Jean Cavaillès (15 mai 1903-17 février 1944) était un philosophe français, héros et l'un des organisateurs de la Résistance, avant d'être fusillé à 40 ans par les nazis. Une journée d'hommage lui a été consacrée le 17 février 2014 à l'Ecole normale supérieure de Paris. Pierre-Yves Canu, Tommy Murtagh, Hourya Benis Sinaceur, Paul Cortois, Alya Aglan, Baptiste Mélès, Gerhard Heinzmann et Jacques Lautman présentent un Cavaillès indissociablement philosophe et Résistant, explorent les racines de sa pensée, montrent l'actualité de (...) ses concepts. Jean-Jacques Szczeciniarz et Christian Houzel proposent une analyse du Mouvement de la jeunesse allemand, un historique de la société Les Amis de Jean Cavaillès, éditrice du présent recueil, et deux hommages à celui qui la présida de 1989 à 1995, le mathématicien Henri Cartan. (shrink)

Why do American ghettos persist? Decades after Moynihan’s report on the black family and the Kerner Commission’s investigations of urban disorders, deeply disadvantaged black communities remain a disturbing reality. Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor―such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime―as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to “fix” ghettos or “help” their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor (...) as moral agents responding to injustice. (shrink)

Any attempt to develop biosemiotics either towards a new biological ground theory or towards a metaphysics of living nature necessitates some kind of naturalization of its semiotic concepts. Instead of standard physicalistic naturalism, a certain kind of semiotic naturalism is pursued here. The naturalized concepts are defined as referring only to the objects of our external experience. When the semiotic concepts are applied to natural phenomena in biosemiotics, there is a risk of falling into anthropomorphic errors if the semiotic concepts (...) remain mentalistic. It is suggested that there really is an anthropomorphic error or “hidden prototype fallacy” arising from Peirce’s prototype for semiosis: the research process of an experimental scientist. The fallacy lies in the concept of the object of representation — it is questionable whether there are any objects of representation for bacteria and whether the DNA-signs have any objects. The conclusion is that Peircean semiotic concepts are naturalizable but only if they are based on some more primitive concept of representation. The causal origins of representations are not relevant, only their anticipative consequences (i.e. meaning). (shrink)

Meta chronicles the journey of Andrew Murtagh and Adam Lee in their uncommon exchange turned friendship. Why is there something rather than nothing? Does God exist? What of goodness, free will, and consciousness – what is the ultimate nature of reality and how does that extend into the public square? In this treatise, two young passionate truth seekers aim to change the way the discussion is being had from the vantage points of Christianity and atheism. Is theism or atheism (...) more compelling? If theism, why Christianity? Did Jesus even exist? After theism/atheism, then what? What is the good life? Is morality objective? What does abortion, education, and healthcare look like in the just city? Embarking on a quest for truth on the big questions, their worldviews clash in a philosophical tour de force. In their discord, a blossoming friendship; in their agreement, vows to change the world…. (shrink)

Aim: To improve clinical and ethical understanding of patient preferences for information and involvement in decision making.Objectives: To develop and evaluate a clinical tool to elicit these preferences and to consider the ethical issues raised.Design: A before and after study.Setting: Three UK hospices.Participants: Patients with advanced life-threatening illnesses and their doctors.Intervention: Questionnaire on information and decision-making preferences.Main outcome measures: Patient-based outcome measures were satisfaction with the amount of information given, with the way information was given, with family or carer information, (...) and confidence about future decision making. Doctor-based outcome measures were confidence in matching information to patient preference, matching family or carer communication to patient preference, knowing patient preferences and matching future decision making with patient preference.Results: Of 336 admissions, 101 patients completed the study . Patient satisfaction with the way information was given and family communication improved after introduction of the tool. Doctor confidence improved across all outcome measures .Conclusions: Patient satisfaction and doctor confidence were improved by administering the questionnaire, but complex ethical issues were raised by implementing and applying this research. The balance of ethical considerations were changed by advanced life-threatening illness, because there is increased risk of harm through delivery of information discordant with the patient’s own preferences. The importance of truly understanding patient preferences towards the end of life is highlighted by this study. (shrink)

BackgroundEngagement is important within cohort studies for a number of reasons. It is argued that engaging participants within the studies they are involved in may promote their recruitment and retention within the studies. Participant input can also improve study designs, make them more acceptable for uptake by participants and aid in contextualising research communication to participants. Ultimately it is also argued that engagement needs to provide an avenue for participants to feedback to the cohort study and that this is an (...) ethical imperative. This study sought to explore the participants’ experiences and thoughts of their engagement with their birth cohort study.MethodsParticipants were recruited from the Children of the 90s (CO90s) study. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 participants. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and uploaded onto Nvivo software. They were then analysed via thematic analysis with a constant comparison technique.ResultsParticipants’ experiences of their engagement with CO90s were broadly based on three aspects: communication they received from CO90s, experiences of ethical conduct from CO90s and receiving rewards from CO90s. The communication received from CO90s, ranged from newsletters explaining study findings and future studies, to more personal forms like annual greeting cards posted to each participant. Ethical conduct from CO90s mainly involved participants understanding that CO90s would keep their information confidential, that it was only involved in ‘good’ ethical research and their expectation that CO90s would always prioritise participant welfare. Some of the gifts participants said they received at CO90s included toys, shopping vouchers, results from clinical tests, and time off from school to attend data collection (Focus) days. Participants also described a temporality in their engagement with CO90s and the subsequent trust they had developed for the cohort study.ConclusionThe experiences of engagement described by participants were theorized as being based on reciprocity which was sometimes overt and other times more nuanced. We further provide empirical evidence of participants’ expectation for a reciprocal interaction with their cohort study while highlighting the trust that such an interaction fosters. Our study therefore provides key insights for other cohort studies on what participants value in their interactions with their cohort studies. (shrink)

In order to offer a substantive Christian challenge to modern state violence, the particular character of the modern state cannot be ignored. Nor can New Testament teaching on peace be reduced to flat and generalized ethical imperatives. The subtlety of peace is neglected if either of these two tendencies goes unchecked. After thus framing the question of a Christian response to modern state violence, itself the product of Christian agency among other factors, I offer a New Testament challenge to modern (...) state violence along two lines: (1) refusing the sacrificial political economy characteristic of the modern state, laboring instead at a christological dynamic of gift that takes account of the relative position of agents in the inherited distribution of power and expects more from the strong; (2) observing the limits of state representation for addressing vulnerability to violence, indeed its complicity in that vulnerability, and investing in scales of community commensurate with the subtlety of peace. (shrink)

Advances in reproductive technologies continue to present ethical problems concerning their implementation and use. These advances have preoccupied bioethicists in their bid to gauge our moral responsibilities and obligations when making reproductive decisions. The aim of this discussion is to highlight the importance of a sensibility to differences in moral perspective as part of our ethical inquiry in these matters. Its focal point is the work of John Harrisi, who has consistently addressed the ethical issues raised by advancing reproductive technologies. (...) The discussion is aimed at a central tenet of Harris’s position on reproductive decision-making—namely, that in some instances, giving birth to a worthwhile life may cause harm and will therefore be morally wrong. It attempts to spell out some of the implications of Harris’s position that the author takes to involve a misplaced generality. To support this claim, some examples are explored that demonstrate the variety of ways in which concepts may manifest themselves as moral considerations within the context of reproductive decision-making. The purpose is to demonstrate that Harris’s general conception of the moral limits of reproductive autonomy obscures the issues raised by particular cases, which in themselves may reveal important directions for our ethical inquiry. (shrink)

Existentialism is a philosophy that flourishes in extreme situations. Identified with the period of the French Resistance when Frenchmen were held as political prisoners by the Germans, existentialism, with its call for an uncompromised allegiance to a leftist system of values, served to boost the sagging morale of French political prisoners who had witnessed during the Occupation the subversion of their nation's democratic principles by German totalitarianism.

Stuart Murray's 'Care and the self: biotechnology, reproduction, and the good life' utilizes Foucault's "care of the self" to examine health domains in its title. The present author discusses three important articulations of concern with the Foucauldian concepts of care of the self that are absent in the work of Murray and others: first, the voluntarism and individualism inherent in ideas about care of the self; second, the absence of the interactional and relational; and, third, the perpetuation of the interpretation (...) of Foucault's concept of governmentality, 'the conduct of conduct', as primarily coercive. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend and develop a stakeholder pragmatism advanced in some of the work by Edward Freeman and colleagues. By positioning stakeholder pragmatism more in line with the democratic and ethical base in American pragmatism (as developed by William James, John Dewey and Richard Rorty), the article sets forth a fallibilistic stakeholder pragmatism that seeks to be more useful to companies by expanding the ways in which value is and can be created in a contingent world. A dialogue (...) between a defence company and peace and arbitration society is used to illustrate the main plot of this article. (shrink)

Tommy J. Curry’s provocative book The Man-Not is a justification for Black Male Studies and won the 2018 American Book Award. He posits that we should conceptualize the Black male as a victim, oppressed by his sex. The Man-Not, therefore, is a corrective of sorts, offering a concept of Black males that could challenge the existing accounts of Black men and boys desiring the power of white men who oppress them that has been proliferated throughout academic research across disciplines. (...) -/- Curry argues that Black men struggle with death and suicide, as well as abuse and rape, and their genred existence deserves study and theorization. This book offers intellectual, historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism (including Black feminism) does not yet fully understand the role that homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability play in the deaths and lives of Black males. Curry challenges how we think of and perceive the conditions that actually affect all Black males. (shrink)

This article focuses on exerting influence in leadership, namely manipulation in storytelling. Manipulation is usually considered an unethical approach to leadership. We will argue that manipulation is a more complex phenomenon than just an unethical way of acting in leadership. We will demonstrate through an empirical qualitative study that there are various types of manipulation through storytelling. This article makes a contribution to the literature on manipulation through leadership storytelling, offering a more systematic empirical analysis and a more nuanced view (...) of the topic than previously existed by outlining how managers engage in manipulative storytelling and what kind of ethics they link to their manipulation in leadership. Four types of manipulation in storytelling are identified in the study: humorous, pseudo-participative, seductive and pseudo-empathetic. From an ethical perspective, we will show that manipulation is not always self-evidently reprehensible. We will conclude that the dominant ethical justification for manipulation stems from its consequences. (shrink)

An incisive and sympathetic examination of the case for ending the practice of imprisonment Despite its omnipresence and long history, imprisonment is a deeply troubling practice. In the United States and elsewhere, prison conditions are inhumane, prisoners are treated without dignity, and sentences are extremely harsh. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended (...) altogether? In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby examines the abolitionist case against prisons and its formidable challenge to would-be prison reformers. Philosophers have long theorized punishment and its justifications, but they haven’t paid enough attention to incarceration or its related problems in societies structured by racial and economic injustice. Taking up this urgent topic, Shelby argues that prisons, once reformed and under the right circumstances, can be legitimate and effective tools of crime control. Yet he draws on insights from black radicals and leading prison abolitionists, especially Angela Davis, to argue that we should dramatically decrease imprisonment and think beyond bars when responding to the problem of crime. While a world without prisons might be utopian, The Idea of Prison Abolition makes the case that we can make meaningful progress toward this ideal by abolishing the structural injustices that too often lead to crime and its harmful consequences. (shrink)

Part I Philosophic Traditions Introduction to Part I 3 1 Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience 7 CORNEL WEST 2 African-American Existential Philosophy 33 LEWIS R. GORDON 3 African-American Philosophy: A Caribbean Perspective 48 PAGET HENRY 4 Modernisms in Black 67 FRANK M. KIRKLAND 5 The Crisis of the Black Intellectual 87 HORTENSE J. SPILLERS Part II The Moral and Political Legacy of Slavery Introduction to Part II 107 6 Kant and Knowledge of Disappearing Expression 110 RONALD A. T. JUDY 7 (...) Social Contract Theory, Slavery, and the Antebellum Courts 125 ANITA L. ALLEN AND THADDEUS POPE 8 The Morality of Reparations II 134 BERNARD R. BOXILL Part III Africa and Diaspora Thought Introduction to Part III 151 9 “Afrocentricity‘: Critical Considerations 155 LUCIUS T. OUTLAW, JR. 10 African Retentions 168 TOMMY L. LOTT 11 African Philosophy at the Turn of the Century 190 ALBERT G. MOSLEY Part IV Gender, Race, and Racism Introduction to Part IV 199 12 Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought 205 PATRICIA HILL COLLINS 13 Radicalizing Feminisms from “The Movement Era‘ 230 JOY A. JAMES 14 Philosophy and Racial Paradigms 239 NAOMI ZACK 15 Racial Classification and Public Policy 255 DAVID THEO GOLDBERG 16 White Supremacy 269 CHARLES W. MILLS Part V Legal and Social Philosophy Introduction to Part V 285 17 Self-Respect, Fairness, and Living Morally 293 LAURENCE M. THOMAS 18 The Legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson 306 MICHELE MOODY-ADAMS 19 Some Reflections on the Brown Decision and Its Aftermath 313 HOWARD McGARY 20 Contesting the Ambivalence and Hostility to Affirmative Action within the Black Community 324 LUKE C. HARRIS 21 Subsistence Welfare Benefits as Property Interests: Legal Theories and Moral Considerations 333 RUDOLPH V. VANTERPOOL 22 Racism and Health Care: A Medical Ethics Issue 349 ANNETTE DULA 23 Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition 360 ANGELA Y. DAVIS Part VI Aesthetic and Cultural Values Introduction to Part VI 373 24 The Harlem Renaissance and Philosophy 381 LEONARD HARRIS 25 Critical Theory, Aesthetics, and Black Modernity 386 LORENZO C. SIMPSON 26 Black Cinema and Aesthetics 399 CLYDE R. TAYLOR 27 Thanatic Pornography, Interracial Rape, and the Ku Klux Klan 407 T. DENEAN SHARPLEY-WHITING 28 Lynching and Burning Rituals in African-American Literature 413 TRUDIER HARRIS-LOPEZ 29 Rap as Art and Philosophy 419 RICHARD SHUSTERMAN 30 Microphone Commandos: Rap Music and Political Ideology 429 BILL E. LAWSON 31 Sports, Political Philosophy, and the African American 436 GERALD EARLY. (shrink)

A survey of the historical development of the idea of race, this anthology offers pre-twentieth century theories about the concept of race, classic twentieth century sources reiterating and contesting ideas of race as scientific, and several philosophically relevant essays that discuss the issues presented. A general Introduction gives an overview of the readings. Headnotes introduce each selection. Includes suggested further readings.

Here, a distinguished group of international contributors examines what we know about, feel, and hope to accomplish in real-world environments.

Background: Longitudinal studies exploring the complex interplay between family structures and residential mobility on educational achievement and failure are lacking. We investigate the interplay between the number of residential moves during late childhood, parental education level, family living situation, and the probability of completing upper secondary education. Methodology Detailed longitudinal data for a random sample of 30% of the entire Norwegian population born 1982 to 1989 ( N = 121,247) and information on all their relocations between Norwegian enumeration districts from (...) ages 10 to 18 years were extracted from the Norwegian population registries. Family structures were grouped into four intersectional family strata defined by combining categories of parental education level (distinguishing poorly educated and well-educated families) and the family’s living situation (comparing non-intact families with intact families). We applied two-level logistic regression models, which incorporated individual and family contextual factors, to estimate possible differences in completion rates of upper secondary education. Results Non-completion of secondary education (which constitutes 29% of the study sample) increases incrementally with the number of residential changes across all four family structures, but this effect was not distributed evenly between the different family strata. Individuals in “well-educated, intact families” seem to be least affected by residential moves. On the other hand, the highest disadvantage of frequent moves was among adolescents in the stratum “poorly educated, intact families.” In poorly educated families the probabilities of completing secondary school among non-intact and intact families converge toward each other as the number of moves increase. About 43% of the variation in school completion may be attributed to differences between families. The highest risk of school non-completion was found among adolescents in poorly educated families, which accounted for 74% of the non-completers. Conclusion We demonstrated underlying links between residential mobility and family structures on non-completion of upper secondary education. The adverse effect of frequent moves calls for attention in schools, public health agencies, and housing policies. The findings should be considered in a life course perspective, as the accumulation of unfavorable conditions during childhood and adolescence tends to constrict future prospects in terms of health and quality of life. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: “How can these things be?” Reason's Transcendental Climb Where Were We?

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 488-490.

The prisoner’s dilemma is a fictional story that shows why individuals who seek only their personal benefit meet worse outcomes than those possible by cooperating with others. The dilemma provides an effective, albeit often overlooked, method for studying the Hindu principle of “desireless action” (niṣkāmakarma). In the context of the prisoner’s dilemma, a prisoner who wants to uphold the principle of “desireless action” may choose one of two decision-making strategies: to be indifferent and leave the decision to chance or to (...) either pursue the common good or the other person’s benefit instead of his or her own. Assuming that followers of niṣkāmakarma can be goal-oriented, the second strategy is more appropriate than the first, as long as one pursues unselfish goals and remains both indifferent and uncommitted to personal benefit. This interpretation is tested and further discussed in this article in light of the values of the modern environmental and anti-consumerist degrowth movement. (shrink)

Miller finds a seven-year-old's perspective on the definition of time.

-/- Winner of the 2020 Josiah Royce Prize in American Idealist Thought, presented by the Josiah Royce Society, for demonstrating the extent to which Josiah Royce’s ideas about race were motivated explicitly in terms of imperial conquest. -/- Another white Man’s Burden performs a case study of Josiah Royce’s philosophy of racial difference. In an effort to lay bare the ethnological racial heritage of American philosophy, Tommy J. Curry challenges the common notion that the cultural racism of the twentieth (...) century was more progressive and less racist than the biological determinism of the 1800s. Like many white thinkers of his time, Royce believed in the superiority of the white races. Unlike today, however, whiteness did not represent only one racial designation but many. Contrary to the view of the British-born Germanophile philosopher Houston S. Chamberlain, for example, who insisted upon the superiority of the Teutonic races, Royce believed it was the Anglo-Saxon lineage that possessed the key to Western civilization. It was the birthright of white America, he believed, to join the imperial ventures of Britain—to take up the white man’s burden. To this end he advocated the domestic colonization of Blacks in the American South, suggested that America’s xenophobia was natural and necessary to protecting the culture of white America, and demanded the assimilation and elimination of cultural difference for the stability of America’s communities. Another white Man’s Burden reminds philosophers that racism has been part of the building blocks of American thought for centuries, and that this must be recognized and addressed in order for its proclamations of democracy, community, and social problems to have real meaning. (shrink)