This essay proposes that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe serves a primary function other than its eponymous one. Using a site-specific, local historical context rather than memorial or Holocaust discourse, it presents the Memorial as a spot of psychic unity for once-divided Berlin and as a physically appropriate heir to the land upon which it was built. This approach is motivated by the apparent incongruity of local response to an explicitly somber structure: Why did the public react (...) not only positively but even joyfully to the Memorial after its dedication? And why were behaviors such as playing.. (shrink)

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, is considered by many to be the most significant healthcare overhaul since the 1960s, but part of its promise — improvement of population health through requirements for non-profit hospitals to provide “community benefit” — has not been met. This paper examines the history of community benefit legislation, how community benefit dollars are allocated, and innovative practices by a few hospitals and communities that are addressing primarily non-medical factors that influence health (...) such as social disadvantage, attitudes, beliefs, risk exposure, and social inequalities. (shrink)

In two recent papers, Michael Della Rocca accuses Descartes of reasoning circularly in the Fourth Meditation. This alleged new circle is distinct from, and more vicious than, the traditional Cartesian Circle arising in the Third Meditation. We explain Della Rocca’s reasons for this accusation, showing that his argument is invalid.

Through an example of the prohibition against dating in a technical school in southwest China in 1978, this article analyzes how three intersecting forces - the ideology of socialist collectivism, the structure of the work unit system and the socialist sovereign ownership of the body - account for sexual repression in the Maoist period in China. Rather than being an ahistorical, essential component of Maoist socialism, sexual repression (psychic and social) was a historically specific and complex phenomenon. The transformation of (...) sexual repression at a historical moment took the form of an assemblage of the return of love discourse and an emergent desire-centered subjectivity in the great transformation from Maoist socialism to the post-Mao reform period. (shrink)

SynopsisThe response to physics and chemistry which characterized mid-nineteenth century physiology took two major directions. One, found most prominently among the German physiologists, developed explanatory models which had as their fundamental assumption the ultimate reducibility of all biological phenomena to the laws of physics and chemistry. The other, characteristic of the French school of physiology, recognized that physics and chemistry provided potent analytical tools for the exploration of physiological activities, but assumed in the construction of explanatory models that the organism (...) involved special levels of organization and that there must, in consequence, be special biological laws.The roots of this argument about concept formation in physiology are explored in the works of Theodor Schwann, Johannes Müller, François Magendie and Claude Bernard among others. (shrink)

Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, “what makes a person the same over time?” as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, following Strohminger & Nichols (2014), has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of evidence supporting these findings, a critique by (...) Starmans & Bloom (2018) suggests that this research program conflates personal identity with mere similarity. To address this criticism, we explore how loss of someone’s morality or memories influence perceptions of identity change, and perceptions of moral duties towards the target of the change. We present participants with a classic ‘body switch’ thought experiment and after assessing perceptions of identity persistence, we present a moral dilemma, asking participants to imagine that one of the patients must die (Study 1) or be left alone in a care home for the rest of their life (Study 2). Our results highlight the importance of the continuity of moral character, suggesting lay intuitions are tracking (something like) personal identity, not just mere similarity. (shrink)

Through an example of the prohibition against dating in a technical school in southwest China in 1978, this article analyzes how three intersecting forces - the ideology of socialist collectivism, the structure of the work unit system and the socialist sovereign ownership of the body - account for sexual repression in the Maoist period in China. Rather than being an ahistorical, essential component of Maoist socialism, sexual repression (psychic and social) was a historically specific and complex phenomenon. The transformation of (...) sexual repression at a historical moment took the form of an assemblage of the return of love discourse and an emergent desire-centered subjectivity in the great transformation from Maoist socialism to the post-Mao reform period. (shrink)

The rotating spot method of timing subjective events involves the subject’s watching a rotating spot on a computer and reporting the position of the spot at the instant when the subjective event of interest occurs. We conducted an experiment to investigate factors that may impact on the results produced by this method, using the subject’s perception of when they made a simple finger movement as the subjective event to be timed. Seven aspects of the rotating spot method were investigated, using (...) a factorial experiment. Four of these aspects altered the physical characteristics of the computer generated spot or clock face and the remaining three altered the instructions given to the participant. We found compelling evidence that one factor, whether the subject was instructed to report the instant when the finger movement was initiated or the instant when it was completed, resulted in a systematic shift in the response. Evidence that three other factors affect the observed variability in the response was also found. In addition, we observed that there are substantial systematic differences in the responses made by different subjects. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations about the optimal way of conducting future experiments using the rotating spot method. Our overall conclusion is that our results strongly validate the rotating spot method of timing at least the studied variety of subjective event. (shrink)

Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutili- tarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a (...) new scale—the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale—to dissociate individual differences in the ‘negative’ (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn Merton's early work in the sociology of science three theses are identified: economic and military influence in shaping early modern science; the “Puritan spur” to scientific activity; the critical role of a democratic social order for the support of science. These themes are located in the contemporary economic crisis of the 1930s, the rise of Nazism and fascism, and the emerging radical and Marxist political activism of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. Merton's interaction with (...) this context is critical for understanding his choice of problems and issues for the nascent sociology of science. The enunciation of the four-part normative structure of science is closely identified with the political ideals of this context. Merton's transition from an interest in problems of science in society to his postwar concern with the social and organizational structures of science and the social behavior of scientists is framed against the anticommunist and anti-Marxist thrust of immediate postwar politics in the United States. The implications of this change for the paradigms of the sociology of science are noted. (shrink)

The explosion of the first atomic bomb at the Alamagordo Bombing Range, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, was the start of a new era, the dawn of the atomic age. The preliminary work on atomic fission was done before the last world war, and as military leaders visioned its great destructive possibilities, several countries entered the race to be the first to harness atomic fission for military purposes. Our own country gambled two billion dollars, and with the aid of (...) certain European scientists and in collaboration with England and Canada, succeeded in developing a fission chain reaction that made possible the atomic bomb. (shrink)

When you and I seriously argue over whether a man of seventy is old enough to count as an "old man", it seems that we are appealing neither to our own separate standards of oldness nor to a common standard that is already fixed in the language. Instead, it seems that both of us implicitly invoke an ideal, shared standard that has yet to be agreed upon: the place where we ought to draw the line. As with other normative standards, (...) it is hard to know whether such borderlines exist prior to our coming to agree on where they are. But epistemicists plausibly argue that they must exist whether we ever agree on them or not, as this provides the only logically acceptable response to the sorites paradox. This paper argues that such boundaries do typically exist as hypothetical ideals, but not as determinate features of the present actual world. There is in fact no general solution to the paradox, but attention to practice in resolving vague disagreements shows that its instances can be dealt with separately, as they arise, in many reasonable ways. (shrink)

Furthermore, it is not easy for most of us to accept a philosophy however well reasoned which refuses exterior reality to all we see, hear and touch about us. It is such philosophy that gives point to Valery's boutade: 'Philosophy pretends not to ...

This paper raises an underappreciated paradox for classical theism. Love seems to be an inherently biased and partial relation. Justice seems to require the opposite, detached impartiality (think of the attributes of the just judge). But if these are conceptual facts, then classical theism is guilty of ascribing inconsistent attributes to God: perfect love and perfect justice. I resolve this paradox in a manner that weighs in favor of the principle of divine simplicity.

Arabic and English on opposing pages in Kitåab section; introd., commentary, bibliography, and indices in English and romanized Arabic and Greek.

Few philosophers endorse a virtue theory of praiseworthiness. The widespread aversion to any virtue theory of moral worth rests chiefly on a skeptical argument that emphasizes the fact that praiseworthy acts can be performed by people who lack the relevant virtue. This chapter studies this skeptical argument closely. It concludes that the skeptical argument's core premise has been misleadingly characterized. Once the core premise has been clarified, the virtue theory appears to escape the grip of the skeptical argument.