An experimental survey was undertakento explore the links between thecharacteristics of a moral issue, the degree ofmoral intensity/moral imperative associatedwith the issue, and people'sstated willingness to pay for policy toaddress the issue. Two farm animal welfareissues were chosen for comparison and thecontingent valuation method was used to elicitpeople's wtp. The findings of the surveysuggest that increases in moral characteristicsdo appear to result in an increase in moralintensity and the degree of moral imperativeassociated with an issue. Moreover, there was apositive link (...) between moral intensity/moralimperative associated with an issue andpeople's stated wtp for policy to address theissue. The paper discusses the relevance of thefindings of the survey in the context of thedebate concerning the relationship betweenmoral and economic values and the use of thecontingent valuation method to estimatepeople's wtp of policy options with moraldimensions. (shrink)

The algorithmic turn in photography raises the question of whether an algorithmically generated image is even a photograph at all. This paradox is abundant on India's urban streets, where the pedestrian or road user is met with giant photo saturated flex hoardings printed with political and community messages and photo-shopped portraits of gods, chief ministers and party workers. In this article, attention to photo-based political posters alongside art practices sharing common elements of digital capture and postproduction contextualizes a reading of (...) technologically produced visual landscapes in the South Indian city of Bangalore. Informed by Vilèm Flusser, the techno-materiality of hoardings are interpreted as visual practices whose reliance on Microsoft and Adobe softwares reveal more than the semiotic information that is ostensibly transmitted; in so doing the extent to which photography is a useful entry point for assessing the visuality in which we're currently living and how this gets locally inflected in the case of India is explored. (shrink)

This paper argues that much of Jacques Rancière’s redefinition of emancipation owes a lot to one key character from his archival research on nineteenth-century worker-poets, Louis-Gabriel Gauny, the self-proclaimed plebeian philosopher. This is especially the case in regard to Rancière’s understanding of subjectivation forming a double of the self and a double of social reality as worlds within worlds. The paper puts forward that Gauny’s form of emancipation is valid today as an aesthetic revolution that reveals Rancière’s practices of equality (...) to be an emancipatory way of life. In doing so, it will engage with Gauny’s connection with the contemporary precariat. (shrink)

Argues that the only way to understand the Confucian vision of the consummate moral life is to take the tradition on its own terms.

Abstract:Contemporary painting is a complex practice, and artists regularly incorporate elements from different media such as photography, textile, and performance. Despite its status being diminished by different conceptual art movements, painting still has a critically important place in the artworld. This importance is largely due to painting’s ability to stretch across media and make a direct appeal to the senses. In this article, an attempt is made to theorize the facility of painting to incorporate different media and its resulting reflexivity. (...) Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodiment and phenomenological theory of metaphor provide the theoretical means to articulate reflexivity in painting. Curatorial writing about contemporary painting and case studies of young painters from India form a backdrop for the analysis of examples from the painting practice of one of the authors to demonstrate the material dynamism of painting. It is shown that this reflexivity is intimately related to the sensuous texture of materials used in the creation of the paintings under discussion. The first-person narrative of artistic process and production provides insight into the embodied process of making and manipulating media and evidence that painters can create new insights about the ontology of painting. (shrink)

Developing research self-efficacy is an important part of doctoral student preparation. Despite the documented importance of research self-efficacy, little is known about the progression of doctoral students’ research self-efficacy over time in general and for students from minoritized groups. This study examined both within- and between-person stability of research self-efficacy from semester to semester over 4 years, focusing on doctoral students in biological sciences. Using random intercept autoregressive analyses, we evaluated differences in stability across gender, racially minoritized student status, and (...) first-generation student status. Results showed similar mean levels of self-efficacy across demographic groups and across time. However, there were notable differences in between-person and within-person stability over time, specifically showing higher between-person and lower within-person stability for racially minoritized and first-generation students. These findings indicate that racially minoritized and first-generation students’ research self-efficacy reports were less consistent from semester to semester. Such results may indicate that non-minoritized and continuing-generation students’ experiences from semester to semester typically reinforce their beliefs about their own abilities related to conducting research, while such is not the case for racially minoritized nor first-generation students. Future research should examine what types of experiences impact self-efficacy development across doctoral study to offer more precise insights about factors that influence these differences in within-person stability. (shrink)

The earliest Analects yet discovered, this work provides us with a new perspective on the central canonical text that has defined Chinese culture--and clearly illuminates the spirit and values of Confucius.

This article investigates the textual strategies with which Maeve Murphy's Silent Grace addresses viewers in contemporary Northern Ireland. Borrowing Eric Santner's concept of `narrative fetishism', the analysis examines how the film's representation of the past obscures the historical realities experienced by female political prisoners in Armagh jail in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From this standpoint, its ethical relation to historical `truth' and responsibilities to its local audience are debated.

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.

This paper defends moral testimony pessimism, the view that there is something morally or epistemically regrettable about relying on the moral testimony of others, against several arguments in Lillehammer. One central such argument is that reliance on testimony is inconsistent with the exercise of true practical wisdom. Lillehammer doubts whether such reliance is always objectionable, but it is important to note that moral testimony pessimism is best understood as a view about the pro tanto, rather than the overall, badness of (...) relying on testimony. One must also be clear about what counts as genuine moral testimony: there will be morally charged occasions when a virtuous person will properly rely on the views of others. It can also plausibly be argued that relying on moral testimony may constitute a lack of full autonomy. After discussing some remaining issues concerning the definition of moral testimony, a possible analogy between lying and relying on testimony, and the implications of untrustworthiness for the truth of moral testimony pessimism, the paper ends with a return to the case against relying on moral testimony, grounded on a conception of the role of knowledge and understanding in virtue. (shrink)

Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

Preanalytically, we are all scientific realists. But both philosophers and scientists become uncomfortable when forced into analysis. In the case of scientists, this discomfort often arises from practical difficulties in setting out a carefully described set of objects which adequately account for the phenomena with which they are concerned. This paper offers a set of representative examples of these difficulties for contemporary physicists. These examples challenge the traditional realist vision of mature scientific activity as struggling toward an ontologically well-defined world (...) picture. They challenge antirealist alternatives as well. (shrink)

We claim that if a complete philosophy of evidence-based practice is intended, then attention to the nature of causation in health science is necessary. We identify how health science currently conceptualises causation by the way it prioritises some research methods over others. We then show how the current understanding of what causation is serves to constrain scientific progress. An alternative account of causation is offered. This is one of dispositionalism. We claim that by understanding causation from a dispositionalist stance, many (...) of the processes within an evidence-based practice framework are better accounted for. Further, some of the problems associated with the health research, e.g. external validity of causal findings, dissolve. (shrink)

Explaining the behaviour of ecosystems is one of the key challenges for the biological sciences. Since 2000, new-mechanicism has been the main model to account for the nature of scientific explanation in biology. The universality of the new-mechanist view in biology has been however put into question due to the existence of explanations that account for some biological phenomena in terms of their mathematical properties (mathematical explanations). Supporters of mathematical explanation have argued that the explanation of the behaviour of ecosystems (...) is usually provided in terms of their mathematical properties, and not in mechanistic terms. They have intensively studied the explanation of the properties of ecosystems that behave following the rules of a non-random network. However, no attention has been devoted to the study of the nature of the explanation in those that form a random network. In this paper, we cover that gap by analysing the explanation of the stability behaviour of the microbiome recently elaborated by Coyte and colleagues, to determine whether it fits with the model of explanation suggested by the new-mechanist or by the defenders of mathematical explanation. Our analysis of this case study supports three theses: (1) that the explanation is not given solely in terms of mechanisms, as the new-mechanists understand the concept; (2) that the mathematical properties that describe the system play an essential explanatory role, but they do not exhaust the explanation; (3) that a non-previously identified appeal to the type of interactions that the entities in the network can exhibit, as well as their abundance, is also necessary for Coyte and colleagues’ account to be fully explanatory. From the combination of these three theses we argue for the necessity of an integrative pluralist view of the nature of behaviour explanation when this is given by appealing to the existence of a random network. (shrink)

Published in 1897, this was the first complete edition of Roger Bacon's influential thirteenth-century encyclopedia of science.

The volume touches upon many topics and themes shared by Cartesian and late scholastic philosophy: matter and form; infinity, place, time, void, and motion; the ...

Roger Ariew presents a new account of Descartes as a philosopher who sought to engage his contemporaries and society. He argues that the Principles of Philosophy was written to rival Scholastic textbooks, and considers Descartes' enterprise in contrast to the tradition it was designed to replace and in relation to the works of the first Cartesians.