Very few studies to date have explored the couplehood relationship in blended families with young children created after widowhood. This study sought to add to our knowledge of this issue by examining the couplehood experience of women who started a family with a widower with young children, with no children of their own. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Israeli women aged 32–78 years. The findings indicate that many participants feel that the deceased wife continues to be present in their (...) partner’s life and that she is an integral part of their couplehood relationship. The participants described two subsystems existing alongside the couple subsystem with their partner, namely, the partner’s spousal subsystem with his first wife; and a triadic subsystem consisting of the woman, her partner, and his deceased wife. The perceived presence of the first wife raised poignant questions concerning the place of the two women in the partner’s life. Participants’ narratives revealed the dissonance between understanding and acknowledging their partner’s continuing bond with and affection for his deceased wife on the one hand, and recognition of his love for them on the other hand. The findings shed light on the complexity inherent in a couple relationship with a widower and may assist professionals who provide support to blended families in understanding the unique challenges faced by these women. This would enable them to tailor their counseling and the therapeutic process to the particular needs of these women. (shrink)

Trans studies constitute part of the coming-to-voice of transpeople, long the theorized and researched objects of sexology, psychiatry, and feminist theory. Sandy Stone’s pioneering, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” sought the end of monolithic medical and feminist accounts of transsexuality to reveal a multiplicity of trans-authored narratives. My goal is a better understanding of what it is for transpeople to come to this polyvocality. I argue that trans politics ought to proceed with the principle that transpeople have first-person (...) authority (FPA) over their own gender, and I clarify what this means. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth. His writings have recently become increasingly influential, as the findings of psychology and cognitive science inform and are informed by phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty’s Sorbonne lectures of 1949 to 1952 are a broad investigation into child psychology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, phenomenology, sociology, and anthropology. They argue that the subject of child (...) psychology is critical for any philosophical attempt to understand individual and intersubjective existence. Talia Welsh’s new translation provides Merleau-Ponty’s complete lectures on the seminal engagement of phenomenology and psychology. (shrink)

Academic cheating, a common and consequential form of dishonesty, has puzzled moral psychologists and educators for decades. The present research examined a new theoretical approach to the perceptions, evaluations, and motivations that shape students’ decisions to cheat. We tested key predictions of this approach by systematically examining students’ accounts of their own cheating. In two studies, we interviewed undergraduates in psychology (n = 68) and engineering (n = 123) classes about their past experiences with plagiarism or other cheating. Interviews assessed (...) students’ perceptions of whether they were cheating, their evaluations of whether their actions were okay, and their motivations for doing what they did. Most students did not initially recognize their acts as cheating. While students generally thought cheating was wrong, they often judged the exceptional cases in which they cheated to be acceptable, citing concerns such as assignment goals and task feasibility. The findings suggest that perceptions, evaluations, and competing motivations play a key role in students’ decisions to cheat. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the view that Berkeley endorses a spirit-idea dualism, and I explain what this dualism amounts to. Central to the discussion is Berkeley's claim that spirits and ideas are "entirely distinct." Taken as a Cartesian real distinction, the "entirely distinct" claim seems to be at odds with Berkeley's view that spirits are substances that support ideas by perceiving them. This has led commentators to deflate Berkeley's notion of "entire distinction" by reading it as analogous to the (...) categorical distinction between substance and accident. I argue that rather than taking Berkeley's notion of "entire distinction" in either of these ways, it ought to be understood as insisting upon a radical dissimilitude between spirits and ideas. This dissimilitude requires that ideas cannot be viewed as analogous to modes or accidents which inhere in a substance. Moreover, spirits and ideas cannot be understood in terms of a single, gradated scale of reality. Instead, for Berkeley spirits and ideas occupy two entirely different scales of reality and consequently the very term 'thing' applies to them in different senses. In this way, Berkeley endorses a severe dualism that occurs at the highest level of his ontology. En este trabajo defiendo que Berkeley sostiene un dualismo espíritu-idea y explico qué significa tal dualismo. Es central en la discusión la afirmación de Berkeley que los espíritus y las ideas son "totalmente distintos". Considerada como una distinción real cartesiana, la tesis "totalmente distintos" parece estar en tensión con la concepción de Berkeley de que los espíritus son sustancias que "support ideas by perceiving them". Esto ha llevado a los comentadores a disminuir la noción de Berkeley de "distinción total" leyéndola como un análogo a la distinción categorial entre sustancia y accidente. Yo argumento que en lugar de considerar a la noción de Berkeley de "distinción total"en alguno de esos modos, debe ser comprendida como insistiendo en una radical diferencia entre espíritus e ideas. Esta diferencia requiere que las ideas no se vean como análogas a modos o accidentes de la sustancia. Además espíritus e ideas no pueden ser entendidos en términos de una única escala graduada de realidad. En cambio para Berkeley espíritus e ideas ocupan dos escalas totalmente distintas de realidad y en consecuencia, el término mismo "cosa" se aplica en sentidos distintos. De este modo, Berkeley sostiene un dualismo severo que acaece al más alto nivel de su ontología. (shrink)

This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex-differentiated within a system of genital representation through gender presentation—a system that helps constitute the very boundaries (...) between the public and private. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming (...) to academic voice of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context: (1) What does philosophy have to offer? (2) Given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims about the world? (3) What is the relation between philosophy and “the literature”? In attempting to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to “the everyday.” Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue, trans philosophy attempts to illuminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile. Alternative socialities are required, I argue, in order to make trans philosophy possible. (shrink)

Early work in child psychology -- Phenomenology, gestalt theory, and psychoanalysis -- Syncretic sociability and the birth of the self -- Contemporary research in psychology and phenomenology -- Exploration and learning -- Culture, development, and gender -- Conclusion: an incomparable childhood.

This essay examines the stereotype that transgender people are “deceivers” and the stereotype's role in promoting and excusing transphobic violence. The stereotype derives from a contrast between gender presentation and sexed body. Because gender presentation represents genital status, Bettcher argues, people who “misalign” the two are viewed as deceivers. The author shows how this system of gender presentation as genital representation is part of larger sexist and racist systems of violence and oppression.

This article introduces trans feminism as an intersectional analysis of sexist and transphobic forms of oppressions as well as current and historical feminist and trans conflicts over the inclusion of trans women. The first half examines recent feminist philosophical efforts to provide an analysis of the concept woman that is inclusive of trans women. The second examines recent responses to trans-exclusive feminist positions. The article concludes with an assessment of the current state of trans feminist philosophy and outlines challenges for (...) the future. (shrink)

The emotions pose many philosophical questions. We don't choose them; they come over us spontaneously. Sometimes emotions seem to get it wrong: we experience wrongdoing but do not feel anger, feel fear but recognise there is no danger. Yet often we expect emotions to be reasonable, intelligible and appropriate responses to certain situations. How do we explain these apparent contradictions? Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason presents a bold new picture of the emotions that challenges prevailing philosophical orthodoxy. (...) class='Hi'>Talia Morag argues that too much emphasis has been placed on the "reasonableness" of emotions and far too little on two neglected areas: the imagination and the unconscious. She uses these to propose a new philosophical and psychoanalytic conception of the emotions that challenges the perceived rationality of emotions; views the emotions as fundamental to determining one's self-image; and bases therapy on the ability to "listen" to one’s emotional episode as it occurs. Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason is one of the first books to connect philosophical research on the emotions to psychoanalysis. It will be essential reading for those studying ethics, the emotions, moral psychology and philosophy of psychology as well as those interested in psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Force and Freedom, a new book by Professor Arthur Ripstein, offers a comprehensive and highly sophisticated articulation of Kant’s legal and political philosophy. While Kant’s thinking on metaphysics and ethics has received paramount attention in the academic discourse, his contribution to legal and political theory has been somewhat marginalized. One reason for Kant’s exclusion from the central canon of political and legal philosophy is the abstract and very complicated nature of Kantian writing on law and political power, most particularly in (...) the Doctrine of Right. Another reason is the difficulties many writers have encountered in their attempts to reconcile Kant’s political and legal writing with his moral philosophy. Against this background, the novelty and importance of Force and Freedom cannot be overstated. (shrink)

In this article, Bettcher argues that sexual attraction must be reconceptualized in light of transgender experience. In particular, Bettcher defends the theory of “erotic structuralism,” which replaces an exclusively other-directed account of gendered attraction with one that includes a gendered eroticization of self as an essential component. This erotic experience of self is necessary for other-directed gendered desire, where the two are bound together and mutually informing. One consequence of the theory is that the controversial notion of “autogynephilia” is rejected. (...) Another consequence is that the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is softened. (shrink)

Nearly all students believe academic cheating is wrong, yet few students say they would report witnessed acts of cheating. To explain this apparent tension, the present research examined college students’ reasoning about whether to report plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Study 1 examined students’ conflicts when deciding whether to report cheating. Most students gave reasons against reporting a peer (e.g., social and physical consequences, a lack of responsibility to report) as well as reasons in favor of reporting (e.g., concerns (...) about welfare, justice, and fairness). Study 2 provided experimental confirmation that the contextual factors referenced by Study 1 participants in fact influenced decisions about whether to report cheating. Overall, the findings indicate that students often decide against reporting peers’ acts of cheating, though not due to a lack of concern about integrity. Rather, students may refrain from reporting because of conflicting concerns, lack of information about school policy, and perceived better alternatives to reporting. (shrink)

This paper considers phenomenological descriptions of health in Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Svenaeus. In these phenomenologies of health, health is understood as a tacit, background state that permits not only normal functioning but also philosophical reflection. Nietzsche’s model of health as a state of intensity that is intimately connected to illness and suffering is then offered as a rejoinder. Nietzsche’s model includes a more complex view of suffering and pain as integrally tied to health, and its language opens up the (...) possibility of many ‘healths,’ providing important theoretical support to phenomenological accounts of the diversity and complexity of health and illness. (shrink)

Do victims of moral wrongdoing have moral grounds to complain if they have freely committed a similar wrongdoing in the past? This question explores the connection between the moral standing of complainers and their previous deeds. According to Saul Smilansky two equally justifiable competing views create an antinomy with respect to the said question. In this article I present two arguments that attempt to undermine Smilansky's alleged paradox, presenting it as no more than a resolvable moral conflict. My first argument (...) attempts to resolve the conflict in cases where the complaining wrongdoers have already been sanctioned for their past transgression. My second argument challenges the validity of the alleged paradox, based on an alternative explanation of the seemingly paradoxical moral results. (shrink)

This essay engages with Cressida Heyes’s Anaesthetics of Existence (2020) on two points. First, it raises worries about Heyes’s apparent association of anaesthetic time with feminist resistance. Second, it reconsiders Heyes’s account of the specific harm involved in raping unconscious individuals, as well as her account of the sort of agency nullified by rape more generally, by appealing to the notion of interpersonal spatiality.

Abstract:The randomized response technique (RRT) is used to study the deceptive behavior of purchasing agents. We test the proposition that purchasing agents’ perceptions of organizational expectations influence their behavior. Results indicate that perceived pressure to perform and ethical ambiguity on the part of the firm are correlated with purchasing agents’ unethical behavior, in the form of acknowledged deception of suppliers.

Confessions both hold a great promise and pose a grave danger. When the accused speaks against his interest and assumes responsibility for criminal actions this is viewed as a compelling sign of guilt. It is not, therefore, for naught that the confession has been crowned the "queen of evidence." Yet research conducted in the last few decades has shown that a substantial number of confessions are false, ranking the out of court confession high among the factors leading to the conviction (...) of innocent people. The acceptance of DNA testing, has further substantiated this finding, igniting a renewed interest in out-of-court confessions. It is hard to assess the magnitude of social harm caused by the widespread and persistent resort to obtaining confessions, but one thing is evident from the vast literature on the matter: this evidentiary mechanism is currently overused, much beyond the optimal level. The reasons for this over-use are varied, among them the fact that confessions are readily available for law enforcement officers, and that those in charge of trying the facts tend to overwhelmingly convict based on out-of-court confessions, while underestimating the associated dangers. As a result, confessions have come to play a paramount role in the criminal justice system. Many attempts have been made to deal with confession-based wrongful convictions. Examples include the Miranda rules or the requirements for varying degrees and types of corroborating evidence. To date, all the rules and proposals share a common characteristic: They all attempt to correct the evidentiary fallacies associated with out-of-court confessions by evidentiary means, whether admissibility oriented or weight oriented. In the article we argue that none of the proposed mechanisms is likely to solve the problem. The root of the problem lies in the fact that the entire criminal justice system is currently organized around confessions. Law enforcement officers focus on obtaining confessions and the prosecution uses it as its evidentiary centerpiece. Further restricting admissibility or requiring a higher degree of corroboration will not change this trend. Moreover, the confessional lure is too strong to resist. Like the Sirens' Song, the confession casts a spell on all those subjected to it and, no matter how strong a corroboration we require, we will eventually fall back on the confession. We propose an entirely different solution to the tendency to over-use confessions, one that utilizes penal means to change the incentive structure within the criminal justice system. We propose to incorporate into the sentencing guidelines a mandatory reduction of the criminal sanction whenever an out-of-court confession is introduced into evidence by the prosecution. In other words, our proposal is to elevate the cost of using out-of court confessions, as compared to other types of evidence. The article will demonstrate how placing such a "sentencing price tag" on the use of out-of-court confessions will correct the current bias in favor of using this evidence and induce law enforcement officials to seek extrinsic evidence, thus turning confessions into a residual evidentiary devise. The article will also show that the proposed regime will improve the court's ability to distinguish between true and false confessions. After discussing the proposed model's normative appeal, the article will proceed to deal with possible criticisms which can be leveled against it, whether retributive, utilitarian or expressive. (shrink)

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from (...) providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines. (shrink)

Alternative food networks, such as farmers’ markets and community-supported agricultural and fishery programs, often struggle to reach beyond a consumer base that is predominantly white and affluent. This case study explores seven inclusion strategies deployed by a community-supported fishery program (Fishadelphia, in Philadelphia, PA, USA) including discounting prices, accepting payment in multiple forms and schedules, offering a range of product types, communicating and recruiting through a variety of media (especially in person), and choosing local institutions and people of color (POC) (...) as pickup location hosts. Our analysis indicated that all of these strategies were associated with increased participation of customers of color and/or customers without a college degree. For Asian customers, accepting cash, offering whole fish, recruiting in-person, and POC-hosted pickup locations were key factors. For Black customers, discounted price, accepting cash, offering fillets, and communicating through means other than email were most important. Discounted price and communicating through means other than email were most important for customers without a college degree. Payment method, payment schedule and communication method were highly correlated with other strategies; we suggest that these strategies work in synergy to make the program attractive and feasible to these customers. We consider how Fishadelphia’s inclusion efforts have benefitted from both tactical approaches (i.e., programmatic features) and a structural approaches (i.e., the people and places represented within the project), and suggest that elements of both tactical and structural inclusion can be applied in other contexts. This work is crucial for increasing food access, and underscores the importance of relationships in recruiting diverse customers. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns an important dispute between George Berkeley and David Hume. The dispute involves Berkeley's defense of his conception of the self as a spirit, a purely active being which perceives ideas; and Hume's elimination of that conception via his own, according to which the self is merely a heap, a causally connected system of perceptions. At bottom, this difference in the way that the self is conceptualized is informed by a fundamental difference in philosophical starting-point. Berkeley seeks to (...) extricate philosophers from skepticism and perplexity; and he desires to restore them to virtue by demonstrating the natural immortality of the soul. Hume, by contrast, wants to construct a science of the mind; and he hopes to encourage modesty in philosophical opinion by promoting a skepticism about bold metaphysical doctrines such as the immortality of the soul. ;Since Berkeley's account has frequently been dismissed as inconsequential, while Hume's account has been accorded philosophical honor, a large part of this project consists in demonstrating the worth of the former. In chapter I, I defend Berkeley's conception of spirit against a traditional objection that it is really just a conflicted Humean account. I argue that a demonstration of the immortality of the soul is central to Berkeley's agenda, flowing from his deep distinction between spirit and idea. In chapter II, I argue that Berkeley effectively abandons the Aristotelian/scholastic distinction between substance and accident, thereby leading him to draw this distinction between spirit and idea. In chapter III, I show how this ontological transformation leads Berkeley to deny that spirit can be perceived, and thereby provides him with a response to skepticism about the soul. In chapter IV, I argue that Hume theoretically eliminates Berkeleian spirit by reconceptualizing the self as a heap of perceptions, motivated by his project of constructing a science of the mind. (shrink)

This paper focuses on rubbish, especially single-use plastic packaging, and its relation to Hannah Arendt’s categories of the vita activa in The Human Condition (2018), namely, labour, work, and action. I argue that single-use plastic rubbish does not fit into any category of the vita activa, which is indicative of the nature of single-use plastic as a type of object that does not belong anywhere, neither in the earth or the world, in Arendt’s sense of the terms. What allows for (...) plastic waste to be produced while belonging nowhere is an economic system focused on growth, which continues to contribute to our current climate and biodiversity crises. I propose economic degrowth as a potential solution to such issues, with continued reference to Arendt’s various arguments in The Human Condition. (shrink)

pThis essay recounts my intellectual development from undergraduate study until present. The first section discusses my early life and my introduction to philosophy at Glendon College. The second discusses my graduate career at UCLA and my gender transition midway through the program. The third concerns my philosophical development as a professor at Cal State LA until 2012. It details my shift from early modern philosophy to what would eventually be called “trans philosophy.” The final discusses my intellectual growth since then (...) as well as the emergence of trans philosophy as a subfield./p. (shrink)

The functions of the Bloom syndrome helicase and its orthologs are well characterized in mitotic DNA damage repair, but their roles within the context of meiotic recombination are less clear. In meiotic recombination, multiple repair pathways are used to repair meiotic DSBs, and current studies suggest that BLM may regulate the use of these pathways. Based on literature from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Arabidopsis thaliana, Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, and Caenorhabditis elegans, we present a unified model for a critical meiotic role of (...) BLM and its orthologs. In this model, BLM and its orthologs utilize helicase activity to regulate the use of various pathways in meiotic recombination by continuously disassembling recombination intermediates. This unwinding activity provides the meiotic program with a steady pool of early recombination substrates, increasing the probability for a DSB to be processed by the appropriate pathway. As a result of BLM activity, crossovers are properly placed throughout the genome, promoting proper chromosomal disjunction at the end of meiosis. This unified model can be used to further refine the complex role of BLM and its orthologs in meiotic recombination. In meiotic recombination, Blm utilizes its helicase activity to disassemble early recombination intermediates, thereby retaining a pool of recombination sites from which some can be selected to enter the Class I crossover pathway while simultaneously promoting SDSA and preventing the use of the Class II pathway. (shrink)