Contemporary critical approaches to bioethics increasingly present themselves as “relational,” though the meaning of relationality and its implications for bioethics seem to be many and varying. I argue that this confusion is due to a multiplicity of relational approaches originating from distinct theoretical lineages. In this article, I identify four key differences among commonly referenced relational approaches: the scope and nature of relationships considered, the extent of the determining influence on individual selfhood, and the integrity of individual selfhood. Importantly, these (...) four differences carry consequences for the usage of relational approaches within academic and clinical bioethics. I show that these differences attach to multiple objects of critique within mainstream bioethics and imply distinct metaethical commitments. Although I issue a cautionary note about combining relational approaches from distinct lineages, I close by suggesting that many such approaches may have their use, drawing on Susan Sherwin's sense of bioethical theories as lenses. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 4, April 2022. -/- In a moment where needs for care are acute and their provision precarious, feminist care ethics has gained new relevance as a framework for understanding and responding to necessary interdependence. This article reviews and evaluates two long-standing critiques of care ethics in light of this recent research. First, I assess what I call the pluralist feminist critique, or the dispute over the ability of care ethics to address the needs and histories (...) of a range of marginalized subjects. I identify two forms of this critique: the first disputes the biased starting points shaping the development of the theory, and the second concerns the weaponization of care in support of domination. Although these critiques are well-established, I draw attention to recent responses that move care theory in generative directions. I argue that the pluralist feminist critique demands both self-critical transformation in dialog with other feminist schools of thought and a robust account of care ethics' normative authority. I then take up critiques those levied by mainstream ethicists concerned with care theory's adequacy as an ethical approach. I show that recent work on normative authority, conceptual uniqueness, and the grounding of responsibility must be engaged before care theory can be dismissed as “under-theorized.” In articulating these two sets of critiques and evaluating recent rebuttals to them, I argue for a pluralist feminist theory of care within which strands informed by varying philosophical schools and methods can coexist. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics, edited by Wendy A. Rogers et al., presents a thorough, contemporary understanding of feminist bioethics, linking feminist efforts to other critical approaches in the field of bioethics. A more demanding standard for feminist scholarship is set by engaging gender at its intersections with race, class, sexuality, and ability––intersections that require bioethicists to attend to issues like incarceration and transmisogynistic violence that are less frequently tackled in the field. Editors and contributors alike in this volume (...) show that long‐standing feminist conceptual interventions, especially those regarding the significance of relationality and epistemic marginalization, provide key tools for a coalition of critical approaches to bioethics. (shrink)

“Care robots” offer technological solutions to increasing needs for care just as economic imperatives increasingly regulate the care sector. Ethical critiques of this technology cannot succeed without situating themselves within the crisis of social reproduction under neoliberal capitalism. What, however, constitutes “care” and its status as a potential critical resource, and how might care robots damage this potential? Although robots might threaten norms of care, I argue that they are by no means necessarily damaging. Critiques of care robots must not (...) entrench exclusionary images of the ideal carer. Instead, critical reflection on their use should trouble dominant paradigms of care. (shrink)

Introduction: The humanities enrich and transform the practice of medicine. What remains to be seen, however, is how best to integrate humanities into the medical curriculum to optimize both educational and patient-related outcomes. The present study considers the structure of an innovative student-driven humanities curriculum and seeks to understand its strengths and limitations, as well as make recommendations for improvement. Methods: The Penn State College of Medicine, University Park Regional Campus uses an inquiry-based approach to education, whereby students are responsible (...) for creating learning objectives in four core pillars of exploration: Foundational Science, Clinical Science, Health Systems Science, and Health Humanities. This study explores student-derived humanities learning objectives (HLO) across four years of the curriculum. Results: 420 HLOs met criteria for analysis and were coded as instrumental (developing direct clinical skill), non-instrumental (non-skill based), or both. Of these, 125 (30%) were instrumental, 239 (57%) were non-instrumental, and 56 (13%) were coded as both. Most instrumental HLO centered around communication skills. Non-instrumental HLO most commonly focused on bearing witness and critiquing a particular experience within a social and/or political context. Conclusions: Findings from this study contribute to the development of a humanities curriculum in a student-directed learning program. Non-instrumental HLO lacked a theoretical framework to guide student’s investigations to a deeper level of analysis. Student-directed learning offers many strengths, but can be enhanced through external direction from humanities trained faculty, particularly given that many medical students have a limited humanities background. (shrink)

The crisis of Covid‐19 has forced us to notice two things: our human interdependence and American society's tolerance for what Nancy Krieger has called “inequalities embodied in health inequities,” reflected in data on Covid‐19 mortality and geographies. Care is integral to our recovery from this catastrophe and to the development of sustainable public health policies and practices that promote societal resilience and reduce the vulnerabilities of our citizens. Drawing on the insights of Joan Tronto and Eva Feder Kittay, we argue (...) that the ethics of care offers a critical alternative to utilitarian and deontological approaches and provides a street‐ready framework for integration into public health deliberations to anchor public policy and investments concerning the recovery and future well‐being of America's citizens and society. (shrink)

This commentary responds to “Home Care in America: The Urgent Challenge of Putting Ethical Care into Practice,” by Coleman Solis and colleagues, in the May‐June 2023 issue of the Hastings Center Report. More specifically, we respond to the authors’ call for “inquiry into the nature, value, and practice” of home care. We argue that the most urgently needed normative reset for thinking about care work is the replacement of dominant individualistic thinking with systemic thinking. Deepening a focus on the social, (...) economic, and historical forces that shape the state of contemporary care work will help bioethicists to argue more effectively for improvements to working conditions. In turn, better working conditions will ease the oppositional stance between caregivers and receivers that has been set up by the current system, enabling all parties involved to better pursue the feminist ethical ideal of care. (shrink)

In its institutionalized form, disability studies has historically drawn from political activism in the United States and the United Kingdom, particularly struggles that sought rights and recognition through the development of a social understanding of disability in opposition to the mainstream medical model.1 Recent work that expands the geographic scope of disability studies beyond these contexts has spurred debate about the challenges such a move poses to the foundations of the field. This essay responds to the field’s transnational turn by (...) interrogating recent work by Nirmala Erevelles, Jasbir Puar, and Robert McRuer that displaces the white, wealthy, and Western contexts that have grounded the landmark achievements of disability studies. At issue here are the category struggles that emerge when a concept confronts the conditions and limits of its own migration. (shrink)

The first part of the essay explores the relations between the will and practical reason or judgement. The second part takes up decision in the realm of belief, i.e. deciding that such and such is so. This phenomenon raises two questions. Since we decide that as well as to, should we speak of a doxastic will? Secondly, should we regard ourselves as active in the formation of our judgements as in the formation of our intentions? The author's answer to these (...) two further questions is ‘no’ and ‘yes’, respectively: the boundaries between the active and the passive are not marked by the will. (shrink)

The new edition of this highly successful text will once again provide the ideal introduction to free will. This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic of free will during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work.

L’Homme presents what has been termed Descartes’ “physiological psychology”. It envisions and seeks to explain how the brain and nerves might yield situationally appropriate behavior through mechanical means. On occasion in the past 150 years, this aim has been recognized, described, and praised. Still, acknowledgement of this aspect of Descartes’ writing has been spotty in histories of neuroscience and histories of psychology. In recent years, there has been something of a resurgence. This chapter argues that, in seeking to explain psychological (...) functions such as sense perception, attention, memory, and emotional response, Descartes ascribed a range of active functions to the brain acting on its own (independently of mind). (shrink)

In the subsequent pages, I want to develop a distinction between wanting and valuing which will enable the familiar view of freedom to make sense of the notion of an unfree action. The contention will be that, in the case of actions that are unfree, the agent is unable to get what he most wants, or values, and this inability is due to his own "motivational system." In this case the obstruction to the action that he most wants to do (...) is his own will. It is in this respect that the action is unfree: the agent is obstructed in and by the very performance of the action. (shrink)

Ronald Mercer - Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 410-411 Book Review Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion Jeffrey L. Kosky. Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. xxiv + 223. Cloth, $39.95. Emmanuel Levinas's thought has been a sleeping giant in continental philosophy, having influence upon many of his contemporaries while drawing minimal attention to himself. In the last (...) few years, however, as evidenced by the explosion of secondary literature on Levinas, it is clear that scholars are awakening to Levinas's importance. Jeffrey Kosky's work, Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion, joins this secondary.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 571-572 [Access article in PDF] Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Levinas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xxx + 292. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. The goal of the Cambridge Companion to Philosophy series has been to "dispel the intimidation" that students and non-specialists often experience when faced with the works of a "difficult and challenging (...) thinker" (i). Indeed, Emmanuel Levinas would qualify as such a thinker, whose work is firmly rooted in two traditions: (1) the admittedly abstruse and seminal phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and (2) Judaism, including the Talmudic tradition, the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, as well as Levinas's experience with rampant anti-Semitism in twentieth-century Europe. The imminent danger in producing a collection with the express intent of making a challenging thinker accessible is that the force of the thought may become undermined by the process of simplification. The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, however, achieves its goal as a book that not only elucidates Levinas but also provides numerous essays that even the Levinasian scholar will find useful.Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi are directly responsible for the success of the Companion. These two editors have proven themselves as adept collaborators in the area of Levinasian philosophy with their earlier contribution to Indiana University Press's series Studies in Continental Thought: Re-reading Levinas (Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi, editors [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991]). This new cooperative effort offers essays that introduce Levinas's thought from the perspective of some of the many fields upon which he has had an influence including the philosophy of language, art, feminism, Judaism, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion.Even with the many tangential fields to which Levinas's thought contributes, the Companion often refers to Derrida's metaphor which describes Levinas's work as a wave, the "same" wave, crashing on the beach with increasing demand. Derrida, however, is also partly responsible for the intensifying return of Levinas's work. Derrida's critique of Levinas's Totality and Infinity was the impetus behind Levinas's subsequent focus on language and the problematic of "how" one speaks of that which is outside being. Certainly, the Companion could have spent the majority of its pages outlining this philosophical, textual conversation, but such an explication would have compromised the accessibility of this introductory text to the non-specialists to whom this series caters. The editors, instead, chose to avoid Derrida's difficult critique while having a significant concentration of essays that deal with Levinas's philosophy of language. This allows neophyte students of Levinas to discover his intricate thought on language without necessary knowledge of the context as well as provide those scholars interested in the debate access to the most contemporary thought on the matter—at least from the Levinasian perspective. Readers are assured, then, that the Companion covers the difficult concepts of the speaking face from the early period to the later distinction of the "saying" and the "said," inspired by Derrida's critique.The Companion, unfortunately, seems one sided concerning an important aspect of Levinas's philosophy. Throughout his entire corpus, Levinas attributes his thought to the seminal work of Edmund Husserl, continually inviting his readers to begin again with Husserl's phenomenology. Rudolph Bernet contributes to this collection an outstanding analysis of Levinas's critique of Husserl, describing some of the departures that Levinas makes from Husserl's phenomenology. The rest of the Companion, however, makes note to downplay Levinas's positive indebtedness to phenomenology. Hillary Putnam promises to explain Levinas with a "minimum of reliance on any prior knowledge of the two great 'H's (Husserl/Heidegger)" (40). Adhering to her word, in an otherwise insightful essay, means that the phenomenological issue remains superficial. While it is never absent, Bernet's essay seems to have set the tone, placing Levinas in a position of opposition with Husserl with a minimum of discussion of what Levinas has called his adherence to the "spirit" of phenomenology. To the Companion's credit... (shrink)

He shows us that Kierkegaard's expressed intent is to provide readers with the opportunity to choose or reject Christ. He explores the question of who Kierkegaard understands Jesus to be and why he believes that faith or history alone cannot answer this question, claiming that history is meaningful only when it is understood from the perspective of "sacred history." Kierkegaard's Livingroom explores what "sacred history" is, why it is so important to us, and why it depends on an incarnate God. (...) Mercer argues that Kierkegaard is not tilting at windmills but responding to Hegel's view of history and Kant's view of faith, showing that Kierkegaard has much to contribute to the debates on liberalism and post-modernism. (shrink)

In Kierkegaard's Livingroom David Mercer weaves his way through the Philosophical Fragments, bringing the reader a new understanding of Kierkegaard's work. Placing the Philosophical Fragments in the context of Kierkegaard's others works, Mercer's commentary shows how literary style and character are used to reveal the nature of history and time.

Political liberalism has increasingly come under fire from both the right and the left, in politics as well as in philosophy. In this new study, G.B. Madison offers a systematic rebuttal to these contemporary critics, attempting to demonstrate that the basic principles of classical liberal philosophy are not only internally valid and coherent but also directly relevant to the problems faced by society in the post-industrial age. Building on the theory of Frank H. Knight and other liberal tinkers, Madison outlines (...) the postmodern theory of reason that is presupposed within classical liberal theory and makes the case that as a political philosophy liberalism can be justified entirely within its own terms, without reference to arbitrary or absolute values. (shrink)

Donald Davidson holds that metaphors have no linguistic meaning in addition to their literal meaning. Max Black and Frank B. Farrell each contends that Davidson’s view is inconsistent with the fact that metaphors are appropriate objects of explication and evaluation. However, as I show, Davidson’s view actually is entirely consistent with this fact. I also argue that Black’s and Farrell’s own accounts of metaphor imply that sometimes the linguistic meaning of a sentence is other than a product of the meanings (...) of its words and its logical form, and I give a reason why accounts of metaphor with this implication are best rejected. E.M. Zemach, for his part, agrees with Davidson about what metaphors mean, but contends that, on Davidson’s recent account of language and interpretation, all metaphors turn out to be true; metaphors express novel or impractical but nonetheless literally true comparisons or categorizations. Zemach, however, I argue, has neglected the distinction between how speakers actually apply their words to things and their standards of correct application. (shrink)

My concern in this paper will be to explore and develop a version of nonsocratic skepticism about weakness of will. In my view, socratism is incorrect, but like Socrates, I think that the common understanding of weakness of will raises serious problems. Contrary to socratism, it is possible for a person knowingly to act contrary to his or her better judgment. But this description does not exhaust the common view of weakness. Also implicit in this view is the belief that (...) actions which are contrary to one's better judgment are free in the sense that the agent could have done otherwise. To take seriously the possibility of acting contrary to one's better judgment is at the same time to raise problems about the distinction between weakness and compulsion. I argue that the common view, according to which the differentiating feature is that the weak are able to conform their behavior to their practical judgments, is unjustified. Instead, I have proposed that weakness of will involves the failure to develop certain normal capacities of self-control, whereas compulsion involves desires which even the possession of such capacities would not enable one to resist. (shrink)

Drawing heavily on recent empirical research to update R.M. Hare's two-level utilitarianism and expand Hare's treatment of "intuitive level rules," Gary Varner considers in detail the theory's application to animals while arguing that Hare should have recognized a hierarchy of persons, near-persons, & the merely sentient.

This book offers a powerful response to what Varner calls the "two dogmas of environmental ethics"--the assumptions that animal rights philosophies and anthropocentric views are each antithetical to sound environmental policy. Allowing that every living organism has interests which ought, other things being equal, to be protected, Varner contends that some interests take priority over others. He defends both a sentientist principle giving priority to the lives of organisms with conscious desires and an anthropocentric principle giving priority to certain very (...) inclusive interests which only humans have. He then shows that these principles not only comport with but provide significant support for environmental goals. (shrink)

The conundrum of the unconstitutional constitution -- The quest for a compelling unity -- The permeability of constitutional borders -- The sounds of silence : militant and acquiescent constitutionalism -- "The first page of the constitution" : family, state, and identity.

With its unique combination of depth, clarity, and humor that has enchanted millions, this beloved classic by bestselling author Gary Zukav opens the fascinating world of quantum physics to readers with no mathematical or technical background. "Wu Li" is the Chinese phrase for physics. It means "patterns of organic energy," but it also means "nonsense," "my way," "I clutch my ideas," and "enlightenment." These captivating ideas frame Zukav's evocative exploration of quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Delightfully easy to read, (...) The Dancing Wu Li Masters illuminates the compelling powers at the core of all we know. (shrink)

Despite what you have heard over the years, the famous evil deceiver argument in Meditation One is not original to Descartes. Early modern meditators often struggle with deceptive demons. The author of the Meditations is merely giving a new spin to a common rhetorical device. Equally surprising is the fact that Descartes’ epistemological rendering of the demon trope is probably inspired by a Spanish nun, Teresa of Ávila, whose works have been ignored by historians of philosophy, although they were a (...) global phenomenon during Descartes’ formative years. In this paper, I first answer the obvious question as to why previous early modernists have missed something so important as the fact that Descartes’ most famous publication relies on a well-established genre and that his deceiver argument bears a striking similarity to ideas in Teresa’s final work, El Castillo Interior? I discuss the meditative tradition at the end of which Descartes’ Meditations stands, present evidence to support the claim that Descartes was familiar with Teresa’s proposals, contrast their meditative goals, and make a point-by-point comparison between the meditative steps in Teresa’s Interior Castle and those in Descartes’ Meditations which constitute their common deceiver strategy. My conclusion makes a case for a broader and more inclusive history of philosophy. (shrink)

while no one was looking, contextualism replaced rational reconstructionism as the dominant methodology among English-speaking early modern historians of philosophy. In this paper, I expose the contours of this silent revolution, show that rational reconstructionism is a thing of the past among early modern historians, and examine the current state of early modern scholarship.1 As the contextualist revolution has increasingly widened our perspective and revealed the period’s philosophical diversity, it has encouraged early modernists to develop new skills and expertise. I (...) propose here that current early modern historians are devoted to maximize... (shrink)

Made-Up Minds addresses fundamental questions of learning and concept invention by means of an innovative computer program that is based on the cognitive ...

Development of a vaccine for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease currently affecting over 200 million people worldwide, has been targeted as a priority by the World Health Organisation. Research demonstrating the ability of humans to acquire natural immunity to schistosome infection, together with the successful use of attenuated vaccines in animals both under laboratory and field conditions, suggest that development of a human vaccine is feasible. Attenuated vaccines for schistosomiasis are considered neither safe nor practicable for human use, however, and therefore (...) other approaches must be considered. This review examines progress currently being undertaken in a number of different areas towards achieving the goal of a safe and effective human vaccine for schistosomiasis. (shrink)

The goal of perceptual systems is to allow organisms to adaptively respond to ecologically relevant stimuli. Because all perceptual inputs are ambiguous, perception needs to rely on prior knowledge accumulated over evolutionary and developmental time to turn sensory energy into information useful for guiding behavior. It remains controversial whether the guidance of perception extends to cognitive states or is locked up in a “cognitively impenetrable” part of perception. I argue that expectations, knowledge, and task demands can shape perception at multiple (...) levels, leaving no part untouched. The position advocated here is broadly consistent with the notion that perceptual systems strive to minimize prediction error en route to globally optimal solutions :181–204, 2013). On this view, penetrability should be expected whenever constraining lower-level processes by higher level knowledge is minimizes global prediction error. Just as Fodor feared cognitive penetration of perception threatens theory-neutral observation and the distinction between observation and inference. However, because theories themselves are constrained by the task of minimizing prediction error, theory-laden observation turns out to be superior to theory-free observation in turning sensory energy into useful information. (shrink)

Theories of language production propose that utterances are constructed by a mechanism that separates linguistic content from linguistic structure, Linguistic content is retrieved from the mental lexicon, and is then inserted into slots in linguistic structures or frames. Support for this kind of model at the phonological level comes from patterns of phonological speech errors. W present an alternative account of these patterns using a connectionist or parallel distributed proceesing (PDP) model that learns to produce sequences of phonological features. The (...) model's errors exhibit some of the properties of human speech errors, specifically, properties that have been attributed to the action of phonological rules, frames, or other structural generalizations. (shrink)