Online research in philosophy

Prominent consumer depression manuals issued in recent years circulate a standard depression script as scientific knowledge. The script, asserting that a broad spectrum of depressions are brain illnesses that require antidepressant treatment, is in fact highly contested among researchers. This paper reviews the logical problematics of these manuals, and how such discourse promotes the diagnosis and pharmaceutical treatment of behaviors ranging from mild symptoms to severe depression. In keeping with the trends of pharmaceutical advertising and State health policy, these manuals (...) encourage consumers to self-scrutinize risky behavior, and to treat common behavioral and mood distresses with antidepressants. Ultimately, these activities of self-management function to produce a more productive citizen population. (shrink)

Abstract Moral education is often criticized on the strength of premises, such as, no one can say what is right or wrong in morals or morals are relative. In other words, moral education faces criticisms which are based on certain meta?ethical foundations. In this paper several of these criticisms are outlined. It is argued that there may be ways of responding to such criticisms which might cover most of ethics or the nature of indoctrination or questions to do with neutrality (...) in moral education. However, it is also argued that the most powerful and effective response to many criticisms of moral education which stem from some meta?ethical foundation is to draw attention to the inconsistency of those criticisms. (shrink)