Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor provide a clearly reasoned, articulate account of the two main principles of secularism—equal respect, and freedom of conscience—and argue that in our religiously diverse, politically interconnected world, secularism, properly understood, may offer the only path to religious and philosophical freedom.

In absence of effective pharmaceutical treatments, the individual's compliance with a series of behavioral recommendations provided by the public health authorities play a critical role in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. However, we still do not know much about the rate and determinants of adoption of the recommended health behaviors. This paper examines the compliance with the main behavioral recommendations, and compares sociocultural, psychosocial, and social cognitive explanations for its variation in the French population. Based on the current (...) literature, these 3 categories of factors were identified as potential determinants of individual differences in the health preventive behaviors. The data used for these analyses are drawn from 2 cross-sectional studies conducted after the lockdown and before the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. The participants were drawn from a larger internet consumer panel where recruitment was stratified to generate a socio-demographically representative sample of the French adult population. Overall, the results show a very high rate of compliance with the behavioral recommendations among the participants. A hierarchical regression analysis was then performed to assess the potential explanatory power of these approaches in complying with these recommendations by successively entering sociocultural factors, psychosocial factors, social cognitive factors in the model. Only the inclusion of the cognitive variables substantially increased the explained variance of the self-reported adoption of preventive behaviors, providing better support for the social cognitive than the sociocultural and psychosocial explanations. (shrink)

La theorie de la signification a joue un role central dans le developpement de la phenomenologie. Jocelyn Benoist essaye d'en donner un expose systematique, y decelant le paradoxe que represente l'influence decisive d'un auteur qui n'utilise pas le concept d'intentionalite (Bolzano), relu et reinterprete par Husserl au moyen de ce meme concept. L'oeuvre de Husserl se situe au croisement de Bolzano et de Brentano, d'une pensee du sens et d'une pensee de l'acte, de l'objectivisme logique et de la description (...) psychologique et pragmatique: c'est le principe de lecture adopte ici. Cette enquete sur la theorie de la signification de Husserl conduit a revisiter tous les lieux classiques de la philosophie du langage et de la logique contemporaine, mis en vedette depuis par la philosophie analytique: theorie du sens, de la grammaire, de la verite, de la proposition, du nom propre, de l'indexicalite, des performatifs, etc. On mesure ainsi le point auquel la pensee de Husserl etait deja installe de plain-pied dans ces problematiques, et ce qu'elles-memes ont, aujourd'hui, a gagner a un retour sur elle. (shrink)

Machine learning-based AI algorithms lack transparency. In this article, I offer an interpretation of AI’s explainability problem and highlight its ethical saliency. I try to make the case for the legal enforcement of a strong explainability requirement: human organizations which decide to automate decision-making should be legally obliged to demonstrate the capacity to explain and justify the algorithmic decisions that have an impact on the wellbeing, rights, and opportunities of those affected by the decisions. This legal duty can be derived (...) from the demands of Rawlsian public reason. In the second part of the paper, I try to show that the argument from the limitations of human cognition fails to get AI off the hook of public reason. Against a growing trend in AI ethics, my main argument is that the analogy between human minds and artificial neural networks fails because it suffers from an atomistic bias which makes it blind to the social and institutional dimension of human reasoning processes. I suggest that developing interpretive AI algorithms is not the only possible answer to the explainability problem; social and institutional answers are also available and in many cases more trustworthy than techno-scientific ones. (shrink)

Esteemed philosopher Jocelyn Benoist argues for a renewed realism that takes seriously the context in which intention occurs. "What there is"-the traditional subject of metaphysics-can be determined only in context, Benoist contends, carving out a new path that rejects acontextual ontologies and approaches to the mind.

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has received considerable attention from many in the field of bioethics. Philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and clinicians of all sorts have engaged with many challenging aspects of this issue. Public debate, public policy, and the law have been enhanced by the varied disciplinary analyses. With the legalization of MAiD in Canada, some attention is now being turned to issues that have historically been overshadowed by the debate about whether to permit MAiD. One such issue is voluntary (...) stopping eating and drinking (VSED) as an alternative to MAiD. In this paper, I will apply a legal lens to the issue. An understanding of whether VSED is legal provides a foundation for ethical reflection on whether it ought to be permitted. Is it permitted for those who prefer VSED to MAiD? Is it permitted for those who do not qualify for MAiD under our current legislation – for those who do not have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, for mature minors, for individuals whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder and who do not otherwise meet the eligibility criteria, and for individuals who have lost capacity but had completed an advance directive? (shrink)

Medical assistance in dying has received considerable attention from many in the field of bioethics. Philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and clinicians of all sorts have engaged with many challenging aspects of this issue. Public debate, public policy, and the law have been enhanced by the varied disciplinary analyses. With the legalization of MAiD in Canada, some attention is now being turned to issues that have historically been overshadowed by the debate about whether to permit MAiD. One such issue is voluntary stopping (...) eating and drinking as an alternative to MAiD. In this paper, I will apply a legal lens to the issue. An understanding of whether VSED is legal provides a foundation for ethical reflection on whether it ought to be permitted. Is it permitted for those who prefer VSED to MAiD? Is it permitted for those who do not qualify for MAiD under our current legislation – for those who do not have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, for mature minors, for individuals whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder and who do not otherwise meet the eligibility criteria, and for individuals who have lost capacity but had completed an advance directive? (shrink)

This article investigates the experience of individual learners who have been allocated learning support in the further education system in England. The particular focus is on interviewees' constructions of their emotional and psychic experiences. Through the adoption of a psycho-social perspective, learners' tendency to 'idealise' their learning support workers is understood as a strategy for coping with the anxiety generated by a range of previous experiences. The implications for policy-makers are discussed.

This work argues for a moral consideration of animal work relations. Paying special attention to the livestock industry, the author challenges the zootechnical denigration of animals for increased productivity awhile championing the collaborative nature of work. For Porcher, work is not merely a means to production but a means of living together unity. This unique reconsideration of work envisions animals as co-laborers with humans, rather than overwrought tools for exploitative, and often lethal, employment. Readers will learn about the disjunction between (...) those focused on productivity and profit and those who favor a more ethical work environment for animals. Porcher's text also engages environmental and political debates concerning animal-human relations. (shrink)

La question du synthétique a priori définie par Husserl, malgré la critique adressée par le Cercle de Vienne, est réouverte. Plutôt que de fonder le concept à partir de l'intuition, l'auteur propose de le fonder à partir du concept. Il s'appuie sur la pensée de Bolzano, pour en faire le principe d'une lecture de Kant, Husserl, Schlick et Wittgenstein.

Jocelyn Maclure | : Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition is a major contribution to the normative literature on minority rights. I nonetheless suggest that liberal culturalism as a normative theory, even in Patten’s sophisticated version, is ill suited to deal with the challenges related to the status of religion in the public sphere that are so prevalent in contemporary democracies. In addition, I submit that Patten did not supply a fully convincing answer to the argument that liberal egalitarianism, well understood, (...) is capacious enough to secure fair terms of social cooperation for members of cultural minorities, making the language of “cultural rights” and “cultural recognition” superfluous. | : Le livre Equal Recognition d’Alan Patten contribue de façon majeure aux travaux de philosophie politique sur les droits des minorités culturelles. Je suggère néanmoins que la théorie normative qu’est le « culturalisme libéral », y compris dans la version sophistiquée défendue par Patten, n’est pas outillée pour penser les omniprésents défis concernant le statut de la religion dans l’espace public. De plus, j’avance que Patten n’a pas été en mesure d’offrir une réponse pleinement satisfaisante à ceux qui soutiennent que l’égalitarisme libéral bien compris est en mesure d’offrir des termes de coopération sociale justes aux membres des minorités culturelles, sans devoir être complété par des « droits culturels » ou par le langage de la « reconnaissance » des cultures. (shrink)

The question of whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying has recently come to the fore in debates about the legalisation of assisted dying. For example, it was central to critiques of the 2021 amendments made to Canada’s assisted dying law. The question of whether changes to a country’s assisted dying legislation lead to descents down slippery slopes has also come to the fore—as it does any time a jurisdiction (...) changes its laws. We explore these two questions through the lens of Canada’s experience both to inform Canada’s ongoing discussions and because other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law. Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law has evolved through a journey from the courts to Parliament, back to the courts, and then back to Parliament. Along this journey the eligibility criteria, the procedural safeguards, and the monitoring regime have changed. In this article, we focus on the eligibility criteria. First, we explain the evolution of the law and what the eligibility criteria were at the various stops along the way. We then explore the ethical justifications for Canada’s new criteria by looking at two elements of the often-corrosive debate. First, we ask whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying of decisionally capable people with mental illnesses and people with disabilities as their sole underlying medical conditions. Second, we ask whether Canada’s journey supports slippery slope arguments against permitting assisted dying. All data relevant to the study are included in the article. (shrink)

In a thought-provoking paper, Schuklenk and Smalling argue that no right to conscientious objection should be granted to medical professionals. First, they hold that it is impossible to assess either the truth of conscience-based claims or the sincerity of the objectors. Second, even a fettered right to conscientious refusal inevitably has adverse effects on the rights of patients. We argue that the main problem with their position is that it is not derived from a broader reflection on the meaning and (...) implications of freedom of conscience and reasonable accommodation. We point out that they collapse two related but distinct questions, that is, the subjective conception of freedom of conscience and the sincerity test. We note that they do not successfully show that the standard norm according to which exemption claims should not impose undue hardship on others is unworkable. We suggest that the main reason why arguments such as no one is forced to be a medical professional are flawed is that public norms should not constrain citizens to choose between two of their basic rights unless it is necessary. In fine, Schuklenk and Smalling, who see conscience claims as arbitrary dislikes, sell freedom of conscience short and forego any attempts at balancing the competing rights involved. We maintain the authors neglect that most of legal reasoning is contextual and that the blanket restriction of healthcare professionals' freedom of conscience is disproportionate. (shrink)

Although accountability lies at the heart of the “doing gender” perspective, it has received surprisingly little attention from gender scholars. In this article, I analyze the different ways that scholars have conceptualized accountability. I propose a synthesis of these various understandings, and demonstrate the utility of this conceptualization with examples from my research on feminist self-defense training. This analysis sheds light on both the workings of accountability and the process of change in gender expectations and practices. I conclude by considering (...) the implications of this reconceptualization of accountability. (shrink)

A model policy for conscientious objection in medicine.

Golden parachutes are often viewed as a form of excessive compensation because they provide senior management with substantial payouts following an acquisition while other stakeholders are subjected to layoffs, disrupted business relationships and other negative externalities. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, an economic and ethical justification for this type of contract is given. Golden parachutes ensure effective corporate governance that, in turn, preserve the firm's value for all stakeholders. Boards of directors enter into parachute agreements to protect recently (...) hired CEOs' human capital during periods of financial uncertainty and, thus, potential takeover activity. From an ethics viewpoint, golden parachutes are valuable to all stakeholders because they encourage merger or acquisition in lieu of bankruptcy. (shrink)

Drawing on ethical principles of fairness and integrative social contracts theory, moral obligations of fair dealing exist between the firm and all shareholders. This study investigates empirically whether privileged investors of publicly traded firms engage in legal, but morally questionable, trading that at the expense of non-privileged institutional or atomistic investors. In this context, we define privilege as the access to material, nonpublic earnings surprise information. Our results show that the opportunity for procedural unfairness increases with the presence of privileged (...) investors. However, this procedural unfairness does not appear to lead to distributive unfairness even though the level of abnormal trading also increases with the presence of privileged investors. That is, our findings suggest that other shareholders are in fact better off from an outcome perspective given that the abnormal stock price returns upon the announcement of an earnings surprise are either more positive or less negative when the firm has a high proportion of privileged investors. We extract the important implications of our study for future research on the fairness of capital markets and information asymmetry amongst classes of investors, as well as for public policy. (shrink)

Animal production, especially pork production, is facing growing international criticism. The greatest concerns relate to the environment, the animals’ living conditions, and the occupational diseases. But human and animal conditions are rarely considered together. Yet the living conditions at work and the emotional bond that inevitably forms bring the farm workers and the animals to live very close, which leads to shared suffering. Suffering does spread from animals to human beings and can cause workers physical, mental, and also moral suffering, (...) which is all the more harmful due to the fact that it is concealed. The conceptual tools used to conceal suffering ( animal welfare, stress, pain) suggest that the industrial system can be improved, whereas for farmers it is by definition incompatible with animal husbandry. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a personal and professional narrative of how Canada went from prohibition to permission for medical assistance in dying. I describe the legal developments to date and flag what might be coming in the near future. I also offer some personal observations and reflections on the role and impact of bioethics and bioethicists, on what it was like to be a participant in Canada's law reform process, and on lessons that readers in other jurisdictions might take (...) from Canada's experience. (shrink)

The the question whether the generality of thinking precludes mtentions drrected to smgular objects as such. After characterizing in what teirns thinking is. shows that this generality does not prevent us of having singular thoughts, i.e.,.intentions that are not only directed, but apprehend the singular in its own singularity.

RésuméL'objectif principal de cet article est de clarifier le sens et l'extension du concept d'analyticité tel qu'il s'applique aux systèmes formels de la logique. L'enjeu plus général de cette étude est une évaluation ékthodologique des approches philosophiques axées sur la reconstruction formelle et l'analyse logique des langues naturelles. Nous avons d'abord soutenu que la reconstruction formelle de l'analyticitéélaborée par Rudolf Carnap dans Meaning and Necessity met en place des conditions correspondant aux propriétés éktalogiques de complétude déductive et de néga‐complétude. A (...) la lumère des théorèmes de complétude et d'incomplhde de Kurt Gödel, nous avons ensuite cherchéà déterminer dans quelle mesure et dans quelles circonstances ces propriétés pouvaient être réalisées dans des systèmes formels de la logique. Nous avons conch de cette étude, premièrement que la reconstruction carnapéenne de I'analyticité se butait à des contraintes inhérentes aux formalismes et ne pouvait par conséquent pas constituer une explication du concept d'analyticité, et deuxieèmement, que fort peu de systèmes formels étaient analytiques au sens oú Carnap I'entend et que peu d'entre eux, par conséquent, étaient susceptibles de représenter les conditions de l'analyticité que presuppose une analyse logique du langage. (shrink)

Most of the essays collected here are essaysinmetaethics seeking in exacting and interesting ways to resolve problems raised by the familiar options in metaethics we outlined in our Introduction. Richard Brandt, for example, forcefully argues, going much against the at least modestly holistic grain of our time, for a foundationalism (noncognitivist though it be) which would be foundational in both metaethics and normative ethics. R.M. Hare makes a brief but systematic defense, which is both spirited and clear, of his prescriptivism (...) (a species of what we, following tradition, have called ‘noncognitivism,’ but which he argues should instead be called ‘nondescriptivism’). His arguments here for his position - call it nondescriptivism or noncognitivism- are directed forcefully against ethical naturalism (descriptivism) and specifically against the naturalism of Philippa Foot. Nicholas Sturgeon and David Copp contribute elaborate and rigorously argued defenses of ethical naturalism, or, as they might prefer to call it, ‘moral realism.’. (shrink)

Phillips & Silverstein (P&S, 2003) have proposed that NMDA-receptor hypofunction is the central reason for impaired cognitive coordination and abnormal gestalt-like perceptual processing in schizophrenia. We suggest that this model may also be applicable to non-pathological (or normal) aging given the compelling evidence of NMDA-receptor involvement during the aging process that results in age-related change in higher-level perceptual performance. Given that such deficits are present in other neurological disorders such as autism, an argument for a systematic assessment of perceptual functioning (...) in these conditions may be posited. (shrink)

I investigate the normative and conceptual account of the relationship between public recognition and dignitarian, or egalitarian, commitments. I do so through addressing the normative dispute, sparked by legal cases such as Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, as to whether there are dignitarian grounds for rejecting religious exemptions to antidiscrimination laws. I argue that there are such grounds. Specifically, I argue that, if granted, such exemptions would inflict dignitary harms against LGBTQ (...) individuals by denying them the public recognition necessary for reliably sustaining civic self-respect. Such exemptions would deny this recognition in two distinct ways. First, such exemptions would institutionalize humiliation of LGBTQ individuals as market actors. Second, such exemptions would condition market access for LGBTQ individuals on unequal terms. Through making this argument, I hope to make three primary, and related, contributions: I introduce a concept of civic self-respect; I argue that the normative import of public recognition is grounded in the good of civic self-respect; and I rely on this normative framework to show how religious exemptions to public accommodations laws inflict dignitary harms. My argument is relevant to both political philosophers and legal scholars grappling with questions of why public recognition matters and what it demands. (shrink)

To date, ethics discussions about stem cell research overwhelmingly have centered on the morality and acceptability of using human embryonic stem cells. Governments in many jurisdictions have now answered these “first-level questions” and many have now begun to address ethical issues related to the donation of cells, gametes, or embryos for research. In this commentary, we move beyond these ethical concerns to discuss new themes that scientists on the forefront of NRM development anticipate, providing a preliminary framework for further discussion (...) between scientists and ethicists. Fostering strong partnerships between neuroscientists and ethicists that operate and collaborate within this evolving framework will maximize the translation of NRM discoveries on the brain into cures that are safe and address the needs of science and society. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that beliefs about vulnerability and dangerousness are central to conceptions of gender and are constructed and transmitted through conversation. Using data from 13 focus groups, the author demonstrates that ideas about gender and its relationship to vulnerability and danger are pervasive in talk about violence, and that this talk is further marked by ideas about age, race, social class, and sexual identity. These ideas are based, in part, on shared beliefs about human bodies, which (...) reinforce the perceived naturalness of these ideas. The article concludes with a discussion of the consequences of these ideas for the daily lives of women and men. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉJe défends dans ce texte une version particulière de la position que Sharon Street a appelée le «constructivisme humien». J'esquisserai pourquoi je considère que ce constructivisme est préférable à la fois au réalisme moral et au constructivisme kantien sur le plan de la compréhension du statut ontologique des valeurs. Après avoir accepté de reconnaître le rôle des pressions de l’évolution dans l’émergence de la moralité, le constructivisme humien doit toutefois préciser le rôle de l'intersubjectivité historique dans l’évolution subséquente de la (...) morale. J'expliquerai aussi pourquoi je considère que l'intégration d'un volet cohérentiste au constructivisme permet d'atténuer les craintes concernant le caractère potentiellement non-cognitiviste des théories contextualistes. Enfin, j'esquisserai pourquoi l'idée d'un «espace des raisons morales» indépendant, à certains égards, de l'esprit humain est compatible avec le constructivisme humien. (shrink)

Je défends dans ce texte une version particulière de la position que Sharon Street a appelée le «constructivisme humien». J’esquisserai pourquoi je considère que ce constructivisme est préférable à la fois au réalisme moral et au constructivisme kantien sur le plan de la compréhension du statut ontologique des valeurs. Après avoir accepté de reconnaître le rôle des pressions de l’évolution dans l’émergence de la moralité, le constructivisme humien doit toutefois préciser le rôle de l’intersubjectivité historique dans l’évolution subséquente de la (...) morale. J’expliquerai aussi pourquoi je considère que l’intégration d’un volet cohérentiste au constructivisme permet d’atténuer les craintes concernant le caractère potentiellement non-cognitiviste des théories contextualistes. Enfin, j’esquisserai pourquoi l’idée d’un «espace des raisons morales» indépendant, à certains égards, de l’esprit humain est compatible avec le constructivisme humien.I defend a version of what Sharon Street has dubbed “Humean constructivism.” I’ll first sketch out why I think that contextual constructivism provides us with a more plausible understanding of the ontological status of values than both Kantian constructivism and moral realism. In addition to its recognition of the role of evolutionary pressures in the emergence of human morality, contextual constructivism must now clarify the role of historical intersubjectivity in the subsequent development of morality. I will then claim that adding a coherentist module to Humean constructivism provides a satisfactory answer to those who fear that contextual metaethical theories can only be non-cognitivist. Finally, I will sketch out why I think that the notion of a mind-independent “space of moral reasons” is largely compatible with Humean constructivism. (shrink)

Patients in Quebec can legally obtain medical assistance in dying (MAID) if they are able to give informed consent, have a serious and incurable illness, are at the end of their lives and are in a situation of unbearable suffering. Since the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Carter decision, access to MAID, under certain conditions, has become a constitutional right. Quebec physicians are now likely to receive requests for MAID from their patients. The Quebec and Canadian laws recognize a physician’s (...) right to conscientious objection, but this right is contested both in the medical ethics literature and in the public sphere. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted with twenty Quebec physicians who did not integrate MAID into their medical practice, either because they were opposed to or deeply ambivalent about MAID. The interviews aimed to explore the reasons – religious and secular – for opposition to or ambivalence towards MAID. The secular reasons given by participants were grouped into four main categories: 1) the ends of medicine and professional identity, 2) the philosophy of palliative medicine and resource allocation in palliative care, 3) benevolent paternalism, the “good death”, and the interests of future selves, 4) the risk of a slippery slope and the protection of vulnerable people. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide as accurate a picture as possible of transnational trade in human eggs involving Canadians. We explain the legal status in Canada, and call for reform in the regulation, of such trade.