This pioneering anthology of Middle English prologues and other excerpts from texts written between 1280 and 1520 is one of the largest collections of vernacular literary theory from the Middle Ages yet published and the first to focus attention on English literary theory before the sixteenth century. It edits, introduces, and glosses some sixty excerpts, all of which reflect on the problems and opportunities associated with writing in the "mother tongue" during a period of revolutionary change for the English language. (...) The excerpts fall into three groups, illustrating the strategies used by medieval writers to establish their cultural authority, the ways they constructed audiences and readerships, and the models they offered for the process of reading. Taken together, the excerpts show how vernacular texts reflected and contributed to the formation of class, gender, professional, and national identity. They open windows onto late medieval debates on women's and popular literacy, on the use of the vernacular for religious instruction or Bible translation, on the complex metaphorical associations contained within the idea of the vernacular, and on the cultural and political role of the "courtly" writing associated with Chaucer and his successors. Besides the excerpts, the book contains five essays that propose new definitions of medieval literary theory, discuss the politics of Middle English writing, the relation of medieval book production to notions of authorship, and the status of the prologue as a genre, and compare the role of the medieval vernacular to that of postcolonial literatures. The book includes a substantial glossary that constitutes the first mapping of the language and terms of Middle English literary theory. _The Idea of the Vernacular_ will be an invaluable asset not only to Middle English survey courses but to courses in English literary and cultural history and courses on the history of literary theory. (shrink)

The Ancrene Wisse, a guide for female recluses written in the West Midlands in the early thirteenth century, and the closely related religious works of the `Katherine Group', offer a vivid insight into the religious life of the time, and their rich and varied prose style blends Latin and native English stylistic traditions with remarkable skill and assurance. The difficulty of their language, however, has made them largely inaccessible except to experts in Middle English, and this edition is designed to (...) introduce them to a wider audience, including undergraduates with limited experience of Middle English and specialists in other disciplines, particularly history, theology, and women's studies. It provides a representative selection in new and readable critical texts, with a general introduction, notes, a select glossary, and interleaved translations. (shrink)

How can a partial, revisable utopia of ‘decent society’ be used as a yardstick for assessing today’s impersonal forms of social integration? In economic life — this essay’s focus — Polanyi’s hopes that the ‘economic system’ might cease ‘to lay down the law to society’ is a start. Recently, financial firms sold commodified promises and obligations on the allure of democratizing credit and providing financial ‘choice’ to millions. Yet these ‘civilities’ exploited people’s hopes for a dignified life. Any new, partial (...) utopia is yet to be devised. Maria Markus’s concept is useful to ask whether the instrumental-ism of macro-economic concepts is a distortion of the institutions of money or intrinsic to them. Could solidaristic compromises through civil society minimize disrespectful relationships embedded in money to create decent institutions? (shrink)

Emerging adult newlywed couples often experience many demands on their time, and three common problems may surface as couples try to balance these demands—problems related to finances, sleep, and sex. We used two waves of dyadic data from 1,001 emerging adult newlywed couples to identify four dyadic latent profiles from husbands’ and wives’ financial management behaviors, sexual satisfaction, and sleep quality: Flounderers, Financially Challenged Lovers, Drowsy Budgeters, and Flourishers. We then examined how husbands’ and wives’ marital satisfaction, in relation to (...) profile membership, varied at a later wave. We found that Financially Challenged Lovers and Flourishers had significantly higher marital satisfaction than Drowsy Budgeters and Flounderers. Whereas, Financially Challenged Lovers and Flourishers did not differ in terms of marital satisfaction, Drowsy Budgeters seemed to have slightly higher marital satisfaction than Flounderers for wives only. However, we did not find evidence that these connections meaningfully differed by sex. Implications for the efforts of clinicians and educators are discussed. (shrink)

Fallibilists claim that one can know a proposition on the basis of evidence that supports it even if the evidence doesn't guarantee its truth. Jessica Brown offers a compelling defence of this view against infallibilists, who claim that it is contradictory to claim to know and yet to admit the possibility of error.

Algorithms wield increasing control over our lives—over the jobs we get, the loans we're granted, the information we see online. Algorithms can and often do wield their power in a biased way, and much work has been devoted to algorithmic bias. In contrast, algorithmic neutrality has been largely neglected. I investigate algorithmic neutrality, tackling three questions: What is algorithmic neutrality? Is it possible? And when we have it in mind, what can we learn about algorithmic bias?

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.

Qu'est-ce qu'un concept ? Cette question concerne au premier chef ceux qui ont fait du concept une profession : chercheurs dans les diverses sciences, humaines ou non, et travailleurs intellectuels en général. Plus largement, elle exprime cette curiosité naturelle, non dénuée d'inquiétude, à laquelle toute pensée, commune ou savante, semble exposée et qui nous pousse à souhaiter, sans savoir sans doute exactement ce que nous recherchons par là, une détermination plus exacte de ce que nous entendons par « pensée ». (...) Que veut dire pour la pensée que celle-ci, en un certain sens, passe par la mise en œuvre de ce que nous appelons « concepts » ? Quelle est la nature exacte de cette discrimination faite alors entre le conceptuel et le non-conceptuel ? Les concepts, étymologiquement, sont censés nous ménager une prise sur quelque chose. Cette chose, est-ce bien la réalité même ? Sommes-nous ainsi capables de penser « les choses telles qu'elles sont » ? Et, si c'est le cas, à quel prix ? Quelles limites faut-il accepter à l'efficacité de nos pensées ? Telles sont les questions recouvertes par leur caractérisation en termes de « concepts », et celles que ce livre, au fil des exemples et mises en situation, s'attache à résoudre. (shrink)

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)

Critical Realism and Marxism addresses controversial debates, revealing a potentially fruitful relationship; deepening our understanding of the social world and contibuting towards eliminating barbarism in contemporary capitalism.

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)

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)

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 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)

A model policy for conscientious objection in medicine.

Many researchers have identified a process they call ‘deskilling’, which they use to describe the daily experience of teachers who have been gradually losing control of their own labour within ‘low‐trust’ workplaces. Conversely, other scholars have found that under similar conditions, some teachers have their own ways of dealing with it which leads them towards a process of ‘reskilling’. This study is an attempt to explore the actual teachers’ perceptions towards their daily practice within the context of educational decentralization, a (...) neglected area of research which needs to be further discussed and explored. This paper uses data gathered from seven schools in Guangdong Province, China as a case study to show that educational decentralization in China not only results in teachers being deskilled because indirect control is still being maintained, but also provides a small number of teachers with a competitive working environment to reskill their pedagogical techniques and educational knowledge, and to pursue good practices in teaching under the pressure of competition. All in all, educational decentralization provides a context in which teachers can experience either deprofessionalization or reprofessionalization. (shrink)

It is often argued that cosmopolitanism faces unique motivational constraints, asking more of individuals than they are able to give. This ‘motivational problem’ is held to pose a significant challenge to cosmopolitanism, as it appears unable to transform its moral demands into motivated political action. This article develops a novel response to the motivational problem facing cosmopolitanism, arguing that self-interest, alongside appeals to sentiment, can play a vital and neglected, transitional role in moving towards an expanded cosmopolitical condition. The article (...) explicates the ‘motivational problem’, analyses the relationship between self-interest and sentimental cosmopolitanism in addressing it, and develops a series of claims that self-interest can be one important component in what we label as ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’. In doing so, we argue that self-interested motivations can be compatible with sentiment-based approaches, rendering them more plausible. In addition, two expected critiques of self-interested ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’ are tackled: (A) That it cannot address feasibility constraints, and (B) That self-interested motivations cannot meet what an ‘authentic’ cosmopolitanism entails. We refute and challenge these critiques and outline three conditions in which self-interest can advance a transitional form of cosmopolitanism, while also being compatible with cosmopolitanism writ large. (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 groundbreaking study of how concepts of virtue and vice are used to deny American women full political rights.

A study of how public service has changed in this new era of interconnectedness.

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)

Professor Brown describes and criticises the major classical model of rationality and offers a new model of this central concept in the history of philosophy and of science.

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)

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)

T.1. Les charmes de l'analogie -- t. 2. Les pouvoirs de l'image.

The surge in interest in natural language processing in artificial intelligence has led to an explosion of new language models capable of engaging in plausible language use. But ensuring these language models produce honest, helpful, and inoffensive outputs has proved difficult. In this paper, I argue problems of inappropriate content in current, autoregressive language models—such as ChatGPT and Gemini—are inescapable; merely predicting the next word is incompatible with reliably providing appropriate outputs. The various fine-tuning methods, while helpful, cannot transform the (...) model from mere next word prediction to the kind of planning and forethought necessary for saying the right thing. The upshot is that these models will increasingly churn out bland, generic responses that will still fail to be accurate or appropriate. (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)

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)

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)