Health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, clinic- and hospital-based care, rehabilitation and feeding programs. In the course of this work, clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This paper examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged from the data, including: tension (...) between respecting local customs and imposing values; obstacles to providing adequate care; differing understandings of health and illness; questions of identity for health workers; and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for organizational strategies that could help aid agencies support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues. (shrink)

Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest (indigents) in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are indigents, and funding and implementing user fee removal. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions of ethical considerations (...) relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

Humanitarian healthcare work presents a range of ethical challenges for expatriate healthcare professionals, including tragic choices requiring the selection of a least-worst option. In this paper we examine a particular set of tragic choices related to the prioritization of care and allocation of scarce resources between individuals in situations of widespread and urgent health needs. Drawing on qualitative interviews with clinicians, we examine the nature of these choices. We offer recommendations to clinical teams and aid organizations for preparing and supporting (...) frontline clinicians in their efforts to determine the least-worst option, and in their responsibility for making such choices. (shrink)

Despite enthusiasm for patient-centered care, the practice of patient-centered care is proving challenging. Further, it is curious that the literature about this subject does not explicitly address patient autonomy, since patients guide care in patient-centered care, and respect for patient autonomy is a prominent health-care value. We argue that by explicitly adopting a relational conception of autonomy as an essential component, patient-centered care becomes more coherent, is strengthened, and could help practitioners to make better use of a principle of respect (...) for autonomy. Hence, its use appears promising to narrow the theory–practice gap. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining the moral (...) dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

Patient-Centered Care and Cultural Practices: Process and Criteria for Evaluating Adaptations of Norms and Standards in Health Care Institutions Content Type Journal Article Pages 327-339 DOI 10.1007/s10730-009-9115-8 Authors Matthew R. Hunt, McMaster University Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Montreal Canada Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 4.

Methods to facilitate co-production in mental health are important for engaging end users. As part of the Technology for Healthy Aging and Wellbeing initiative we organized two interactive co-production workshops, to bring together older adults, health and social care professionals, non-governmental organizations, and researchers. In the first workshop, we used two activities: Technology Interaction and Scavenger Hunt, to explore the potential for different stakeholders to discuss late life mental health and existing technology. In the second workshop, we used Vignettes, (...) Scavenger Hunt, and Invention Test to examine how older adults and other stakeholders might co-produce solutions to support mental wellbeing in later life using new and emerging technologies. In this paper, we share the interactive materials and activities and consider their value for co-production. Overall, the interactive methods were successful in engaging stakeholders with a broad range of technologies to support mental health and wellbeing and in co-producing ideas for how they could be leveraged and incorporated into older people’s lives and support services. We offer this example of using interactive methods to facilitate co-production to encourage greater involvement of older adults and other under-represented groups in co-producing mental health technologies and services. (shrink)

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

The issues and problems of mandatory vaccination policy and roll out in First Nations communities are unique and do not concern the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. These issues are also independent of more specific arguments of mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers as a condition of employment. As important as these issues are, they do not consider the complex politics of ongoing settler colonialism and First Nations community relations. In this paper, we also set aside the very real problems of (...) disinformation, hesitancy, scientific and health illiteracy, and other concerns that drive vaccine hesitancy and refusal. These affect all communities, including First Nations communities. We, instead describe the dominant arguments in favour of mandatory vaccination and critique them in terms of the disputed legitimacy of Settler-Colonial decision-making as it impacts First Nations communities. We contend cultural responsiveness and safety—not state compulsion—must remain the first principles of any engagement—including vaccination—with First Nations Peoples, families, and communities. (shrink)

Vatsyayana's Commentary on the Nyaya-sutra is one of classical India's most important philosophical works.

Looking at the breadth of Joan Didion's writing - from journalism, essays, fiction, memoir and screen plays - it may appear that there is no unifying thread, but in this original exploration of her work Matthew R. McLennan argues that 'the ethics of memory' - the question of which norms should guide public and private remembrance - offers a promising vision of what is most characteristic and salient in Didion's works. By framing her universe as indifferent and essentially precarious, (...) McLennan demonstrates how this outlook guides Didion's reflections on key themes linked to memory: namely witnessing and grieving, nostalgia, and the paradoxically amnesiac qualities of our increasingly archived public life that she explored in famous texts like Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Year of Magical Thinking and Salvador. McLennan moves beyond the interpretive value of such an approach and frames Didion as a serious, iconoclastic philosopher of time and memory. Through her encounters with the past, the writer is shown to offer lessons for the future in an increasingly perilous and unsettled world. (shrink)

Explores the often elided and interesting relationship between Badiou and Lyotard.

Conspiracy theories are typically thought to be examples of irrational beliefs, and thus unlikely to be warranted. However, recent work in Philosophy has challenged the claim that belief in conspiracy theories is irrational, showing that in a range of cases, belief in conspiracy theories is warranted. However, it is still often said that conspiracy theories are unlikely relative to non-conspiratorial explanations which account for the same phenomena. However, such arguments turn out to rest upon how we define what gets counted (...) both as a ‘conspiracy’ and a ‘conspiracy theory’, and such arguments rest upon shaky assumptions. It turns out that it is not clear that conspiracy theories are prima facie unlikely, and so the claim that such theories do not typically appear in our accounts of the best explanations for particular kinds of events needs to be reevaluated. (shrink)

Belief in conspiracy theories is typically considered irrational, and as a consequence of this, conspiracy theorists––those who dare believe some conspiracy theory––have been charged with a variety of epistemic or psychological failings. Yet recent philosophical work has challenged the view that belief in conspiracy theories should be considered as typically irrational. By performing an intra-group analysis of those people we call “conspiracy theorists”, we find that the problematic traits commonly ascribed to the general group of conspiracy theorists turn out to (...) be merely a set of stereotypical behaviours and thought patterns associated with a purported subset of that group. If we understand that the supposed prob- lem of belief in conspiracy theories is centred on the beliefs of this purported sub- set––the conspiracists––then we can reconcile the recent philosophical contribu- tions to the wider academic debate on the rationality of belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In the literature on conspiracy theories, the least contentious part of the academic discourse would appear to be what we mean by a “conspiracy”: a secretive plot between two or more people toward some end. Yet what, exactly, is the connection between something being a conspiracy and it being secret? Is it possible to conspire without also engaging in secretive behavior? To dissect the role of secrecy in con- spiracies – and thus contribute to the larger debate on the epistemology (...) of conspir- acy theories – we dene the concepts of “conspiracy,” “conspirator,” and “secret,” and argue that while conspirators might typically be thought to commit to keeping secrets once their conspiracy is underway, the idea that conspiracies are necessarily secretive to start with is not as obvious as previously thought. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume argue that whilst there is a commonplace superstition conspiracy theories are examples of bad beliefs (and that the kind of people who believe conspiracy theories are typically irrational), many conspiracy theories are rational to believe: the members of the Dewey Commission were right to say that the Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a sham; Woodward and Bernstein were correct to think that Nixon was complicit in the conspiracy to deny any wrongdoing in the Watergate (...) Hotel break in; and if we either accept the terrorist events of 9/11 were committed by Al-Qaeda, or that the Bush Administration was responsible, then it seems we are endorsing some theory about a conspiracy to commit an act of terror on American soil. As such, there is no reason to reject conspiracy theories sui generis. This volume challenges the prima facie that conspiracy theories are irrational beliefs, arguing that we should treat conspiracy theories and the phenomena of conspiracy theories seriously. It presents fresh perspectives from the wider philosophical, sociological and psychological community on what is becoming an issue of increasing relevance in our time. (shrink)

We support the goal to integrate models of culture and cognition. However, we are not convinced that the free energy principle and Thinking Through Other Minds will be useful in achieving it. There are long traditions of modeling both cultural evolution and cognition. Demonstrating that FEP or TTOM can integrate these models will require a bit more math.

In this recently published book, Jefferson provides a lucid and detailed examination of, and answer to, its provocative title. In doing so, the focus of Jefferson’s analysis is largely on what a br...

The contemporary methodological debate about justice has centered around a dispute about the value of so-called ideal theory. I argue that justice performs a social-guiding function, which explains how people should respond to their limited and fallible abilities to realize justice institutionally. My argument helps to re-orientate the contemporary methodological debate. The obvious disagreement between many prominent supporters and skeptics of ideal theory obscures the fact that they are united by a false assumption: the practical value of justice exclusively consists (...) of its institution-guiding function. To capture the overlooked social-guiding function, a richer normative theory of justice is required; I show how such a theory can be supplied by “ideal-transitional” principles. (shrink)

A reply to Patrick Stokes' “Between Generalism and Particularism About Conspiracy Theory".

This article poses a challenge to the assumption that all conceptions of the imago Dei are practical, meaning that they can coherently provide a guide for human action. The article identifies three criteria for practicality and applies them to two accounts of the imago, one in the thought of the twentieth-century theologian Helmut Thielicke, the other in the Roman Catholic tradition. It argues that Thielicke’s account of the imago, which forms the basis for what he calls ‘alien dignity’, fails to (...) meet the criteria of practicality, and thus cannot serve as an adequate guide for action. In contrast, the account of the imago and human dignity in the Roman Catholic tradition does meet the criteria. This comparison, the article concludes, ultimately helps provide a means of assessing diverse theological interpretations of the imago and their value for supporting a morally useful conception of human worth. (shrink)

Various authors have argued that progress in the neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric sciences might threaten the commonsense understanding of how the mind generates behavior, and, as a consequence, it might also threaten the commonsense ways of attributing moral responsibility, if not the very notion of moral responsibility. In the case of actions that result in undesirable outcomes, the commonsense conception—which is reflected in sophisticated ways in the legal conception—tells us that there are circumstances in which the agent is entirely and fully (...) responsible for the bad outcome and circumstances in which the agent is not at all responsible for the bad outcome. (shrink)

Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their (...) life in the context of an episode of mood disorder. The person with depression asking professionals, friends and family members to aid them in ending their life is a very real phenomenon. In their discussion, Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper uses two principles that we endorse and add weight to their argument: namely, the reality of suffering in depression and the parity of mental and physical illness. Indeed, the case Schuklenk and van de Vathorst make is a strong one and our commentary will focus on the premise of the argument around choosing death and some empirical clarification about competence in depression and the nature of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its prognosis. The conceptual concern we wish to discuss in relation to assisted dying, endorsed by the state and legislature, is not linked to any moral or religious concern, or even on grounds related to ‘slippery slope’ or ‘abuse’ arguments. Rather the worry is how one could operationalise decisions around assisted dying as based on competence and capacity and view such decisions as rational. I think this concern is not limited to depressive illness, but to all decisions regarding choosing non-existence. Schuklenk and van de Vathorst offer the following useful criteria to regulate assisted suicide:1. (shrink)

Previous findings indicate that negative arousal enhances bottom-up attention biases favouring perceptual salient stimuli over less salient stimuli. The current study tests whether those effects were driven by emotional arousal or by negative valence by comparing how well participants could identify visually presented letters after hearing either a negative arousing, positive arousing or neutral sound. On each trial, some letters were presented in a high contrast font and some in a low contrast font, creating a set of targets that differed (...) in perceptual salience. Sounds rated as more emotionally arousing led to more identification of highly salient letters but not of less salient letters, whereas sounds’ valence ratings did not impact salience biases. Thus, arousal, rather than valence, is a key factor enhancing visual processing of perceptually salient targets. (shrink)

From the early modern period, Western epistemologists have often been concerned with a rigorous notion of epistemic justification, epitomized in the work of Descartes: properly held beliefs require insulation from extreme skepticism. To the degree that veridical cognitive states may be indistinguishable from non-veridical states, apparently veridical states cannot enjoy high-grade positive epistemic status. Therefore, a good believer begins from what are taken to be neutral, subjective experiences and reasons outward—hopefully identifying the kinds of appearances that properly link up to (...) the world and those that do not. Good beliefs, beliefs that are justified (warranted, etc.), are those that a believer has .. (shrink)

A response to Lee Basham's 'The Need for Accountable Witnesses: A Reply to Dentith'.

The work of three present-day Sankritist-philosophers, _God and the World's Arrangement_ allows readers to engage directly with writings of the classical Indian philosophers Śaṅkara and Vācaspati, as well as some of their most acute critics, on the question of whether the existence of a creator God can be known by reason alone. Carefully selected and annotated with the needs of students foremost in mind, these new translations will be of interest to anyone wishing to see up close a newly set (...) gem of our philosophical inheritance from global antiquity. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, hominid palaeontology has offered critical information about prehistoric humans and evidence for human evolution. Human fossils discovered at a time when there was growing agreement that humans existed during the Ice Age became especially significant but also controversial. This paper argues that the techniques used to study human fossils from the 1850s to the 1870s and the way that these specimens were interpreted owed much to the anthropological examination of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age skeletons retrieved (...) by archaeologists from prehistoric tombs throughout Europe. What emerged was the idea that a succession of distinct human races, which were identified using techniques such as craniometry, had occupied and migrated into Europe beginning in the Ice Age and continuing into the historic period. This marks a phase in the history of human palaeontology that gradually gave way to a science of palaeoanthropology that viewed hominid fossils more from the perspective of evolutionary theory and hominid phylogeny. (shrink)

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

A reply to Gérald Bronner, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Nicolas Gauvrit, Anthony Lantian, and Pascal Wagner-Egger's piece, '“They” Respond: Comments on Basham et al.’s “Social Science’s Conspiracy-Theory Panic: Now They Want to Cure Everyone”.

Despite the growing popularityof farmers' markets (FMs) across the UnitedStates, the experiences and perspectives offarmers who sell at markets have received verylittle research attention. This study describesthe views of 18 farmers from Upstate New Yorkon the importance of FMs as part of theirlifestyle and livelihood, the challenges theyface selling at markets, and their conceptionsof ideal FMs. Through in-depth, semi-structuredinterviews, farmers expressed economic andsocial motivations for selling at FMs; socialbenefits from interacting with customers; andthe challenges they faced as small-scalefarmers and sellers, (...) including extra-marketcompetition, uncooperative and problematicmarket vendors, rising farm input costs, andchanging consumer trends. Farmers alsodiscussed personal values associated withselling at FMs, such as pride in raising andmarketing one's own products, working togetherwith other farmer-vendors, and providingcustomers with honest information. Visions ofideal FMs were varied among farmers, but therewas general agreement that FMs should provide adiversity of products to attract customers andeducational opportunities for the public tolearn more about FMs and local produce. Theinterdependence of FM farmers was a majoremergent theme across interviews. Findingssuggested that market experiences of FMfarmers, including economic success, are notonly contingent on personal effort, but canalso be affected by the work of fellow vendors.Future research may look to further explore howFM farmers and other vendors interact ascooperative and competitive social and economicunits. At the community level, FM leadershipshould continue to focus on the experiences andperspectives of farmers and other marketvendors, in addition to identifying ways forenhancing cooperative FM enterprises. (shrink)

Most philosophical defences of the state’s right to exclude immigrants derive their strength from the normative importance of self-determination. If nation-states are taken to be the political institutions of a people, then the state’s right to exclude is the people’s right to exclude – and a denial of this right constitutes an abridgement of self-determination. In this paper, I argue that this view of self-determination does not cohere with a group-agency view of nation-states. On the group-agency view that I defend, (...) a nation-state is the kind of group-agent that does not supervene on the intentionality of member/citizens. If we think that a nation-state is an intentional group-agent in its own right, then we should think that self-determination resides with the institutions of the state rather than with the citizens. If nation-states do not supervene on the intentionality of citizens, then it is unclear why citizens might have the right to control membership in the state as a feature of self-determination. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An American Scholar Recalls Karl Barth’s Golden Years as a Teacher (1958–1964) by Raymond Kemp Anderson, and: The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth ed. by Richard E. BurnettMatthew R. JantzenAn American Scholar Recalls Karl Barth’s Golden Years as a Teacher (1958–1964) Raymond Kemp Anderson lewiston, ny: edwin mellen press, 2013. 438 pp. $159.95The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth Edited by Richard E. Burnett louisville, ky: westminster john knox (...) press, 2013. 242 pp. $35.00On April 2, 1966, Karl Barth received a letter from Peter Vogelsanger, informing him that Emil Brunner—the recipient of Barth’s thunderous “Nein!” on the subject of natural theology in 1934—was on his deathbed. Two days later, Barth responded and asked Vogelsanger to tell Brunner that “the time when I thought I should say No to him is long since past, and we all live only by the fact that a great and merciful God speaks his gracious Yes to all of us.” The irenic, compassionate, and affirming tone of this letter is typical of the “mature” Barth, whom Raymond Anderson studied under from 1958 to 1964 as a ThD student at the University of Basel. This period of doctoral study is the subject of Anderson’s interesting and eminently readable new book. Anderson enjoyably weaves together several different genres in his reflections on his experience with Barth, smoothly transitioning back and forth between personal memoir, constructive theological argument, and thoughtful interpretation of Barth’s life and writings.Structurally, the book offers a series of recollections and reflections gathered loosely around common themes rather than a tightly knit argument pursued rigorously from beginning to end. In other words, the work is a series of sketches from the artist’s notebook, as opposed to one intricate and detailed portrait focusing on a single subject. [End Page 207]In the first five chapters of the book, Anderson sketches a picture of the elderly Karl Barth who served as his “doktorvater,” drawing material from his student notes and personal memories of the years he spent with Barth in Basel. While Anderson finds continuity between the earlier and later writings of Barth, he suggests that the older Barth began to increasingly unfold the “fuller, grace-centered and human-shaped positive implications” of the earlier writings (viii). In Anderson’s experience, Barth’s early appeal to “Let God be God!” had in those later years “mellowed to an even deeper appeal to let God be himself, human as well, in the most unexpected ways” (11). This mellowing extended beyond Barth’s writing to his personality and demeanor as a teacher and theologian. The Barth whom Anderson knew was humble, understated, and compassionate, a sympathetic listener and a generous interpreter—in short, an “un-dogmatic” dogmatician (139).In the sixth chapter, Anderson shifts gears and reproduces extensive transcriptions of his own notes from several of Barth’s biweekly English-language colloquia on the topics of natural theology, the Old Testament promise, Paul Tillich, and existentialism. Anderson suggests that these notes are particularly valuable because in them one witnesses Barth explaining the bare essentials of his thinking in clear and simple English terms. This is true for large portions of the transcriptions. However, it must be said that there are also portions of these transcriptions that suffer from the lack of clarity that one might expect to find in student notes of discussions conducted in a language with which Barth was not completely comfortable. Nevertheless, these transcriptions provide previously unpublished primary source material from Barth that is worth examining.From chapter 7 until the end of the book, Anderson takes up the task of “sketching key insights and special teachings from the mature Barth that in the years since Barth’s death have shown themselves to carry special significance for our American college classroom, church school, and pulpit” (205). These include, but are not limited to, Barth’s attitude toward America, his emphasis on the priority of grace, his theology of nature (not his natural theology), and his positions on theories of religion, satisfaction theories of the atonement, election, universalism, and even the possibility of extraterrestrial life. This section also includes... (shrink)

Typical analyses of belief in conspiracy theories have it that identifying as a conspiracy theorist is irrational. However, given that we know conspiracies occur, and theories about said conspiracies can be warranted, should we really be scared of the locution 'I'm a conspiracy theorist...'?

This is an overview of the Nyaya ("Logic") school of classical Indian philosophy, focusing on the earlier period (up to roughly 1000 CE).

This paper explicates Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of “decline” in ageing and assesses both its plausibility and its ethical and political promise. Though I maintain that the concept is largely plausible, and that it helps us to envision social justice for the aged, I also note certain limitations, and these lead me to suggest philosophical and ethical caution as to its range of application. Briefly, both in theory and in practice, Beauvoir appears to questionably conflate the decline of the phenomenological (...) subject with that of a younger adult version of the psychological self or structure of the personality. Through examinations of Beauvoir’s account of dementia and her paternalism towards her dying mother and the declining Jean-Paul Sartre, I suggest how her concept of decline may fall short, but also how her rich phenomenological descriptions point the way to a pluralistic approach to ageing as a social justice issue. (shrink)