Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our (...) Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

These are not easy times for extending liberal religious traditions. I am struck by how much has changed in the past two decades, how differently I now imagine the challenges and possibilities of constructive religious thought. What's happened? What are the salient features of our current moment, and the constraints and opportunities for religious reflection that it affords? These are, of course, large and complex questions. But my charge to reflect upon future directions in liberal religious thought must inevitably begin (...) here.1To provide a sketch of our particular historical juncture I will focus my remarks on the shifting American religious landscape and more broadly on what I am calling a "late secular" age.2 I .. (shrink)

War and Border Crossings brings together renowned scholars to address some of the most pressing problems in public policy, international affairs, and the intercultural issues of our day. Contributors from widely varying disciplines discuss cross-cultural ethical issues and international topics ranging from American international policy and the invasion and occupation of Iraq to domestic topics such as immigration, the war on drugs, cross-cultural bioethics and ethical issues involving American Indian tribes. The culture clashes discussed in these essays raise serious questions (...) about what principles ought to inform the negotiating of conflicts in order to achieve, or at least approach, outcomes that are fundamentally just, fair, responsible, and ethical. (shrink)

This text of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's is published posthumously in the context of pieces dedicated to her memory. It is unclear whether she intended it for eventual publication or whether she had intended it as a lecture; nor is there decisive evidence for a date of composition. In it, she reviews the stance of feminist literary criticism toward religion and finds it to be generally negative. She regrets that feminist critics see in religion mostly a means of subordinating women to (...) men, given that most of the writers whose work they explicate were themselves fervently religious. She then examines the feminization of religion in nineteenth-century America and the growing idea at the time of female moral stewardship. After examining the contrasting approaches taken to the process of feminization by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Fox-Genovese then takes as her main case Augusta Jane Evans's novels Beulah and St. Elmo. She argues that feminist critics, in concentrating on questions about the marriage or independence of Evans's characters miss Evans's central concern, which was the loss and recovery of her characters' faith. The feminist critics (given their hostility to religion) misunderstand that Evans's stance was not one against female individualism, but rather (given her commitment as a Christian) a stance against the unbridled individualism of modern American society. (shrink)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton is widely considered to be the founder of the early women’s rights movement in America. She convened the first convention dedicated specifically to women’s rights in America,...

Différents textes de Margaret Fuller et Elizabeth Cady Stanton, deux féministes américaines parfois oubliées de l’historiographie au profit notamment de Susan B. Anthony (dont le nom reste associé à l’amendement qui a accordé, aux États-Unis, le droit de vote aux femmes) ont récemment fait l’objet de traductions en français et d’une édition critique éclairante. Si la lecture parallèle de leurs textes fait apparaître des traits communs entre les deux militantes, parcours et convictions présent...

Différents textes de Margaret Fuller et Elizabeth Cady Stanton, deux féministes américaines parfois oubliées de l’historiographie au profit notamment de Susan B. Anthony (dont le nom reste associé à l’amendement qui a accordé, aux États-Unis, le droit de vote aux femmes) ont récemment fait l’objet de traductions en français et d’une édition critique éclairante. Si la lecture parallèle de leurs textes fait apparaître des traits communs entre les deux militantes, parcours et convictions présent...

This chapter is an overview of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's attempts to come to grips with religion during the philosophically eventful nineteenth century in the United States, and an attempt to determine whether she qualifies as an atheist.

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Introduction: human rights in healthcare -- A right to treatment? the allocation of resouces in the National Health Service -- Ensuring quality healthcare: an issue of rights or duties? -- Autonomy and consent in medical treatment -- Treating incompetent patients: beneficence, welfare and rights -- Medical confidentiality and the right to privacy -- Property right in the body -- Medically assisted conception and a right to reproduce? -- Termination of pregnancy: a conflict of rights -- Pregnancy and freedom of choice (...) -- The right to life at the end of life -- The law and ethics of assisted dying: is there a right to die? (shrink)

Focuses on the encounters of feminist and queer theories, on the ways in which basic terms such as - sex, gender, and sexuality change meaning as they move from one body of theory to another. This book includes essays by Judith Butler, Evelynn Hammonds, Biddy Martin, Kim Michasiw, Carole-Anne Tyler, and Elizabeth Weed.

John Rawls is widely considered one of the most important political philosophers of the 20th century, and his highly original and influential works play a central role in contemporary philosophical debates. Given the vast scholarship written in response to his work, students and scholars need some guidance in finding and understanding the central debates and arguments. This book meets this need like no other collection has before. This collection of original essays is divided into ten parts, with each part covering (...) a major area of philosophical debate inspired by Rawls's work. In each part, there is an introductory essay, providing an overview of the relevant arguments from Rawls's work and the historical contours of the debate that ensued. Each introductory essay is followed by two essays written by scholars who take opposing positions on the debate, moving the debate forward in a fruitful way. (shrink)

From the article's conclusion: "This article does not challenge the coherence of retributive theory nor does it challenge the consistency of a retributive theorist who supports the death penalty. I have only argued that one cannot justify the death penalty simply by establishing the claim that wrongdoers deserve punishment which fits the crime. Unless one is willing to condone all sorts of barbaric punishments, then one must appeal to additional ethical considerations to establish which equivalent (or roughly equivalent or proportional) (...) punishments are morally acceptable.". (shrink)

In the United States, there continue to be significant gender and racial wage gaps. The causes of these earnings gaps are complex. Some people argue that, to the extent that the wage gaps are due to individual career and family choices, as opposed to employer discrimination, they are not the appropriate object of policy change. Other people respond by claiming that this underestimates the role of discriminatory norms influencing and limiting family and career choices. I agree with that response, but (...) I think the argument makes another mistake as well. In this paper, I argue that it is incorrect to assume that only the aspects of the wage gaps caused by discrimination or discriminatory norms are the appropriate object of policy. (shrink)

Private industry funds more than half of all medical research in the United States. While industry involvement in research has benefits, it can also create conflicts of interest. The most common policies adopted to address conflict of interest in medical research are focused primarily on the ways in which industry sponsorship may undermine a clinician’s judgment regarding patient care. Insufficient attention has been given to the ways in which industry sponsorship may undermine judgment relative to the goal of scientific integrity (...) in research. The most common conflict of interest policies do not adequately address this problem. Disclosure policies alone will not remove or ameliorate all conflicts. Further, severing or monitoring ties between clinicians and industries will not adequately address the problem, since in many cases it is not the clinicians who are making the relevant research judgments. In order to address the problem of conflict of interest inindustry-sponsored research, fundamental changes in strategy and practice must be adopted which either remove the power to make research decisions from industry employees, or increase the review of those decisions by independent investigators. (shrink)

This article considers the appropriate limits of legal regulation through an analysis of the 2010 French law banning the wearing of full-face veils in public. The author examines the law from the perspective of John Stuart Mill's harm principle and Patrick Devlin's legal moralism. The author concludes that neither position provides a convincing justification for the French law.

There is widespread agreement among political philosophers that there is a core set of civil and political liberties that ought to be given special protections by any state. In contrast, there is significant disagreement about whether (and which) economic liberties deserve the same level of protection and priority. To what extent should freedom in economic activities be protected by and from the government? To what extent is it justifiable for government to interfere with economic activities for the sake of equalizing (...) opportunities and protecting the welfare of society’s vulnerable? John Rawls famously held that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic liberties deserving special protections, though he never offered a full defense of that claim. In _Free Market Fairness_ John Tomasi argued against Rawls, claiming it follows from Rawls’s own assumptions that we ought to protect a broad range of economic liberties as basic liberties. This paper attempts to provide the missing argument in favor of Rawls’s position in this debate and against Tomasi’s. First, I argue for a novel interpretation of Rawls’s criterion for basic liberties. Second, I use that interpretation to argue that Rawls was correct and consistent to exclude contract rights and productive property rights from the scheme of basic liberties. (shrink)

ObjectiveThere have been increased efforts to implement medical ethics curricula at the student and resident levels; however, practising physicians are often left unconsidered. Therefore, we sought to pilot an ethics and professionalism curriculum for faculty in obstetrics and gynaecology to remedy gaps in the formal, informal and hidden curriculum in medical education.MethodsAn ethics curriculum was developed for faculty within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at a tertiary care, academic hospital. During the one-time, 4-hour, mandatory in-person session, the participants voluntarily (...) completed the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, Handoff Clinical Evaluation Exercise, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and overall course evaluation. Patient satisfaction survey scores in both the hospital and ambulatory settings were compared before and after the curriculum.ResultsTwenty-eight faculty members attended the curriculum. Overall, respondents reported less burnout and performed at the same level or better in terms of patient handoff than the original studies validating the instruments. Faculty rated the professionalism behaviours as well as teaching of professionalism much lower at our institution than the validation study. There was no change in patient satisfaction after the curriculum. However, overall, the course was well received as meeting its objectives, being beneficial and providing new tools to assess professionalism.ConclusionThis pilot study suggests that an ethics curriculum can be developed for practising physicians that is mindful of pragmatic concerns while still meeting its objectives. Further study is needed regarding long term and objective improvements in ethics knowledge, impact on the education of trainees and improvement in the care of patients as a result of a formal curriculum for faculty. (shrink)

American and international involvement in war-torn regions such as Bosnia and Somalia has come under increasing scrutiny by politicians and scholars. Here, two distinguished philosophers debate military intervention from just-war and pacifist perspectives. Describing the range of values and issues facing governments as they consider intervening in the affairs of other nations, each scholar makes his case and then responds to the opposing argument.

Communication, when defined as an act intended to affect the psychological state of another individual, demands the use of inference. Either the signaler, the recipient, or both must make leaps of understanding which surpass the semantic information available and draw from pragmatic clues to fully imbue and interpret meaning. While research into human communication and the evolution of language has long been comfortable with mentalistic interpretations of communicative exchanges, including rich attributions of mental state, research into animal communication has balked (...) at theoretical models which describe mentalized cognitive mechanisms. We submit a new theoretical perspective on animal communication: the model of inferential communication. For use when existing proximate models of animal communication are not sufficient to fully explain the complex, flexible, and intentional communication documented in certain species, specifically non-human primates, we present our model as a bridge between shallower, less cognitive descriptions of communicative behavior and the perhaps otherwise inaccessible mentalistic interpretations of communication found in theoretical considerations of human language. Inferential communication is a framework that builds on existing evidence of referentiality, intentionality, and social inference in primates. It allows that they might be capable of applying social inferences to a communicative setting, which could explain some of the cognitive processes that enable the complexity and flexibility of primate communication systems. While historical models of animal communication focus on the means-ends process of behavior and apparent cognitive outcomes, inferential communication invites consideration of the mentalistic processes that must underlie those outcomes. We propose a mentalized approach to questions, investigations, and interpretations of non-human primate communication. We include an overview of both ultimate and proximate models of animal communication, which contextualize the role and utility of our inferential communication model, and provide a detailed breakdown of the possible levels of cognitive complexity which could be investigated using this framework. Finally, we present some possible applications of inferential communication in the field of non-human primate communication and highlight the role it could play in advancing progress toward an increasingly precise understanding of the cognitive capabilities of our closest living relatives. (shrink)

In this essay we make visible the contribution of women even and especially when women cannot be added to mainstream, non-feminist accounts of peace. We argue that if feminism is taken seriously, then most philosophical discussions of peace must be updated, expanded and reconceived in ways which centralize feminist insights into the interrelationships among women, nature, peace, and war. We do so by discussing six ways that feminist scholarship informs mainstream philosophical discussions of peace.

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it is a theoretical and empirically based contribution to the branch of research that studies enabling conditions of human sense-making. It demonstrates the value of a coherent ecological framework, based on dialogism and interactivity for the study of sense-making, problem-solving and task performance in naturalistic contexts. Second, it presents a promising method for the analysis of cognitive activities, Cognitive Event Analysis, with which we investigate real-life medical interactions, especially the emergence of insights (...) in procedural task performance in emergency medicine. We show how sense-making and insights are accomplished by medical teams when they integrate cultural expertise, professional skills, inter-bodily dynamics, material constraints and affordances within the environment, i.e. when local co-action is embedded in socio-cultural patterns of behaviour. (shrink)

An utterer may convey a message to her intended audience by means of an explicit statement; or by a non‐conventionally mediated one‐off signal from which the audience is able to work out the intended message; or by conversational implicature. I investigate whether the last two are equivalent to explicit testifying, as communicative act and epistemic source. I find that there are important differences between explicit statement and insinuation; only with the first does the utterer assume full responsibility for the truth (...) of what she communicates to her audience. (shrink)

It is often assumed that adaptation — a temporary change in sensitivity to a perceptual dimension following exposure to that dimension — is a litmus test for what is and is not a “primary visual attribute”. Thus, papers purporting to find evidence of number adaptation motivate a claim of great philosophical significance: That number is something that can be seen in much the way that canonical visual features, like color, contrast, size, and speed, can. Fifteen years after its reported discovery, (...) number adaptation’s existence seems to be nearly undisputed, with dozens of papers documenting support for the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to offer a counterweight — to critically assess the evidence for and against number adaptation. After surveying the many reasons for thinking that number adaptation exists, we introduce several lesser-known reasons to be skeptical. We then advance an alternative account — the old news hypothesis — which can accommodate previously published findings while explaining various (otherwise unexplained) anomalies in the existing literature. Next, we describe the results of eight pre-registered experiments which pit our novel old news hypothesis against the received number adaptation hypothesis. Collectively, the results of these experiments undermine the number adaptation hypothesis on several fronts, whilst consistently supporting the old news hypothesis. More broadly our work raises questions about the status of adaptation itself as a means of discerning what is and is not a visual attribute. (shrink)

"This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

Contemporary literature criticises a necessary link between empathy and actions that demonstrate genuine moral worth. If there is such a necessary link, many argue, it must come in the developmental stages of our moral capacities, rather than being found in the mental states that make up our motivating reasons. This paper goes against that trend, arguing that critics have not considered how wide-ranging the mental states are that make up a person’s reasons. In particular, it argues that empathy can play (...) a role in moral motivation when it is to some extent unconscious or it occurs far prior to the moral action itself. (shrink)

This set of seven experiments examines reasoning about the inheritance and acquisition of physical properties in preschoolers, undergraduates, and biology experts. Participants (N = 390) received adoption vignettes in which a baby animal was born to one parent but raised by a biologically unrelated parent, and they judged whether the offspring would have the same property as the birth or rearing parent. For each vignette, the animal parents had contrasting values on a physical property dimension (e.g., the birth parent had (...) a short tail; the rearing parent had a long tail). Depending on the condition, the distinct properties had distinct functions (“function-predictive”) were associated with distinct habitats (“habitat-predictive”), or had no implications (“non-predictive”). Undergraduates' bias to view properties as inherited from the birth parent was reduced in the function- and habitat-predictive conditions. This result indicates a purpose-based view of inheritance, whereby animals can acquire properties that serve a purpose in their environment. This stance was not found in experts or preschoolers. We discuss the results in terms of how undergraduates' purpose-based inheritance reasoning develops and relates to larger-scale misconceptions about Darwinian evolutionary processes, and implications for biology education. (shrink)

Face perception, perhaps the most highly developed visual skill in humans, is mediated by a distributed neural system in humans that is comprised of multiple, bilateral regions. We propose a model for the organization of this system that emphasizes a distinction between the representation of invariant and changeable aspects of faces. The representation of invariant aspects of faces underlies the recognition of individuals, whereas the representation of changeable aspects of faces, such as eye gaze, expression, and lip movement, underlies the (...) perception of information that facilitates social communication. The model is also hierarchical insofar as it is divided into a core system and an extended system. The core system is comprised of occipitotemporal regions in extrastriate visual cortex that mediate the visual analysis of faces. In the core system, the representation of invariant aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the fusiform gyrus, whereas the representation of changeable aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the superior temporal sulcus. The extended system is comprised of regions from neural systems for other cognitive functions that can be recruited to act in concert with the regions in the core system to extract meaning from faces. (shrink)