This text explores how human beings construe experience: experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality.

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. (...) Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)

The concept of economic rent is among the oldest in political economy. This reflects the fact that economies have always included parties whose income appears more parasitic than productive. The concept of rent-seeking refers to the efforts of parties seeking to secure such income by way of gaining influence over economic regulation or otherwise gaining favors from government. In spite of its intuitiveness, however, it has proven difficult to precisely distinguish rent from other categories of income. This chapter seeks to (...) acquaint readers with this problem. The privatization of incarceration is then supplied as an important case study in current rent-seeking behavior. (shrink)

These teaching materials explore the specific powers of governments to implement control measures in response to communicable disease, in two different contexts:The first context concerns global pandemic diseases. Relevant legal authority includes international law, World Health Organization governance and the International Health Regulations, and regulatory authority of nations.The second context is centered on U.S. law and concerns control measures for drug-resistant disease, using tuberculosis as an example. In both contexts, international and domestic, the point is to understand legal authority to (...) address public health emergencies. (shrink)

Images and Power: Rock Art and Ethics addresses the distinctive ways in which ethical considerations pertain to rock art research within the larger context of the archaeological ethical debate. Marks on stone, with their social and religious implications, give rise to distinctive ethical concerns within the scholarly enterprise as different perceptions between scholars and Native Americans are encountered in regard to worldviews, concepts of space, time, and in the interpretation of the imagery itself. This discourse addresses issues such as the (...) conflicting paradigms of oral traditions and archaeological veracity, differing ideas about landscapes in which rock art occurs, the intrusion of "desired knowledge", and how the past may be robbed by changing interpretations and values on both sides. Case studies are presented in regard to shamanism and war-related imagery. Also addressed are issues surrounding questions of art, aesthetics, and appropriation of imagery by outsiders. Overall, this discourse attempts to clarify points of contention between Euro-American scholars and Native Americans so that we can better recognize the origins of differences and thus promote better mutual understanding in these endeavors."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

This book provides a major new cross-disciplinary framework for thinking about poverty and human rights. Drawing on the fields of ethics, economics, and international law, Vizard demonstrates how the work of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has expanded and deepened human rights discourse across traditional disciplinary divides.

Numerous jurisdictions have recently raised the age of retirement or plan to do so. Pressure to extend people's working lives is due to population aging, which makes it harder to fund retirement through existing methods. Raising the retirement age can improve the ‘dependency ratio’ by increasing the fraction of the population that works (and pays taxes) relative to the fraction retired. This article gives sustained attention to connecting the case for retirement with one view about wellbeing, according to which old (...) age is subject to distinctive goods. The importance of being able to access these goods in old age favours an eventual exit from labour market participation that retirement provisions enable. This view is stronger than one that treats retirement as merely a safety net to enable people to stop work only when advanced aging makes it unreasonably burdensome. At the same time, the view likely does not justify status quo retirement ages, meaning that some increase to the retirement age might be defensible. The article also seeks to illuminate ways in which different aspects of population aging – in particular the distinction between dependency ratios and inequalities in longevity – bear differently on the wider debate about justice and retirement. (shrink)

The concept of cooperative communities that enforce norm conformity through reward, as well as shaming, ridicule, and ostracism, has been central to anthropology since the work of Durkheim. Prevailing approaches from evolutionary theory explain the willingness to exert sanctions to enforce norms as self-interested behavior, while recent experimental studies suggest that altruistic rewarding and punishing—“strong reciprocity”—play an important role in promoting cooperation. This paper will use data from 308 conversations among the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) Bushmen (a) to examine the dynamics of (...) norm enforcement, (b) to evaluate the costs of punishment in a forager society and understand how they are reduced, and (c) to determine whether hypotheses that center on individual self-interest provide sufficient explanations for bearing the costs of norm enforcement, or whether there is evidence for strong reciprocity. (shrink)

Evaluation, as the expression of a writer’s attitudes, opinions and values, has become a key term in discourse studies in recent years and has proved to be a particularly fruitful way of analysing academic texts. But while studies have shown the importance of evaluation in research genres, its role in seemingly more promotional academic genres has been largely neglected. This article examines the journal description, a brief but ubiquitous feature of all journals, whether online or in print. Situated at the (...) academic—commercial interface, the JD provides information for prospective readers and authors while endorsing a particular view of the field and positioning the journal in the academic community. Drawing on a corpus of 200 JDs in four contrasting disciplines, we show how evaluation is a key feature of this genre, influencing both lexical choices and rhetorical structure. The analysis contributes both to our understanding of a neglected academic genre and the evaluative resources of language. (shrink)

People who have not experienced diseases and health conditions tend to judge them to be worse than they are reported to be by people who have experienced them. This phenomenon, known as the disability paradox, presents a challenge for health policy, and in particular, healthcare resource distribution. This divergence between patient and public preferences is most plausibly explained as a result of hedonic adaptation, a widespread phenomenon in which people tend to adapt fairly quickly to the state they are in, (...) good or bad, and adjust their baseline utility accordingly.If patient utilities can be shown to be inappropriate for use in public policy decision making, the disability paradox fades away. This paper offers a critique of one such attempt: the idea that adaptation leads to adaptive preferences. I argue that none of the main accounts of adaptive preferences in fact characterise adapted patient preferences as irrational. Adapted preferences should not, therefore, be treated as synonymous with adaptive preferences. I suggest that much patient adaptation should be understood as a form of the ubiquitous human ability to respond to environmental change. Consequently, we ought not to discount patient preferences. (shrink)

Patient safety is a central aspect of healthcare quality, focusing on preventable, iatrogenic harm. Harm, in this context, is typically assumed to mean physical injury to patients, often caused by technical error. However, some contributions to the patient safety literature have argued that disrespectful behavior towards patients can cause harm, even when it does not lead to physical injury. This paper investigates the nature of such dignitary harms and explores whether they should be included within the scope of patient safety (...) as a field of practice. We argue that dignitary harms in health care are—at least sometimes—preventable, iatrogenic harms. While we caution against including dignitary harms within the scope of patient safety just because they are relevantly similar to other iatrogenic harms, we suggest that thinking about dignitary harms can help to elucidate the value of patient safety, and to illuminate the evolving relationship between safety and quality. (shrink)

It is usual to interpret Mill's understanding of liberty in terms deriving from his distinction in On Liberty between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. Granted this distinction and Mill's genuine concern to define and defend it, it remains a relevant question why he attached so much importance to it. This raises a less familiar theme in Mill, namely the inter-connection of self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. An uncommitted reading of the main texts suggests an equivalent value is attached to this. Mill clearly (...) and constantly asserts a close connection between each person's own attempt to improve himself, to cultivate his ‘affections and will’, and the social and political structure in which he acts. Self-regarding virtue and responsible social conduct are interdependent; the quality of each depends upon the quality of the other. A fuller recognition of this and its central place in Mill's revision of Bentham may be of help in examining some of the particular problems raised by recent scholarship on Mill. (shrink)

'Quality' is a widely invoked concept in healthcare, and 'quality improvement' is now a central part of healthcare service delivery. However, these concepts and their associated practices represent relatively uncharted territory for applied philosophy and bioethics. In this paper, we explore some of the conceptual complexity of quality in healthcare and argue that quality is best understood to be conceptually plural. Quality is widely agreed to be multidimensional and as such constitutively plural. However, we argue that quality is plural in (...) two further senses. First, quality is competitively plural : that is, different high-level conceptions of quality can be appropriately invoked in different contexts and serve... (shrink)

The distinguished philosopher of language, Francois Recanati, has proposed a wide-ranging truth-conditional model of pragmatics. In this collection, various aspects of his theories are addressed by distinguished contributors, and are then commented on or answered by Recanati himself. This allows the reader to be drawn into the central debate within philosophy of language and cognitive science as to what kind of pragmatics system is needed.

This ground-breaking book is designed to raise awareness of human rights implications in psychology, and provide knowledge and tools enabling psychologists to put a human rights perspective into practice. Psychologists have always been deeply engaged in alleviating the harmful consequences human rights violations have on individuals. However, despite the fundamental role that human rights play for professional psychology and psychologists, human rights education is underdeveloped in psychologists' academic and vocational training. This book, the first of its kind, looks to change (...) this, by: raising awareness among professional psychologists, university teachers and psychology students about their role as human rights promoters and protectors providing knowledge and tools enabling them to put a human rights perspective into practice providing texts and methods for teaching human rights. Featuring chapters from leading scholars in the field, spanning18 countries and six continents, the book identifies how psychologists can ensure they are practising in a responsible way, as well as contributing to wider society with a clear knowledge of human rights issues in relation to culture, gender, organisations and more. Including hands-on recommendations, case studies and discussion points, this is essential reading for professional psychologists as part of continuing professional development and those in training and taking psychology courses. (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between reformations on the European continent and in Britain. Addressing issues from book history, to popular politics and theological polemic, it identifies how British reception contributed to continued reform on the continent, and considers the perception (and invention) of England's 'exceptional' status.

To add ethnographic perspective to Guala's arguments, I suggest reasons why experimental and ethnographic evidence do not concur and highlight some difficulties in measuring whether positive and negative reciprocity are indeed costly. I suggest that institutions to reduce the costs of maintaining cooperation are not limited to complex societies.

If recent exploratory traditions tap into evolved psychological dispositions to explore, wouldn't humans be expected to have drawn on such dispositions long before the written word? Trickster oral traditions fill this role in all levels of society, affluence, and on all continents, inverting the boundaries of social worlds and those between humans and animals, fostering cultural innovation.

The cultural evolutionary approach to the dynamics of cumulative culture is insufficient for understanding how culture affects heritability estimates; it ignores the agency of individuals and internal complexity of social groups that drive cultural evolution. Both environmental and social selection need consideration. The WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) problem has never plagued anthropology: A wealth of ethnography is available for the problem at hand.

In his 1987 paper “Truth or Consequences,” Dan Brock describes a deep conflict between the goals and virtues of philosophical scholarship and public policymaking: whereas the former is concerned with the search for truth, the latter must primarily be concerned with promoting good consequences. When philosophers are engaged in policymaking, he argues, they must shift their primary goal from truth to consequences—but this has both moral and methodological costs. Brock’s argument exemplifies a pessimistic, but not uncommon, view of the possible (...) shape and nature of applied philosophy. The present paper paints a richer and more optimistic picture. It argues that the difference between theoretical philosophy and applied philosophy is not best understood as a choice between truth and consequences. On the contrary, applied philosophers engage in forms of truth‐seeking that are properly concerned with consequences—including the consequences of philosophical practice itself. (shrink)

There is growing evidence that dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) used to treat Parkinson’s Disease can cause compulsive behaviours and impulse control disorders (ICDs), such as pathological gambling, compulsive buying and hypersexuality. Like more familiar drug-based forms of addiction, these iatrogenic disorders can cause significant harm and distress for sufferers and their families. In some cases, people treated with DRT have lost their homes and businesses, or have been prosecuted for criminal sexual behaviours. In this article we first examine the evidence (...) that these disorders are caused by DRT. If it is accepted that DRT cause compulsive or addictive behaviours in a significant minority of individuals, then the following ethical and clinical questions arise: Under what circumstances is it ethical to prescribe a medication that may induce harmful compulsive behaviours? Are individuals treated with DRT morally responsible and hence culpable for harmful or criminal behaviour related to their medication? We conclude with some observations of the relevance of DRT-induced ICDs for our understanding of addiction and identify some promising directions for future research and ethical analysis. (shrink)

Person-centred care is a cornerstone of contemporary health policy, research and practice. However, many researchers and practitioners worry that it lacks a 'clear definition and method of measurement,' and that this creates problems for the implementation of person-centred care and limits understanding of its benefits. In this paper we urge caution about this concern and resist calls for a clear, settled definition and measurement approach. We develop a philosophical and conceptual analysis which is grounded in the body of literature concerning (...) the theory and practice of person-centred care. We consider a range of influential definitional frameworks of person-centred care, highlighting their differences and showing that they do not correspond to a clearly circumscribed and consistent underlying concept. We argue that a degree of indeterminacy and vagueness should not be seen as a problem with the concept of person-centred care; these are features of a rich and contested concept which exists prior to and outside of practical and technical operational definitions and applications. We defend the value of operating with multiple accounts of person-centred care, arguing that what counts as being person-centred can vary across different care contexts, in relation to different patient groups, and as a reflection of different, defensible ethical perspectives. Although the idea of a single, agreed definition is attractive and may seem to be a practical or even necessary step towards meaningful and coordinated action, we argue that this is only the case in a qualified sense. Comprehensive attempts to narrow down the concept in this way should be resisted, as they risk undermining what it is that makes person-centredness a valuable concept in healthcare. (shrink)

This paper analyses the ethics of routine measurement for healthcare improvement. Routine measurement is an increasingly central part of healthcare system design and is taken to be necessary for successful healthcare improvement efforts. It is widely recognised that the effectiveness of routine measurement in bringing about improvement is limited—it often produces only modest effects or fails to generate anticipated improvements at all. We seek to show that these concerns do not exhaust the ethics of routine measurement. Even if routine measurement (...) does lead to healthcare improvements, it has associated ethical costs which are not necessarily justified by its benefits. We argue that the practice of routine measurement changes the function of the healthcare system, resulting in an unintended and ethically significant transformation of the sector. It is difficult to determine whether such changes are justified or offset by the benefits of routine measurement because there may be no shared understanding of what is ‘good’ in healthcare by which to compare the benefits of routine measurement with the goods that are precluded by it. We counsel that the practice of routine measurement should proceed with caution and should be recognised to be an ethically significant choice, rather than an inevitability. (shrink)

Constructivist research in Science and Technology Studies is committed to revealing the heterogeneity of technological change and the fluid boundaries between the elements involved. Its major theories, the Social Construction of Technology and Actor Network Theory, have however both been criticized for limiting themselves to the micro-level of cases, impeding a structural analysis of technological systems. This article seeks to bridge any such divides. We research the recent changes in the viticulture of Mendoza, Argentina, which underwent radical changes over the (...) past decades: once governed by low-cost yield maximization, grape production now revolves around “quality.” To show how the particular quality definition developed, we depart from a social-constructivist framework, following the sociotechnical shaping of problem-solution relationships across the wine production system. To include relevant social groups from different settings around the world, we gradually incorporate the ANT concepts of obligatory passage points, enrollment, convergence, delegation, and codes into the analysis. Combined into the concept of “sociotechnical alliance,” our analysis follows the dual process of creating agreement while establishing heterogeneous practices across settings at different levels. It shows that functioning involves alliance building and highlights the hybridity and continuous dynamics of systems at large. (shrink)

Neste trabalho apresentamos alguns resultados da pesquisa de doutorado desenvolvida junto à faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo entre 2002 e 2006, com o título: Ética do discurso e Ética Universal do Ser Humano: convergências entre Paulo Freire e Jurgen Habermas. Trata-se de uma breve descrição dos resultados obtidos, no intuito de aproximar o pensamento de dois autores complexos e de grande importância no pensamento filosófico mundial. Por um lado temos Paulo Freire e sua preocupação em relacionar educação (...) e crítica social libertadora. Por outro, o esforço gigantesco de Jürgen Habermas em produzir uma grande interpretação sobre o mundo, defendendo o projeto inicial da modernidade. Ambos se aproximam no final da década de 1990, chegando quase a um encontro pessoal, no âmbito da Teoria Crítica da Sociedade, quando seguidores de lado a lado identificam conceitos e intenções próximos, como a ideia do diálogo qualificado, de uma ética universalista possível, de uma emancipação humana no horizonte. (shrink)

This article investigates the theoretical assumptions and implications of de Ste. Croix’s approach to interstate politics in The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. It suggests that two approaches can be identified in the work: one which sees a fundamental connection between political systems within a state and that state’s conduct of interstate politics, and another, closer to conventional ‘Realist’ theories, which sees a clear dividing line between domestic and interstate politics, and in which interstate relations need to be understood according (...) to a distinct analytical framework. Although this tension was probably not a particular concern to de Ste. Croix himself, it does have a bearing on ongoing debates in International Theory; the final part of the article briefly explores the possibility that the concept of ‘compulsion’, important to both Thucydides’ and de Ste. Croix’s understanding of the causes of the Peloponnesian War, might provide a way of reconciling these two approaches. (shrink)

P. J. Rhodes: Preface Polly Low and Graham Oliver: Comparing Cultures of Commemoration in Ancient and Modern Societies Polly Low: The Monuments ot the War Dead in Classical Athens: Forms, Contexts, Meanings Alison Cooley: Commemorating the War Dead of the Roman World Angelos Chaniotis: The Ritualised Commemoration of War in the Hellenistic City: Memory, Identity, Emotion Avner Ben-Amos: Two Neo-Classical Monuments in Modern France: The Pantheon and Arc de Triomphe Graham Oliver: Naming the Dead, Writing the Individual: Classical (...) Traditions and Commemorative Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Stefan Goebel: Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials Lawrence A. Tritle: Monument to Defeat: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in American Culture and Society. (shrink)

This study investigates whether the host personality and the primary alterpersonality of a woman with multiple personality disorder are controlled by the left and right hemispheres, respectively. Results support the hypothesis. Behavioral and preference measures indicate that Pe is strongly right handed and Pa is left handed. Verbal and musical dichotic tests show significantly greater accuracy for stimuli presented to the left ear for Pa and to the right ear for Pe. It is concluded that shifts in hemisphericity involve redistribution (...) of attentional resources and callosal suppression. “Conditional handedness” is proposed as a handedness subtype, characterizing persons who alternate personalities and consistently display alternate hand preferences linked to specific personality characteristics. (shrink)