Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023) raise important concerns about the limited usefulness of measures of moral distress. They propose that moral distress is best measured in terms of “illegitimate inst...

This book argues that Christian ethics urgently needs the category of tragic dilemmas. The author argues for a definition of tragic dilemmas that responds to philosophical concerns in a Christian context, using insights from the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions, and in light of psychological evidence of moral injury after combat. Jackson-Meyer suggests that in a tragic dilemma an agent deliberates on, with sufficient knowledge, an issue that involves non-negotiable moral requirements in line with Christian obligations to protect human (...) life and the vulnerable. The agent is morally responsible for the harm caused and/or the obligation not acted upon. However, culpability is mitigated due to the constraints of the situation as long as the agent acts with, what Aquinas calls, "repugnance of the will." Tragic dilemmas are often the result of sin, a reality to which the Augustinian tradition is keenly attuned. When involvement in a tragic dilemma produces emotional harm, this has the power to undermine character because passions and the moral life are inextricably related. In turn, the agent's life is marred. In light of this harm, it is incumbent on Christian communities to offer opportunities for moral healing after tragic dilemmas. (shrink)

In the words of Catharine MacKinnon, "a woman is not yet a name for a way of being human." In other words, women are still excluded, as authors and agents, from identifying what it is to be human and what therefore violates the dignity and integrity of humans. Recognition, Responsibility, and Rights is written in response to that failure. This collection of essays by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral landscape by developing theory that (...) acknowledges the diversity of women. (shrink)

Developmental Coordination Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder are unique neurodevelopmental disorders with overlaps in executive functions and motor control. The conditions co-occur in up to 50% of cases, raising questions of the pathological mechanisms of DCD versus ADHD. Few studies have examined these overlaps in adults with DCD and/or ADHD. Therefore, to provide insights about executive functions and motor control between adults with DCD, ADHD, both conditions, or typically developed controls, this study used a stop-signal task and parallel EEG measurement. We (...) assessed executive performance via go accuracy and go reaction time, as well as motor response inhibition via stop-signal reaction time. This was complemented with analysis of event-related potentials. Based on existing investigations of adults with DCD or ADHD, we expected groups would not differ in behavioral performance on stop and go trials, but differences in ERPs, particularly in components N200 and P300 would be evident. The sample included N = 50 adults with DCD, ADHD, DCD + ADHD, and control participants. We replicated that there were no between-group differences for behavioral-level executive performance and motor response inhibition. However, on a physiological level, ERP components N200 and P300 differed between groups, particularly during successful response inhibition. These ERPs reflect potential endophenotypic differences not evident in overt behavior of participants with ADHD and/or DCD. This suggests a disorder specific employment of inhibition or general executive functions in groups of adults with DCD, DCD + ADHD, ADHD, or control participants. (shrink)

This collection of papers by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral by developing theory that acknowledges the diversity of women.

Richly illustrated study drawing on art, literature and science to explore Victorian attitudes towards sight.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate first-order Peano arithmetic within the resources of relevant logic, and to demonstrate certain properties of the system thus formulated. Striking among these properties are the facts that it is trivial that relevant arithmetic is absolutely consistent, but classical first-order Peano arithmetic is straightforwardly contained in relevant arithmetic. Under, I shall show in particular that 0 = 1 is a non-theorem of relevant arithmetic; this, of course, is exactly the formula whose unprovability was (...) sought in the Hilbert program for proving arithmetic consistent. Under, I shall exhibit the requisite translation, drawing some Goedelian conclusions therefrom. Left open, however, is the critical problem whether Ackermann’s rule γ is admissible for theories of relevant arithmetic. The particular system of relevant Peano arithmetic featured in this paper shall be called R♯. Its logical base shall be the system R of relevant implication, taken in its first-order form RQ. Among other Peano arithmetics we shall consider here in particular the systems C♯, J♯, and RM3♯; these are based respectively on the classical logic C, the intuitionistic logic J, and the Sobocinski-Dunn semi-relevant logic RM3. And another feature of the paper will be the presentation of a system of natural deduction for R♯, along lines valid for first-order relevant theories in general. This formulation of R♯ makes it possible to construct relevantly valid arithmetical deductions in an easy and natural way; it is based on, but is in some respects more convenient than, the natural deduction formulations for relevant logics developed by Anderson and Belnap in Entailment. (shrink)

“One is not born a woman, but becomes one”, Simone de Beauvoir A symbol of liberated womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir's unconventional relationships inspired and scandalised her generation. A philosopher, writer, and feminist icon, she won prestigious literary prizes and transformed the way we think about gender with The Second Sex. But despite her successes, she wondered if she had sold herself short. Her liaison with Jean-Paul Sartre has been billed as one of the most legendary love affairs of the twentieth (...) century. But for Beauvoir it came at a cost: for decades she was dismissed as an unoriginal thinker who 'applied' Sartre's ideas. In recent years new material has come to light revealing the ingenuity of Beauvoir's own philosophy and the importance of other lovers in her life. This ground-breaking biography draws on never-before-published diaries and letters to tell the fascinating story of how Simone de Beauvoir became herself. (shrink)

This paper explores how political theory may help us map algorithmic logics against different visions of the political. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s theories of agonistic pluralism, this paper depicts algorithms in public life in ten distinct scenes, in order to ask the question, what kinds of politics do they instantiate? Algorithms are working within highly contested online spaces of public discourse, such as YouTube and Facebook, where incompatible perspectives coexist. Yet algorithms are designed to produce clear “winners” from information contests, (...) often with little visibility or accountability for how those contests are designed. In isolation, many of these algorithms seem the opposite of agonistic: much of the complexity of search, ranking, and recommendation algorithms is nonnegotiable and kept far from view, inside an algorithmic “black box.” But what if we widen our perspective? This paper suggests agonistic pluralism as both a design ideal for engineers and a provocation to understand algorithms in a broader social context: rather than focusing on the calculations in isolation, we need to account for the spaces of contestation where they operate. (shrink)

Internalists about reasons following Bernard Williams claim that an agent’s normative reasons for action are constrained in some interesting way by her desires or motivations. In this paper, I offer a new argument for such a position—although one that resonates, I believe, with certain key elements of Williams’ original view. I initially draw on P.F. Strawson’s famous distinction between the interpersonal and the objective stances that we can take to other people, from the second-person point of view. I suggest that (...) we should accept Strawson’s contention that the activity of reasoning with someone about what she ought to do naturally belongs to the interpersonal mode of interaction. I also suggest that reasons for an agent to perform some action are considerations which would be apt to be cited in favor of that action, within an idealized version of this advisory social practice. I then go on to argue that one would take leave of the interpersonal stance towards someone—thus crossing the line, so to speak—in suggesting that she do something one knows she wouldn’t want to do, even following an exhaustive attempt to hash it out with her. An internalist necessity constraint on reasons is defended on this basis. (shrink)

In the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Aesthetic Letters), Friedrich Schiller asserts the importance of play for human beings. He claims, “man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays” (Schiller, 2005, 131). Play is so pivotal that it qualifies as the activity resonating the state of human fullness. So, naturally, one might ask, what does play consist in for Schiller? (...) While a Kantian approach might see play as the relation that manifests when a disinterested subject beholds something beautiful, Schiller uses more artistic and embodied examples of play throughout the Aesthetic Letters. In offering an alternative reading to Paul Guyer’s analysis of Schillerian play as serious (forgoing creativity and imagination), intellectual (objective and grounded in the intellect, rather than feeling), and negative (reliant on constraints) I draw out two important elements of Schillerian play: play force (the harmonious relation of two types of drives found in nature) and the forms of play (actual instances of aesthetic play.). (shrink)

Although corporate social responsibility practice increasingly addresses gender issues, and gender and CSR scholarship is expanding, feminist theory is rarely explicitly referenced or discussed in the CSR literature. We contend that this omission is a key limitation of the field. We argue that CSR theorization and research on gender can be improved through more explicit and systematic reference to feminist theories, and particularly those from feminist organization studies. Addressing this gap, we review developments in feminist organization theory, mapping their relevance (...) to CSR. With reference to six major theoretical perspectives in CSR scholarship, we note feminist research relating to each. Drawing upon FOS theory and CSR theory, we then develop an integrated theoretical framework for the analysis of gender issues in CSR. Our framework enables us to identify research strengths in the gender and CSR literature, as well as gaps therein, to open new conversations and to posit future research directions for this emerging area of scholarship. Our paper illustrates how a better grounding of CSR in feminist theory can contribute to CSR research more broadly. (shrink)

Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effects of mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present (...) empirical findings from two recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020) according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepen an account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight into such instances: specifically, which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Knowledge is a presumed motivator for changed consumption practices in ethical eating discourse: the consumer learns more about where their food comes from and makes different consumption choices. Despite intuitive appeal, scholars are beginning to illuminate the limits of knowledge-focused praxis for ethical eating. In this paper, we draw from qualitative interviews and focus groups with Toronto mothers to explore the role of knowledge in conceptions of ethical foodwork. While the goal of educating children about their food has become central (...) to Canadian and American discourses of “good” mothering, we identify a paradoxical maternal expectation surrounding meat consumption: to raise informed child consumers who know where their food comes from, and to protect children from the harsh realities of animal slaughter. Rather than revealing the story behind the meat on a child’s plate, mothers seek to shield children from knowledge of meat production. Our analysis of the child consumer contributes to ethical eating scholarship and illuminates a larger paradox surrounding knowledge of meat in an industrialized food system. In the practice of feeding children, mothers confront the visceral discomforts of meat consumption; their reactions speak to discordant feelings involved with eating meat in a setting far-removed from the lives and deaths of animals. Ultimately, the paper illustrates the limits of consumer-focused strategies for food-system change that call on individual mothers to educate young consumers and protect childhood innocence, all while getting ethically-sourced meals on the table. (shrink)

People's moral judgments affect their judgments of intentionality for actions that succeeded by luck. This article aimed to explain that phenomenon by suggesting that people's judgments of intentionality are driven by the underlying questions they have considered. We examined two types of questions: questions about why people act, and questions about how they succeed in acting. In a series of experiments, we found that people prefer different questions for neutral and immoral actions and that asking them to think about questions (...) they would not have preferred can change their judgments of intentionality. These experiments suggest that neutral actions are judged to be less intentional simply because they do not motivate observers to ask questions which draw attention to the actor's mental states. We discuss the potential application of this framework to other concepts affected by morality in surprising ways, such as causality. (shrink)

Many parents and child-rearing experts prefer that children exhibit gender-normative behavior, a preference that is linked to the belief that children are, or should be, heterosexual. But how do LGBTQ parents—who may not hold these preferences—approach the gender socialization of their children? Drawing on in-depth interviews with both members in 18 LGBTQ couples, I find that these parents attempt to provide their children with a variety of gendered options for clothing, toys, and activities—a strategy that I call the “gender buffet.” (...) However, the social location of the parents influences the degree to which they feel they can pursue this strategy of resistance. Factors such as race, social class, gender of parents and children, and level of support of family and community members contribute to the degree to which LGBTQ parents feel they can allow or encourage their children to disrupt gender norms. (shrink)

This paper examines how progress on gender equality in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) might contribute to broader EU gender and sustainability objectives. It focuses on corporations and citizenship, and on company stakeholder relations (SR) in particular. While the literature on SR has previously engaged with scholarship on feminist ethics, and in particular the ‘ethics of care’, this paper draws upon the feminist citizenship and feminist ethics literature, and upon gender mainstreaming strategy to suggest a more comprehensive approach (...) to gender equality within SR. The aim is to extend our understanding of CSR as a potential policy instrument to advance gender equality. (shrink)

This article presents a critique of Paulo Freire's philosophical perspective on human nature in the context of a doctoral research study to explore “muchness” or nurses’ subjective experience of well‐being; and demonstrates how this critique has informed the refinement of the theoretical principles used to inform research methodology and methods. Engaging in philosophical groundwork is essential for research coherence and integrity. Through this groundwork, largely informed by Freire's critical pedagogy and his ideas on humanization, I recognized the need to clarify (...) my understanding of the concepts of persons and personhood and how this related to Freire's use of the term human beings. This clarification process is essential to ensure congruence between the theoretical principles that I draw from his work and my beliefs about persons, personhood and person‐centredness. The article begins with a brief introduction to the research, followed by an overview of Freire's philosophical perspectives, and subsequently, the critique process is presented and discussed. This process involved engaging with the vast literature and debates about what it means to be a person, to make sense of the often complex and contradictory arguments. Eventually, three headings emerged that helped me to frame my evolving understanding: Our species: human beings; The kind that we are: human nature; and This person that I am: personhood. Through this process of exploration, I recognized that Freire's perspective on human nature (a) foregrounded cognitive rationality, which presented itself as a limitation when considering my ontological beliefs and the focus of my research, leading me to draw on the work of Mark Johnson and his ideas about embodiment to help me to further develop my theoretical principles; (b) focused on the “collective” rather than individuals, which is a shortcoming in relation to person‐centred research that acknowledges the uniqueness of participants. (shrink)

This book provides a unique, cogent, engaging account of environmental determinism that has long been much needed in the classroom and beyond." -- Andrew Sluyter, Associate Professor, Louisiana State University, USA This book pulls together major critiques of contemporary attempts to explain nature-society relations in an environmentally deterministic way. After defining key terms, it reviews the history of environmental determinism's rise and fall within geography in the early twentieth century. It discusses the key reasons for the doctrine's rejection and presents (...) alternative, non-deterministic frameworks developed within geography for analyzing the roles played by the environment in human affairs. The authors examine the rise in recent decades of neo-deterministic approaches to such issues as the demarcation of regions, the causes of civilizational collapse in prehistory, today's globally uneven patterns of human well-being, and the consequences of human-induced climate change. In each case, the authors draw on the insights and approaches of geography, the academic discipline most conversant with the interactions of society and environment, to challenge the widespread acceptance that such approaches have won. The book will appeal to those working on human-environmental research, international development and global policy initiatives. William B. Meyer is Associate Professor of Geography at Colgate University, USA. He is the author of several previous books, including Human Impact on the Earth, Americans and Their Weather: A History, and The Progressive Environmental Prometheans. His research interests include urban geography, environmental history, and the history of environmental thought. Dylan M.T. Guss works in the technology investment sector. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways in which a fuller attention to suffering in the tradition of the early Frankfurt School might valuably inform international political thought. Recent poststructural writing argues that trauma is silenced to prevent it disrupting narratives of order and progress and instead advocates a continual ‘encircling’ of trauma that refuses incorporation into a broader historical narrative. This paper welcomes this challenge to mainstream international ethics: attention to particular suffering provides an important challenge to the abstraction, instrumentalism and (...) universalism of modernity. However, if we simply mark trauma and refuse to incorporate it into any kind of narrative, we cannot profit from the ways in which suffering can illuminate the structures and ways of thinking that create it. Drawing on Adorno's negative dialectics, the paper argues that a dialectical understanding of the relationship between universalising order and disrupting particularity can lead from individual suffering towards a political re-engagement with the universal. (shrink)

There is a complexity of entities and happenings embodied within the pillars that frame the doorways in our homes and support the broad flat spaces that form supermarkets and department stores. Each pillar speaks to the mythology encircling the origins of Gothic architecture; the ideas surrounding the shift from the trunks and boughs of the sacred grove toward the columns, arches, and vaults of church and cathedral. Each pillar embodies the evolution of life and the history of the Earth. Awakening (...) toward the relational agency at play within the “humanly derived” allows us to recognize this agency as akin to wildness and as William Cronon asserts, this kinship draws us closer to recognizing and responding to the wild in all that surrounds us. It also produces a shift in how we understand the concept of wilderness. It is not, as Cronon contends, a cultural construct, but a fluxing and complex gestalt that includes both human and more-than-human agency. (shrink)

There is a complexity of entities and happenings embodied within the pillars that frame the doorways in our homes and support the broad flat spaces that form supermarkets and department stores. Each pillar speaks to the mythology encircling the origins of Gothic architecture; the ideas surrounding the shift from the trunks and boughs of the sacred grove toward the columns, arches, and vaults of church and cathedral. Each pillar embodies the evolution of life and the history of the Earth. Awakening (...) toward the relational agency at play within the “humanly derived” allows us to recognize this agency as akin to wildness and as William Cronon asserts, this kinship draws us closer to recognizing and responding to the wild in all that surrounds us. It also produces a shift in how we understand the concept of wilderness. It is not, as Cronon contends, a cultural construct, but a fluxing and complex gestalt that includes both human and more-than-human agency. (shrink)

Meaning-making plays a central role in how we deal with experiences of suffering, including those due to mental disorder. And for many, religious beliefs, experiences, and practices (hereafter, religious engagement) play a central role in informing this meaning-making. However, a crucial facet of the relationship between experiences of mental disorder and religious engagement remains underexplored—namely the potentially positive effects of mental disorder on religious engagement (e.g. experiences of bipolar disorder increasing sense of God’s presence). In what follows, I will present (...) empirical findings from two recent studies of mine which shed light on the extent to which participants experienced these positive effects, specific components of these effects, and how they fit into their understanding of their mental disorder and its relationship to their religious identity. In doing so, I will draw on and expand Tasia Scrutton’s Potentially Transformative view (2015a, 2015b, 2020) according to which mental disorders may provide opportunities for spiritual growth. My empirical results align with and help deepen an account according to which mental disorders are potentially spiritually transformative by providing further insight into such instances: specifically, which symptoms and internal and external factors are often involved, as well as which religious beliefs, experiences, and/or practices are often affected. After presenting these results and articulating their relevance for a potentially transformative view of mental disorder, I will then address some potential objections to the theoretical account as well as some limitations of the empirical work, before sketching possible promising directions for future research. (shrink)

This article attempts to redress the neglect of Sartre's relationship to Augustine, putting forward a reading of the early Sartre as an atheist who appropriated concepts from Augustinian theology. In particular, it is argued, Sartre owes a debt to the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. Sartre's portrait of human reality in _Being and Nothingness_ is bleak: consciousness is lack; self-knowledge is impossible; and to turn to the human other is to face the imprisonment of an objectifying gaze. But this has (...) recognizable antecedents in Augustine's account of the condition of human fallenness. The article, therefore, demonstrates the significant similarities between Sartre's ontology of human freedom and Augustine's ontology of human sin; and asks whether Sartre's project – as defined in _Existentialism Is a Humanism_ – 'to draw the full conclusions from a _consistently atheistic position_' – results in a vision of the world without God, but not without sin. It is proposed that this opens the possibility for a previously unexplored theological reading of Sartre's early work. (shrink)

This article draws on the thought of Sylvia Wynter to argue that the development of frameworks of race in the early modern period played an essential, if as yet unconsidered, role in the development of modern skepticism. In formulating this history—and taking Stanley Cavell’s conceptualization of skepticism as an important point of reference—this article positions skepticism as both a historical and ongoing nexus for practices and experiences of racialization. Responding to this, I propose a variant of skepticism that I term (...) enforced skepticism, explored here through a reading of Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017). This is a form of skeptical experience that is born not from epistemological doubt but from the violent foreclosures of access to self-expression and a livable world. (shrink)

The governance of pharmaceutical medicines entails complex ethical decisions that should, in theory, be the responsibility of democratically accountable government agencies. However, in many Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), regulatory and health systems constraints mean that many people still lack access to safe, appropriate and affordable medication, posing significant ethical challenges for those working on the “front line”. Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork in Ghana, we present three detailed case studies of individuals in this position: an urban retail pharmacist, (...) a rural over-the-counter medicine retailer, and a local inspector. Through these case studies, we consider the significant burden of “ethical labour” borne by those operating “on the ground”, who navigate complex moral, legal and business imperatives in real time and with very real consequences for those they serve. The paper ends with a reflection on the tensions between abstract, generalised ethical frameworks based on high-level principles, and a pragmatic, contingent ethics-in-practice that foregrounds immediate individual needs – a tension rooted in the gap between the theory and the reality of pharmaceutical governance that shifts the burden of ethical labour downwards and perpetuates long-term public health risks. (shrink)

In most common law jurisdictions worldwide, an offender’s remorse is a mitigating factor in sentencing. It matters whether or not a person who has committed a crime is truly sorry for what they have done. And yet how judges evaluate such expressions is unclear. Drawing on 18 interviews with judges in the New South Wales criminal justice system in Australia, this article examines the status of offenders’ live, sworn evidence in the judiciary’s assessment of offenders’ remorse. These interviews with the (...) judiciary reveal that remorse assessment often operates beyond semiotic, representational paradigms (such as ‘demeanour assessment’) and instead works, in experiential terms, as a feeling. When it comes to offenders getting into the witness box and speaking of their remorse, it seems that sometimes something gets felt by judges at the level of embodied affect that then enables them to declare: ‘This person is remorseful.’. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is rarely discussed in the philosophy of religion. In 2009, however, Jerome Gellman broke the silence, publishing an article in which he argued that the source of Sartre’s atheism was neither philosophical nor existential, but mystical. Drawing from several of Sartre’s works – including Being and Nothingness, Words, and a 1943 review entitled ‘A New Mystic’ – I argue that there are strong biographical and philosophical reasons to disagree with Gellman’s conclusion that Sartre was a ‘mystical atheist’. Moreover, (...) I question the likelihood of drawing any definitive conclusions regarding the sources of Sartre’s ambiguous atheism. (shrink)

Through a discussion of Agnès Varda's career from 1954 to 2008 that focuses particularly on La Pointe Courte (1954), L'Opéra-Mouffe (1958), The Gleaners and I (2000), and The Beaches of Agnes (2008), this article considers the connections between Varda's filmmaking and her femaleness. It proposes that two aspects of Varda's cinema—her particularly perceptive portrayal of a set of geographical locations, and her visual and verbal emphasis on female embodiment—make a feminist existential-phenomenological approach to her films particularly fruitful. Drawing both directly (...) on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and on some recent film- and feminist-theoretical texts that have employed his insights, it explores haptic imagery and feminist strategy in The Gleaners and I, the materialization of space characterizing Varda's blurring of fiction and documentary, and the dialectical relationship of people with their environment often observed in her cinema. It concludes that both Varda's female protagonists and the director herself may be said to perform feminist phenomenology in her films, in their actions, movement, and relationship to space, and in the carnality of voice and vision with which Varda's own subjectivity is registered within her film-texts. (shrink)

This article introduces some contemporary philosophical approaches to vulnerability including that of Judith Butler, while focusing on feminist legal theorist Martha Albertson Fineman's concept of the vulnerable subject, developed out of Fineman's earlier critiques of the autonomous, self-sufficient subject of liberal political philosophy. It then looks closely at the different forms of vulnerability exhibited by the leading protagonists of Mia Hansen-Løve's All Is Forgiven, Father of My Children, Goodbye First Love, Eden and Maya, all of whom except one are men, (...) drawing on Lawrence Schehr's writing about French postmodern masculinities and work by Geneviève Sellier on the changing dynamics of heterosexual gender relations in French cinema in order to forge an account of vulnerable male bodies and masculinities appropriate to the contemporary context of the films discussed. To conclude, it returns to Fineman to suggest that her at least implicitly feminist concept of the vulnerable subject can offer a more persuasive account of the gendered character of vulnerability in Hansen-Løve's films than can Butler's recent ethical writings. (shrink)

In this article I analyse object labelling image macro internet memes as multimodal metaphors, taking the Distracted Boyfriend meme as a case study. Object labelling memes are multimodal texts in which users add labels to a stock photograph to convey messages that are often humorous or satirical in nature. Using the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor, I argue that object labelling memes are multimodal metaphors which are interpreted using the same processes as verbal metaphors. The labelling of the image guides the (...) viewer in the construction of ad hoc concepts, and it is these ad hoc concepts that contribute to the overall meaning that is communicated. The analysis in this article is rooted in the relevance-theoretic claim that pragmatic interpretive processes are triggered by all and any ostensive acts of communication. I also draw heavily on Deirdre Wilson’s work on lexical pragmatics to show how this plays out in the case of a multimodal digital text. Memes, like verbal metaphors, do not require a special theory or framework. They can be understood as ostensive stimuli which trigger the search for an optimally relevant interpretation. (shrink)

In this book, Kate Schick presents the core themes of Rose's work and locates her ideas within central debates in contemporary social theory, engaging with the works of Benjamin, Honig, iek and Butler. She shows how Rose's speculative perspective brings a different gaze to bear on debates, eschewing well-worn liberal, critical theoretic and post-structural positions. Gillian Rose draws on idiosyncratic readings of thinkers such as Hegel, Adorno and Kierkegaard to underpin her philosophy, negotiating the 'broken middle' between the particular (...) and the universal. While of the left, she is sharply critical of much left-wing thought, insisting that it shirks the work of coming to know and of taking political risk in pursuit of a 'good enough justice'. (shrink)

What form does power take in situations of retaliation against whistleblowers? In this article, we move away from dominant perspectives that see power as a resource. In place, we propose a theory of normative power and violence in whistleblower retaliation, drawing on an in-depth empirical study. This enables a deeper understanding of power as it circulates in complex processes of whistleblowing. We offer the following contributions. First, supported by empirical findings we propose a novel theoretical framing of whistleblower retaliation and (...) the role of mental health, which draws upon poststructuralist psychoanalytic thinking. Specifically, we highlight how intra- and inter-psychic affective and ambivalent attachments to organizations influence the use of normative violence in cases of whistleblower retaliation. The second contribution is empirical and builds upon the existing literature on whistleblower retaliation by highlighting how organizations position whistleblower subjects as mentally unstable and unreliable individuals, to undermine their claims. We conclude by highlighting the implications of normative power for the outcomes of whistleblower struggles. (shrink)

People’s moral judgments affect their judgments of intentionality for actions that succeeded by luck. This article aimed to explain that phenomenon by suggesting that people’s judgments of intentionality are driven by the underlying questions they have considered. We examined two types of questions: questions about why people act, and questions about how they succeed in acting. In a series of experiments, we found that people prefer different questions for neutral and immoral actions (Studies 1 and 2) and that asking them (...) to think about questions they would not have preferred can change their judgments of intentionality (Study 3). These experiments suggest that neutral actions are judged to be less intentional simply because they do not motivate observers to ask questions which draw attention to the actor’s mental states. We discuss the potential application of this framework to other concepts affected by morality in surprising ways, such as causality. (shrink)

The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplantation on the ground that such a market would be exploitative of the vendors. It examines a key challenge to that objection, to the effect that denying poor people the option to sell an organ is to withhold from them the best that a bad situation has to offer. The article casts serious doubt on this attempt at justifying an organ market, and its philosophical underpinning. Drawing, (...) in part, from the catalogued consequences of a thriving kidney market in some parts of India, it is argued that the justification relies on conditions which are extremely unlikely to obtain, even in a regulated donor market: that organ selling meaningfully improves the material situation of the organ vendor. Far from being axiomatic, both logic and the extant empirical evidence point towards the unlikelihood of such an upshot. Finally, the article considers a few conventional counter-arguments in favour of a permissive stance on organ sales. (shrink)

In this article I analyse object labelling image macro internet memes as multimodal metaphors, taking the Distracted Boyfriend meme as a case study. Object labelling memes are multimodal texts in which users add labels to a stock photograph to convey messages that are often humorous or satirical in nature. Using the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor, I argue that object labelling memes are multimodal metaphors which are interpreted using the same processes as verbal metaphors. The labelling of the image guides the (...) viewer in the construction of ad hoc concepts, and it is these ad hoc concepts that contribute to the overall meaning that is communicated. The analysis in this article is rooted in the relevance-theoretic claim that pragmatic interpretive processes are triggered by all and any ostensive acts of communication. I also draw heavily on Deirdre Wilson’s work on lexical pragmatics to show how this plays out in the case of a multimodal digital text. Memes, like verbal metaphors, do not require a special theory or framework. They can be understood as ostensive stimuli which trigger the search for an optimally relevant interpretation. (shrink)

In conceptualizing vulnerability, it is common for researchers to assume that some participants are more vulnerable on the basis of their membership of a particular group or because they exhibit particular characteristics. Older people are often viewed as inherently more vulnerable by ethics committees and the ethical guidelines committees construct. Because age alone does not confer or cause vulnerability, risk of harm to older research participants is not purely associated with their intrinsic connection to a vulnerable group, and classifying older (...) research participants as vulnerable may not necessarily protect them from harm. Drawing on the preliminary findings of a qualitative study of older people who had survived a suicide attempt, we reflect on how the specific context of our study had the potential of framing older people as vulnerable, and describe ways in which these were managed and resolved. Specifically, we discuss potential for harm through the ethical principles of coercion and distress. (shrink)

Art theory has consistently emphasised the importance of situational, cultural, institutional and historical factors in viewers’ experience of fine art. However, the link between this heavily context-dependent interpretation and the workings of the mind is often left unexamined. Drawing on relevance theory—a prominent, cogent and productive body of work in cognitive pragmatics—we here argue that fine art achieves its effects by prompting the use of cognitive processes that are more commonly employed in the interpretation of words and other stimuli presented (...) in a communicative context. We describe in particular how institutional factors effectively co-opt these processes for new ends, allowing viewers to achieve cognitive effects that they otherwise would not, and so provide cognitivist backing for an Institutional Theory of Art, such as that put forward by Arthur Danto. More generally, we situate and describe the Western fine art tradition as a phenomenon that is a consequence of both the cognitive processes involved in communication, and of cultural norms, practices and institutions. (shrink)

Subversive Pedagogies draws attention to creative and critical pedagogies as a resource for engaging pressing problems in global politics. The collection explores the radical potential of pedagogy to transform students, scholars, citizens and institutions. It brings together scholars and students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including international relations, political science, indigenous studies, feminist theory and theatre studies, as well as practitioners in theatre and the arts. These diverse voices explore innovative pedagogical practices that extend our understanding of where pedagogy (...) happens, invite critical assessment of the ways the neoliberal university shapes and restricts pedagogical engagement, and offer both theoretical and practical tools to explore more creative and broader understandings of what pedagogy can and should do. (shrink)

Whistleblowers are a vital means of protecting society because they provide information about serious wrongdoing. And yet, people who speak up can suffer. Even so, debates on whistleblowing focus on compelling employees to come forward, often overlooking the risk involved. Theoretical understanding of whistleblowers’ post-disclosure experience is weak because tangible and material impacts are poorly understood due partly to a lack of empirical detail on the financial costs of speaking out. To address this, we present findings from a novel empirical (...) study surveying whistleblowers. We demonstrate how whistleblowers who leave their role as a result of speaking out can lose both the financial and temporal resources necessary to redevelop their livelihoods post-disclosure. We also show how associated costs involving significant legal and health expenditure can rise. Based on these insights, our first contribution is to present a new conceptual framing of post-disclosure experiences, drawing on feminist theory, that emphasizes the bodily vulnerability of whistleblowers and their families. Our second contribution repositions whistleblowing as a form of labour defending against precarity, which involves new expenses, takes significant time, and often must be carried out with depleted income. Bringing forth the intersubjective aspect of the whistleblowing experience, our study shows how both the post-disclosure survival of whistleblowers, and their capacity to speak, depend on institutional supports or, in their absence, on personal networks. By reconceptualizing post-disclosure experiences in this way—as material, embodied and intersubjective—practical implications for whistleblower advocacy and policy emerge, alongside contributions to theoretical debates. Reversing typical formulations in business ethics, we turn extant debates on the ethical duty of employees to speak up against wrongdoing on their heads. We argue instead for a responsibility to protect whistleblowers exposed to vulnerability, a duty owed by those upon whose behalf they speak. (shrink)

This book comprises forty-one essays, some of them about solar eclipses, space stations, mushrooms, and refugees, but the majority focus on animals, mostly birds. Macdonald starts each piece with a personal recollection from childhood or adulthood. “Vesper Flights,” for instance—the essay that gives the book its title—begins: “I found a dead swift once, a husk of a bird under a bridge over the River Thames.... I picked it up, held it in my palm... and realised that I didn't know what (...) to do.” The author continues by setting out the little that she did know, before that encounter, about swifts—she knew only that they are very difficult to observe individually because of the velocity and the height of their flights. To her, the swifts had always been like “aliens on earth.”Those birds are known for their peculiar flights at dusk, when they go up almost vertically into the sky. Scientists used to believe that they went up to sleep; but, at the end of the 1970s, in order to study the interaction between birds and airplanes, Luit Buurma of the Netherlands made radar observations that showed the swifts do not sleep at high altitude. The hypothesis of Buurma and other scientists is that they go up to forecast the weather. In the convective boundary layer, the winds are unaffected by geographic components, and, at that altitude, the swifts may also orient themselves better, thanks in part to the polarized light that is clearest at twilight. “What they are doing,” Macdonald summarizes these findings, “is flying so high they can work out exactly where they are, to know what they should do next.”Macdonald was trained in the history of science, which explains her taste for telling stories in which she explains how we come to know other animal species. She stresses the importance of technical devices in the construction of knowledge (without military radar, scientists would never have known where the swifts were flying). In each chapter, she also underscores the problem of what she aptly calls “multispecies social etiquette”: it is such a problem (how to avoid collisions with birds, a particular kind of social interaction) that moved scientists to study swifts in the first place. I much enjoyed reading these parts of each chapter. I was less convinced, however, by the morals that she draws from animal behaviors—for example: “Swifts are my fable of community, teaching us about how to make right decisions in the face of oncoming bad weather, in the face of clouds that sit like dark rubble on our horizon.” What makes me uncomfortable with such general conclusions is that they could as well be reached without the birds. (shrink)

In March 1603 the mortal remains of Queen Elizabeth I, against her stated wishes, were ‘opened’ to enable their temporary preservation until arrangements for her funeral could be completed. That post-mortem office was performed by members of the Worshipful Company of Barber-Surgeons of London, to whom her father had first granted a royal warrant to retrieve executed felons from the public gallows for their ‘better learning’ through lectures in anatomical dissection. In this article, portraiture of Elizabeth that appeals to the (...) notion of her as an embodiment of the sovereign state of England is compared with a contemporary portrait of an anatomy lesson being performed by the Barber-Surgeons, drawing connections between the dissection of felons under sovereign law and the violability of the sovereign (female) body in the liminal period between her death and the delayed formalities of ascension for James I. (shrink)

In 1996, the anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro chose a sentence by Gilles Deleuze as the epigraph for an article, published in the Brazilian journal Mana, on Amerindian perspectivism. (A modified version of the article appeared in English two years later, in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.) Since then, Deleuze's name has appeared often in works about perspectivism, but Chamois's new book is the first monograph to focus on perspectivism and Deleuze. Among the most important contributions of Chamois's (...) analysis is to draw our attention to a little-known passage in a course, “Truth and Time,” that Deleuze taught in 1983 (and that is available for listening online). In it, he criticizes the example of the cube used as a paradigm, at least since Edmund Husserl's day, to conceptualize what a perspective is. It is impossible to see all six faces of a cube at the same time; thus, to “intuit” the cube as a cube, we must add to our own perception of a profile of the cube more possible points of view on it. The problem with this example and description is that it takes for granted that the subject already knows what she needs to see (a cube).Inspired, however, by the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, Deleuze holds that each perception is an invitation to other perceptions: “To perceive is to become capable of perceiving more and more things that were initially not perceived” (percevoir, c'est devenir apte à percevoir de plus en plus de choses qui d'abord n’étaient pas perçues). Deleuze contrasts the “spatial” or “frozen” notion of perspective to the “temporal perspective” that he seeks to emphasize: “It's time that acts as perspective” (C'est le temps qui agit comme perspective). The question, therefore, at the heart of Deleuze's perspectivism is how a perspective changes over time. Chamois goes through the early texts of Deleuze to show how the idea of the temporal perspective emerged from the concept of the structure Autrui. The “structure-Other” is best exemplified by someone else's emotive face—the frightened face of my friend, for instance. If I perceive that face while, say, I am laughing, another possible world would slip into my own: a frightening world penetrates my humorous one, and perhaps I should turn my head to see what danger may be en route. As in the case of the cube, my own limited perception is supplemented by others’ limited perceptions. The object of perception in this case, however, is not presupposed to be stable (the world is changing), and what I am about to see is not known in advance.But what, precisely, in the face of the other must I notice to become aware of the world she perceives? Deleuze does not explore that question in any detail, but Chamois reviews recent anthropological and psychological research that supplies some elements of a response. To confront the writings of Deleuze with relevant scientific data is fruitful. I must admit, though, that I was a bit embarrassed by the framing of the discussion: Chamois presents Deleuze's concepts as hypotheses demanding verification that they are “corroborated by the facts.” For Deleuze, concepts are inseparable from percepts and affects; as opposed to a hypothesis, a concept is true not because it correlates to a set of relevant facts but because it helps us to perceive other aspects of the world (percept) and induces us to act better (affect). Thus, the minute and rewarding analysis of Chamois should be complemented with an assessment of what we learn to focus on and of how we change our actions thanks to the perspectivism of Deleuze—in contrast to other forms of perspectivism (or indeed to other cosmologies). (shrink)