Purpose. The study is dedicated to the analysis of structuralist and poststructuralist concepts of the Other (Others) as the basis for the formation of social subjectivity and the subject's identity. Theoretical basis. The authors proceed from the assumption that the conceptualization of the Other of traditional philosophical structuralism with his absolutization of the "process without a subject" imposes from the outside, sometimes unacceptable and alien to the subject identity. Scientific novelty. The authors prove the need for further research into (...) multivariate concepts of the Other, which testify to a fairly complex process of subjectivation in the present, which takes place on an uncontrolled, unconscious level. Conclusions. The authors identified directions for further study of the problem of transformation and incorporation of concepts of the Other into modern social structures, which significantly modify the content and role of collective identity in the process of subjectivation of individuals, which becomes a promising topic for future research. (shrink)

With the dismantling of Marxist-Leninist ideology, fresh inspiration has been discernible in recent Soviet philosophy. This article argues that a major area of concern is the nature of the human being, a theme formerly dominated by the "social" conceptions inscribed into official historical materialism. Soviet philosophers are examining such categories as culture, spirit, consciousness, and personality with an eye to their common characteristics. For many, the latter is grounded in the nature of the person, the specificity of which lies (...) in a morally qualified unity of action, sentiment, and reason. The author brings together evidence for this thesis and discusses the arguments of the Soviet philosophers with an eye to their conceptual resources and models. (shrink)

Gender seems to be everywhere in the norms governing our social world: from how to be a good friend and how to walk, to children’s clothes. It is not surprising then that a difficulty in identifying someone’s gender is often a source of discomfort and even anxiety. Numerous theorists, including Judith Butler and Charlotte Witt, have noted that gender is unlike other important social differences, such as professional occupation or religious affiliation. It has a special centrality, ubiquity and (...) importance in social practices. This observation moves us away from the classic philosophical question ‘what is gender?’ towards a more underappreciated one: ‘what is the role of gender’? To answer this question, I introduce the notion of social standing, which refers to our ability to enter into social relations. Social standing distinctions are an important feature of human societies. However, our existing philosophical tools do not adequately capture this notion: it is neither a moral distinction, nor is it reducible to hierarchy. I offer a conception of our entry into social relations as always conditioned by various shared representational assumptions about social subjects. When individuals are anomalous with respect to those assumptions, their social standing is in doubt. This explains important forms of uncommon and peculiar treatment across societies. I argue that forms of social devaluation on the basis of severe and visible disability in our society are central examples of diminished social standing. In our social context, being hard to recognize through the matrix of gender makes one representationally anomalous and imperils one’s social standing. Gender plays a fundamental role because gender legibility is a precondition for full social standing. Gender norms parallel ‘ability norms’ in this respect, linking notions of normalcy in scholarship on gender and in scholarship on disability. Social standing also explains two key phenomena about gender. Firstly, it tells us why our social practices and norms are pervasively gendered. Given the performative and relational nature of gendered positions, this is necessary for constant gender legibility. Secondly, social standing recognition accounts for social anxiety phenomena around gender ambiguity. These phenomena are reactions to anomaly as a threat to our social systems of meaning. In the final part of my dissertation, I consider some political consequences of my view. Understanding this special role of gender allows us to identify a distinct type of backlash to feminist social change that is particularly insidious. It is not driven by the hierarchical investments of the most gender-privileged, but rather by our collective investment in gender as a system of social coordination. I explore 2000s ‘raunch feminism’ to argue for this hypothesis. Gender’s role as a conditioning parameter of social standing puts systematic pressure on all would-be social subjects to be gender legible. This requires that individuals position themselves in recognizably gendered ways within social practices. But when gender differentiation is eroded, this positioning becomes tricky. This gives rise to a disorientation I call ‘meaning vertigo’. Meaning vertigo prompts attempts at reinstating a clear gendered system. In the process, gender equality suffers a serious set-back. To make substantial feminist progress, we must unseat gender from its central position in social domains like sexuality. I suggest that the best way to do this may be by foregrounding other aspects of social identity as systems of social coordination, instead of working on gender directly. (shrink)

This article examines three key aetiological theories of autism (meta-representations, executive dysfunction and weak central coherence), which emerged within cognitive psychology in the latter half of the 1980s. Drawing upon Foucault’s notion of ‘forms of possible knowledge’, and in particular his concept of savoir or depth knowledge, two key claims are made. First, it is argued that a particular production of autism became available to questions of truth and falsity following a radical reconstruction of ‘the social’ in which human (...) sociality was taken both to exclusively concern interpersonal interaction and to be continuous with non-social cognition. Second, it is suggested that this reconstruction of the social has affected the contemporary cultural experience of autism, shifting attention towards previously unacknowledged cognitive aspects of the condition. The article concludes by situating these claims in relation to other historical accounts of the emergence of autism and ongoing debates surrounding changing articulations of social action in the psy disciplines. (shrink)

The study of the subjectivity and the subject appears today as a disputed field by different perspectives. In this article, we expose a framework to understand the subjectivity in a cultural historical approach and we propose theoretical, methodological and axiological issues for the study of subjectivity. We discuss the place of discourse in the study of social subjectivity through structuralism’s positions and proposals of social constructionism. Finally, we defend that the Critical Discourse Analysis proposed by Norman Fairclough as (...) a solid theoretical-methodological perspective for the study of the complex links between subjectivity, discourse and social reality. We propose that this approach, based on categories such as discursive practice, social practice hegemony, discursive order, intertextuality and discursive shift, can address the theoretical, methodological and axiological challenges regarding the study of subjectivity. El estudio de la subjetividad y del sujeto aparece en la actualidad como un campo en disputa por distintas corrientes y posiciones. Las propuestas para el estudio del campo de la subjetividad variarán de acuerdo a las concepciones teóricas y supuestos que sobre ella se tengan. En el presente artículo se plantean una serie de desafíos teóricos, metodológicos y axiológicos necesarios de afrontar para el estudio de la subjetividad. Asimismo, se discute el lugar del discurso en el estudio de la subjetividad social, debatiendo con las posiciones estructuralistas y con las propuestas del construccionismo social. Por otra parte, se expone una forma de comprender la subjetividad desde el enfoque histórico cultural y, en consistencia con lo anterior, se plantea una perspectiva teórica-metodológica pertinente para abordar las complejas relaciones entre subjetividad, discurso y realidad social: el Análisis Crítico del Discurso propuesto por Norman Fairclough. Proponemos que este enfoque, a partir de categorías como práctica discursiva, práctica social, hegemonía, orden discursivo, intertextualidad y cambio discursivo, permite abordar los desafíos teóricos, metodológicos y axiológicos antes planteados respecto del estudio de la subjetividad. (shrink)

There are growing discontinuities between the research practices of data science and established tools of research ethics regulation. Some of the core commitments of existing research ethics regulations, such as the distinction between research and practice, cannot be cleanly exported from biomedical research to data science research. Such discontinuities have led some data science practitioners and researchers to move toward rejecting ethics regulations outright. These shifts occur at the same time as a proposal for major revisions to the Common Rule—the (...) primary regulation governing human-subjects research in the USA—is under consideration for the first time in decades. We contextualize these revisions in long-running complaints about regulation of social science research and argue data science should be understood as continuous with social sciences in this regard. The proposed regulations are more flexible and scalable to the methods of non-biomedical research, yet problematically largely exclude data science methods from human-subjects regulation, particularly uses of public datasets. The ethical frameworks for Big Data research are highly contested and in flux, and the potential harms of data science research are unpredictable. We examine several contentious cases of research harms in data science, including the 2014 Facebook emotional contagion study and the 2016 use of geographical data techniques to identify the pseudonymous artist Banksy. To address disputes about application of human-subjects research ethics in data science, critical data studies should offer a historically nuanced theory of “data subjectivity” responsive to the epistemic methods, harms and benefits of data science and commerce. (shrink)

This paper considers the way social theorists draw on affective imagery to convey ideas about complex social processes such as the formation of subjectivity within a given habitus. The argument focuses on discussions of art in the work of Elias and Foucault to question whether imagery, and particularly imagery drawn from art, serves to simplify more complex processes of reasoning, or whether the image can be understood as a type of conceptual consolidation of an argument rather than a (...) means to simply illustrate or augment it. The paper also raises the question of whether art is a more complex form of social agency than it was sometimes understood to be in its original social context. (shrink)

The study examines how truth-tellers and truth-telling can be cultivated in the context of post-truth politics in the U.S. Following Foucault, it is not concerned with examining the problem of truth, with the philosophical question of how truth is determined, but with the problem of truth-tellers or truth-telling as a practical activity of self-improvement. To this end, the study traces the emergence and nature of post-truth politics in the U.S. and analyzes its relation to patterns of fascist propaganda and the (...) psychological appeal of authoritarian leaders through a psycho-social perspective. To counter the nature and ubiquity of post-truth politics, the unrelenting flow of lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories disseminated by the far-right news and information ecosystem, the author argues that educators can help students recognize truth-tellers and become truth-tellers themselves by employing certain pedagogical strategies, informed by Foucault’s analysis of parrhesia, that can equip them to criticize and resist post-truth propaganda and demagogues. (shrink)

Reflecting Subjects offers a bold and original reading of Book 2 of the Treatise, and presents a problem that has been little explored by Hume scholarship. Jacqueline Taylor's book argues that we can reconstruct what she calls a "social theory" out of Book 2 of the Treatise. Based on a detailed account of the passions that constitute social selves, the social theory of the Treatise offers, according to Taylor, rich and fine-grained explanations of the causes of (...) difference and inequality among human beings, based on understanding the characters of individuals, their social statuses, and their differences in power. However—and this is one of the central problems that Reflecting Subjects seeks to tackle—in Book 3 of... (shrink)

The notion of social belongingness has been applied to different scales, from individual to social processes, and from subjective to objective dimensions. This article seeks to contribute to this multidimensional perspective on belongingness by drawing from the capabilities and subjective wellbeing perspectives. The specific aim is to analyze the relationships between capabilities—including those related to social belongingness—and individual and social subjective wellbeing. The hypotheses are: There is a relationship between capabilities and individual and social subjective (...) wellbeing; The set of capabilities associated to individual subjective wellbeing differs from the set correlated to social subjective wellbeing; The intensity and significance of the correlation between subjective wellbeing and capabilities depends on whether the latter is measured as evaluation or functioning; and The relationships between capabilities and subjective wellbeing are complex and non-linear. Using a nationally representative survey in Chile, multiple linear and dose response matching regressions between capabilities and subjective wellbeing outcomes are estimated, confirming all hypotheses. Subjective evaluations and effective functionings of some capabilities are consistently correlated with both subjective wellbeing outcomes. Others capabilities are correlated with both subjective wellbeing outcomes only when measured as functionings, do not display a systematic pattern of correlation or are not associated with subjective wellbeing. When observed, correlations are sizable, non-linear, and consistent across estimation methods. Moreover, capabilities related to social belongingness such as “social ties” and “feeling recognized and respected” are important by themselves but also are positively correlated to both social and individual subjective wellbeing. These findings underscore the need of a multidimensional perspective on the relationships between capabilities and subjective wellbeing, considering both subjective and objective, as well as individual and social aspects that are relevant to belongingness. These findings also have practical and policy implications, and may inform public deliberation processes and policy decisions to develop capabilities, promote subjective wellbeing, and ultimately promote positive belongingness. (shrink)

In order to explore the relationship of social support, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being of special education teachers in China, 496 teachers from 67 special education schools were surveyed by questionnaire. We found that (1) the subjective well-being of special education teachers in China was in the medial level. (2) There were significant differences in subjective well-being level among teachers of different genders, teacher position, education background, and teaching age. Male teachers were of higher subjective well-being; subjective well-being of head (...) teachers was lower than those were not head teachers; teachers with the educational background of postgraduate were of higher relaxation and tension than those with junior college educational background; the control scores of emotion and behavior of teachers with teaching age of 3 years and below were significantly lower than those of teachers with teaching age of more than 10 years. (3) Self-efficacy played a partially mediating role in the relationship between social support and subjective well-being of special education teachers. Suggestions to improve the subjective well-being of special education teachers were discussed in the article. (shrink)

Electoral support for right-wing populist parties is typically explained either by economic deprivation or cultural grievances. Attempting to bring economic and cultural explanations together, recent approaches have suggested to conceptualize right-wing populist support as a problem of social integration. Applying this perspective to the German case, this article investigates whether weak subjective social integration-or subjective social marginalization, respectively-is associated with the intention to vote for the AfD. Furthermore, it asks whether the strength of this association varies across (...) income groups. Based on original survey data from 2017, the results show that indicators of weak subjective social integration-feeling socially excluded, being anxious about one’s status, and distrusting others-increase the likelihood of voting for the AfD. Moreover, weak subjective social integration increases right-wing party support particularly among the middle-class. Thus, next to fears of downward mobility, feelings of subjective social marginalization emerge as a pathway to right-wing populism for the middle-class. (shrink)

Interweaves elements of Kristevan and Heideggerian thought in order to reconstruct a linguistically embedded, existentially and affectively rich, dialectical model of willed self-regulation.

It can be challenging to introduce the philosophy of social science (PoS) to students in the social sciences. Noting the lack of literature providing guidance to the prospective PoS teacher, this paper outlines several pieces of advice on how to engage social science undergraduates in the subject. This advice centres on showing the relevance of the PoS in academia and beyond, reducing complexity and presenting only a few contending PoS perspectives. It is also proposed to use textbooks (...) with caution or avoiding them altogether, illustrating how PoS assumptions are embedded in contemporary social research and showing the connection between the PoS on one hand and research questions, methods, and theory on the other. Finally, the importance of showing students how they can make use of the PoS in their own work and teaching the subject in a ‘hands on’ manner is emphasized. (shrink)

The issue of left-behind children has become a key focus in China. In this study, we investigate the mediating role of social support between social anxiety and the subjective quality of life among left-behind children in China. A total of 710 junior high school students were recruited using clustering random sampling from five middle schools in China and investigated using the Social Anxiety Scale for Children, Social Support Rating Scale for Adolescents, and Inventory of Subjective Life (...) Quality. The results show that social anxiety is negatively associated with social support and subjective quality of life, and social support is positively correlated with subjective quality of life. In addition, social support partially mediates the relationship between social anxiety and subjective quality of life. In conclusion, these findings provide new insights to improve the subjective quality of life of left-behind children. The focus should be on alleviating social anxiety and increasing social support in order to help left-behind children improve their subjective quality of life. (shrink)

When firms face crisis, the instant and open channels of social media communication create a double-edged sword. While corporations can more quickly communicate with stakeholders, any missteps will have drastic and nearly immediate repercussions. What are the relationships among social media, subjective norms, attitudes, and intentions during corporate crisis? We explore this phenomenon via a study of a crisis faced by Lowe’s, an international home improvement store, and how current and potential customers reacted. By utilizing a structural equations (...) model to examine an integrated model of multiple constructs, we find that Facebook usage is associated with behavioral intent, perceptions of ethicality, and attitudes toward the organization. Counter intuitively, we find that an increase in participant Facebook usage is negatively related to felt subjective norms. Our findings indicate that beyond the traditional relationships examined by the Theory of Reasoned Action (e.g., norms, attitudes, and behavioral intent), that social media and subjective norms have a strong relationship with general attitudes and ethical attitudes toward an organization. (shrink)

Over the last three quarters of a century, international guidelines and regulations have undergone significant changes in how children are problematised as participants in biomedical research. While early guidelines enacted children as vulnerable subjects with diminished autonomy and in need of special protection, beginning in the early 2000s, international regulatory frameworks defined the paediatric population as vulnerable due to unaddressed public health needs. More recently, ethical recommendations have promoted the active engagement of minors as research partners. In this paper, (...) I adopt a post-structuralist approach to policy analysis to examine deep-seated assumptions and presuppositions underlying the changes in the problematisation of children as biomedical research participants over time. While biomedical research ethics focuses on the autonomy and vulnerability of minors, ethical guidelines are situated in specific sociocultural contexts, shaped, among other things, by contingent public health needs and changing conceptions of the value of research and science for society. In the process, I demonstrate the challenge of moving away from an approach that in taking adults as the model overshadows the complexity of children’s lived experiences as well as their personal, cultural, and social lives. The lack of acknowledgement of this complexity makes children vulnerable to epistemic injustice, which is particularly crucial to address in public involvement initiatives. (shrink)

This book contributes to the feminist reconstruction of political theory. Although many feminist authors have pointed out the ways in which women have been property, they have been less successful in suggesting how women might become the subjects rather than the objects of property-holding. This book synthesises political theory from liberal, Marxist, Kantian and Hegelian traditions, applying these ideas to history and social policy.

Since the early 1970s, European thinkers have departed notably from their predecessors in order to pursue analytical programs more thoroughly their own. Rethinking the Subject brings together in one volume some of the most influential writings of Foucault, Habermas, Bourdieu, Pizzorno, Macfarlane, and other authors whose ideas have had a worldwide influence in recent social history.The anthology is testament to the central importance of three contemporary themes, each familiar to earlier thinkers but never definitively formulated or resolved. The first (...) two concern the nature and modalities of power and legitimacy in society. The third, and most fundamental, deals with the nature and modalities of the ”self” or ”subject.”These themes owe their special contemporary relevance to an array of events—from the collapse of colonialism to the birth of test-tube babies. James Faubion’s introduction traces the historical context of these influential events and themes. It also traces the lineaments of a still inchoate intellectual movement, of which the writers included in this anthology are the vanguard. (shrink)

Over 115 000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants, of whom a small fraction will receive transplants and many others will die while waiting. Existing efforts to expand the number of available organs, including increasing the number of registered donors and procuring organs in uncontrolled environments, are crucial but unlikely to address the shortage in the near future and will not improve donor/recipient compatibility or organ quality. If successful, organ bioengineering can solve the shortage and improve functional outcomes. Studying (...) manufactured organs in animal models has produced valuable data, but is not sufficient to understand viability in humans. Before risking manufactured organ experimentation in living humans, study of bioengineered organs in recently deceased humans would facilitate evaluation of the function of engineered tissues and the complex interactions between the host and the transplanted tissue. Although such studies do not pose risk to human subjects, they pose unique ethical challenges concerning the previous wishes of the deceased, rights of surviving family members, effective operation and fair distribution of medical services, and public transparency. This article investigates the ethical, legal and social considerations in performing engineered organ research on the recently deceased. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus disease that emerged at the end of 2019 began threatening the health and lives of millions of people after a few weeks. However, social and economic problems derived from COVID-19 have changed the development of individuals and the whole country. This study examines the work conditions of Taiwanese versus mainland China employees, and evaluates the relationship between support mechanisms and subjective wellbeing from a social cognitive career theory perspective. In this study, a total of 623 (...) Taiwanese questionnaires and 513 mainland China questionnaires were collected to compare the two sample groups in terms of the development of employees’ subjective wellbeing. The results show that the Taiwanese sample had more significant development paths compared to mainland China employees in terms of prior knowledge, perceived organizational support, self-efficacy, employee employability, subjective wellbeing, and job performance. Finally, based on the conclusions, this study proposes some specific suggestions on theoretical mode for future studies. (shrink)

Kindergarten teachers’ professional commitment affects their emotional input and turnover intention, and it is affected by the spiritual and material factors of teachers’ families, kindergartens, and society. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of the dimensions of subjective well-being in the relationship between social support and professional commitment. The study is grounded in human ecology theory and social exchange theory. We surveyed 778 kindergarten teachers from different educational systems in Guangdong Province in China. We used (...) the “Appreciative Social Support” and “Subjective Well-being” Scales and the “Professional Commitment Questionnaire.” The results showed that the four variables of social support, positive affect, life satisfaction, and professional commitment of kindergarten teachers were significantly and positively correlated with each other: social support positively predicted positive affect and life satisfaction, positive affect and life satisfaction positively predicted professional commitment, and social support indirectly influenced professional commitment through the parallel and chain path of positive affect and life satisfaction. This represents a compound multiple mediating effects on professional commitment. (shrink)

Research on social influences often distinguishes between social and quality incentives to ascribe meaning to the value that popularity conveys. This study examines the neural correlates of those incentives through which popularity influences preferences. This research reports an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and a behavioral task in which respondents evaluated popular products with three focus perspectives; unspecified focus, focus on social aspects, and focus on quality. The results show that value derived with a social focus (...) reflects inferences of approval and reward value, and positively affects preferences. Value derived with a quality focus reflects inferences of quality and negatively affects preferences. This study provides evidence of two distinct inferential routes on both a neurological level, represented by different regions in the brain, and a behavioral level. These results provide the first evidence that a single popularity cue can in different ways influence the value derived from product popularity. (shrink)

One of the most distinguished living social philosophers, Margaret Gilbert develops and extends her application of plural subject theory of human sociality, first introduced in her earlier works On Social Facts and Living Together. Sociality and Responsibility presents an extended discussion of her proposal that joint commitments inherently involve obligations and rights, proposing, in effect, a new theory of obligations and rights. In addition, it demonstrates the extensive range and fruitfulness of plural subject theory by presenting accounts of (...) social rules, scientific change, political obligation, collective remorse, collective guilt, shared intention and an important class of rights and obligations. (shrink)

Refugees can be formed as “subjects” as they navigate forced displacement in countries that are not their own. In particular, everyday life as the politicized Other, and as humanitarianism’s depoliticized beneficiary, can constitute them as political subjects. Understanding these produced subjects and subjectivities leads us to conceive of forced displacement – or “refugeedom” – as a human condition or experience of political (sub)alterity, within which inhere distinctive subjectivations and subjectivities. Drawing on fieldwork in Beirut, Lebanon, we use (...) young Syrian and Iraqi refugees’ experiences with everyday racism, violent bullying and racialized discrimination as heuristic lenses with which to see displacement’s political subjects and subjectivities. We argue that the young refugees emerge as both political and moral subjects through core and defining struggles within – and against – these politicizing constraints. We interpret their struggles as ambivalently and dynamically situated within humanitarianism’s and racism’s subjections and subjectivities. Yet we also found that occasionally the young refugees could eclipse these produced subjectivities to claim repoliticized subjecthoods distinct from those of humanitarianism and outside displacement’s normal politics. We interpret these in Rancièrian terms as “political subjectivation.” Abstracting our findings, we offer a simple theoretical architecture of refugeedom’s subjectivations, subjects, and subjectivities as comprising humanitarianism’s rights-bearing or juridical subject; the vulnerable and resilient, innocent and suffering subject; and the Othered or racialized subject, formed through the exclusions of displacement’s politicized spaces. But we also conceive refugeedom as a space of values, and so the ground on which moral meaning and significance attach to agency and subjectivity. (shrink)

AimOur study aimed to investigate the effect of social responsibility on the subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19 and to examine the mediating role of job involvement in this relationship.BackgroundNowadays, more and more people join volunteer service activities. As we all know, volunteer work contributes to society without any return. Volunteers often have a strong sense of social responsibility and reap subjective well-being in their dedication. Although research shows that social responsibility will drive them to participate in (...) volunteer work actively, it is less clear whether job involvement will impact their subjective well-being.MethodsThe data were collected in the precaution zone in Shanghai, China, from April to May 2022. A sample of 302 volunteers for COVID-19 completed the social responsibility scale, subjective well-being scale and job involvement scale in the form of an electronic questionnaire on their mobile phones. A structural equation model was adopted to verify the research hypotheses.ResultsSocial responsibility was significantly and positively related to volunteers’ subjective well-being and job involvement. Job involvement fully mediates the relationship between volunteers’ social responsibility and subjective well-being.ConclusionSocial responsibility is critical to predicting volunteers’ subjective well-being. Job involvement plays an intervening mechanism in explaining how social responsibility promotes volunteers’ subjective well-being. (shrink)

Documentary filmmakers have ethical responsibilities to the subjects of their films. Specifically, they have an ethical responsibility to prevent harm to their subjects if they are in a position to do so, even harm not directly related to being in the film. Justification for this comes from documentary's status as a practice of a social institution and can be supported by Utilitarian and Kantian considerations, as well as the Aristotelian discussion of practices. Three films, The Thin Blue (...) Line, Dope Sick Love , and Born Into Brothels , are used as examples for the requirement to prevent harm to subjects. These examples cover several different possibilities of how documentary filmmakers behave concerning the welfare of their subjects and are evaluated in light of ethical considerations offered. (shrink)

The issue of how to identify the liability of subjects after a traffic accident takes place remains a puzzle regarding the SAE classification system. The SAE system is not good at dealing with the problem of responsibility evaluation; therefore, building a new classification system for self-driving cars from the perspective of the subject's liability is a possible way to solve this problem. This new system divides automated driving into three levels: i) assisted driving based on the will of drivers, (...) ii) automated driving based on the will of the manufacturers, and iii) fully automated driving based on social will. The corresponding responsible subjects for level one, level two, and level three are the drivers, the manufacturers, and society, respectively. (shrink)

Christopher Peacocke presents a new theory of subjects of consciousness, together with a theory of the nature of first person representation. He identifies three sorts of self-consciousness--perspectival, reflective, and interpersonal--and argues that they are key to explaining features of our knowledge, social relations, and emotional lives.

The principal aim of this article is to examine the capacity of existential analytic to suggest alternatives to entrenched dichotomies and dilemmas in practice theory, and more generally, in social theory. In this regard, the doctrine of trans-subjective existentialism is developed. The underlying aim is to inform hermeneutic engagement with social practices’ potentiality-for-being in order to illuminate a possible existential ontology of practices. It is argued that the concept of chronotope should be central in this ontology. Thus, the (...) possibility of hermeneutic realism about social practices becomes open to scrutiny. (shrink)

: Judith Butler's Kritik der ethischen Gewalt represents a significant refinement of her position on the relationship between the construction of the subject and her social subjection. While Butler's earlier texts reflect a somewhat restricted notion of agency, her Adorno Lectures formulate a notion of agency that extends beyond mere resistance. This essay traces the development of Butler's account of agency and evaluates it in light of feminist projects of social transformation.

This article provides a critical rereading of Andrea Dworkin’s infamous text Intercourse. I use Judith Butler’s post-structural theory to contest the common view that Dworkin forwards an immutable position on heterosexual intercourse. Instead, I argue that she identifies a particularly pernicious discourse used to represent vaginal penetration – the discourse of intercourse-as-violation. This discourse is important for feminists to consider because the codification of sex acts affects the codification of gendered social actors. The article continues to explore how Dworkin’s (...) text positions readers as gendered subjects in order to better understand why her work is seldom given careful contemplation. When read as positing an essentialist position on heterosex, heterosexed male readers are brought into social being as perpetrators of sexual violation while female readers are positioned as morally superior victims. This distasteful position is quickly rejected as readers form affective attachments to her work based in disindentification. (shrink)

It is often assumed that trolling is an intentional action. The aim of the paper is to argue for a form of unintentional trolling. Firstly, we outline minimal conditions for intentional actions. Secondly, an unintentional trolling example is introduced. Thirdly, we will show that in some cases, an utterance can be expressive, while it is perceived as descriptive. On the basis of the justification-suppression model, we argue that the introduced trolling example is such a case. In order to bypass (...) class='Hi'>social sanctions for expressing prejudices, agents unintentionally express their prejudices through stories that appear to be descriptive. Thereby, the characterized behavior does not fulfill the minimal conditions for intentional action. Fourthly, we give criteria that can be used to identify unintentional trolls. Finally, after unintentional trolling is analyzed, the trolls’ behavioral goals are considered. In conclusion, an analysis of unintentional trolling is given, which has explanatory benefits in contrast to the classic intentional trolling concepts. (shrink)

Clinical research with children generates special ethical concern, raising the need for additional protections beyond those for research with competent adults. Most guidelines permit research with children when it offers a prospect of direct benefit, or poses minimal risk. Unlike many other guidelines, the U.S. federal regulations also allow institutional review boards to approve pediatric research that does not offer a prospect of direct benefit when the risks are no greater than a minor increase over minimal risk. To approve research (...) in this category, IRBs must find that two additional conditions obtain:1). The intervention or procedure presents experiences to subjects that are reasonably commensurate with those inherent in their actual or expected medical, dental, psychological, social, or educational situations; and 2). The intervention or procedure is likely to yield generalizable knowledge about the subjects disorder or condition which is of vital importance for the understanding or amelioration of the subjects disorder or condition. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the ways in which bodies and subjects are enacted and negotiated in the encounter between client and practitioner within specialized kinesiology – a specific complementary and alternative medical practice. In the article we trace the ideas of connections and disconnections, which are conceptualized and practised within kinesiology. We attempt to come to grips with these specific notions of relatedness through the introduction of the concept ‘energetic kinship’ and to relate them to more general discussions (...) about the nature of subjects, bodies and social identity in late modern society. We argue that through the particular approach to the body as a prime locus of knowledge on which kinesiological treatment practices are based, kinesiology offers clients an alternative understanding of being-in-the-world. The understanding of the body as the locus of knowledge might, on the one hand, potentially alleviate the individual from the weight of a late modern focus on self-responsible, rational and autonomous individuality, while, on the other hand, it simultaneously supports this understanding. Hence, we argue that kinesiology operates with a subject which is both inherently related and individual at the same time, and that these particular understandings may be appealing in a world in which health and illness are increasingly seen as a question of individual responsibility. The article was written on the basis of interviews and participant observation among kinesiological teachers and practitioners in Denmark. (shrink)

Ravelingien et al1 argue that we should recategorise people in a permanent vegetative state as dead. Although the dilemma they describe is very real, their solution will not work. Other respondents to this paper have advanced several powerful arguments against the attempt to describe patients in a PVS as dead. Fortunately, the original argument contains sufficient resources for developing an alternative solution to this dilemma without having to radically change the current legal or social status of patients in a (...) PVS. In fact, patients in a PVS may be enrolled in xenotransplantation experiments, provided that their prior informed consent has been sought.The motivation for the original paper was to resolve an apparently intractable ethical conflict. On the one hand, there are powerful ethical and medical reasons for proceeding with research into the transplantation of non-human organs into human patients, whereas on the other, there are equally powerful ethical reasons for blocking whole-organ transplant experiments. These reasons are unusual in that special problems with xenotransplantation will block experiments that are permitted in other cases. In particular, the unquantifiable risk of a pandemic triggered by diseases such as porcine endogenous retrovirus crossing the species barrier will either block the research or expose subjects to the risk of indefinite quarantine . The authors also argue that the restrictions placed on transplant recipients and the possibility of long-term and intrusive monitoring, restrictions on sexual contacts and reproduction, and possible confinement represent excessive and ethically unjustifiable burdens. Over time, the recipients may wish to withdraw their consent, but the risks to public health would prevent them from doing so, thereby violating the basic principle that subjects of scientific and medical experiments should be able to revise or withdraw consent . …. (shrink)

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface to the Paperback Edition -- Preface -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Research Design and Methodology: The Two Studies -- Chapter 3: Is There a Problem? Current Patterns of Ethical Standards and Practices -- Chapter 4: The Dilemma of Science and Therapy: The Effects of Competitionin the Science Community -- Chapter 5: The Dilemma of Science and Therapy: The Effects of Competitionin the Local Institution -- (...) Chapter 6: Social Control: Some Patterns and Consequences of Socialization -- Chapter 7: Social Control: Some Patterns and Consequences of CollaborationGroups and Informal Interaction Structures -- Chapter 8: Six Case Studies -- Chapter 9: Social Control: The Structures, Processes, and Efficacy of PeerGroup Review -- Chapter 10: Social Control: Have Medical Schools Been Ethical Leaders? -- Chapter 11: The Social Responsibilities of a Powerful Profession: Some Suggestionsfor Policy Change and Reform -- Appendix I. National Survey Questionnaire -- Appendix II. Intensive Two-Institution Interview Schedule -- Index. (shrink)

This paper examines research on three hypnotic phenomena: suggested amnesia, suggested analgesia, and “trance logic.” For each case a social-psychological interpretation of hypnotic behavior as a voluntary response strategy is compared with the traditional special-process view that “good” hypnotic subjects have lost conscious control over suggestion-induced behavior. I conclude that it is inaccurate to describe hypnotically amnesic subjects as unable to recall the material they have been instructed to forget. Although amnesics present themselves as unable to remember, (...) they in fact retain control over retrieval processes and accommodate their recall (or lack of it) to the social demands of the test situation. Hypnotic suggestions of analgesia do not produce a dissociation of pain from phenomenal awareness. Nonhypnotic suggestions of analgesia and distractor tasks that deflect attention from the'noxious stimuli are as effective as hypnotic suggestions in producing reductions in reported pain. Moreover, when appropriately motivated, subjects low in hypnotic suggestibility report pain reductions as large as those reported by highly suggestible hypnotically analgesic subjects. Finally, the data fail to support the view that a tolerance for logical incongruity (i.e., trance logic) uniquely characterizes hypnotic responding. So-called trance-logic-governed responding appears to reflect the attempts of “good” subjects to meet implicit demands to report accurately what they experience. (shrink)