This book explores the puzzling phenomenon of new veiling practices among lower middle class women in Cairo, Egypt. Although these women are part of a modernizing middle class, they also voluntarily adopt a traditional symbol of female subordination. How can this paradox be explained? An explanation emerges which reconceptualizes what appears to be reactionary behavior as a new style of political struggle--as accommodating protest. These women, most of them clerical workers in the large government bureaucracy, are ambivalent about working outside (...) the home, considering it a change which brings new burdens as well as some important benefits. At the same time they realize that leaving home and family is creating an intolerable situation of the erosion of their social status and the loss of their traditional identity. The new veiling expresses women's protest against this. MacLeod argues that the symbolism of the new veiling emerges from this tense subcultural dilemma, involving elements of both resistance and acquiescence. (shrink)

Cautioning in advance that summary treatment of any aspect of Dewey's thought, much less one as far-reaching in compass as his ethics, must of necessity be omissive, I shall in the following develop what I believe to be the most plausible rendering of his ethical philosophy. In so doing I will confine myself principally to explicating his stand vis-à-vis contemporary metaethical positions, though I will expand upon this in the later sections and introduce some of his normative, or substantive, views (...) as well. In the final section I will outline a theory of morality as a whole which, though nowhere explicitly defended by Dewey, is consonant with the various theses he does defend. The burden of my argument, however, will be to show, first, that he is not holding the sort of position usually characterized as ethical naturalism, and secondly, that the position he does hold marks a significant departure from all three of the conventional metaethical positions, intuitionism, naturalism, and noncognitivism. Metaphorically he stands at the third point of a triangle, the other two points of which are naturalism and emotivism, for he adapts salient features of each of these positions to an orientation which fits the framework of his view of the nature of ethics, science and philosophy in general. Let us begin by assessing the chief arguments in support of a naturalistic interpretation, as these will provide a point of departure for clarifying his considered view. (shrink)

"To claim that Works of Love is an important philosophical essay is to assume hazardous burden of proof. The book's title is an allusion to the Bible's injunction that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves, a far cry, far instance, from Diotoma's ladder of erotic desire up which we climb from the love of bodies until we catch a vision of that "single sea of beauty," beauty itself (Plato, Symposium). This contrast, given that some of some (...) of our neighbors may not be particularly likable or one may even be a determined enemy, suggests immediately to some that a book with such an obviously religious title must be excessively moralistic and, at best, full of sermon helps for the harried clergy or, at worst, laden with rules for the unlearned laity. A casual perusal of a few paragraphs, however, shows these "put-down" views of the book to be unfounded"--. (shrink)

In this paper, we approach the idea of group cognition from the perspective of the “extended mind” thesis, as a special case of the more general claim that systems larger than the individual human, but containing that human, are capable of cognition (Clark, 2008; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Instead of deliberating about “the mark of the cognitive” (Adams & Aizawa, 2008), our discussion of group cognition is tied to particular cognitive capacities. We review recent studies of group problem-solving and group (...) memory which reveal that specific cognitive capacities that are commonly ascribed to individuals are also aptly ascribed at the level of groups. These case studies show how dense interactions among people within a group lead to both similarity-inducing and differentiating dynamics that affect the group's ability to solve problems. This supports our claim that groups have organization-dependent cognitive capacities that go beyond the simple aggregation of the cognitive capacities of individuals. Group cognition is thus an emergent phenomenon in the sense of Wimsatt (1986). We further argue that anybody who rejects our strategy for showing that cognitive properties can be instantiated at multiple levels in the organizational hierarchy on a priori grounds is a “demergentist,” and thus incurs the burden of proof for explaining why cognitive properties are “stuck” at a certain level of organizational structure. Finally, we show that our analysis of group cognition escapes the “coupling-constitution” charge that has been leveled against the extended mind thesis (Adams & Aizawa, 2008). (shrink)

While vaccination rates in the United States are high — generally over 90 percent — rates of exemptions have been going up, and preventable diseases coming back. Aside from their human cost and the financial cost of treatment imposed on those who become ill, outbreaks impose financial costs on an already burdened public health system, diverting resources from other areas. This article examines the financial costs of non-vaccination, showing how high they can be and what they include. It makes a (...) case for requiring those who do not vaccinate to cover the costs of outbreak caused by their choice. Such recouping is justified because the choice not to vaccinate can easily be seen as negligent. But even if it is not, that choice involves imposing costs on others, and there are good reasons to require the actors to internalize those costs. The article proposes alternative statutory and regulatory schemes to cover the costs imposed on the public purse, focusing on no-fault mechanisms. We consider both ex ante mechanisms like a tax or a fee that will go into a no-fault fund to cover the costs and ex post mechanisms like a statutory authorization for recoupment of those costs by health officials. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

An informed consent and voluntary assent in biomedical research with adolescents is contingent on a variety of factors, including adolescent and parent perceptions of research risk, benefit, and decision-making autonomy. Thirty-seven adolescents with asthma and their parents evaluated a high or low aversion form of a pediatric asthma research vignette and provided an enrollment decision; their perceptions of family influence over the participation decision; and evaluations of risk, aversion, benefit, and burden of study procedures. Adolescents and their parents agreed (...) on research participation decisions 74% of the time, yet both claimed ultimate responsibility for the participation decision. Both rated most study procedures as significantly more aversive than risky. Parents were more likely to rate aspects of the hypothetical study as beneficial and to provide higher risk ratings for procedures. Disagreements concerning research participation decisions and decision-making autonomy have implications for the exercise of voluntary assent in biomedical research. (shrink)

Schizophrenia affects more than 1% of the world's population, causing great personal suffering and socioeconomic burden. These costs associated with schizophrenia necessitate inquiry into the causes and treatment of the illness but generate ethical challenges related to the specific nature and deficits of the illness itself. In this article, we present a systematic analysis of narrative data from 63 people living with the illness of schizophrenia collected through semistructured interviews about their attitudes, beliefs, and experiences related to psychiatric research. (...) In the comments of these individuals, half of whom had had prior personal experience in research protocols, we identified factors influencing openness toward research involvement as well as deterrents that appear to lessen interest in participation. Clear response pattern differences emerged between those with prior research experience and those without such experience. In the discussion, we explore these key findings and outline the implications for safeguards in mental illness research. (shrink)

In the typical single-stimulus perceptual identification task, accuracy is improved by prior study of test words, a repetition priming benefit. There is also a cost, inasmuch as previously studied words are likely to be produced as responses if the test word is orthographically similar but not identical to a studied word. In two-alternative forced-choice perceptual identification, a test word is flashed and followed by two alternatives, one of which is the correct response. When the two alternatives are orthographically similar, test (...) words identical to previously studied items are identified more accurately than new words but tests words orthographically similar to studied words are identified less accurately than new words . Ratcliff and McKoon argue that these are bias effects that arise in the decision stage of word identification. We report five experiments that examined the alternative hypothesis that these bias effects arise from postperceptual guessing strategies. In single-stimulus perceptual identification, repetition priming benefits were equally great for young and older adults who claimed to use deliberate guessing strategies and those who did not . In contrast, only groups of young and older people who claimed to deliberately guess studied words in a two-alternative forced-choice task showed reliable benefits and costs. Costs and benefits were abolished in the two-alternative forced-choice task when a very long study list was used, presumably because the increased retrieval burden made the use of deliberate guessing strategies less attractive . Under conditions similar to those of Experiment 3, repetition priming was observed in single-stimulus perceptual identification . These results are consistent with the view that costs and benefits in the forced-choice perceptual identification task arise from deliberate guessing strategies but that those in the single-stimulus task do not. The possibility that the observed relationship between strategy reports and priming effects reflects erroneous postexperimental assessments of strategies by participants is also considered. (shrink)

This is the second of four papers to be published in Research Ethics Review in 2009 that address methodological issues of relevance to research ethics committees. It focuses on three issues: the appropriateness of the research question, the different types of study design available, including both qualitative and quantitative, and the need for, and choice of, a control group. The paper argues that these issues are key to ethical consideration since inappropriate design may not be salvageable and can lead to (...) unusable data, in which case the risks and burdens to participants would be unjustified. (shrink)

It is frequently noted that a “crisis in language” accompanied the profound changes in human consciousness everywhere evident near the turn of the century. As the nature of reality itself became problematic—or at least suspect, distrusted for its imposition of limits upon individual imagination—so, necessarily, did the relationship of language to reality. Thus in the later nineteenth century, the adequacy of an essentially standardized form of “classical” writing was increasingly questioned as an effective vehicle for artistic expression: even though often (...) in “elevated” form, such writing bore too close a connection to ordinary discourse. Indeed, it was precisely the mutually shared, conventional aspects of language that came to be most deeply distrusted for their failure to mirror the more subjective, obscure, and improbable manifestations of a transcendent reality or, rather, realities—the plural reflecting an insistence upon the optional and provisional nature of human experience. Language in its normal manifestations—with its conventionalized vocabulary and standardized rules for syntactical combination—proved inadequate for an artistic sensibility demanding, in Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “a world of abnormally drawn perspectives.”This dissatisfaction with “normal” language received its classic statement through Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Lord Chandos. Writing in 1902, Hofmannsthal conveys through the figure of the aristocratic Chandos the loss of an encompassing framework within which the various objects of external reality are connected with one another and integrated with the internal reality of human feelings. Chandos’ world has become one of disparate, disconnected fragments, resistant to the abstractions of ordinary language. It is a world characterized by “a sort of feverish thought, but thought in a material that is more immediate, more fluid, and more intense than that of language.” Chandos longs for a new language in which not a single word is known to me, a language in which mute objects speak to me and in which perhaps one day, in the grave, I will give account of myself before an unknown judge.”2 The content and forms of art thus shifted away from exterior reality, which no longer provided a stable, “given” material, toward language itself—to “pure” language in a sense closely related to the symbolists’ “pure” poetry. “No artist tolerates reality,” Nietzsche proclaimed.3 And Gustave Flaubert’s farsighted advice to himself was that he should write “a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the internal strength of its style.”4 2. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, “Ein Brief,” Gesammelte Werke, ed. Bernd Schoeller with Rudolf Hirsch, 10 vols. , 7:471-72; my translation. All further translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.3. Friedrich Nitzsche, Complete Works, ed. Oscar Levy, 18 vols. , vol. 15, The Will to Power, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici, p. 74.4. Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert to Louise Colet, 16 Jan. 1852, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857, ed. and trans. Francis Steegmuller , p. 154. Other passages in this letter are equally remarkable for their “modernist” tone. Flaubert argues that from the standpoint of l’Art pur, “one might almost establish the axiom that there is no such thing as subject—style in itself being an absolute manner of seeing things” . Further:The finest works are those that contain the least matter; the closer expression comes to thought, the closer language comes to coinciding and merging with it, the finer the result. I believe the future of Art lies in this direction. I see it, as it has developed from its beginnings, growing progressively more ethereal …. Form, in becoming more skillful, becomes attenuated, it leaves behind all liturgy, rule, measure; the epic is discarded in favor of the novel, verse in favor of prose; there is no longer any orthodoxy, and form is as free as the will of its creator. This progressive shedding of the burden of tradition can be observed everywhere: governments have gone through similar evolution, from oriental despotisms to the socialisms of the future. [P. 154] Robert P. Morgan, professor of music at the University of Chicago, is currently writing a history of twentieth-century music and working on a study of form in nineteenth-century music. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “On the Analysis of Recent Music” and “Musical Time/Musical Space”. (shrink)

Memory, perception, and decision in letter identification; Studies of visual information processing in man; Retrieval as a memory modifier: an interpretation of negative recency and related phenomena Memory representations of text.

Is history more than (in Boswell's words) a `chronological series of remarkable events'? Does it have a pattern? Is it fraught with `meaning'? Can we discern its trends? What determines its course? In short, can a substantial and coherent philosophy of history be devised that offers answers to these questions? These issues, which have intrigued -and bedeviled - historians for centuries, are explored in this thoughtful book.

Conceptual and methodological changes in ecology have the potential to alter significantly the way we view the world. A result of embracing a dynamic model has been to make ecological restoration projects a viable alternative, whereas under 'equilibrium ecology' restoration was considered destructive interference. The logic of sustainability strategies within the context of dynamic forces promises a greater compatibility with anthropogenic activity. Unhappily, environmental restoration turns out to be paradoxical under the current identification of wilderness with wildness where wildness is, (...) at least, a necessary condition for the possession of natural value. The solution to the paradox is to separate wilderness from wildness both conceptually and ontologically by enlarging the domain of wildness to include certain human activities. (shrink)

In three experiments we studied lay observers’ attributions of responsibility for an antisocial act (homicide). We systematically varied both the degree to which the action was coerced by external circumstances and the degree to which the actor endorsed and accepted ownership of the act, a psychological state that philosophers have termed ‘identification’. Our findings with respect to identification were highly consistent. The more an actor was identified with an action, the more likely observers were to assign responsibility to the actor, (...) even when the action was performed under constraints so powerful that no other behavioral option was available. Our findings indicate that social cognition involving assignment of responsibility for an action is a more complex process than previous research has indicated. It would appear that laypersons’ judgments of moral responsibility may, in some circumstances, accord with philosophical views in which freedom and determinism are regarded to be compatible. (shrink)

It is not possible to date when environmental studies became ‘Environmental Studies’. Nevertheless it has had a turbulent history marked by inconsistency, conflict and change. It is not surprising that at present it lacks disciplinary coherence and is subject to various definitions, often contradictory. There is ongoing speculation as to the cause of this identity crisis: ‘curricular universalism’ (absence of a unifying concept), academic territorialism and pedagogical clashes. I argue that a philosophical inquiry into the role of values in Environmental (...) Studies provides the missing coherence and unity. Further, I argue that environmental problems directly related to deliberate human action are the province of applied philosophy and offer a formal argument to support this claim, and briefly address and dismiss the controversy over the teaching of values. I conclude that Environmental Studies is inherently part of the philosophical enterprise; as such it belongs with the humanities. The discussion takes as its starting point the context of college and university education in the US, but the issues raised have more general relevance. (shrink)

Advertisers often have been accused of using techniques which manipulate and control the behavior of consumers and hence violate their autonomy. Some of these techniques are puffery, subliminal advertising, and indirect information transfer. After examining both criticisms and defenses of such practices, this paper presents an analysis of four of the concepts involved in the debate — the concepts of autonomous desire, rational desire, free choice, and control. Applying the results to the case of advertising, it is shown that advertising (...) cannot be found guilty of intrinsically or frequently violating the consumer's autonomy in any of the relevant senses of this notion. (shrink)

How do you decide what is ethically wrong and right? Few people make moral judgments by taking the theory first. Specifically written with the interests, needs, and experience of students in mind, this textbook approaches thinking ethically as you do in real life – by first encountering practical moral problems and then introducing theory to understand and integrate the issues. Built around engaging case studies from news media, court hearings, famous speeches and philosophical writings, each of the 15 chapters: - (...) explains and defines the moral problem dealt with - provides excerpts of readings on all sides of the issue - analyses the problem, using the relevant theory The examples are recognizable ethical problems, including judgments about racism and sexism, controversial debates such as assisted suicide and the death penalty, and contemporary concerns like privacy and technology, corporate responsibility, and the environment. The mission of the book is to assist you to engage in informed, independent, critical thinking and to enable you to enter into ethical discussions in the classroom and beyond. Supported by learning features, including study questions, key quotes, handy definitions and a companion website, this book is essential for any student of moral philosophy. (shrink)

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their ...

Self-Hypnosis: The Complete Manual for Health and Self-Change, 2nd ed offers a step-by step guide to using hypnosis to better well-being and stronger self-control. For over two decades renowned therapist and author Brian Alman showed thousands of individuals how to use self-inductive techniques for relief from pain, stress, and discomfort. Self-hypnosis assists in meditation and fosters positive self-regard. The exercises in Self-Hypnosis are clear, concise and easily attainable. As an effective therapy in alleviating the pain of childbirth, medical and dental (...) surgery, burns, and accidental injuries, hypnosis is practiced widely. Hypnosis in pain relief is a noninvasive and natural healing process. Self-Hypnosis makes this healing technique available to the lay reader. (shrink)

The cambridge platonists exemplify the fear that newtonian natural philosophy subverts the status of traditional moral and religious beliefs, Which are strongly supported by the innate idea doctrine since it justifies them independently of the senses and the material universe. Isaac barrow, Friend and teacher of newton, Also employs the doctrine approbatively to support his metaphysics as a science of basic principles that constitute the foundation of natural science. Locke's rejection of the doctrine is analyzed and it is suggested that (...) the platonist's treatment of the active role of the mind in sensation could have been developed in eighteenth century britain if locke's polemic had not been so successful. (shrink)

This volume provides a wide-ranging and lucid introduction to the major ethical theories found in the history of Western philosophy.

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their connection both to ethical theory and to concrete moral dilemmas that arise in actual athletic competition. This fourth edition has been updated with new examples, including a discussion of Spygate by the New England Patriots and recent discoveries on the use of performance enhancing drugs by top athletes. Two additional authors, Cesar R. Torres and Peter (...) F. Hager, bring to this edition a discussion of the moral issues involved in youth sports and the ethics of being a fan, as well as a fresh perspective on the theories of broad internalism and the quest for excellence. Furthermore, major criticisms of broad internalism by philosophers William J. Morgan and Scott Kretchmar add a new dimension to the discussion on the moral foundations of winning. (shrink)

Information modeling (also known as conceptual modeling or semantic data modeling) may be characterized as the formulation of a model in which information aspects of objective and subjective reality are presented (the application), independent of datasets and processes by which they may be realized (the system).A methodology for information modeling should incorporate a number of concepts which have appeared in the literature, but should also be formulated in terms of constructs which are understandable to and expressible by the system user (...) as well as the system developer. This is particularly desirable in connection with certain intimate relationships, such as being the same as or being a part of. (shrink)

This unique study brings together for the first time two of the most important philosophers of this century. Never before have these two thinkers been compared - and commentators' opinions on their relationship differ greatly. Are the views of Wittgenstein and Quine on method and the nature of philosophy comparable or radically opposed? Does Wittgenstein's concept of language engender that of Quine, or threaten its philosophical foundations? An understanding of the similarities and differences between the thought of Wittgenstein and of (...) Quine is essential if we are to have a full picture of contemporary philosophy. This collection of essays offers diverse and original ways in which to view their relationship. (shrink)