two-tier, epistemology which allows that knowledge might really come in a belief-involving and an intention-involving form. (shrink)

We review the relationships between language, inner speech, and cognitive control in children and young adults, focusing on the domain of cognitive flexibility. We address the role that inner speech plays in flexibly shifting between tasks, addressing whether it is used to represent task rules, provide a reminder of task order, or aid in task retrieval. We also consider whether the development of inner speech in childhood serves to drive the development of cognitive flexibility. We conclude that there is a (...) close association between inner speech and cognitive flexibility in both adults and children. Experimental work has begun to specify in detail the role that inner speech might play in adult performance, suggesting that language plays a facilitative but not essential role in representing and activating the relevant task set, processes that occur on both switch and nonswitch trials. While developmental studies suggest an increase in the spontaneous use of verbal strategies with age, implying an increase in top-down control during shifting, experimental work is needed to specify more precisely the nature and precise role that inner speech plays in the development of cognitive control through childhood. (shrink)

This article returns to Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical oeuvre in order to offer a way of thinking beyond contemporary feminist divisions created by ‘gender critical’ or trans-exclusionary feminists. The ‘gender critical’ feminist position returns to sex essentialism to argue for ‘abolishing’ gender, while opponents often appeal to proliferated gender self-identities. I argue that neither goes far enough and that they both circumscribe utopian visions for a world beyond both sex and gender. I chart how Beauvoir’s ontological, ethical and political positions (...) can be used to overcome the material/cultural, sex/gender bind that the contemporary divide perpetuates. I outline Beauvoir’s ‘ambiguous’ non-foundational ontology that attends to both the cultural origins, and material effects, of both sex and gender, and to the extent that humyns are fundamentally social. After outlining Beauvoir’s definition of freedom as purposive action, I then outline how the existence of the humyn-made and intersubjectively-upheld ‘situations’ of both sex and gender delimit this, urging feminists to return to the lost question of eradicating both. I use the utopian impulse in Beauvoir to argue that an ethics of reciprocity is an alternative mode of understanding the self and others. Beauvoir also calls for a political strategy that I call a ‘utopian realism’ that I apply to the contemporary divide. A way forward that is attentive to the concerns of both positions is the pragmatic use of identity politics that is nonetheless mindful of identity’s limits, alongside Beauvoir’s proto-intersectional vision of solidarity politics based not on identity but on a position of alterity and shared political strategy. Ultimately, I use this to argue that feminism would do better to unite around a shared commitment to challenging alterity, rather than further contributing to it. (shrink)

:Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences. For in order for certain sensations to be related to something outside me , thus in order for me to represent them as outside and next to one another, thus not merely different but as in different places, the representation of space must already be their ground. Thus the representation of space cannot be obtained from the relations of outer appearance through experience, but this outer experience is (...) itself first possible only through this representation. 1Abstract:Der Raum is kein empirischer Begriff, der von äußeren Erfahrungen abgezogen worden. Denn damit gewisse Empfindungen auf etwas außer mir bezogen werden, imgleichen damit ich sie als außer und neben einander, mithin nicht bloß verschieden, sondern als in verschiedenen Orten vorstellen können, dazu muß die Vorstellung des Raumes schon zum Grunde liegen. (shrink)

It is the contention of this paper that the majority of scholars deal with a simplified notion of Schutz’s understanding of social science. Specifically they tend to view Schutz’s understanding of social science as containing only three postulates: logical consistency, subjective interpretation, and adequacy. However, such considerations tend to focus primarily upon “Common-Sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action” and only engage with Schutz’s other essays in a tertiary manner. This paper argues that only by giving due attention to Schutz’s (...) other work does it become clear what his full understanding social science is. A full picture must necessarily take into account the postulate of relevance or disinterestedness, postulate of clarity, and postulate of compatibility or tested observation. This paper will clarify the relationship of all these postulates which will necessarily require a number of amendments in order to achieve the greatest clarity possible. (shrink)

In ‘Freedom and Resentment,' Strawson argues that we cannot separate holding people morally responsible for their actions from specific emotional responses, which he calls reactive attitudes, which we are disposed towards in response to people's actions. Strawson's view might pose problems for forgiveness, in which we choose to overcome reactive attitudes like resentment without altering the judgments that make them appropriate. I present a detailed analysis of reactive attitudes, which I use both to defend Strawson's account of the connection between (...) these states and responsibility, and to show how we can fit forgiveness into this account. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 (3) 2008: pp. 179-201. (shrink)

This study set out to investigate the influence of male circumcision and other factors on sexually transmitted infections in Botswana. A syndromic approach, which diagnoses a sexually transmitted infection based on the presence of urethral discharge or genital ulcers rather than on laboratory tests, was used. The data were from the 2001 Botswana AIDS Impact Survey where a nationally representative, randomly selected sample of men and women aged 1064 years who had ever had sexual intercourse. The logistic regression technique was (...) executed to examine the association between male circumcision and self-reported urethral discharge or genital ulcers, while controlling for all other independent variables in the analysis. The main finding of this study was that among men who are circumcised, the odds for self-reported urethral discharge or genital ulcers are significantly lower than for those men who are not circumcised in both urban and rural Botswana. The analysis also showed that the odds in favour of self-reported urethral discharge or genital ulcers, for men who drink alcohol, are twice as large as those for men who do not drink alcohol, controlling for all other independent variables in the analysis. Religion and ethnicity also came through as factors exerting a protective influence against self-reported symptoms of sexually transmitted infections. The conclusion is that while male circumcision appears to be significantly associated with the risk for self-reported urethral discharge or genital ulcers, it is man’s behaviour, irrespective of ethnicity or religious dictates, that continues to play a vital role in protection against self-reported symptoms of sexually transmitted infections in Botswana. (shrink)

This is a quantitative research study with a cross-sectional designand a survey approach to address the views of a large sample of youngpeople in relation to family responsibility in a society where East meets West.The survey results suggest that the sample hold relatively positive attitudestowards Chinese cultural values and family responsibility. The traditional valueof importance of family, filial piety and harmony with others were still stronglysupported by many young people. The findings further revealed that the morethe Chinese cultural values the (...) young people associated with, the more thepositive attitudes in family obligation they would have. However, globalinfluences which emphasize the right of freedom and to have personal choicemay have been at work too. There are implications for a matrix of policies tosupport young people in their transitions to adulthood. (shrink)

The first major commentary on the text of 2 Clement since J.B. Lightfoot's magisterial work in the 19th century. Provides a new edition of the Greek text, together with an English translation; in addition there is a full Introduction and a detailed commentary on the Greek text.

During the Covid-19 pandemic we increasingly turned to technology to stay in touch with our family, friends, and colleagues. Even as lockdowns and restrictions ease many are encouraging us to embrace the replacement of face-to-face encounters with technologically mediated ones. Yet, as philosophers of technology have highlighted, technology can transform the situations we find ourselves in. Drawing insights from the phenomenology of sociality, we consider how digitally-enabled forms of communication and sociality impact our experience of one another. In particular, we (...) draw attention to the way in which our embodied experience of one another is altered when we meet in digital spaces, taking as our focus the themes of perceptual access, intercorporeality, shared space, transitional spaces, and self-presentation. In light of the way in which technological mediation alters various dimensions of our social encounters, we argue that digital encounters constitute their own forms of sociality requiring their own phenomenological analysis. We conclude our paper by raising some broader concerns about the very framework of thinking about digitally and non-digitally mediated social encounters simply in terms of replacement. (shrink)

Amidst ongoing technological and social change, this article explores the implications for critical education that result from a data-driven model of digital governance. The article argues that traditional notions of critique which rely upon the deconstruction and analysis of texts are increasingly redundant in the age of datafication, where the production of information is automated and hidden. The article explains the concept of the ‘educative subject’ within the liberal education tradition, with specific focus on the role of critique and reflexivity (...) in their becoming. It explores how the logics and practices of datafication and automation pose unprecedented challenges to the educative subject, examining three features in particular: the creation of data subjects; the rise of correlationalism; and the move from representation to operationalisation. The article concludes by outlining a research agenda to address the existential challenges posed by data education. (shrink)