“Eve Sedgwick’s ‘Other Materials’” refers to a graduate seminar that Sedgwick offered at the CUNY Graduate Center entitled “How to Do Things with Words and Other Materials.” As its title suggests, her seminar advanced Sedgwick’s enduring “FASCINATION” with “MAKING UNSPEAKING OBJECTS” of all sorts, which elsewhere included the body’s organic and inorganic waste. Taking a cue from her teaching, I suggest that, while critics have extensively detailed Sedgwick’s contributions to literary interpretation, sexuality, gender, affect, and performativity, we should also appreciate (...) her writings as theorizing queer material relations. This observation is pertinent given her rethinking of psychodynamic object relations theory alongside her creative writings on “THE WASTE PRODUCTS,” or the matter we ceaselessly produce. My argument thus anchors its claims in a close non-Kleinian reading of her poem “Bathroom Song,” which also offers an unforeseen take on paranoid and reparative idioms of psycho-material being. How waste matter facilitates this unanticipated insight is one of my essay’s – and Sedgwick’s – subsidiary concerns. (shrink)

The tension between the popular embrace of same-sex marriage and the queer critique of homonormativity prompts the contributors to Long Term to explore queer commitments as they are more broadly conceived. The essays contained here de-familiarize the idea of commitment and extend the category of significant others to include animals, possessions, institutions and disciplines. Revitalizing the concerns of queer theory beyond the commitment to anti-normativity, these essays contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship in queer temporality studies, disability studies, autotheory, and the emergent (...) sub-field of age studies. Long Term includes an introduction on notions of the long term and essays that specifically address a number of topics-the commitment to palliative care; long-term attachment and loss; long-term pharmaceutical use; the commitment to pets; fear of commitment and institutionalization; long-term debt and financialization; the racial dimensions of long-term incarceration and voluntarism; queer kinship and racialized reproductive technologies; serial commitment; and the commitment to friendship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 369-372 [Access article in PDF] Unity of Agency and Volition:Some Personal Reflections Stephen Weiner The issues of unity of agency, self-as-narrative, and more generally, volition are highly personal to me. Indeed, I would say I have frequently been obsessed with them. I am 52 years old, and date the onset of my psychiatric symptoms—my long-term misery—very specifically: 11:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, August (...) 28, 1965. At almost precisely that time, I started obsessing that I was homosexual and, in fact, turning into a girl. Within days, derealization followed: for instance, the houses in my neighborhood seemed one-dimensional—they seemed as though they were painted, as though I could stick my hand or an object through them. Colors seemed less bright as well—but I hardly had words for all this at the time: it was an overwhelmingly preverbal feeling, but I found some words for it.I was also depressed, and knew I was depressed—that is, I was worried, had trouble sleeping, and had suicidal thoughts and feelings. Within weeks, I asked my parents if I could see a psychiatrist, and I did. I remember asking my psychiatrist if he ever thought about the possibility that everything might be an illusion, and he quoted the refrain from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat": "merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." But just asking him produced a chilling feeling that he did not exist and, largely for this reason, I did not mention unreality feelings again to therapists for another 20 years.So, like Dr. Wells' patient Edward, described by James Phillips (2003), I was in trouble; like Edward, I was starting to construct a narrative. I started feeling that I had "to tell my story" at about this time—before then, I had not felt a need to do that. That may be partly because young children take life for granted (at least, I did), and it may be partly because suffering, by its very nature, demands explanation; both reasons were probably operating—certainly, both my parents told me years later that I had seemed emotionally distressed as a child, and my mother told they would have given me Ritalin if it had been available. So, to other people (my parents and my teachers) I was mentally ill in some sense, and I have some pretty clear memories of what I now recognize as depression, especially in the second and third grades; but I did not think of myself as sick and I did not think of myself as suffering—and I did not experience the duality (at least) of selves that I started to experience almost immediately in August 1965.Phillips further points out that the "future Edward" could look back in his narrative, at a later age, and reconstruct his history either as someone with a continuing mental illness, or as someone who had attained a secure, healthy adulthood and saw his experience as adolescent pain in the service of ultimate adult health and integration. I see my story, I am sorry to report, as [End Page 369] one of unremitting basic pain but with the positive dimension that I was able to go on, obtain a good education, work a good deal in my adult life, and father a child. But my narrative—and am I not, as a highly verbal person, almost constrained to think of my life as a narrative?—has been one, as Phillips (following Kleinman) realizes, of suffering. It is, above all else, an illness narrative. I find the approach of J. Melvin Woody (2003)—of privileging performing and performing arts and spatial metaphors over story—less relevant and true to myself, although I see no reason to argue with Mary's preference for such forms. It may be that the temporal discontinuities she has experienced predispose her to see herself in such terms—may, in fact, necessitate doing so. I am not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with acting, with trying on and performing one role... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"A Woman's Thought Runs Before Her Actions":Vows as Speech Acts in As You Like ItWilliam O. ScottAbout a decade ago Susanne Wofford discussed As You Like It from the viewpoint that Rosalind uses a "proxy," her guise as Ganymede, in uttering "the performative language necessary to accomplish deeds such as marriage." 1 Thus Wofford complicated and qualified the success-oriented assumptions about performative usage of language as envisioned in Austin's (...) speech-act theories. 2 Her starting point was that (as Austin himself said) these performative usages don't have the same kind of force if they are included in a play; and so she proposed to take Rosalind's uses of vows as playful, both theatrically and personally. Her notion of the proxy, which raises questions too about the binding force of the speech act through the identity and tactics of the speaker, is especially apt in describing exactly what Rosalind does. Understandably Rosalind's performative manqué may be a prelude to the perfected form. Another complication suggests itself if one is going to attend to niceties of language usage: given that for Austin a performative procedure is founded on conventions of language, shouldn't one also examine such linguistic forms historically? For this play the most relevant form to consider historically is the vow.The precise formulation of vows, in espousal or marriage (both legally enforceable in church courts), was very important in early-modern England. One may wonder, then, what the formal requirements of [End Page 528] vows were, how much the analysis of them resembled and diverged from modern speech-act philosophy, and how the vows functioned. And one might ask such questions both about this play and about real-life practice. A more exact notion of vows may enrich our notions of Rosalind's playfulness with them and broaden our sense of the uses and tactics of performatives; and to the extent that this playfulness contrasts with Rosalind's serious (re)iteration of vows at the end of the play, we should give due weight to Carol Neely's suggestion that much of the pleasure for early-modern audiences lay in the body of the play rather than its conclusion. 3The actual vows between lovers would indeed lend themselves to historicized analysis of the speech acts that constitute them. The early-modern ecclesiastical court judge Henry Swinburne made something like that in his Treatise of Spousals, with his section "By what Form of Words Spousals de futuro are contracted," and similarly on the form of words in "Spousals de praesenti." 4 The implied time of effectiveness in the commitment to marriage is crucial in church law of the time, because it determines whether the vows are, respectively, a betrothal that promises a future marriage, or a present binding (whether inside or outside church) that becomes an instant marriage upon carnal consummation. Both these declarations of commitment are performatives (once reciprocated), and they are normally established by social convention, what Swinburne calls "the Common use of Speech or Custom" (p. 83). Swinburne also concerns himself with what amount to the conditions of "felicity" that are requisite to make the speech valid—for instance, who is allowed to contract spousals (cp. Austin, pp. 14–24).Both of these issues of timing and eligibility are important to Rosalind in the pretense of wedding in Act 4, Scene 1. As it is for Swinburne, the context is important: when Celia as priest asks, "Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?" his answer "I will" is not good enough for Rosalind until he adds at her direction, "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife." 5 Likewise Swinburne considers at length the arguments whether there is a distinction between "I will" and "I do," and whether the future-sounding verb refers only to the beginning of a process and not its completion (pp. 8–9, 57–61). Though in general he allows the distinction (so that "I will" makes a spousal and "I do" a marriage), one of his exceptions sounds like the question that Celia first puts: "The Man demanding of the Woman whether she will take him to her Husband, she answereth [I will... (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to illustrate how Ebrahim Moosa's method of “contrapuntal reading” can be applied fruitfully to the Sunni hadith literature. My case study is the set of penalties (hudud) for illicit sex, which include flogging, stoning, and banishment. I propose a fresh reading of these sacred texts that brings to the fore the ethical dimension of Prophet Muhammad's conduct, especially his strong reluctance to apply these measures. I conclude by identifying four ethical problems that the stoning (...) penalty raises and suggest how the hadith literature can be read to argue against the validity of this specific punishment. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to argue that Philippa Foot fails to provide a convincing basis for moral evaluation in her bookNatural Goodness.Foot's proposal fails because her conception of natural goodness and defect in human beings either sanctions prescriptive claims that are clearly objectionable or else it inadvertently begs the question of what constitutes a good human life by tacitly appealing to an independent ethical standpoint to sanitize the theory's normative implications. Foot's appeal to natural facts about human goodness (...) is in this way singled out as an Achilles' heel that undermines her attempt to establish an independent framework for virtue ethics. This problem might seem to be one that is uniquely applicable to the bold naturalism of Foot's methodology; however, I claim that the problem is indicative of a more general problem for all contemporary articulations of virtue ethics. (shrink)

Editors’ Note: We decided that a commentary to the original Aikin essay from the perspective of humanities policy would be beneficial. We then invited Scott Aikin to respond to this commentary. What follows is (a) the Briggle/Frodeman commentary and (b) the Aikin response. We present the discussion in its entirety in the conviction that this transparency will help the reader to critically assess the viability of these arguments and to draw his/her own conclusion as to the efficacy of such (...) reasoning for environmental philosophy as such. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical (...) truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical (...) truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a... (shrink)

The nocebo effect, a phenomenon whereby learning about the possible side effects of a medical treatment increases the likelihood that one will suffer these side effects, continues to challenge physicians and ethicists. If a physician fully informs her patient as to the potential side effects of a medicine that may produce nocebogenic effects, which is usually conceived of as being a requirement associated with the duty to respect autonomy, she risks increasing the likelihood that her patient will experience these side (...) effects and therefore suffer (unnecessary) harm, a violation of the duty of nonmaleficence. If, on the other hand, she intentionally withholds side effect information in an effort to protect her patient from suffering unnecessary harm from side effects, which is consistent with the duty of nonmaleficence, she violates the duty to respect patient autonomy. In this paper, the author discusses several previous attempts to deal with the nocebo effect and explains their weaknesses. He then proposes a means of managing the nocebo effect and argues that it does not share the weaknesses found in previous approaches. He concludes with a discussion of a simple, yet practical tool that might help clinicians manage the tension resulting from the nocebo effect. (shrink)

Individuals and institutions sometimes have morally stringent reasons to not do a given action. For example, an oil company might have morally stringent reasons to refrain from providing revenue to a genocidal regime, or an engineer might have morally stringent reasons to refrain from providing her expertise in the development of weapons of mass destruction. But in some cases, if the agent does not do the action, another actor will do it with much worse consequences. For example, the oil company (...) might know their assets will be bought by a company with worse environmental and labor practices. Or the engineer might know her position will be filled by a more ambitious and amoral engineer. I call this the moral problem of worse actors (MPWA). MPWA gives reason, at least some of the time, to consider otherwise morally impermissible actions permissible or even obligatory. On my account, doing the action in the circumstances of MPWA remains morally objectionable even if permissible or obligatory, and this brings additional moral responsibilities and obligations to the actor. Similarly, not doing the action in the circumstances of MPWA may also bring additional (but different) moral responsibilities and obligations. Acknowledging MPWA creates considerable challenges, as many bad actors may appeal to it to justify morally objectionable action. In this paper, I develop a set of strategies for individuals and institutions to handle MPWA. This includes appeals to integrity and the proper attribution of expressive responsibility, regulatory responsibility, and compensatory responsibility. I also address a set of related concerns, including worries about incentivizing would-be bad actors, concerns about epistemic uncertainty, and the problem of mala in se exceptions. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued against Singer’s claim that all animals are equal. However, none of these responses have demonstrated an appreciation of the complexity of his position. The result is that all of these responses focus on one of his arguments in a way that falls victim to another. This paper is a critical examination of a possible response to the full complexity of Singer’s position that derives from the work of Carl Cohen, Kathleen Wilkes, and F. Ramsey. On this (...) response, a being’s moral status depends not on the capacities and abilities she does in fact have, but instead on the capacities and abilities normal for the members of her species. However, this response is ultimately unacceptable, for it depends on a faulty conception of loss and misfortune and its underlying moral principle is irrational at best and morally objectionable at worst. The failure of even this response to Singer gives us good reason to conclude with Singer that all animals are equal. (shrink)

We are grateful to Jongsma et al 1 for their interest in our article analysing the case of ‘Mrs A’, a Dutch woman with Alzheimer’s disease who received euthanasia based on her advance euthanasia directive.2 Their commentary criticises two elements of our analysis. First, the authors believe our reasons for doubting that Mrs A had the capacity to write and revise an AED rely on ‘partial’ empirical data and rest on normative errors. Second, they use two of our statements to (...) suggest we must endorse some implausible claims, for example, that ‘… in all situations and for all people, current well-being should always take precedence over all other values’. Jongsma et al assert: ‘Miller et al argue that people with dementia are impaired to make decisions.’ This casts our probabilistic claim about Mrs A’s capacity as an absolute claim about persons with dementia in general. It also implies we are using an outdated diagnosis-based view of capacity. The accusation then becomes explicit : > … several empirical studies have shown that patients with dementia are able to actively participate in qualitative studies and can respond to open questions in a meaningful way,[2-8] as well that they are able to complete an advance directive in the early phases of dementia.[9, 10] One can therefore not simply conclude on the basis of the diagnosis of dementia …. (shrink)

Although a pregnant woman can now refuse any medical treatment needed by the fetus, the Court of Appeal has acknowledged that ethical dilemmas remain, adverting to the inappropriateness of legal compulsion of presumed moral duties in this context. This leaves the impression of an uncomfortable split between the ethics and the law. The notion of a pregnant woman refusing medical treatment needed by the fetus is troubling and it helps little simply to assert that she has a legal right to (...) do so. At the same time, the idea that a pregnant woman fails in her moral duty unless she accepts any recommended treatment or surgery—however great the burdens—is also not without difficulty. This article seeks to find a way between these two somewhat polarized positions by arguing that, instead of being a question primarily about whether legally to enforce moral obligations, the «maternal—fetal conflict» begins with previously unrecognized difficulties in determining when a woman's prima facie moral rights invoked in the treatment context should «give way» to the interests of the fetus. This difficulty is mirrored within the law. Thus, how can we tell when a pregnant woman has the moral or legal duty to submit to a caesarean section? Seen in this way, the conflict is a problem which lies at the interface between moral and legal rights and duties, showing that there are important conceptual links between the ethics and the law. Against this background, this article explores the limits of a pregnant woman's right to bodily integrity by focusing upon the idea of her moral duty to aid the fetus through her body. Here we find difficulties in determining the existence and extent of this somewhat extraordinary duty. Such a duty is contrasted with both negative and positive duties toward others in the course of «general conduct». Attention to the social context of pregnancy and the refusal of treatment within this is also instructive. Overall, the purpose is to foster understanding and acceptance of the current legal position. (shrink)

This paper situates the moral domain of practice within the context of a particular description of nursing practice – one that sees human interaction at the heart of that practice. Such a description fits not only with professional rhetoric but also with literature from patients and recent empirical work exploring the nature of nursing practice.Martha Levine in her 1977 description of ethics, within the context of nursing practice, indicated that what was important from an ethical perspective was how we interact (...) with each other, with patients and colleagues, on a daily basis. What enables such interaction to display moral sensitivity, insight into patient need, and a focus on the good for the patient? Of relevance when answering this question is the empirical evidence indicating that professional socialization, as a nurse or a doctor, may dull the individual’s moral sense. If this is the case, cognizance needs to be taken of such evidence when identifying theoretical approaches from mainstream ethics that may provide insight and value for nurse education. It is suggested that such insight and value can be gained from a consideration of the work of Aristotle, Murdoch, and Vetlesen. (shrink)

Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” is one of the most widely taught papers in undergraduate philosophy, yet it is notoriously difficult to teach. Thomson uses simple terminology and imaginative thought experiments, but her philosophical moves are complex and sometimes difficult to explain to a class still mystified by the prospect of being kidnapped to save a critically ill violinist. My aim here is to identify four sources of difficulty that tend to arise when teaching this paper. In my experience, (...) these four sources of difficulty create significant problems for undergraduate students, yet each one is easy for instructors to underestimate. My objective is therefore to identify the problems, explain why they tend to occur and warn other instructors about their potential impact in the classroom. (shrink)

According to a well-known objection to consequentialism, the answer to the preceding question is alarmingly straightforward: your consequentialist friend will abandon you the minute that she can more efficiently promote goodness via options that do not include her maintaining a relationship with you. The most prominent response to this objection is to emphasize the profound value of friendship for human agents and to remind critics of the distinction between the theory’s criterion of rightness and an effective decision-making procedure. Whether or (...) not this response is viable remains a contentious issue within the now considerable literature generated on the topic, yet it is a curious fact that the debate has unfolded in such a way that the question of when a consequentialist agent ought to break from her indirect methods of promoting the good and revert back to a direct form of consequentialist decision-making has not been decisively settled. In this paper, I claim that the empirical considerations at stake for resolving this question are more complicated than is normally acknowledged; however, I argue that this should not deter sophisticated consequentialists from endorsing flexible psychological dispositions in order to monitor these empirical considerations as best as can be expected for agents with our distinctly human faculties and limitations. (shrink)

Starting at the beginning: what's so good about being good? -- Theological ethics: where does morality come from? -- Cultural views of morality: why can't we make up our own moral rules for ourselves? -- Making ethical decisions: when I'm in a moral dilemma, what do I do? -- Abortion: how can you say that a pregnant seventeen-year-old, for whom having the baby will ruin her life, is doing something wrong by having an abortion? -- Reproductive technologies: what do you (...) say to infertile couples about the hi-tech ways to have a baby? -- Genetics and biotechnology: what do you tell couples who want to use biotechnology to produce designer children? -- Death, dying, and assisted suicide: don't people have a fundamental right to die? -- Capital punishment: isn't the death penalty a barbaric holdover from uncivilized cultures that should be done away with today? -- War and morality: in view of the Bible's teaching to love your enemies, why isn't every Christian a pacifist? -- Sexual ethics: shouldn't people be able to love and have sex with whomever they choose? -- Christian ethics, economics, and the workplace: how does my work connect to my spiritual life and my service to God? (shrink)

Potts (2005) and many subsequent works have argued that the semantic content of appositive (non-restrictive) relative clauses, e.g., the underlined material in John, who nearly killed a woman with his car, visited her in the hospital, must be in some way separate from the content of the rest of the sentence, i.e., from at-issue content. At the same time, there is mounting evidence from various anaphoric processes that the two kinds of content must be integrated into a single, incrementally evolving (...) semantic representation. The challenge is how to reconcile this informational separation with these pervasive anaphoric connections. We propose a dynamic semantic account that accomplishes this by taking appositive and at-issue content to involve two different kinds of updates to the Context Set (CS). Treating the context set as a distinguished propositional variable, pcs, we argue that appositives directly impose their content on the CS by eliminating possible values assigned to pcs. In contrast, we treat at-issue assertions as introducing a new propositional dref and proposing that pcs be updated with its content, subject to addressee's response. In addition to capturing the behavior of appositives in discourse, we show that the account can be extended to capture the projection of appositive content past various sentential operators. (shrink)

To better illuminate aspects of stress that are relevant to the moral domain, we present a definition and theoretical model of “moral stress.” Our definition posits that moral stress is a psychological state born of an individual’s uncertainty about his or her ability to fulfill relevant moral obligations. This definition assumes a self-and-others relational basis for moral stress. Accordingly, our model draws from a theory of the self (identity theory) and a theory of others (stakeholder theory) to suggest that this (...) uncertainty arises as a manager faces competing claims for limited resources from multiple stakeholders and/or across multiple role identities. We further propose that the extent to which the manager is attentive to the moral aspects of the claims (i.e., moral attentiveness) moderates these effects. We identify several consequences of managerial moral stress and discuss theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of our approach. Most importantly, we argue that this work paves an important path for considering stress through the lens of morality. (shrink)

This book is a reprint of an eighteenth century novel on an ideal society run by single women. Under the guise of fiction, the author gives her views on subjects ranging from marriage to slavery.

It's clear that robodogs in Metalhead are deadly and dangerous, but exactly what makes them so? Using Daniel Dinello's examination of technophobia and our cultural fears of technologies, this chapter explores different aspects of our fears of robodogs and, indeed, other robots that we might encounter. On one level, for example, the robodogs present a concrete threat to Bella and her ill‐fated troupe, but the robodogs also present us with a challenge to how we think about humans, including our ability (...) to remain in control. How can we characterise this relationship, or lack thereof, between humans and robots, and what can we learn from this to help us understand the roots of our technophobia? (shrink)

The relationship between humans and animals is a contentious issue in a range of disciplines. In theology, stories of creation tend to indicate a sense of human difference from animals, as humans are made in the image of God and are given ‘dominion’ over their fellow creatures. Donna Haraway has picked up on the ethical ramifications of these mythologies by critiquing them in her latest book detailing the ‘chthulucene’, which contains her proposals for responsible co-living with other species. But in (...) Genesis 2, partnership is raised as a possibility not only between man and God, but also between man and woman, and human and animal. Focusing on the latter, this paper introduces a conversation between posthumanism and theological anthropology by way of Genesis 2 and Haraway’s chthulucene in order to explore their nuances, and to reflect critically on the resources and possibilities of non-, or post-human partnership. (shrink)

First, I engage Del McWhorter's confessional voice in the context of her thought and emphasize her claim that even "objective knowledge" often has an indirectly confessional aspect. Second, I give an account of the value of historicity and genealogy in McWhorter's understanding of knowing and subjectivity. Third, I address her reconfiguration of the subjectivity of desiring by prioritizing pleasure in the project of "becoming truly gay." Finally, I assess the meaning of her phrase, "straying afield from myself.".

: One of the most influential branches of nineteenth-century American feminism was a resistance movement committed to the idea that the key to social reform was the recognition and maintenance of human differences. This approach, which became central to American pragmatism, had its roots in a tradition of American women writers including Lydia Maria Child. This paper examines Child's work and focuses on her conception of pluralism and its role in sustaining diverse communities.

One of the most influential branches of nineteenth-century American feminism was a resistance movement committed to the idea that the key to social reform was the recognition and maintenance of human differences. This approach, which became central to American pragmatism, had its roots in a tradition of American women writers including Lydia Maria Child. This paper examines Child's work and focuses on her conception of pluralism and its role in sustaining diverse communities.

: First, I engage Del McWhorter's confessional voice in the context of her thought and emphasize her claim that even "objective knowledge" often has an indirectly confessional aspect. Second, I give an account of the value of historicity and genealogy in McWhorter's understanding of knowing and subjectivity. Third, I address her reconfiguration of the subjectivity of desiring by prioritizing pleasure in the project of "becoming truly gay." Finally, I assess the meaning of her phrase, "straying afield from myself.".

Though textbook tu quoque arguments are fallacies of relevance, many versions of arguments from hypocrisy are indirectly relevant to the issue. Some arguments from hypocrisy are challenges to the authority of a speaker on the basis of either her sincerity or competency regarding the issue. Other arguments from hypocrisy purport to be evidence of the impracticability of the opponent’s proposals. Further, some versions of hypocrisy charges from impracticability are open to a counter that I will term tu quoque judo.

In this case analysis deception or lying to a dying patient is discussed within the context of different relationships: the relationship between the patient and her family doctor, the relationship between the patient and the surgeon and the relationship between the patient and her family. It is suggested that the principle of veracity is not only a core feature in the patient-doctor relationship but is also fundamentally connected with the basic element of trust between the patient and doctor. The surgeon, (...) in deceiving the patient, even at the request of her husband, betrayed her trust in violating the principle of veracity. The primary responsibility of the surgeon was towards his patient rather than her family. In lying to his patient the surgeon failed to give Mrs Fasper something she needed most: respect for her as a person. (shrink)

When Genotype × Environment (G × E) interactions are present, heritability estimates are not interpretable. Mealey cites abundant evidence for G × E interactions in the etiology of sociopathy, thereby completely undermining estimates of the heritability of sociopathy which form the foundation of her model. Without proper evidence for a genetic basis of sociopathy, Mealey's sociobiological model collapses under its own great weight.

Richard Hare described the "ethical fanatic" as an agent who appeared to be able to rationally universalize morally horrendous values by "fanatically" accepting the consequences of those values even if their universalization harmed the original agent. This challenges the project of basing ethics on universalization tests, as advocated by Hare, Immanuel Kant, and others. Hare later argued that fanatics are irrational by appealing to a "principle of prudence," but this violates his meta-principle of not basing fundamental ethical principles upon intuitions (...) which are not themselves shown to be required by reason. This failure is corrected by using the concept of "pragmatic implication" to show that any agent's reliance upon any ethical principle commits her to a higher-ordered principle which justifies commitment to the original principle. This threatens an infinite regress, which can only be closed by a unique meta-principle. It is shown that all possible alternatives to this principle fail to actually end the regress, and all strategies of ignoring the regress also entail practical inconsistency. Hence, ethical universalization tests are not empty; they support unique ethical principles whose content does not depend upon the particular values of actual agents. (shrink)

in her address, R. Aída Hernández Castillo considers "two experiences of intercultural dialogue" as a means of decolonizing her own feminist views and methodological commitments. These cases and others led her to "confront both the idealizing discourses on Indigenous culture of an important sector of Mexican anthropology and the ethnocentrism of liberal feminism". The first case is a dialogue with the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas, whose participants seek to recover Indigenous spirituality as an act of resistance (...) and as a resource for social change. The second is her experience with the women's Center... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:PrefaceScott Paeth and Kevin CarnahanThis issue of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics is organized around the theme of structural evil. Each of the essays deals with some dimension of the problem of how we can conceive of evil beyond the question of simple human volition, and understand it as embedded in the institutions and cultural assumptions that we often take for granted as societal givens.Cristina Traina's (...) presidential address, "This Is the Year," takes as its starting point the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election, arguing that it exposes the way in which liberal narratives of progress have failed to address the deeply embedded structural evil within American society. She argues that this political moment provides an opportunity for liberals to engage in a critical self-examination with respect to their complicity in these structures by embracing a form of "utopian praxis."Ryan Darr's essay considers the intersection of structural evil and individual responsibility, arguing, on the one hand, for a distinction between sin and moral wrongdoing and, on the other, for an approach to both concepts that is social in form. Esther Reed's essay, meanwhile, offers an analysis of responsibility in light of the question of structural evil, using the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to aid in understanding the connection between individual responsibility and distant harm.David Cloutier continues the examination of the tension between individual agency and structural evil in his critique of the "neo-Franciscan" and "Junian" approaches to issues of violence and racism, arguing that a "critical realist" approach to structural evil provides greater resources for Christian ethics.Elizabeth Sweeny Block offers a different approach to the question in her consideration of the role of conscience in grappling with crises on a global scale, such as climate change and the Zika virus. She contrasts the "reflexive conscience" predominant in Christian ethics with a model of "engaged conscience," which may provide a better approach to large-scale structural evil and its consequences.Stewart Clem uses Thomas Aquinas's conception of virtue to understand the problems inherent in striving for moral clarity in a "post-truth" context. In [End Page vii] light of Harry Frankfurt's philosophical analysis of the concept of "bullshit," he argues that Christian ethics needs to develop a way of speaking about truth as a virtue in order to respond to the structural problem of truth indifference in contemporary political discourse.Looking at the problem from a different perspective, Christopher Jones and Conor Kelly examine the sin of sloth from a structural point of view. Critiquing individualist conceptions of the idea, they make the case for retrieving the classical definition of sloth as a vice against charity and consider how sloth can be overcome through a reinvigoration of forms of civic virtue.Another dimension of structural evil is considered by Ryan Newson in his examination of the role that Confederate monuments play in the American South. For many, they stand as a symbol of the glorification of evil that should be removed, but Newson suggests that there may be reasons to keep at least some of these monuments as reminders of the failure of justice and the judgment of God.Wonchul Shin and Elizabeth Bounds consider these questions from the perspective of how "ordinary" experiences of moral harm need to be analyzed as dimensions of structural evil, and they call for an examination of structural responsibility and the ethics of repair as a means of addressing these questions.Finally, Willa Swenson-Lengyel looks at the connection between structural evil and environmental ethics, arguing that the "moral paralysis" often experienced in light of the ecological crisis exposes certain forms of privilege that need to be addressed from the perspective of Christian ethics. In many ways, she argues, privileged inaction can be a manifestation of "works righteousness" that can be addressed through a Lutheran conception of the doctrine of justification.________This year the JSCE is retiring the demographic survey that has been used since 2008 and adopting a new demographic survey. With the transition comes an apt time for reflection on what the data from the last nine years show.The first piece of data to... (shrink)

Pragmatism, Experience, and the Given The doctrine of the Given is that subjects have direct non-inferential awareness of content of their experiences and apprehensions, and that some of a subject's beliefs are justified on the basis of that subject's awareness of her experiences and apprehensions. Pragmatist criticisms of the Given as a myth are shown here not only to be inadequate but to presuppose the Given. A model for a pragmatist account of the Given is then provided in terms of (...) refinements of Dewey's theory of experience. The doctrine of the Given is implicated in the functions of inquiry insofar as one must take it that experience is a source of justification. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In written work and a lecture at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that was co-sponsored by the Canadian Philosophical Association, Margaret Somerville has claimed that allowing same-sex marriage is unethical because doing so violates the inherently procreative function of marriage and thereby undermines the rights and duties that exist between children and their biological parents. In my paper, I offer five reasons for thinking that Somerville’s argument for this conclusion is unpersuasive. In each case her (...) argument either begs important questions about same-sex marriage or else relies on insufficient evidence to justify excluding a vulnerable minority group from participating in a state-sponsored social institution. RÉSUMÉ: Dans ses écrits ainsi que dans une conférence prononcée en 2008 au Congrès de la Fédération canadienne des sciences humaines, coparainnée par l’Association Canadienne de Philosophie, Margaret Somerville a prétendu que les mariages entre personnes de même sexe sont éthiquement inacceptables parce qu’ils violent la fonction primordiale du mariage, à savoir la procréation, et qu’ainsi ils portent atteinte aux droits et responsabilités qui lient les enfants et leurs parents biologiques. La présente communication se propose d’offrir cinq raisons pour lesquelles le point de vue de Margaret Somerville ne saurait convaincre. Dans chaque cas, sa pensée soit ne tient pas compte d’importantes questions soulevées par le mariage entre personnes de même sexe soit se fonde sur des prémisses inadéquates dans le but de faire interdire à une minorité vulnérable l’accès à une institution sociale garantie par l’État. (shrink)

This article constructs a theory of moral cultivation from the writings of John Dewey. Examining his early work in ethics, I argue that the goal of moral cultivation for such a Deweyan scheme is an individual who is attentive and engaged with the particulars of her situation. I then sketch an account of art's moral value and its connection to attentiveness, intimating a way to dissolve longstanding problems in the philosophy of art.

Scholars have suggested that the tendency for an individual to perceive him- or herself as more ethical than others might influence the individual''s perceptions of his or her organization''s ethics. The purpose of this study is to consider if and/or when such a relationship exists. A thorough consideration of the nature of perceptions of relative ethicality suggests that a positive self-bias would negatively influence perceptions of organizational ethicality. The results of an empirical study involving working managers and employees of a (...) hospital support that argument. Furthermore, the results indicate that organizational identification, perceived organizational cohesion, and an individual''s insulation also influence individual perceptions of relative organizational ethicality. The findings illuminate this particular phenomenon and further our understanding of the relationship between the individual and the organization, more generally. (shrink)

Most of us would feel awful if we discovered that our beloved had been unfaithful. But the hedonist, I argue, cannot consistently claim: that a betrayal that goes undetected does not make your life worse off for you; and, at the same time, that one ought to feel bad if one happens to discover that one has been betrayed. To claim that one ought to feel bad requires adducing reasons for that reaction, but the hedonist either can adduce no such (...) reasons or cannot make sense of the reasons we intuitively think we have. For it only makes sense to feel bad about things that make your life go worse for you, but a betrayal that went undetected did not make your life go worse for you, so feeling about bad about it makes no sense. The hedonist, one might have thought, has a variety of replies at her disposal. But I show that none of these responses is satisfactory. (shrink)

A common argument for evidentialism is that the norms of assertion, specifically those bearing on warrant and assertability, regulate belief. On this assertoric model of belief, a constitutive condition for belief is that the believing subject take her belief to be supported by sufficient evidence. An equally common source of resistance to these arguments is the plausibility of cases in which a speaker, despite the fact that she lacks warrant to assert that p, nevertheless attributes to herself the belief that (...) p. In the following, I will outline a variety of ways a speaker may contrastively attribute a belief to herself. In light of what these contrastive statements communicate, cases of attributing beliefs with little or no warrant to oneself offer no substantive counter-example to the evidentialist argument from assertion. (shrink)

The author argues against Christine Korsgaard's influential interpretation of Kant's contradiction in conception test of the categorical imperative. Korsgaard's rejection of the ‘teleological' interpretation is shown to be based on a misunderstanding of the role that teleology plays for Kant in ruling out immoral maxims, and her defence of the ‘practical' interpretation is shown to be less faithful to the text than the competing ‘logical' interpretation. The works of Barbara Herman and Allen Wood are also discussed and evaluated.

The relationship between ethics and job satisfaction for MIS professionals is examined empirically. Five dimensions of job satisfaction are examined: (1) satisfaction with pay, (2) satisfaction with promotions, (3) satisfaction with co-workers, (4) satisfaction with supervisors and (5) satisfaction with the work itself. These dimensions of satisfaction are compared to top management's ethical stance, one's overall sense of social responsibility and an ethical optimism scale (i.e., the degree of optimism that one has concerning the positive relationship between ethics and success (...) in his/her company).Results indicate that MIS professionals are more satisfied with the various dimensions of their jobs when top management stresses ethical behavior and when they are optimistic about the relationship between ethics and success within their firms. The one exception to this is pay satisfaction which is unrelated to these constructs. One's sense of social responsibility is also relatively unrelated to job satisfaction. (shrink)

This essay will argue that this position advanced by Shusterman rests ultimately on a misconception of Gadamer's notion of interpretation, and as such, is not a strong challenge to Gadamer's insights concerning the process of human understanding. Shusterman's emphasis on understanding being pre-reflective and interpretation being conscious disavows Gadamer's analysis that they are identical in so far as they both refer to an individual's situatedness in tradition and its concurrent impacts on the production of meaning. In order to demonstrate how (...) this is so, this essay will first examine some of Shusterman's; key arguments and conceptualizations in regard to the "hermeneutic universalism" espoused by individuals such as Gadamer. The ways that the Gadamerian notion of understanding can be maintained in light of Shusterman's critique will be illustrated. In all, Gadamer's notion of understanding will be shown to highlight the role of the traditional "prejudices" always given to the subject that inform his or her acts of understanding; this "substratum" to any act of understanding/interpretation will in turn be seen to facilitate the acts of understanding Shusterman points to as counterexamples. (shrink)

Davidson's 1963 essay "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" convinced most philosophers that reason explanations are a species of causal explanation. By way of argument, Davidson challenged the non-causalist to make sense of cases where the agent has more than one reason that would justify her behavior but only acts on one of these reasons. We claim that a teleological account of action explanation can answer Davidson's challenge, but we argue further that if the Davidsonian challenge is a problem for the teleologist, (...) then it is equally a problem for the causalist, and thus cannot serve as an argument for causalism. (shrink)

Contemporary literature investigating the significant impact of technology on our lives leads many to conclude that ethics must be a part of the discussion at an earlier stage in the design process i.e., before a commercial product is developed and introduced. The problem, however, is the question regarding how ethics can be incorporated into an earlier stage of technological development and it is this question that we argue has not yet been answered adequately. There is no consensus amongst scholars as (...) to the kind of ethics that should be practiced, nor the individual selected to perform this ethical analysis. One school of thought holds that ethics should have pragmatic value in research and design and that it should be implemented by the engineers and/or scientists themselves, while another school of thought holds that ethics need not be so pragmatic. For the latter, the ethical reflection can aim at a variety of goals, and be carried out by an ethicist. None of the approaches resulting from these lines of thinking have been adopted on a wide-scale basis. To that end, the approach presented here is intended to bridge the gap between these schools of thought. It is our contention that ethics ought to be pragmatic and to provide utility for the design process and we maintain that adequate ethical reflection, and all that it entails, ought to be conducted by an ethicist. Thus, we propose a novel role for the ethicist—the ethicist as designer—who subscribes to a pragmatic view of ethics in order to bring ethics into the research and design of artifacts—no matter the stage of development. In this paper we outline the series of steps that a pragmatic value analysis entails: uncovering relevant values, scrutinizing these values and, working towards the translation of values into technical content. In conclusion, we present a list of tasks for the ethicist in his/her role as designer on the interdisciplinary team. (shrink)

Cheryl Misak (2000; 2008a; 2008b; Misak and Talisse 2014; Misak and Talisse 2021) has presented an argument for democracy based on her analysis of the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce: If we care about the truth of our beliefs – as everyone does, according to Misak – then we ought to support democratic norms and democratic political institutions. We argue in the present paper that Misak’s argument does not adequately justify a democratic political system. Her argument does, however, justify a (...) rational commitment to the standard liberal-democratic values of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the like. We demonstrate as well that Misak’s argument for the democratic values withstands well-known objections against her argument for a democratic political system. We also show that weaker premises involving every agent’s commitment to pursuing their own subjective ends can get us to Misak’s conclusions regarding liberal values using reasoning otherwise similar to Misak’s in that our alternative premises also get us to the commitment to taking the experiences of others seriously. These weaker premises avoid objections raised against Misak’s Peircean view and are acceptable even to those who reject Misak’s idea, taken from her reading of Peirce, that truth is a constitutive norm of belief. (shrink)

Pressuring someone into having sex would seem to differ in significant ways from pressuring someone into investing in one’s business or buying an expensive bauble. In affirming this claim, I take issue with a recent essay by Sarah Conly (‘Seduction, Rape, and Coercion’, Ethics, October 2004), who thinks that pressuring into sex can be helpfully evaluated by analogy to these other instances of using pressure. Drawing upon work by Alan Wertheimer, the leading theorist of coercion, she argues that so long (...) as pressuring does not amount to coercing someone into having sex, her consent to sex answers the important ethical questions about it. In this essay, I argue that to understand the real significance of pressuring into sex, we need to appeal to background considerations, especially the male-dominant gender hierarchy, which renders sexual pressuring different from its non-sexual analogues. Treating pressure to have sex like any other sort of interpersonal pressure obscures the role such sexual pressure might play in supporting gender hierarchy, and fails to explain why pressure by men against women is more problematic than pressure by women against men. I suggest that men pressuring women to have sex differs from the reverse case because of at least two factors: (1) gendered social institutions which add to the pressures against women, and (2) the greater likelihood that men, not women, will use violence if denied, and the lesser ability of women compared to men to resist such violence without harm. (shrink)