Across the Euro-Atlantic world, political leaders have been mobilizing their bases with nativism, racism, xenophobia, and paeans to “traditional values,” in brazen bids for electoral support. How are we to understand this move to the mainstream of political policies and platforms that lurked only on the far fringes through most of the postwar era? Does it herald a new wave of authoritarianism? Is liberal democracy itself in crisis? In this volume, three distinguished scholars draw on critical theory to address our (...) current predicament. Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, and Max Pensky share a conviction that critical theory retains the power to illuminate the forces producing the current political constellation as well as possible paths away from it. Brown explains how “freedom” has become a rallying cry for manifestly un-emancipatory movements; Gordon dismantles the idea that fascism is rooted in the susceptible psychology of individual citizens and reflects instead on the broader cultural and historical circumstances that lend it force; and Pensky brings together the unlikely pair of Tocqueville and Adorno to explore how democracies can buckle under internal pressure. These incisive essays do not seek to smooth over the irrationality of the contemporary world, and they do not offer the false comforts of an easy return to liberal democratic values. Rather, the three authors draw on their deep engagements with nineteenth–and twentieth–century thought to investigate the historical and political contradictions that have brought about this moment, offering fiery and urgent responses to the demands of the day. (shrink)

Rationale, aims and objectives: Bioethics and professionalism are standard subjects in medical training programmes, and these curricula reflect particular representations of meaning and practice. It is important that these curricula cohere with the actual concerns of practicing clinicians so that students are prepared for real-world practice. We aimed to identify ethical and professional concerns that do not appear to be adequately addressed in standard curricula by comparing ethics curricula with themes that emerged from a qualitative study of medical practitioners. Method: (...) Curriculum analysis: Thirty-two prominent ethics and professionalism curricula were identified through a database search and were analysed thematically. Qualitative study: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 medical practitioners. Participants were invited to reflect upon their perceptions of the ways in which values matter in their practices and their educational experiences. The themes emerging from the two studies were compared and contrasted. Results: While representations of meaning and value in ethics and professionalism curricula overlap with the preoccupations of practicing clinicians, there are significant aspects of ‘real-world’ clinical practice that are largely ignored. These fell into two broad domains: ‘sociological’ concerns about enculturation, bureaucracy, intra-professional relationships, and public perceptions of medicine; and epistemic concerns about making good decisions, balancing different kinds of knowledge, and practising within the bounds of professional protocols. Conclusions: Our findings support the view that philosophy and sociology should be included in medical school and specialty training curricula. Curricula should be reframed to introduce students to habits of thought that recognize the need for critical reflection on the social processes in which they are embedded, and on the philosophical assumptions that underpin their practice. (shrink)

While doctors generally enjoy considerable status, some believe that this is increasingly threatened by consumerism, managerialism, and competition from other health professions. Research into doctors’ perceptions of the changes occurring in medicine has provided some insights into how they perceive and respond to these changes but has generally failed to distinguish clearly between concerns about “status,” related to the entitlements associated with one’s position in a social hierarchy, and concerns about “respect,” related to being held in high regard for one’s (...) moral qualities. In this article we explore doctors’ perceptions of the degree to which they are respected and their explanations for, and responses to, instances of perceived lack of respect. We conclude that doctors’ concerns about loss of respect need to be clearly distinguished from concerns about loss of status and that medical students need to be prepared for a changing social field in which others’ respect cannot be taken for granted. (shrink)

Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardbound volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, (...) science, law, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

A number of recent discussions comparing computer simulation and traditional experimentation have focused on the significance of “materiality.” I challenge several claims emerging from this work and suggest that computer simulation studies are material experiments in a straightforward sense. After discussing some of the implications of this material status for the epistemology of computer simulation, I consider the extent to which materiality (in a particular sense) is important when it comes to making justified inferences about target systems on the basis (...) of experimental results. (shrink)

Simulation-based weather and climate prediction now involves the use of methods that reflect a deep concern with uncertainty. These methods, known as ensemble prediction methods, produce multiple simulations for predictive periods of interest, using different initial conditions, parameter values and/or model structures. This paper provides a non-technical overview of current ensemble methods and considers how the results of studies employing these methods should be interpreted, paying special attention to probabilistic interpretations. A key conclusion is that, while complicated inductive arguments might (...) be given for the trustworthiness of probabilistic weather forecasts obtained from ensemble studies, analogous arguments are out of reach in the case of long-term climate prediction. In light of this, the paper considers how predictive uncertainty should be conveyed to decision makers. (shrink)

After showing how Deborah Mayo’s error-statistical philosophy of science might be applied to address important questions about the evidential status of computer simulation results, I argue that an error-statistical perspective offers an interesting new way of thinking about computer simulation models and has the potential to significantly improve the practice of simulation model evaluation. Though intended primarily as a contribution to the epistemology of simulation, the analysis also serves to fill in details of Mayo’s epistemology of experiment.

We invoke the ideal of tolerance in response to conflict, but what does it mean to answer conflict with a call for tolerance? Is tolerance a way of resolving conflicts or a means of sustaining them? Does it transform conflicts into productive tensions, or does it perpetuate underlying power relations? To what extent does tolerance hide its involvement with power and act as a form of depoliticization? Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst debate the uses and misuses of tolerance, an (...) exchange that highlights the fundamental differences in their critical practice despite a number of political similarities. Both scholars address the normative premises, limits, and political implications of various conceptions of tolerance. Brown offers a genealogical critique of contemporary discourses on tolerance in Western liberal societies, focusing on their inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism, and Forst reconstructs an intellectual history of tolerance that attempts to redeem its political virtue in democratic societies. Brown and Forst work from different perspectives and traditions, yet they each remain wary of the subjection and abnegation embodied in toleration discourses, among other issues. The result is a dialogue rich in critical and conceptual reflections on power, justice, discourse, rationality, and identity. (shrink)

'Is politics gendered? Wendy Brown things so, and argues for this point with elegance, imagination and pungent phrases. Brown's book is challenging, provocative and...original; it does force us to question the degree to which gender controls our politics.'-THE REVIEW OF POLITICS.

In evolutionary psychology predictions, women’s mate preferences shift between fertile and nonfertile times of the month to reflect ancestral fitness benefits. Our meta-analytic test involving 58 independent reports (13 unpublished, 45 published) was largely nonsupportive. Specifically, fertile women did not especially desire sex in short-term relationships with men purported to be of high genetic quality (i.e., high testosterone, masculinity, dominance, symmetry). The few significant preference shifts appeared to be research artifacts. The effects declined over time in published work, were limited (...) to studies that used broader, less precise definitions of the fertile phase, and were found only in published research. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that considerations of epistemic bubbles can give us reason to defend censorship of hate speech. Although censoring hate speech leads to epistemic bubbles (‘censorship bubbles’), they tend to be less epistemically problematic than epistemic bubbles generated by the circulation of hate speech (‘hate bubbles’). Because hate speech silences its target groups and creates the illusion that the dominant group identities are threatened, hate bubbles are likely more restrictive in structure than censorship bubbles and have a (...) stronger tendency to turn into echo chambers where opposing views are actively discredited. Therefore, I argue that censorship bubbles might be a minor price we ought to pay to avoid hate bubbles. Additionally, my analysis shows that we cannot focus exclusively on the content or the structure of epistemic bubbles, since their content can partly determine their structure, as is in the case of hate bubbles. (shrink)

Trigger warnings captured national attention in 2014 when students from several U.S. universities called for inclusion of the warnings on course syllabi and in classrooms. Opinions spread through news outlets across the spectrum, and those weighing in were quick to pronounce trigger warnings as either unnecessary coddling and an affront to free speech, or as a responsible pedagogical practice that treats students with respect and minimizes harm. Put simply, the debate about trigger warnings has followed the trajectory of many debates (...) in the public sphere: The issue has largely been framed by highly committed opponents and proponents whose positions represent the extremes of the spectrum. Lost has been the nuance that an issue like trigger warnings necessarily requires. This article examines trigger warnings—particularly the call for trigger warnings on university campuses—from a pluralistic ethical perspective and addresses the question: When, if ever, are trigger warnings ethically appropriate? (shrink)

The ethical development of business graduates is a critical issue. Yet, little empirical evidence exists on the factors affecting business graduate ethical development and behaviour using an Islamic perspective. This study examines the effects of mentoring support, the perceived standard of ethical conduct of peers, and individual ethical attributes of National female business graduates from the United Arab Emirates. Research has shown that formal and informal mentoring relationships benefit new employees by enabling them to further learn and grow within an (...) organisation. On the other hand, some employees have also shown that these relationships can have a negative impact on a new employee’s ethical orientation. The aim of this study is to investigatethe ethical orientations of Emirati female business graduates as they move from the relative sanctity of home and university into a new multicultural, westernised business environment. The results suggest that the ethical evaluations and behavioural intentions of Emirati graduates are affected by a multiplicity of sources including professional bodies and both mentors and peers in the workplace. It may be prudent at such a significant time in the UAE’s development that educators consider introducing ethical education into tertiary curriculum. (shrink)

Choreography and Ceremony: The Artful Side of Action "Actions" are normally thought of as taken by individuals. But to understand their quality, it is not enough to classify them from the perspective of individual psychology (rational vs. emotional, technical vs. artistic, etc.). We need to grasp their relation to those forms of collective life which have a historical existence independent of specific individual action (institutions, the conventions of social gathering, the organizing principles of games, architecture, music, ritual, etc.). This paper (...) focuses on what characteristics such forms of collective life share, not what seems to separate them (eg. into sacred vs secular, technology vs creative art). The main features emphasized are their choreography, that is their enactment within commonly understood patterns of a spatial and temporal kind, as well as rules of interactive movement; and their ceremonial character, something which can be found in simple situations such as a conversation or a meal, though much more intensely in major religious ritual. A particularly resonant image for these enactments of social life is the dance. Because there is a ceremonial aspect to all social interaction, the paper argues that individual action, necessarily oriented to the social context, always has an "artful" side (however habitual or technical). The paper draws on the writings of Wittgenstein on action, and those of Collingwood on language and art, to shape the argument. Illustrations are provided of the "artful" employment of language (especially by actors on the stage), the "artful" side of material culture, and from the author's own ethnographic studies, the significance of dance among Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia. (shrink)

Recent evidence from psychological science and genetics suggests that genetic influences underlie all behavior as well as the most worrisome social inequalities. This may be considered to call into question traditional conceptions of agency and agent responsibility. They could be thought to be undermined if gene-environment transactions were sufficiently potent in influencing behaviors. Here we identify the theoretical parameters that require investigation and the conceptual challenges to agent responsibility that arise from research in behavior genetics. We (i) introduce the empirical (...) basis of the discussion, (ii) identify the particular questions that arise from considering the connection between behavior genetics and agent responsibility in the context of the legal system, (iii) bring into focus the general challenges to agent responsibility, and (iv) outline a potential resolution. (shrink)

Latent variable modeling has revealed important conundrums in the DSM classification system. We agree that the network perspective has potential to inspire new insights and resolve some of these conundrums. We note, however, that alone it cannot really help us understand etiology. Etiology, not comorbidity, is the fundamental question.

Much of today's writing on medical ethics is strong on philosophical theory or on legal speculation, but weak on practice. In this book, practitioners in a wide range of specialties describe the process of making ethical decisions in their everyday work. A moral philosopher analyzes their conclusions, and the theological implications are developed by a Christian theologian and Rabbinic scholar. Thorough and eclectic, this book should be read by all who seek the good of the profession of medicine.

Calling the quantity; 2ΔAΔB/|<[A, B]>|, with non-zero denominator, the uncertainty product ratio or UPR for the pair of observables, (A, B), it is shown that any non-zero correlation coefficient between two observables raises, above unity, the lower bound of the UPR for each member of an infinite collection of pairs of incompatible observables. Conversely, any UPR is subject to lower bounds above unity determined by each of an infinite collection of correlation coefficients. This result generalizes the well known Schroedinger strengthening (...) of the Robertson uncertainty relations (with the former expressed in terms of the correlation coefficient rather than the anticommutator) where the UPR and the correlation coefficient both involve the same pair of observables. Two, independent, derivations of the result are presented to clarify its’ origins and some examples of its’ use are examined. (shrink)

A recent argument by Pitowsky (1991), leading to the relativity (as opposed to objectivity) of quantum predictions, is refuted. The refutation proceeds by taking into account the hyperplane dependence of the quantum predictions emerging from the three mutually space-like separated measurements, performed on an entangled state of three spin 1/2 particles, that Pitowsky considers. From this hyperplane dependence one finds that the logical step of conjoining the predictions from distinct measurements is ineffective since those predictions apply either, locally, to sets (...) of points with an intersection that is inaccessible to the particles, or globally, to sets of hyperplanes with an intersection that is empty. We also see how explicit reference to the hyperplane dependence of the predictions gives covariant expression to the invariant content of the predictions, which are thereby shown to be objective. (shrink)

The accurate delineation of various forms of business organization requires a comparative analysis of their objectives, functions, and organizational structures. In particular, this paper highlights differences in managerial work between business firms and non-profits exemplified by the charitable organization. It adopts as its template the theory of the marketing firm, a depiction of the modern corporation as it responds to the imperatives of customer-oriented management, namely consumer discretion and consumer sophistication. It describes in §2 the essentials of the theory and (...) its basis in consumer behavior analysis, and outlines its unique position as the organization responsible for marketing transactions, based on objective exchange, competitive markets and prices, and the deployment of the entire marketing mix. §3 deals in greater depth with the objective, strategic functions, and organization of the marketing firm in terms of the concepts of metacontingency and bilateral contingency. §4 discusses how the marketing firm differs from charities in terms of goal separation, market-based pricing and competition, the entrepreneurial process, the pursuit of customer-oriented management, and organizational structure. Particular attention is accorded the organizational differences between marketing firms and charities, which arise as a direct consequence of the distinct patterns of contingency they entail. §5 discusses the implications of the foregoing analysis and draws appropriate conclusions. (shrink)

No provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has proven to be more contentious than the so-called “individual mandate.” Starting in 2014, the mandate will impose a penalty on non-exempt individuals who lack health insurance. According to Congress, the mandate is essential to ensuring near universal coverage. Without it, PPACA’s insurance reforms will lead healthy individuals to delay purchasing health insurance until they require medical care, resulting in risk pools with a disproportionate share of high-risk people. The price (...) of insurance will then climb, causing more and more not-so-sick people to forego health insurance. The resulting “death spiral” will make insurance unaffordable to many more Americans. (shrink)

Maria Morales’s striking and thought-provoking argument in Perfect Equality is that John Stuart Mill’s egalitarianism unifies his practical philosophy and that this element of his thought has been neglected in recent revisionary scholarship. Placing Mill’s arguments for the substantive value of “perfect equality” in The Subjection of Women at the center of her analysis, Morales develops a distinctive interpretation of Mill as an egalitarian liberal. Morales also aims to counter many recent communitarian critiques of liberalism as founded upon a conception (...) of the self as atomistic and individualistic. Like other Mill scholars, Morales sees Mill’s liberalism as an appealing alternative to the dominant Rawlsian theory, and she offers Mill’s approach as a response to “the still popular view that liberalism is structurally incompatible with a rich conception of the human good, particularly with a substantive commitment to equality”. Mill’s theory is not “doggedly individualistic,” and it rejects the model of liberal social life as atomistic and abstract. The well-constituted communities of the title are based upon “sympathetic, cooperative, and egalitarian values”. (shrink)

This pedagogical essay explores the tendency of undergraduate media ethics students to do what Bernard Gert calls “morality by slogans” and their tendency to misuse Aristotle's golden mean slogan. While not solving the dilemma of morality by slogans, the essay suggests some ways of rectifying the misuse of the golden mean and encouraging its more authentic application.

Values such as justice, fairness, reason, and truth permeate the cultural fabric of societies. A key image of these values in many Western democracies is the legal icon of Justitia or Lady Justice as she embodies notions of justice. Examining such cultural constructions promotes discussion of assumed values and meanings pertaining to iconic representations. Semiotic analysis of Justitia and her compositional elements — the sword of justice, scales of justice, and blind-fold reveal tensions between the rhetoric and reality of our (...) interpretations of justice. This paper makes explicit the iconic representations of societal values imbued in Justitia and raises questions about the invisible power of cultural reproduction. (shrink)

My aim is to develop a feminist theory of value—an axiology—which unites two notions that seem to have little in common for a theorizing whose ultimate goal is justice-driven emancipatory action, namely, the ecological and the aesthetic. In this union lies the potential for a critical feminist political praxis capable of appreciating not only the value of human life, but those relationships upon which human and nonhuman life depend. A vital component of this praxis is, I argue, the potential for (...) an aesthetic experience whose value is exemplified in those actions that tend to foster respect for biodiversity and ecological stability. (shrink)

Utilizing examples from recent art, we critique Greta Gaard's argument that an inclusive ecofeminism must account for the role played by erotophobia in oppression. We suggest that while Gaard offers valuable insight into how fear of the erotic contributes to maintaining heteropatriarchal institutions, it fails to account for forms of oppression specific to lesbians. Moreover, Gaard's analysis unwittingly reinforces the conceptual, hence political, economic, and social invisibility of lesbians that, following Marilyn Frye, we argue is not merely consequent to compulsory (...) heterosexuality, but constitutive of it. Lastly, we sketch a lesbian erotic whose potential for generating conceptual dissonance within heteropatriarchal value dualism contains the seeds of a creative "sensibility" out of which a genuinely queer ecofeminism might emerge. (shrink)

This volume offers an empirical and diachronic investigation of the foundations and nature of metaphor in English. Metaphor is one of the hot topics in present-day linguistics, with a huge range of research focusing on the systematic connections between different concepts such as heat and anger, sight and understanding, or bodies and landscape. Until recently, the lack of a comprehensive data source made it difficult to obtain an overview of this phenomenon in any language, but this changed with the completion (...) in 2009 of The Historical Thesaurus of English, the only historical thesaurus ever produced for any language. Chapters in this volume use this unique resource as a basis for case studies of semantic domains including Animals, Colour, Death, Fear, Food, Reading, and Theft, providing a significant step forward in the data-driven understanding of metaphor. (shrink)

How do historically marginalized groups expose the partiality and presumptions of educational institutions through autobiographical acts? How are the stories we tell used to justify resistance to change or institutional complacency? These are the questions Wendy S. Hesford asks as she considers the uses of autobiography in educational settings. This book demonstrates how autobiographical acts -- oral, written, performative, and visual -- play out in vexed and contradictory ways and how in the academy they can become sites of cultural (...) struggle over multicultural education, sexual harassment, institutional racism, hate speech, student activism, and commemorative practices. Within the context of Oberlin, a small liberal arts college in Ohio, this book looks at the uses of autobiographical practices in empowering groups traditionally marginalized in academic settings. Investigating the process of self-representation and the social, spatial, and discursive frames within which academic bodies and identities are constituted, Framing Identities explores the use of autobiographical acts in terms of power, influence, risks involved, and effectiveness. Hesford provides a model for teacher-researchers across the disciplines to investigate the contradictory uses and consequences of autobiography, and to carve out new pedagogical spaces. (shrink)

First ever English Translation of Philippe PInel's 2nd Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation. The founder of French psychiatry wrote Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation in 1800 and reworked it nine years later. This book is the "Entirely Reworked and Extensively Expanded" version from 1809. Today, it can give historians of medicine and psychiatrists an overview of mental illnesses as they were viewed in that era. The author, Philippe Pinel, became known as the doctor who worked to free the insane from (...) chains. (shrink)

This paper’s purpose is to provide a foundation for viewing critical thinking as both a maximal and typical performance construct. While maximal performance measures the best a person can do, typical performance measures what the person is most likely to do. An overview of maximal performance, including its history and limitations, will be given. The role of maximal and typical performance in cognitive development will be demonstrated through an exploration of the relationships between behavior, the environment, personality, crystallized intelligence, and (...) fluid intelligence. Furthermore, these topics will be related to the development and use of critical thinking skills. Discussion will conclude with directions for future research. (shrink)