Who or what determines the right to die? Do advancing reproductive technologies change reproductive rights? What forces influence cultural standards of beauty? How do discipline, punishment, and torture reflect our attitudes about the humanbody? In this challenging new book, Jean Bethke Elshtain, a nationally recognized scholar in political science and philosophy, and J. Timothy Cloyd, a strong new voice in social and political science, have assembled a collection of thought-provoking essays on these issues written by (...) some of the finest minds of our day. (shrink)
The intertwining: the recursion of the seer and the seen -- Artificial intelligence and the phenomenology of flesh -- Aesthetic education and the project of being human -- The intertwining of incommensurables: Yann Martel's life of Pi -- Flesh and the limits of self-making -- Violence and embodiment -- Excessive presence and the image -- Politics and freedom -- Sovereignty and alterity -- Political violence -- Public space -- Sustaining the other: tolerance as a positive ideal -- Forgiveness (...) and incarnation. (shrink)
The intertwining: the recursion of the seer and the seen -- Artificial intelligence and the phenomenology of flesh -- Aesthetic education and the project of being human -- The intertwining of incommensurables: Yann Martel's life of pi -- Flesh and the limits of self-making -- Violence and embodiment -- Excessive presence and the image -- Politics and freedom -- Sovereignty and alterity -- Political violence -- Public space -- Sustaining the other: tolerance as a positive ideal -- Forgiveness (...) and incarnation. (shrink)
Feminism and the Body presents classic texts in feminist body studies. Intended for undergraduate and graduate students, the volume touches on the medical history of sexual differences, the political history of the body, the history of clothing and its cultural meanings, symbolic renderings of the body, male bodies, and the body in colonial and cross-cultural contexts.
In cultural history the humanbody has been the object of a great variety of opposing valuations, ranging from "imago dei" to "the devil's tool". At present, the body is commonly regarded as a mere means to fulfill the wishes of its "owner". According to these wishes it can be technically improved in an unlimited way. Against this view the text argues for a conception of the humanbody as a valuable "common heritage". The "normal" (...)humanbody as the result of natural and cultural history is an essential condition of the modern social and legal order. The consequences of its technical alteration should be the subject of public debates and common decisions. (shrink)
The belief that the mind and the body are separate and that the mind is the source of all meaning has been a part of Western culture for centuries. Both philosophers and scientists have questioned this dualism, but their efforts have rarely converged. Many philosophers continue to rely on disembodied models of human thought, while scientists tend to reduce the complex process of thinking to a merely physical phenomenon. In The Meaning of the Body , Mark Johnson (...) continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic Metaphors We Live By . Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, and metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. Thus the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking the bodily sources of meaning. Brilliantly synthesizing a broad range of scientific research and philosophical inquiry in clear and original writing, Mark Johnson’s The Meaning of the Body puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. (shrink)
Imaginary Bodies is a collection of essays that offer a sustained challenge to traditional philosophical notions of the body, sex and gender. Moira Gatens explores alternative positions to dualism by exploring psychoanalytic, Foucaultian and Spinozist notions of embodiment. The book traces a largely neglected geneaology of philosophers from Spinoza, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Deleuze and sets this tradition against that of the Enlightenment. What emerges are new ways of thinking those aspects of life which Gatens calls "imaginary." Confining (...) herself to neither philosophy of "the subject" nor an ahistorical philosophy of "the body" at the expense of broader ethical and socio-political issues, Gatens shows the many connections between theories of bodies politic and the (sexed) individual. She compellingly, lucidly, and trenchantly engages with the ethical, legal and sexual relations between men and women which are placed in its proper historical and political context. (shrink)
This book focuses on experimentation that is carried out on human beings, including medical research, drug research and research undertaken in the social sciences. It discusses the ethics of such experimentation and asks the question: who defends the interests of these human subjects and ensures that they are not harmed? The author finds that ethical research depends on the adequacy of review by committee. Indeed most countries now rely on research ethics committees for the protection of the interests (...) of the human participants in research. Dr McNeill analyses how successful these committees are in balancing the interests of science with the interests of human subjects. (shrink)
This book explores both the embodied nature of social life and the social nature of human bodily life. It provides an accessible review of the contemporary social science debates on the body, and develops a coherent new perspective. Nick Crossley critically reviews the literature on mind and body, and also on the body and society. He draws on theoretical insights from the work of Gilbert Ryle, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, George Herbert Mead and Pierre Bourdieu, and shows how (...) the work of these writers overlaps in interesting and important ways which, when combined, provide the basis for a persuasive and robust account of human embodiment. The Social Body provides a timely review of the theoretical approaches to the sociology of the body. It offers new insights, and a coherent new perspective on the body. It will be valuable reading for students and academics in sociology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies. (shrink)
Written over a span of more than two decades, the essays by Iris Marion Young collected in this volume describe diverse aspects of women's lived body experience in modern Western societies. Drawing on the ideas of several twentieth century continental philosophers--including Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty--Young constructs rigorous analytic categories for interpreting embodied subjectivity. The essays combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust constraints on their freedom and (...) opportunity that continue to burden many women. The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of "gender" for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residences as well as essays that analyze aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory--such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman's life story. Young describes the phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing. While academically rigorous, the essays are also written with engaging style, incorporating vivid imagery and autobiographical narrative. On Female Body Experience raises issues and takes positions that speak to scholars and students in philosophy, sociology, geography, medicine, nursing, and education. (shrink)
Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and (...) the vestigal traces of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire. Begining with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecuture, urban planning and geography. In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices." Grosz's Space, Time and Perversity is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher. (shrink)
The force of things -- The agency of assemblages -- Edible matter -- A life of metal -- Neither vitalism nor mechanism -- Stem cells and the culture of life -- Political ecologies -- Vitality and self-interest.
Contemporary culture increasingly suffers from problems of attention, over-stimulation, and stress, and a variety of personal and social discontents generated by deceptive body images. This book argues that improved body consciousness can relieve these problems and enhance one’s knowledge, performance, and pleasure. The body is our basic medium of perception and action, but focused attention to its feelings and movements has long been criticized as a damaging distraction that also ethically corrupts through self-absorption. In Body Consciousness, (...) Richard Shusterman refutes such charges by engaging the most influential twentieth-century somatic philosophers and incorporating insights from both Western and Asian disciplines of body-mind awareness. (shrink)
Why the body matters -- My body : property, commodity, or gift? -- Body futures -- The tissue trove -- The branded body -- Gifts from the dead -- Together at last.
Expands our understanding of the human potential of spiritual self-realization by interpreting it as the developing of a bodily-felt awareness informing our ...
In recent years feminist scholarship has increasingly focused on the importance of the body and its representations in virtually every social, cultural, and intellectual context. Many have argued that because women are more closely identified with their bodies, they have access to privileged and different kinds of knowledge than men. In this landmark new book, Paula Cooey offers a different perspective on the significance of the body in the context of religious life and practice. Building on the pathbreaking (...) work of Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain, Cooey looks at a wide range of evidence, from the Argentine prison narrative of Alicia Partnoy, to the novels of Toni Morrison and the paintings of Frida Kahlo. Drawing on current social theory and critique, cognitive psychology, contemporary fiction and art, and women's accounts of religious experience, Cooey relates the reality of sentience to the social construction of reality. Beginning with an examination of the female body as a metaphor for alternative knowledge, she considers the significance of physical pain and pleasure to the religious imagination, and the relations between sentience, sensuality, and female subjectivity. Cooey succeeds in bringing forward a sophisticated new understanding of the religious importance of the body, at the same time laying the foundations of a feminist theory of religion. (shrink)
In The Bodies of Women , Rosalyn Diprose argues that traditional approaches to ethics both perpetuate and remain blind to the mechanisms of the subordination of women. She shows that injustice against women begins in the ways that social discourses and practices place women's embodied existence as improper and secondary to men. She intervenes into debates about sexual difference, ethics, philosophies of the body and theories of self in order to develop a new ethics which places sexual difference at (...) the very center of meaning. Diprose analyzes attempts in both feminist and non-feminist ethics to recognize the role of sexual difference. She critiques biomedical discourses whose descriptions mask a constitution and regulation of "the body." Drawing on insights from continental philosophy and feminist theory, The Bodies of Women includes critical readings of Hegel, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Foucault as well as productive engagementwith contemporary feminist scholars such as Irigaray, Cornell and Young. What emerges is a unique approach to the ethics of sexual difference which both locates and subverts mechanisms of sexual discrimination. (shrink)
Steering a middle course between cosmopolitanism and a narrow nationalism, the book develops an original theory of global justice that also addresses controversial topics such as immigration and reparations for historic wrongdoing.
Introduction and acknowledgments Part I. Introduction 1 Refiguring bodies Part II The inside out 2 Psychoanalysis and physical topographies 3 Body images: ...
Advances in genetic technology in general and medical genetics in particular will enable us to intervene in the process of human biological development which extends from zygotes and embryos to people. This will allow us to control to a great extent the identities and the length and quality of the lives of people who already exist, as well as those we bring into existence in the near and distant future. Genes and Future People explores two general philosophical questions, one (...) metaphysical, the other moral: (1) How do genes, and different forms of genetic intervention (gene therapy, genetic enhancement, presymptomatic genetic testing of adults, genetic testing of preimplantation embryos), affect the identities of the people who already exist and those we bring into existence? and (2) How do these interventions benefit or harm the people we cause to exist in the near future and those who will exist in the distant future by satisfying or defeating their interest in having reasonably long and disease-free lives? Genes and Future People begins by explaining the connection between genes and disease, placing genetic within a framework of evolutionary biology. It then discusses such topics as how genes and genetic intervention influence personal identity, what genetic testing of individuals and the knowledge resulting from it entails about responsibility to others who may be at risk, as well as how gene therapy and genetic enhancement can affect the identities of people and benefit or harm them. Furthermore, it discusses various moral aspects of cloning human beings and body parts. Finally, it explores the metaphysical and moral implications of genetic manipulation of the mechanisms of aging to extend the human life span.The aim Genes and Future People is to move philosophers, bioethicists, and readers in general to reflect on the extent to which genes determine whether we are healthy or diseased, our identities as persons, the quality of our lives, and our moral obligations to future generations of people. (shrink)
Drawing on postmodernist analyses, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries presents a feminist investigation into the marginalization of women within western discourse that denies both female moral agency and bodylines. With reference to contemporary and historical issues in biomedicine, the book argues that the boundaries of both the subject and the body are no longer secure. The aim is both to valorize women and to suggest that "leakiness" may be the very ground for a postmodern feminist ethic. The contribution made by (...) Margrit Shildrick is to go beyond modernist feminisms to radically displace the mechanisms by which women are devalued. The anxiety that postmodernism cannot yield an ethics, nor advance feminist concerns is addressed. (shrink)
Explores how the fragments of Heraclitus might yield an implicit understanding of the humanbody in distinction to the soul. In the history of scholarship on Heraclitus, soul is a much better understood concept, whereas it is normally assumed that Heraclitus, along with other figures of early Greek thought, shows only the most limited comprehension of the human being in terms of bodily form or substance. In this work I sketch some different ways in which Heraclitus’ accounts (...) of nature and human life can be said to exhibit a rudimentary picture of body. I suggest that Heraclitus depicts the humanbody as a special form of soul’s self-differentiation and logos. I attempt to consider how Heraclitus may represent an historical moment in understanding the human in terms of its physical makeup. (shrink)
Presents a provocatively anthropocentric analysis of the way forward for green politics and environmental movements, exposing the deficiencies and contradictions of green approaches to post-modern politics and deep ecology. This title available in eBook format. Click here for more information . Visit our eBookstore at: www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk.
The hermeneutic anthropology of human rights is a possible anthropology before human rights. It does not aim at a deductive demonstration of the validity of human rights, but it delivers a hermeneutic justification of them by taking into account the a priori link of self-understanding with living body. Three aspects are most relevant in this case: a) The human person not only exists, but also has a value which is recognized within the shared world (...) of persons. The embodied presence of persons is affirmed beyond pure facticity through the meta-grammatical terms " I " , "you" and "we". This mutual affirmation as an act of freedom indicates the primordial value of dignity, b) The human person has to arrange its uncertainty as a living being. It has to prevail over nature, in order to create an order of life. This consciousness of being able to act is the source of power. Nevertheless, power is produced as a kind of surplus through social interaction. The tension between power and recognition is always renewed and remains an open question for society, c) Human rights introduce moral demands on power. They define the political order of the society in such a way that the citizens can carry out their plan of life. Furthermore, they preserve the awareness of the limits, since human dignity indicates that the embodied presence of the human person and its world-character should not be defined apart from freedom and recognition. (shrink)
An emerging body of literature has highlighted a gap in our understanding of the extent to which the salience attached to human rights is likely to influence the extent to which an individual takes account of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in decision making. The primary aim of this study is to begin to address this gap by understanding how individuals attribute different emphasis on specific aspects of human rights when making decisions to purchase, work, invest or (...) support the community operations for socially responsible organisations. In order to achieve this objective, a survey instrument was administered to professionals in Russia and Bulgaria. Our data indicate that there is a significant correlation between individuals’ sensitivity towards different components of human rights and their perceptions of the importance of CSR in decision making. Specifically, the recognition of political rights was strongly associated with the willingness to purchase, invest, seek employment and support socially responsible firms. Our analysis also outlines significant differences between the Russian and the Bulgarian samples with regard to the manners in which individuals rate the importance of civil, political and economic human rights. (shrink)
La obra recoge, desde una perspectiva interdisciplinar, las aportaciones de un grupo de investigadores españoles e italianos que han trabajado conjuntamente durante varios años en distintas cuestiones en torno a las posibilidades y riesgos de los avances biotecnológicos y su incidencia en el campo de los derechos humanos. Los estudios y debates se han realizado en el marco del programa de doctorado internacional sobre "Derechos humanos: Problemas actuales" encabezado por las Universidades de Valencia y Palermo. El Profesor Jesús Ballesteros, Catedrático (...) de Filosofía del Derecho en la Universidad de Valencia, ha sido el encargado de dirigir y coordinar este proyecto. (shrink)
That there is some connection between politics and human nature is a commonplace, but why and in what way they are conjoined is disputed. Aristotle's practice of comparing humans with other animals, and not conceptually divorcing them, is fruitful. By adopting a similar practice an indirect linkage (rather than Aristotle's direct one) between human nature and politics is identified. The strategy is to locate at least one universal aspect of human nature which is non?political that, nonetheless, (...) carries with it a requirement that universally calls forth a political response. The aspect is reproductive sex and the need to ensure that offspring survive. In humans, the natural fact of paternal uncertainty is dealt with by conventions, but, because of this, these vary (for example, as between matrilineal and patrilineal kinship systems). But what is necessitated amid this variety is a need to establish an authoritative allocation of responsibility for nurture. Politics is the exercise of that authority. However, because of its roots in conventions called forth by human nature, the link is indirect. The conclusion is that contemporary attempts to re?establish a direct link are bound to be inconclusive. (shrink)
This essay challenges the coherence of arguments brought in support of prohibiting the sale of humanbody parts. Considerations of neither social utility nor individual rights nor avoidance of exploitation seem sufficient to ground such a prohibition. Indeed, they may be sufficient to invalidate it.
In recent developments in political and legal philosophy, there is a tendency to endorse minimalist lists of human rights which do not include a right to political participation. Against such tendencies, I shall argue that the right to political participation, understood as distinct from a right to democracy, should have a place even on minimalist lists. In addition, I shall defend the need to extend the right to political participation to include participation not just in (...) national, but also in international and global governance processes. The argument will be based on a cosmopolitan conception of political legitimacy and on a political conception of human rights that is normatively anchored in legitimacy. The central claim of my paper is that a right to political participation is necessary – but not sufficient – for political legitimacy in the global realm. (shrink)
The humanbody shield problem involves an apparent dilemma for a libertarian, forcing him to choose between his own death and the death of an innocent person. This paper argues that the non-aggression principle permits a forceful response against the property of innocent individuals when a conflict is initiated with that [...].
The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and (...) of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the humanbody as field of conflict between discourses. (shrink)
The author emphasizes the fact that the largest part of Plato’s Timaeus deals with human nature and offers a detailed account of the constitution of the humanbody. He then lists the parallels and the differences between the constitution of the world body and the humanbody. The central part of the paper deals with Plato’s explanation of the persistence of the humanbody within a bodily environment which causes its dissolution. The (...) author pays a special attention to Plato’s theory of the apparatus which keeps running the processes of respiration, digestion and blood circulation. In the concluding section, the author raises thequestion of the relationship between humanbody and human soul. He shows that, in Plato’s Timaeus, the humanbody functions to a large extent independently from human soul. One possible reason for this theory is Plato’s conception of the immortal soul. While the humanbody exists in order to harbour the immortal soul, the latter does not produce and preserve it nor does it cause its dissolution. It only exercises cognitive and ruling functions in it as long as the body is able to hold together and to detain the soul. (shrink)
In March 1993, in preparation for the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, representatives from the states of Asia gathered in Bangkok to formulate their position on this emotive issue. The result of their discussions was the Bangkok declaration. They accepted the concept of universal standards in human rights, but declared that these standards could not overridet he unique Asian regional and cultural differences, the requirements of economic development, nor the privileges of sovereignty. : The difficult and (...) powerful dichotomies raised in Bangkok, and their particular relevance to China, are explored in the ten essays contained in this book. The underlying political, cultural, philosophical, legal and economic issues which cut across the human rights spectrum are also considered. The writiers themselves are Chinese and Hong Kong scholars, or leading political figures who are involved in the current human rights debate. The ultimate goal of the book is not to resolve the issues raised in Bangkok, but to expose some contours of discussion in a way that is fresh and accessible. (shrink)
In Sex, Gender and Science , Myra Hird outlines the social study of science and nature, specifically in relation to sex, sex differences, and sexuality. She examines how Western understandings of sex are based less upon understanding material sex differences than on a discourse that emphasizes sex dichotomy over sex diversity and argues for a feminist engagement with scientific debate that embraces the diversity and complexity of nature.
Courts usually treat control over human bodies and body parts as a property issue and find that people do not have property rights in themselves. This contradicts the liberal philosophical principle that people should be able to perform any self-regarding actions that do not cause harm to others. The philosophical inconsistencies under pinning the legal treatment of body parts arguably stem from a misplaced judicial preoccupation with‘property’. A better approach would be to hold a (...) policy inquiry into the degree of liberty a society wishes to grant its inhabitants. Only once this substantive issue has been addressed should property be raised as a possible method of implementing the policy. (shrink)
This special volume of Health Care Analysis is dedicated to a consideration of the status of body parts and products and the roleof law in regulating them. We argue that such a discussion is timely giventhe conflation of technological and academic concerns posed by thecomplex legal framework within which these issues are currentlyaddressed and in the light of debates such as those regardingthe storage of children's organs addressed by inquiries atAlder Hay and Bristol, United Kingdom. The contributors addressspecific legal (...) problems which have been brought before the courts in the UK and other jurisdictions, something which wesuggest is likely to occur with increasing regularity oncethe Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force in October 2000.The issues are also considered on a more theoretical level with papers exploring the role of concepts such as property, donation, commodification and kinship in these debates.While the volume focuses principally upon the manner inwhich these issues have arisen in a UK context, though withreference to certain comparative examples, the concepts discussed here are of more general application acrossother jurisdictions. (shrink)
A human being is the carrier of two different ideas, and there is no direct relation between them. One of these ideas refers to the body. The body itself is a system genetically coded and programmed in advance. On the other hand, one part of the body – the brain – appears to be the carrier of another idea that reflects the whole Universe – the Cosmos. Due to the function human (concretely, brain) is Microcosm, (...) regarded as epitomizing the universe. So human brain or widely to say, human itself is the carrier of the ideas of body parts, and essence-idea of whole body, as well as passive idea of whole cosmos. In a practical life of the human being only very little part of this cosmic idea is actualized and used. Untraditional reflections of this great potential as a result of unusual events beyond ofstandards are also possible. Then knowledge, information-ideas that a human being was ignorant and that were not acquired as a result of his sensual practice throughout his real life, may be activated and these cases are regarded as mystery and sensation. While all human beings possess this potential, capacity, we have not yet acquired well the mechanisms of activation of these passive ideas. Studying the ways of the activation of the passive ideas of our brain is one of the main tasks nowadays. (shrink)
Up to the present, there have not been any specific norms regarding medically assisted human reproduction in Romanian legislation. Due to this situation the general legislation regarding medical assistance (law no. 95/2006, regarding the Reform in Health Care System), the Penal and Civil law and the provisions of the Code of Deontology of the Romanian College of Physicians are applied to the field of medically assisted human reproduction. By analysing the ethical and legal conflicts regarding medically assisted (...) class='Hi'>human reproduction in Romania, some characteristics cannot be set apart because they derive from religious, cultural and socio-economic aspects. In this article the authors identify the development stages of medically assisted human reproduction in Romania, beginning from these characteristics and insisting upon the failure of the legal system in this specific field. The authors consider that the law regarding medically assisted human reproduction cannot be effective because it did not take into account the ethical and cultural aspects that might appear. Furthermore, in this framework of the legal process, no public debate involving the representatives of civil society was undertaken although the Council of Europe Oviedo Convention approved by our country according to law no. 17/2001 stipulated exactly this working method. Content Type Journal Article Pages 4-13 Authors Beatrice Ioan, PHD, MD, MA IN BIOETHICS, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania Vasile Astarastoae, PHD, MD, JD, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania Journal Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics Online ISSN 2043-0469 Print ISSN 1028-7825 Journal Volume Volume 14 Journal Issue Volume 14, Number 2 / 2008. (shrink)
This paper outlines the current common law principles that protect people’s interests in their bodies, excised body parts and tissue without conferring the rights of full legal ownership. It does not include the recent statutory amendments in jurisdictions such as New South Wales and the United Kingdom. It argues that at common law, people do not own their own bodies or excised bodily material. People can authorise the removal of their bodily material and its use, either during life or (...) after their death, for medical or scientific purposes. Researchers who acquire human bodies, body parts or tissue pursuant to such an authority have a right to possess and use them according to the authorisation they have been given, but their rights fall short of full ownership because they are limited in the way that they can use the material. The legal rights of researchers who develop intellectual property and biological products from excised human tissue can be adequately protected by existing common law principles without the need for a new legal principle that people own body parts and tissue removed from their bodies. (shrink)
Descartes argued that the passions of the soul were immediately felt in the body, as the animal spirits, affected by the movement of the pineal gland, spread through the body. In Leibniz the effect of emotions in the body is a different question as he did not allow the direct interaction between the mind and the body, although maintaining a psychophysical parallelism between them. -/- In general, he avoids discussing emotions in bodily terms, saying that general (...) inclinations, passions, pleasures and pains belong only to the mind or to the soul (NE II, xxi, §72). He is also keen to point out that our passions derive mostly from our bodies. However, like Spinoza (Ethics III, prop. XI, Scholium) he thought that some emotions such as joy can produce pleasures which can be described also in bodily terms. For example, in a short memoir Felicity he says that music can be a pleasure for the ears and symmetry can be a pleasure for the eyes. These more intellectual emotions are actions in the sense that they represent perfection emanating from their source, the absolutely perfect being, that is, God. The feeling of perfection may produce a state of well-being which concerns both the soul and the body. -/- In my paper I will trace instances of Leibniz’s remarks on how these kind of emotions affect the body. I will also discuss the different ways the body gives rise to passions in the soul. My primary source is Nouveaux essais, book II, chapter xx and xxi, but I will also discuss various other writings by Leibniz. (shrink)
In this discussion, we ponder the discourse about the ‘body of the Divine’ in the Indian tradition. Beginning with the Vedas, we survey the major eras and thinkers of that tradition, considering various notions of the Supreme Divine Being it produced. For each, we ask: is the Divine embodied? If so, then in what way? What is the nature of the body of the Divine, and what is its relationship to human bodies? What is the value of (...) the body of the Divine to the spiritual aspirant? We consider, where relevant, which views are pantheistic and which might be considered panentheistic. Panentheism is connected with discourse on the world as the body of God. It has origins in medieval Christian theology with anticipatory traces in Plato’s Timeaus. Under pantheism, were the world to end—were it to collapse or disappear irreversibly, perhaps, into a huge black hole—then God would disintegrate without a remainder as well; for in this view the Divine Spirit is the universe. The same is not true under panentheism which posits a more complex relationship between the Divine and the world. According to panentheism, God pervades the world—God is in the world—and at the same time, God sustains the world—the world is in God. This allows that God be greater than, transcendent of and independent of the world. In our conclusion we remark on how the views we have surveyed link to, resonate with, or dis-compare with the current—should one say revivified—interest in intellectual quarters with panentheism. (shrink)
Yannis Stavrakakis moves beyond the standard discussion of the Lacanian concept of the subject in a socio-political context, toward an analysis of the objective side of human experience. In the first part of Lacan and the Political, the author highlights Lacan's innovative understanding of the sociopolitical field and offers a straightforward and systematic assessment of the importance of Lanca's categories and theoretical construction for concrete political analysis. The second half of he book applies Lacanian theory to (...) specific examples of widely discussed political issues, such as Green ideology, the question of democracy and the hegemony of advertising in contemporary culture. Lacan and the Political demonstrates the immense potential of Lacanian thought to invigorate our consideration of the political and will be of interest to all who seek to further their understanding of modern ideological discourse in politics. (shrink)
This collection brings together cutting-edge research on the metaphysics of human nature and soul-body dualism.Kevin Corcoran's collection, Soul, Body, and ...
Abstract: The emergence of cross-border communities and transnational associations requires new ways of thinking about the norms involved in democracy in a globalized world. Given the significance of human rights fulfillment, including social and economic rights, I argue here for giving weight to the claims of political communities while also recognizing the need for input by distant others into the decisions of global governance institutions that affect them. I develop two criteria for addressing the scope of democratization in (...) transnational contexts— common activities and impact on basic human rights —and argue for their compatibility. I then consider some practical implications for institutional transformation and design, including new forms of transnational representation. (shrink)
This essay argues that the ambiguities of the just war tradition, sifted through a feminist critique, provides the best framework currently available for translating the ethical entitlement to human dignity into concrete feminist political practices. It offers a gendered critique of war that pursues the just war distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets of wartime violence and provides a gendered analysis of the peace which the just war tradition obliges us to preserve and pursue.
For philosophers who find both a dualistic and a purely materialistic account of the human soul unacceptable, the Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of the soul as the substantial form of the living body may appear to be an intriguing alternative. However, even if one is not afraid of the prospect of committing oneself to an apparently "obsolete" metaphysics, developing such a commitment may not look to be a wise move after all, since upon closer inspection the doctrine may seem to (...) be frustratingly obscure, if not directly self-contradictory. (shrink)
The essay begins from Alan Gewirth's influential account of human rights, and specifically with his argument that the human right to political participation can only be fulfilled by competitive, liberal democracy. I show that his argument rests on empirical, rather than conceptual grounds, which opens the possibility that in China, alternative forms of participation may be legitimate or even superior. An examination of the theory and contemporary practice of 'democratic centralism' shows that while it does not now (...) adequately support the right to political participation, a reformed version could. I focus in particular on the roles that could be played by consultative institutions, looking both to recent Chinese proposals and to analogues currently existing in Japan. I conclude that a reformed democratic centralism may well be the objective toward which Chinese people should strive. (shrink)
Louise Barrett, beyond the brain: how body and environment shape animal and human minds Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-7 DOI 10.1007/s11097-011-9247-6 Authors Mirko Farina, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD), Institute of Human Cognition and Brain Science (IHCBS), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Online ISSN 1572-8676 Print ISSN 1568-7759.
Violating the human status : the evil of genocide and crimes against humanity -- Superfluous humanity : the evil of global poverty -- Citizens of nowhere : the evil of statelessness -- Effacing the political : the evil of neoliberal globalization.
In this book, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici shows that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. Political myths (...) are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth. (shrink)
Abstract: Would a global commitment to international human rights norms provide enough of a sense of community to sustain a legitimate and sufficiently democratic global order? Sceptics worry that human rights cannot help maintain the mutual trust among citizens required for a legitimate political order, since such rights are now too broadly shared. Thus prominent contributors to democratic theory insist that the members of the citizenry must share some features unique to them, to the exclusion of others—be (...) it a European identity ( Habermas and Derrida 2003 ) or a national public culture generally shared only by the members ( Miller 1995, 2000 ). This essay considers and rejects these arguments. While stable, democratic redistributive arrangements do require trust and institutionalised means of trustworthiness; they need not rely on norms or values that distinguish members from non-members: such exclusion is not required. Thus human rights may be part of a common political identity. (shrink)
Primary issues raised by the commentaries on the target article relate to (1) the need to differentiate distinct but overlapping aspects of fluid cognition, and (2) the implications that this differentiation may hold for conceptions of general intelligence. In response, I outline several issues facing researchers concerned with differentiation of human cognitive abilities and suggest that a revised and expanded theory of intelligence is needed to accommodate an increasingly diverse and varied empirical base. (Published Online April 5 2006).
In this popular text, Joel Spring provocatively analyzes the ideas of traditional and non-traditional philosophers, from Plato to Paulo Freire, regarding the contribution of education to the creation of a democratic society. Each section focuses on an important theme: “Autocratic and Democratic Forms of Education;” “Dissenting Traditions in Education;” “The Politics of Culture;” “The Politics of Gender;” and “Education and Human Rights.” This edition features a special emphasis on human rights education. Spring advocates a legally binding right to (...) an education that includes an education in human rights. His argument is that until schools are required to fulfill a duty to protect human rights and teach others to protect human rights, government-operated schools will remain authoritarian rather than democratic institutions. Wheels in the Head: Educational Philosophies of Authority, Freedom, and Culture From Socrates to Human Rights, Second Edition , a critically original work, is widely used as a text for courses across the fields of philosophical, social, political, and historical foundations of education, and critical issues in education. Reflecting its global relevance, a Chinese translation was published by the University of Peking Press in 2005. (shrink)
For more than 30 years, beginning with the Reagan administration's refusal to support and provide oversight for embryo research, and continuing to the present in congressionally imposed limits on funding for such research, progress in infertility medicine and the development of stem cell therapies has been seriously delayed by a series of political interventions. In almost all cases, these interventions result from a view of the moral status of human embryo premised largely on religious assumptions. Although some believe (...) that these interventions are valid expressions of religious values in the public sector, it is argued here that they, in fact, contradict Rawls's conception of public reasoning. Both the prohibition of research involving the human embryo as well as bans on federal funding for embryo-related research place the particular religious views of some citizens above the pressing health needs of almost all, and thus violate the ideal of civility implicit in the Rawlsian standard. (shrink)
Gender and Rhetoric in the Politics of Plato explores the relation between Plato's Republic and Laws on the set of issues that the Laws itself marks out as fundamental to the comparison: the unity of the virtues, the role of women, and the place of the family. Plato aims to persuade men to abandon the view of the good life that Greek cities and their laws inculcate as the only life worth living for those who would be real men and (...) not effeminate weaklings. What we can learn about Plato is the importance for him of understanding the nature of persuasion in order to come to terms with gender justice and the apparent plurality of human goods. What we learn from Plato is that to tackle the issues that arise in our new political community of men and women we must comprehend the proper bases and limits of persuasion. (shrink)
Men in Political Theory builds on feminist re-readings of the traditional canon of male writers in political philosophy by turning the "gender lens" on to the representation of men in widely studied texts. It explains the distinction between "man" as an apparently de-gendered "individual" or "citizen" and "man" as an overtly gendered being in human society. The ten chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx and Engels show the operation of the "gender lens" (...) in different ways, depending on how each philosopher deploys concepts of men and masculinity to pose and solve classic problems. (shrink)
This article examines some of the contributions to the contemporary debate over the question of whether there is an important distinction to be made between the natural and the human sciences. In particular, the article looks at the arguments that Charles Taylor has put forward for the recognition of a radical discontinuity between these forms of science and then examines Richard Rorty's objections to Taylor's distinction and argues that Rorty misunderstands the reasons for this distinction and thereby misses the (...)political implications of failing to make such a distinction. In this regard, some arguments made by Anthony Giddens and John O'Neill, respectively, around Alfred Schutz's "postulate of adequacy" are used to show how the social sciences must be conceived so as to avoid consequences inimical to the reproduction and maintenance of participatory, democratic institutions. Additionally, the article uses O'Neill's argument that the Schutzian conceptualization of interpretive sciences can be critical in a way that Giddens and Jürgen Habermas require, while including a translation and accountability principle, to demonstrate how we ought to respect participatory, democratic forms. (shrink)
This paper explores the question of embodiment/disembodiment discussed by Hwa Yol Jung mainly in his recent work, Rethinking Political Theory (1993a) in tandem with an examination of some recent developments in Korean scholarship on the same subject. To sum up, the following three points are emphasized. First, this living body does not exist except in specific modalities. In this sense, Gabriel Marcel''s paradigmatic affirmation that I am my body requires an elaboration of the specific modalities of the (...) living body as a being in the world. Second, the way a living body exists is not exclusively mental or physical, but both. In short, it is phenomenal. Third, the point of the whole argument can be summed up as follows: to conceal one''s own body is natural, but to forget it is dangerous. The primary task of phenomenology is not to denude human beings, but to reawaken ourselves to the idea that we are beings who live with and through bodies. (shrink)
After beginning by situating the author's (possible) relation to Derrida's expression, ‘democracy to come’, the article proceeds from the position that Derrida's phrase is to be understood as part of a political intervention. Indeed, the inseparability of democracy and deconstruction confirms this. After setting out some of the pertinent features of ‘democracy to come’ – seen, in part, in the General Will – the notion of political community in the thought of Hannah Arendt is brought into question, if (...) not deconstructed. Political community as presented by Arendt is seen to limit the inclusiveness of democracy. In the final section, the article suggests that Agamben's critique of the very structure of the nation-state opens the way for a renewal of the notion of the human in the ‘community to come’. (shrink)
Knowledge transmission and universality of man in global society -- The other and the paradoxes of universalism -- Religion, human rights, and political conflicts -- Europe : common values and a common identity -- The public sphere and political space -- America and Europe : Carl Schmitt and Alexis de Tocqueville -- Identity and human rights : a glance at Europe from afar -- Human rights, universalism, and cosmopolitanism.
Recently, the nature of science (NOS) has become recognized as an important element within the K-12 science curriculum. Despite differences in the ultimate lists of recommended aspects, a consensus is emerging on what specific NOS elements should be the focus of science instruction and inform textbook writers and curriculum developers. In this article, we suggest a contextualized, explicit approach addressing one core NOS aspect: the humanaspects of science that include the domains of creativity, social influences and (...) subjectivity. To illustrate these ideas, we have focused on Charles Darwin, a scientist whose life, work and thought processes were particularly well recorded at the time and analyzed by scholars in the succeeding years. Historical facts are discussed and linked to core NOS ideas. Creativity is illustrated through the analogies between the struggle for existence in human societies and in nature, between artificial and natural selection, and between the division of labor in human societies and in nature. Social influences are represented by Darwin’s aversion of criticism of various kinds and by his response to the methodological requirements of the science of that time. Finally, subjectivity is discussed through Darwin’s development of a unique but incorrect source for the origin of variations within species. (shrink)
While claiming that liberalism is the dominant political theory and practice of modernity, this book provides two alternative post modern theoretical approaches to the political. Concentrating on Nietzsche's and Foucault's work, it offers a novel interpretation of their genealogical projects. It argues that genealogy can be applied to analyze different forms of cultural kitsch vis-à-vis the dominant political institutions of consumer capitalism. The problem with consumer capitalism is not so much that it exploits individuals, but that it (...) fosters cheap human existence saturated with the artefacts of kitsch. Contrasting genealogy with hermeneutic philosophy, it calls for a renewal of hermeneutics within the Thomistic tradition. (shrink)
According to author, value of human dignity has its place in his ethics of social consequences which is a form of non-utilitarian consequentialism. This is so because it is compatible with the value of positive consequences that creates one of the crucial criteria in ethics of social consequences. There exist two aspects of human dignity in this ethical theory. The first is related to the value of life that is worthy of esteem and respect, which brings positive (...) consequences (moral biocentrism), second aspect is related to the fact that human dignity is a function of the positive consequences of our action and behavior prevailing over the negative consequences of our action and behavior. This creates a basis for assigning moral agents with an additional, qualitative value of human dignity. In caseof human beings without developed consciousness and who are only potential moral agents, the first aspect of human dignity is dominant in our judgments about them. In the judgments concerning moral agents the second aspect of human dignity dominates. (shrink)
