We live in an era of constitution-making. New constitutions are appearing in historically unprecedented numbers, following regime change in some countries, or a commitment to modernization in others. No democratic constitution today can fail to recognize or provide for gender equality. Constitution-makers need to understand the gendered character of all constitutions, and to recognize the differential impact on women of constitutional provisions, even where these appear gender-neutral. This book confronts what needs to be considered in writing a constitution when gender (...) equity and agency are goals. It examines principles of constitutionalism, constitutional jurisprudence, and history. Its goal is to establish a framework for a 'gender audit' of both new and existing constitutions. It eschews a simple focus on rights and examines constitutional language, interpretation, structures and distribution of power, rules of citizenship, processes of representation, and the constitutional recognition of international and customary law. It discusses equality rights and reproductive rights as distinct issues for constitutional design. (shrink)

The growth during the 1990s of a republican movement in Australia has stimulated among other things a feminist examination of both the gendered nature of republicanism and the under-representation of women in senior positions in republican organizations. Feminists have adopted several critical perspectives on Australian republicanism: one involves the claim for the redesign of Australian political institutions in order to maximize the representation of women and women's interests; another suggests that the neglected history of women's involvement in constitutional politics during (...) the last century needs to be understood to throw light on ways in which republicanism can be made more meaningful for women now, while a third argues that republicanism is not essentially a feminist issue and should not be pursued as such. The article challenges this conclusion. (shrink)

That a constitution should express the will of 'the people' is a long-standing principle, but the identity of 'the people' has historically been narrow. Women, in particular, were not included. A shift, however, has recently occurred. Women's participation in constitution-making is now recognised as a democratic right. Women's demands to have their voices heard in both the processes of constitution-making and the text of their country's constitution, are gaining recognition. Campaigning for inclusion in their country's constitution-making, women have adopted innovative (...) strategies to express their constitutional aspirations. This collection offers, for the first time, comprehensive case studies of women's campaigns for constitutional equality in nine different countries that have undergone constitutional transformations in the 'participatory era'. Against a richly-contextualised historical and political background, each charts the actions and strategies of women participants, both formal and informal, and records their successes, failures and continuing hopes for constitutional equality. (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools designed to (...) measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

This volume, modeled after those published in The Library of Living Philosophers, attempts to provide a coherent statement of the work of Abraham Edel in moral and political theory, and on the impact of his work on such diverse areas as education, law, and social science. The methodological element of Edel's work is to see ethical and social theory in the full context of human life; specifically how twentieth-century modes of analysis impact classical concerns about right and wrong, good and (...) evil. The volume is tightly integrated from start to finish, and has the benefit of Edel's thoughtful and thoroughgoing response to critics. In short, while this work is a tribute to the work of a scholar, it aims to serve as a basic guide through the labyrinthian world of contemporary ethical theory and social practice. Contents: Beryl Harold Levy, "Reflective Culture as Philosophy of Law"; Betty A. Sichel, "Abraham Edel's Contribution to Philosophy of Education"; Gerald E. Myers, "Person and Personality--and Respect for Both"; Mihailo Markovic, "Abraham Edel on the Method of Ethical Theory"; Helen Block Lewis, "Consequences for Ethical Theory of a Focus on the Psychology of Shame and Guilt"; Edmund L. Pincoffs, "Ethics as an Explanatory Undertaking"; Standish Thayer, "The Network of Concepts: A New View of Aristotle"; Mortimer R. Kadish, "Abraham Edel and the Dream of Science"; Michael Levin, "Reflections on Non-Cognitivism"; Ralph W. Sleeper, "Naturalizing Legal Positivism"; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Political Philosophy of Abraham Edel"; Finbarr W. O'Connor, "Network Analysis in Ethics"; Elizabeth Flower, "A Moral Agenda for Ethical Theory"; Abraham Edel, "Responses to Critics"; "An Edel Bibliography.". (shrink)

This volume, modeled after those published in The Library of Living Philosophers, attempts to provide a coherent statement of the work of Abraham Edel in moral and political theory, and on the impact of his work on such diverse areas as education, law, and social science. The methodological element of Edel's work is to see ethical and social theory in the full context of human life; specifically how twentieth-century modes of analysis impact classical concerns about right and wrong, good and (...) evil. The volume is tightly integrated from start to finish, and has the benefit of Edel's thoughtful and thoroughgoing response to critics. In short, while this work is a tribute to the work of a scholar, it aims to serve as a basic guide through the labyrinthian world of contemporary ethical theory and social practice. Contents: Beryl Harold Levy, "Reflective Culture as Philosophy of Law"; Betty A. Sichel, "Abraham Edel's Contribution to Philosophy of Education"; Gerald E. Myers, "Person and Personality--and Respect for Both"; Mihailo Markovic, "Abraham Edel on the Method of Ethical Theory"; Helen Block Lewis, "Consequences for Ethical Theory of a Focus on the Psychology of Shame and Guilt"; Edmund L. Pincoffs, "Ethics as an Explanatory Undertaking"; Standish Thayer, "The Network of Concepts: A New View of Aristotle"; Mortimer R. Kadish, "Abraham Edel and the Dream of Science"; Michael Levin, "Reflections on Non-Cognitivism"; Ralph W. Sleeper, "Naturalizing Legal Positivism"; Irving Louis Horowitz, "The Political Philosophy of Abraham Edel"; Finbarr W. O'Connor, "Network Analysis in Ethics"; Elizabeth Flower, "A Moral Agenda for Ethical Theory"; Abraham Edel, "Responses to Critics"; "An Edel Bibliography.". (shrink)

The fields of medical ethics, bioethics, and women's studies have experienced unprecedented growth in the last forty years. Along with the rapid pace of development in medicine and biology, and changes in social expectations, moral quandaries about the body and social practices involving it have multiplied. Philosophers are uniquely situated to attempt to clarify and resolves these questions. Yet the subdiscipline of bioethics still in large part reflects mainstream scholars' lack of interest in gender as a category of analysis. This (...) volume aims to show how a feminist perspective advances bioethics. The author uncover inconsistencies in traditional arguments and argue for the importance of hitherto ignored factors in decision-making. The essays include theory and very specific examples that demonstrate the glaring inadequacy of mainstream bioethics, where gender bias is still often to be found, along with general lack of attention to women's concerns. (shrink)

According to the theory of contextual integrity (CI), privacy norms prescribe information flows with reference to five parameters — sender, recipient, subject, information type, and transmission principle. Because privacy is grasped contextually (e.g., health, education, civic life, etc.), the values of these parameters range over contextually meaningful ontologies — of information types (or topics) and actors (subjects, senders, and recipients), in contextually defined capacities. As an alternative to predominant approaches to privacy, which were ineffective against novel information practices enabled by (...) IT, CI was able both to pinpoint sources of disruption and provide grounds for either accepting or rejecting them. Mounting challenges from a burgeoning array of networked, sensor-enabled devices (IoT) and data-ravenous machine learning systems, similar in form though magnified in scope, call for renewed attention to theory. This Article introduces the metaphor of a data (food) chain to capture the nature of these challenges. With motion up the chain, where data of higher order is inferred from lower-order data, the crucial question is whether privacy norms governing lower-order data are sufficient for the inferred higher-order data. While CI has a response to this question, a greater challenge comes from data primitives, such as digital impulses of mouse clicks, motion detectors, and bare GPS coordinates, because they appear to have no meaning. Absent a semantics, they escape CI’s privacy norms entirely. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new realist idealist account of perception, on which perception is not essentially representational. Perception, rather, involves an overlapping of two phenomenal unities: the perceiving subject, and the phenomenal tapestry of reality. This renders it intelligible that we can stand in precisely the same relation to distal objects of perception as we do to our own pains. The resulting view captures much that naïve realists take to be central to perception. But, I argue, such a (...) view is only intelligible if distal objects are themselves fundamentally mental. Idealism is thus uniquely posed to intelligibly capture the benefits of naïve realism. (shrink)

It has been claimed that ‘virtuous structures’ can foster moral agency in organisations. We investigate this in the context of employee involvement in corporate philanthropy, an activity whose moral status has been disputed. Employing Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of moral agency, we analyse the results of eight focus groups with employees engaged in corporate philanthropy in an employee-owned retailer, the John Lewis Partnership. Within this organisational context, Employee–Partners’ moral agency was evidenced in narrative accounts of their engagement in philanthropic activities and (...) in their disputes about the moral status of corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

When making a decision, humans consider two types of information: information they have acquired through their prior experience of the world, and further information they gather to support the decision in question. Here, we present evidence that data from search engines such as Google can help us model both sources of information. We show that statistics from search engines on the frequency of content on the Internet can help us estimate the statistical structure of prior experience; and, specifically, we outline (...) how such statistics can inform psychological theories concerning the valuation of human lives, or choices involving delayed outcomes. Turning to information gathering, we show that search query data might help measure human information gathering, and it may predict subsequent decisions. Such data enable us to compare information gathered across nations, where analyses suggest, for example, a greater focus on the future in countries with a higher per capita GDP. We conclude that search engine data constitute a valuable new resource for cognitive scientists, offering a fascinating new tool for understanding the human decision-making process. (shrink)

This essay surveys twenty-five years of feminist epistemology in the pages of Hypatia. Feminist contributions have addressed the affective dimensions of knowledge; the natures of justification, rationality, and the cognitive agent; and the nature of truth. They reflect thinking from both analytic and continental philosophical traditions and offer a rich tapestry of ideas from which to continue challenging tradition and forging analytical tools for the problems ahead.

Paediatric research in low-income countries is essential to tackle high childhood mortality. As with all research, consent is an essential part of ethical practice for paediatric studies. Ethics guidelines recommend that parents or another proxy provide legal consent for children to participate, but that children should be involved in the decision through providing assent. However, there remain uncertainties about how to judge when children are ready to give assent and about appropriate assent processes. Malawi does not yet have detailed guidelines (...) on assent. Understanding perspectives among children and their parents can assist in developing contextually-appropriate assent guidance. Qualitative research was conducted with children and parents in three settings in Southern Malawi, to take account of any variations between socioeconomic and cultural contexts. In each setting, interviews were conducted with parents and their children who had participated in paediatric research to understand their experiences of assent and views on appropriate assent practice. Focus groups were also conducted with children and parents, to understand broader social perspectives. We found widespread support for involving children in decisions on research participation. Participants identified a range of factors that affect children’s capacity to give assent, including intellectual capacity, emotional development, life experience and cultural norms. Age was often mentioned as a consideration, but deemed an unreliable sole indicator of capacity to assent. In relation to appropriate assent processes, participants emphasised considerations such as supporting effective understanding and minimizing harms. Views on how to achieve these aims varied; for example, there were different ideas about the appropriate order in which to approach children and parents, and about whose decision to respect in the event of disagreement. Parents and children agreed about the value of involving children in decisions on research, and about the need to promote children’s decision-making capacity while respecting parents’ interests in children’s welfare. Developing practical guidance that meets these principles is challenging, particularly given the need for flexible approaches that suit different study types, children’s capacities and family environments. Further discussion within the Malawi research and ethics community will help develop contextually-appropriate guidelines. (shrink)

In the late 1930s networks of amateur observers across Britain were collecting data on birds , aircraft and society itself . This paper concentrates on birdwatching practice in the period 1930–1955. Through an examination of the construction of birdwatching's subjects, the Observers, and their objects, birds, it is argued that amateur strategies of scientific observation and record reflected, and were part-constitutive of, particular versions of ecological, national and social identity in this period. The paper examines how conflicts between a rural, (...) organicist Britishness and a modern, planner-preservationist Britishness were elaborated and contained within the figure of the birdwatcher and within the institutional epistemologies of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology. Such conflicts are shown to be embedded in the structuring of visual perception in different strategies of bird and aircraft identification, particularly between analytic and gestalt methods; the paper examines, using the related ‘field-science’ of aircraft recognition, the importance of identificatory processes in the construction of the Observer, and concludes by examining whether tensions between organicist and scientific discourses were in any sense resolved by the end of this period. (shrink)

Originally published in 1910, this book attempts to describe knowledge from the point of view of a philosophical psychology. Wodehouse treats the text as a 'psychological preface to metaphysics', and splits her examination into three sections: knowledge as resulting from judgements in the actual world; the philosophical problem of fallible knowledge; and the question of imagination and 'the variousness of reality'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Wodehouse's work or in the overlap of psychology (...) and philosophy. (shrink)

Women most fully experience the consequences of human reproductive technologies. Men who convene to evaluate such technologies discuss "them": the women who must accept, avoid, or even resist these technologies; the women who consume technologies they did not devise; the women who are the objects of policies made by men. So often the input of women is neither sought nor listened to. The privileged insights and perspectives that women bring to the consideration of technologies in human reproduction are the subject (...) of these volumes, which constitute the revised and edited record of a Workshop on "Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction Technology: Analysis by Women" (EIRTAW), held in June, 1979, at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Some 80 members of the workshop, 90 percent of them women (from 24 states), represented diverse occupations and personal histories, different races and classes, varied political commitments. They included doctors, nurses, and scientists, lay midwives, consumer advocates, historians, and sociologists, lawyers, policy analysts, and ethicists. Each session, however, made plain that ethics is an everyday concern for women in general, as well as an academic profession for some. (shrink)

There has been much interest in the recent philosophical literature on increasing the reliability and trustworthiness of computer simulations. One method used to investigate the reliability of computer simulations is code comparison. Gueguen, however, has offered a convincing critique of code comparisons, arguing that they face a critical tension between the diversity of codes required for an informative comparison and the similarity required for the codes to be comparable. Here, I reflect on her critique in light of a recent code (...) comparison investigating self-interacting dark matter in two computer simulation codes. I argue that the informativeness of this particular code comparison was due to its targeted approach and narrow focus. Its targeted approach (i.e., only the dark matter modules) allowed for simulation outputs that were diverse enough for an informative comparison and yet still comparable. Understanding the comparison as an instance of eliminative reasoning narrowed the focus: we could investigate whether code-specific differences in implementation contributed significantly to the results of self-interacting dark matter simulations. Based on this case study, I argue that code comparisons can be conducted in such a way that they serve as a method for increasing our confidence in computer simulations being, as Parker defines, adequate-for-purpose. (shrink)

The anthology is a collection of readings from a wide range of philosophical and cultural perspectives. Interesting and reader-friendly selections were purposely selected so as to be accessible to a wide range of students. While designed to accompany Mitchell's ROOTS OF WISDOM, it can also be used with any other introductory text.

ROOTS OF WISDOM, Seventh Edition, invites students to explore universal and current philosophical issues through a rich tapestry of perspectives including the ideas and traditions of men and women from the West, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. No other book offers such breadth of multicultural coverage coupled with a clear, concise, and approachable writing style. Mitchell presents striking images to illustrate our diverse cultural inheritance, using fine art, cartoons, poetry, movies, current events, and popular music to bring the issues of (...) philosophy to life for students. This edition includes a new discussion of logos and mythos as laid out by Karen Armstrong, material on calculative vs. meditative thinking from Heidegger, expanded treatment of sovereignty and citizenship with new discussion on the so-called Arab Spring, and more. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the temporal dimensions of racialised and colonised embodiment. I draw on the work of Alia Al-Saji, whose phenomenological reading of Frantz Fanon examines the multiple ways in which racism and colonialism affix the racialised and colonised body to that of the past; a temporalisation that serves not only to anachronise these bodies, but also to close off their projective possibilities for being or becoming otherwise. Such a move reflects the nature of racialisation itself, which following (...) Charles Mills, does not just exteriorise or ‘other’ racialised bodies, but relies equally on a forgetting, or a disavowal and leaving behind of this very process. The result, I argue, is to render whiteness and white bodies as temporally present and even futural in their orientation, free from the vestiges of racism's history and free to adopt any number of stances on its continuing legacy. It is against this that I argue that the familiar exhortation to ‘get over’ racism whenever the charge is levelled, is not only dangerous in its denial of racism, but also disingenuous in purporting to move beyond a racially divided world, when in fact this very gesture serves to reinscribe differential racialised temporalities. (shrink)

Despite tributes paid to Fuller as an intellectual father of ADR, little attention has been paid within the ADR field to the broader interactionist vision that underlies Fuller’s discussion about process. A closer reading of Fuller’s study of mediation, however, reveals that he intended that study to substantiate his interactionist thesis about the nature of social ordering. He understood ordering to be generated by and to reflect a particular experience of social interaction. Fuller’s interactionist vision recognizes the creative, choice-making and (...) purposive dimensions of human reality, emphasizes participation as a normative criterion for institutional design, and gives rise to a pluralistic notion of power arrangements. It appears in Fuller’s thinking about process as a kind of dialectic and integrative mindset that pervades his means-ends analysis, functional analytical approach and his emphasis on institutional design. This interactionist vision has particular relevance for the practice and research of ADR, for example, in helping to develop a more integrative approach to process pluralism. (shrink)

Problems with clinical research that create conflicts between doctors' therapeutic and research obligations may be fueled by a rigid view of science as determiner of truth, a heavy reliance on statistics, and certain features of randomized clinical trials. I suggest some creative, feminist approaches to such research and explore ways to provide choice for patients and to use values in directing both therapy and science - to enhance the effectiveness of each.

Japan has no law recognizing the condition of brain death as the standard for determining that an individual has died. Instead, it is customary medical practice to declare a person dead when three conditions have been met: cessation of heart beat, cessation of respiration, and opening of the pupils. Of the developed nations, only Japan and Israel do not recognize brain death as the death of the human person.

In conversation with the ethical-theological-philosophical role of love in the Abrahamic traditions and U.S. immigration, personal testimonies of refugee families seeking asylum join the witness of the interfaith community of greater San Antonio to explain the gift received when love of God is expressed as radical hospitality.