The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has the potential to eliminate or severely restrict access to legal abortion care in the United States. We a...

Reasoning well about risk is most challenging when a woman is pregnant, for patient and doctor alike. During pregnancy, we tend to note the risks of medical interventions without adequately noting those of failing to intervene, yet when it's time to give birth, interventions are seldom questioned, even when they don't work. Meanwhile, outside the clinic, advice given to pregnant women on how to stay healthy in everyday life can seem capricious and overly cautious. This kind of reasoning reflects fear, (...) not evidence. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 31.1 (2007) 189-196MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Fiction and Theory of Mind: An ExchangeLisa Zunshine University of KentuckyBrian Boyd's review of my new book, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) engages a large variety of issues.1 I would like to address an important question about the integration of scientific methodology with literary analysis suggested by Boyd's discussion.2 As (...) I argue below, two different perspectives of this integration may mark two different—indeed, incompatible—ways of formulating the disciplinary goals and philosophy of the new field of cognitive literary theory.Why We Read Fiction makes a case for admitting the recent findings of cognitive psychologists into literary studies by showing how their research into the ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mind can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts. Using as my case studies novels ranging from Richardson's Clarissa, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, I advance and explore a series of hypotheses about cognitive cravings that are satisfied—and created!—when we read fiction.Although my study draws on the already well-established as well as forthcoming work of numerous cognitive scientists (including Simon Baron-Cohen, Clark H. Barrett, Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Christopher Frith, Uta Frith, Paul Bloom, Susan Carey and Elizabeth Spelke, Peter Carruthers, Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, Alison Gopnik, Francesca Happe, Paul [End Page 189] Harris, Lawrence Hirschfeld, Stanley Klein, Alan Leslie, Andrew Meltzoff, Robert Mitchell, Keith Oatley, Gloria Origgi, Oliver Sacks, Dan Sperber, James Stiller, and Endel Tulving), it makes a point of being accessible to non-specialist readers. Cognitive science can be incredibly complicated and so can literary criticism, but I wanted to write a book on cognitive literary theory that does not scare anybody away with unnecessary jargon, knotty sentences, and overlong quotations. (Ironically, I must have succeeded too well in making my book reader-friendly and tucking my references in the endnotes since Boyd observes that I rely on only "a few findings" of cognitive scientists in my discussion.)The book consists of three parts. The first part, "Attributing Minds," introduces the first key theoretical concept of this book: mind-reading, also known as Theory of Mind. Drawing on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen (Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind), I suggest that fiction engages, teases, and pushes to its tentative limits our mind-reading capacity. Building on the recent research of Robin Dunbar and his colleagues, I then consider one particular aspect of Woolf's prose as an example of spectacular literary experimentation with our Theory of Mind. Finally, I turn to Steven Pinker's controversial analysis of Woolf in The Blank Slate to discuss the possibilities of a more profitable dialogue between cognitive science and literary studies.Of particular importance to this part of my argument is my belief that fictional narratives endlessly experiment with rather than automatically execute our evolved cognitive adaptations. When cognitive scientists succeed in isolating a certain regularity of our information-processing—for example, a constraint on the number of mutually reflecting minds that we can process with ease—we can take that constraint and see how it plays itself out in a fictional narrative. What we discover is that where there is a cognitive constraint, there is a "guarantee" of sorts that writers will intuitively experiment in the direction of challenging that constraint, probing and poking it and getting around it. The exact forms of such probing and poking will depend on specific cultural circumstances, including the mind-reading profiles of individual writers and their readers. The cognitive "limits" thus present us with creative openings rather than with a promise of stagnation and endless replication of established forms. This realization marks the possibility of a genuine interaction between cognitive psychology and... (shrink)

Can business be a moral enterprise? -- Employee rights and responsibilities : the internal constituencies of business -- Customers, community, and world : the external constituencies of business.

Questions about the relevance and value of various liberal concepts are at the heart of important debates among feminist philosophers and social theorists. Although many feminists invoke concepts such as rights, equality, autonomy, and freedom in arguments for liberation, some attempt to avoid them, noting that they can also reinforce and perpetuate oppressive social structures. In Challenging Liberalism Schwartzman explores the reasons why concepts such as rights and equality can sometimes reinforce oppression. She argues that certain forms of abstraction and (...) individualism are central to liberal methodology and that these give rise to a number of problems. Drawing on the work of feminist moral, political, and legal theorists, she constructs an approach that employs these concepts, while viewing them from within a critique of social relations of power. (shrink)

Feminists, critical race scholars, and other social‐justice theorists sometimes object to “abstraction” in liberal normative theory. Arguing that oppression affects individual agents in powerful yet subtle ways, they contend that allegedly abstract theories often reinforce oppressive power structures. Here I critically examine and ultimately reject Onora O'Neill's “abstraction without idealization” as a solution to this problem. Because O'Neill defines abstraction as simply the “bracketing of certain predicates,” her methodology fails to guide decisions about what to bracket and what to include (...) in the theory. Moreover, it may not be possible to abstract without also relying on some particular ideals. While abstraction is unavoidable, I conclude that it must be employed with greater attention to sociopolitical hierarchies and by using ideals that do not collude with structures of oppression. I discuss the work of Susan Babbitt and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of how nonoppressive ideals might be incorporated into normative theory. (shrink)

Lisa Sideris proposes a new way of thinking about the natural world, an environmental ethic that incorporates the ideas of natural selection and values the processes rather than the products of nature.

_Business Ethics and the Natural Environment_ examines the present status of relations between corporate enterprise and the natural environment in the world today. •Discusses such questions as: What obligations does a corporation have toward the environment? To respect entities unprotected by law? To care about future generations? •Argues that environmentally-friendly business practices yield dividends exceeding expectations, and that the competitive firm of the 21st century will follow “green” standards •Provides a background in ethics, a survey of business ethics, an account (...) of environmental philosophy, an overview of environmental legal issues, and an account of the problems associated with globalization. (shrink)

_Business Ethics and the Natural Environment_ examines the present status of relations between corporate enterprise and the natural environment in the world today. •Discusses such questions as: What obligations does a corporation have toward the environment? To respect entities unprotected by law? To care about future generations? •Argues that environmentally-friendly business practices yield dividends exceeding expectations, and that the competitive firm of the 21st century will follow “green” standards •Provides a background in ethics, a survey of business ethics, an account (...) of environmental philosophy, an overview of environmental legal issues, and an account of the problems associated with globalization. (shrink)

Popular interest in the topic of food has exploded in the past decade. Due in part to books by Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and Eric Schlosser and films such as Food, Inc., Super Size Me, and Forks over Knives, people are starting to think critically about where their food originates, how it is processed, and how their consumption choices affect the environment, nonhuman animals, and other people. At the same time, there is rising concern about the dangers of obesity. Although (...) the voices raising these concerns are by no means monolithic, one of the most common solutions offered to various food-related issues is the suggestion that people educate themselves and make.. (shrink)

: This paper investigates the mutual embeddedness of "nature" and "culture," as well as the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality, in the story of the HeLa cell line as viewed by a practicing feminist scientist. It provides a feminist analysis of the scientific discourse surrounding the HeLa cell line, and explores how feminist theories of science can provide a constructive and critical lens through which laboratory scientists can view their work.

A set of science‐inspired cosmic narratives referred to as the Epic of Evolution and the Universe Story or, collectively, the new cosmology, proposes to bring humans closer to nature by placing us into the broader narrative of the cosmos. This article responds to commentary and critique on my book Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge, and the Natural World, which critically examines these science‐based cosmic narratives and their particular and problematic modes and objects of wonder. Themes include the relationship of wonder to (...) science and ethical engagement; the question of whether wonder, grounded in everyday sensory experience, can scale up to the level of global environmental problems; the relevance of wonder to nonideal environments and negative affects like fear or grief; and the importance of humanistic and religious studies scholarship for critiquing grand narratives of science, among other themes. I also respond to claims that my book misdiagnoses and distorts the work of the new cosmology and its claims to wonder. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction: How Brent Spar Changed the Rules The Brent Spar was not Alone: Two Sentinel Cases What is Going on? The Power Shift Third Sector, Global Civil Society Dealing with Attacks from CSOs Challenges for the CSOs The Ultimate Hope for the CSOs Case 7: Monsanto and the Genetically Modified Organisms Notes.

Legal definitions of rape traditionally required proof of both force and nonconsent. Acknowledging the difficulty of demonstrating the conjunction of force and nonconsent, many feminists argue that rape should be defined based on one element or the other. Instead of debating which of these two best defines the crime of rape, I argue that this framework is problematic, and that both force and nonconsent must be situated in a critique of social power structures. Catharine MacKinnon provides such a critique, and (...) she reframes rape as a matter of gender inequality. However, rather than rejecting the force/nonconsent dichotomy, MacKinnon focuses exclusively on force, which she thinks can be reconceived to include inequalities. Considering the #MeToo movement and feminist efforts to use Title IX to address campus rape, I argue that the concept of consent is more flexible than MacKinnon suggests and that “affirmative consent” can challenge this liberal model. In requiring active communication, affirmative consent shifts responsibility for rape, opens space for women’s sexual agency, and allows for the transformation of rape culture. Thus, I argue that rape should be defined by the use of force, the lack of affirmative consent, or the presence of both elements. (shrink)

Is good morality the natural outcome of profitable business practices? The thesis explored here is one version of the recent literature on corporate culture, typified by the bestselling In Search of Excellence — that the corporation that creates a strong culture, one that best serves the customer, the product, and the employee, must also be profitable. The thesis turns out to have an historical parallel in Plato's Republic (subtitled, I suppose, In Search of Justice). Parallel virtues can be worked out (...) for state and corporation. In the end, profitability turns out not to be a necessary consequence of excellence, just as Plato's Ideal state turned out to be mortal. (shrink)

This paper investigates the mutual embeddedness of “nature” and “culture,” as well as the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality, in the story of the HeLa cell line as viewed by a practicing feminist scientist. It provides a feminist analysis of the scientific discourse surrounding the HeLa cell line, and explores how feminist theories of science can provide a constructive and critical lens through which laboratory scientists can view their work.

A casebook in environmental ethics that presents the classic cases with adequate detail so the students experience real situations in order to learn how serious and complex the issues are. The authors present a balanced, impartial account of these events that will interest and challenge students.

Accountability is viewed as a civilizing element in society, with professional accountability formalized in most cases as duties dating to the Greeks and Socrates; journalists must find their own way, without formal professional or government regulation or licensing. Three scholars look at the process in a line from the formal professional discipline to suggesting problems the journalism fraternity faces without regulation to suggesting serious internal ethics conferences as 1 solution to the problem.

In responding to Anderson, Tobin, and Mills, I focus on questions about non-ideal theory, normative individualism, and standpoint theory. In particular, I ask whether feminist theorizing can be "liberal" and yet not embody the problematic forms of abstraction and individualism described in "Challenging Liberalism". Ultimately, I call for methods of theorizing that illuminate and challenge oppressive social hierarchies.

Feminist philosophers have questioned whether liberal theory can account for the phenomenon of adaptive preferences, specifically women’s preferences that are formed under conditions of sexist oppression. In this paper, I examine the argument of one feminist who addresses the problem of women’s “deformed desires” by relying on a liberal framework. Assessing her argument, I conclude that liberalism provides inadequate resources for responding to this issue since it errs in understanding adaptive preferences as exceptional, provides little explanation of how changes in (...) individual preferences are motivated, and often fails to identify the adaptive nature of such preferences. I illustrate my arguments through a brief discussion of women’s choices around motherhood and sexuality, and I conclude by offering several suggestions of how an alternative theory might better address the problems raised by preference adaptation in the context of oppression. (shrink)

In her recent book, Perfectionism and Contemporary Feminist Values, Kimberly Yuracko argues that perfectionism is a promising theory for feminists, and she suggests that “what really motivates and drives feminists’ arguments is not a neutral commitment to freedom or equality but a perfectionist commitment to a particular, albeit inchoate, vision of human flourishing.” In my paper, I explore the connections between feminism, perfectionism, and critiques of liberal neutrality by focusing critical attention on Yuracko’s arguments. After summarizing Yuracko’s position, I contend (...) that she wrongly portrays feminists as criticizing the “choices” of individual women, rather than attacking the structures of power in which these choices are situated. By misconstruing feminist arguments in this way, Yuracko suggests that feminists are endorsing a form of liberal neutrality, rather than offering a critique of such neutrality in favor of a more radical analysis.In the second half of my paper, I develop an alternative analysis, which I call “equality as non-domination,” which I think more accurately describes many of the feminist arguments Yuracko considers. I compare my alternative account to both liberal neutrality and to Yuracko’s perfectionism. Because feminism is centrally concerned with criticizing social structures of domination and unjust hierarchy, I conclude that it cannot be understood as falling squarely on either side of the neutrality/perfectionism debate. (shrink)

In her recent book, Perfectionism and Contemporary Feminist Values, Kimberly Yuracko argues that perfectionism is a promising theory for feminists, and she suggests that “what really motivates and drives feminists’ arguments is not a neutral commitment to freedom or equality but a perfectionist commitment to a particular, albeit inchoate, vision of human flourishing.” In my paper, I explore the connections between feminism, perfectionism, and critiques of liberal neutrality by focusing critical attention on Yuracko’s arguments. After summarizing Yuracko’s position, I contend (...) that she wrongly portrays feminists as criticizing the “choices” of individual women, rather than attacking the structures of power in which these choices are situated. By misconstruing feminist arguments in this way, Yuracko suggests that feminists are endorsing a form of liberal neutrality, rather than offering a critique of such neutrality in favor of a more radical analysis.In the second half of my paper, I develop an alternative analysis, which I call “equality as non-domination,” which I think more accurately describes many of the feminist arguments Yuracko considers. I compare my alternative account to both liberal neutrality and to Yuracko’s perfectionism. Because feminism is centrally concerned with criticizing social structures of domination and unjust hierarchy, I conclude that it cannot be understood as falling squarely on either side of the neutrality/perfectionism debate. (shrink)

Does “business ethics,” as we have developed it in the United States, apply without change when business goes abroad? We argue that we cannot assume, in foreign nations (especially in the developing world), that the assumptions of U.S. business practice and business ethics hold without modification. An attempt to find a universally applicable ethic for global business results in the tentative formulation of “ten commandments” to guide the practice of business in the nations of the world.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Toeing the line at the millennium Kyosei: Working together for the common good Crisis: danger and opportunity.