The report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is clear that the public health services research conducted in Guatemala mid‐century was wrong, but its focus on individual responsibilities is inadequate for the structural and institutional factors at the root of that research. Ethically Impossible”: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, released in September 2011 by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, 1 responds to President Obama's request for a “thorough fact‐finding investigation” (...) into research carried out by the U.S. Public Health Service in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. “Ethically Impossible” offers a detailed narrative of what happened in Guatemala and a self‐described “unvarnished ethical analysis.” I argue, however, that being “ever vigilant” to prevent exploitation, as well as learning as a society from this past and honoring the memory of Guatemalan victims, requires a more complex ethical analysis than the commission offers in this report. Specifically, we need to identify the structural injustices that innervated the social relations and the institutions fundamental to the moral landscape of this 1940s research, and we need to expand our understandings of moral responsibility accordingly. The report posits three “longstanding and widely accepted moral principles” as the framework for evaluating this research: (1) to treat persons fairly and with respect, (2) not to harm (or risk harming) persons unless the risk is reasonable and the benefit proportional, and (3) not to treat persons as means to others’ ends. As critically important as the three principles are to research ethics writ large, they alone are unfitting tools for addressing the kind of structural and institutional moral factors that are so important in these PHS studies. (shrink)

Promoting honesty is considered a key endeavor in the betterment of our societies. However, our understanding of this phenomenon, and of its evil twin, dishonesty, is still lacking. In this text, we analyze the main tenets assumed by empirical models of vigilance and sanctions. We approach our analysis in three sections. Initially, we investigate the concept of honesty as assumed by commonly used methodologies in studying honesty. This then leads us to identify the previously overlooked but essential element of epistemic (...) privilege in characterizing honesty. In the third part, we delve into how current explanatory models of honesty lack sufficient consideration of epistemic privilege, resulting in incomplete narratives about honesty. Our analysis of the extant literature suggests that both internal (including the self-concept maintenance theory) and external vigilance models fall short of explaining honesty and dishonesty because of both conceptual problems and empirical inadequacy. Identifying these shortcomings allows us to suggest some possible directions of research. (shrink)

Industrial wind turbines have been operating in many parts of the globe. Anecdotal reports of perceived adverse health effects relating to industrial wind turbines have been published in the media and on the Internet. Based on these reports, indications were that some residents perceived they were experiencing adverse health effects. The purpose of the WindVOiCe health survey was to provide vigilance monitoring for those wishing to report their perceived adverse health effects. This article discusses the results of a self reporting (...) health survey regarding perceived adverse health effects associated with industrial wind turbines. (shrink)

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often seen to involve voluntary and deliberative approaches such as certification, governments have recently stepped into the picture through national legislation. France’s Law on Duty of Vigilance adopted in 2017 is a landmark case of such legislation. Years of voluntary CSR certification schemes led by Civil Society were replaced by a new philosophy of fighting for mandatory CSR controlled by a judge. We depict the change of mindset and the related change of roles (...) inside the coalition of Civil Society actors represents a Machiavellian Moment. The combination of collective civil society actors’ roles (namely nongovernmental organizations and labor unions) as Machiavellian _Virtue_ with disruptive events as Machiavellian _Fortuna_ made the law’s adoption possible. Based on this case study, we provide an analysis of civil society roles in the development of CSR-related legislation. (shrink)

This article challenges recent assumptions that physicians may ethically and legally prescribe psychopharmacological enhancement drugs to patients and the counterintuitive notion that in some cases ingesting an enhancement drug constitutes the more ethical choice than forgoing this option. Enhancement proponents have touted modafinil as an ideal mechanism to improve concentration, alertness, and forgo sleep and keep pace with our society's demands. However, patients who use modafinil for these reasons risk potentially severe side effects and addiction, and face unintended consequences (...) related to their cognitive, emotive, and physiological functioning. Importantly, prescribing a controlled substance such as modafinil for performance enhancement and sleep avoidance runs contrary to a physician's ethical duty to the patient and the standard of practice set forth in legal requirements governing the prescription of controlled substances. (shrink)

In The Black Box Society, Frank Pasquale develops a critique of asymmetrical power: corporations’ secrecy is highly valued by legal orders, but persons’ privacy is continually invaded by these corporations. This response proceeds in three stages. I first highlight important contributions of The Black Box Society to our understanding of political and legal relationships between persons and corporations. I then critique a key metaphor in the book, and the role of transparency and ‘watchdogging’ in its primary policy prescriptions. (...) I then propose ‘relational selfhood’ as an important new way of theorizing interdependence in an era of artificial intelligence and Big Data, and promoting optimal policies in these spheres. (shrink)

Many have bowed before the recently acquired powers of ‘new technologies’. However, in the shift from tekhnē to tekhnologia, it seems we have lost human values. These values are communicative in nature as technological progress has placed barriers like distance, web pages and ‘miscellaneous extras’ between individuals. Certain values, like the interpersonal pleasures of rendering service, have been lost as their domain of predilection has for many become fully commercially oriented, dominated by the cadence of profitability. Though the popular cultures (...) of the artificial have surged forth to deliver us from the twentieth century, they have enabled some very superfluous dreaming—Man has succumbed to the Godly role of simulating himself and creating other beings. Communication is replaced by machines, services are rendered via many automated devices, procreation has entered the public sphere, robots and entertainment agents educate our youth and mesmerising screen-integrating ‘forms of intelligence’ even think for us. As such, this so-called culture threatens the very values Man constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to guide himself into the future. But what if the phenomena mentioned just reflect our new values? The author presents an investigation into this cultural shift, its impact on human practices with regards the mind and the body and evokes some pros and cons of generally accepting the ‘Culture of the Artificial’. (shrink)

In the March 2010 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Drs. Rose and Curry declared that resident physicians have an ethical duty to reduce error during periods of fatigue. Problematically, however, they argued this means ingesting a stimulant for performance enhancement and sleep avoidance during a shift when a resident physician is experiencing fatigue as the more ethical choice than forgoing ingesting a stimulant. Rather than accepting enhancement as an unstoppable technological imperative, this article will examine the underlying motivations for enhancement (...) embedded in our culture and the corresponding legal framework relating to stimulant drugs. Although our society seems to be engaged in a pharmacological arms race of efficiency, competition, and self “betterment,” the FDA has not approved stimulant drugs such as modafinil for PESA. As a result, the off-label use of modafinil for PESA means these individuals are part of a large-scale experiment that poses serious immediate and long-term side effects to the individual user as well as society. (shrink)

All international codes of research ethics and virtually all national legislation and regulation in the field of research involving human subjects project an attitude of protectionism. Written with the aim of avoiding a repetition of atrocities like those committed by the Nazi physician-researchers, calamities like the thalidomide experience, or ethical violations like those of the Tuskegee syphilis study, their dominant concerns are the protection of individuals from injury and from exploitation. In recent years, however, society's perception of clinical research (...) has shifted dramatically. Now, largely as a consequence of the efforts of the AIDS activists, clinical research is widely perceived as benign and beneficial. Although this shift in attitude has resulted in some important improvements in research policies and practices, this new perception is just as wrong-headed as was the earlier excessive protectionism. It is necessary to maintain a balanced perspective; our policies should encourage the conduct of ethical research while maintaining the vigilance necessary to safeguard the rights and welfare of the subjects. (shrink)

Between 1234 and 1258 King Henry III, having emerged from the tutelage of ministers inherited from his father, controlled the government of England himself. Looking at this period of personal rule, it would be easy to gain the impression that Henry's kingship, in its theory, and also to some extent its practice, challenged the position of the magnates. M. T. Clanchy, for example, in a justly famous article has suggested that in the 1240s and 1250s Henry III evolved a theory (...) of royal absolutism, a theory which had threatening implications for the magnates. He has also stressed the extent to which Henry was “the initiator both of the methods and of the theory” behind Edward I's quo warranto campaign, which questioned the liberties possessed by the magnates in the field of local government. As for Henry's court, the impression has been given by R. F. Treharne that few English barons were present there, and that the king was largely surrounded by officials and foreign relatives — the latter being his wife's Savoyard uncles and his own Poitevin half-brothers of the house of Lusignan. G. W. S. Barrow has written that Henry “appeared to be excluding the barons as a class from membership of his royal council.” The question whether Henry, like his father John, was pressing magnates to pay their debts has never been investigated; but Matthew Paris's picture of the king as a “vigilant and indefatigable searcher after money” might indicate that the revolution of 1258, like that of 1215, was a “rebellion of the king's debtors.”. (shrink)

The majority of research on human rights focuses on the consequences of regime-type for human rights violations, and overwhelming evidence suggests that democracies are less likely to violate human rights of their citizens as compared to non-democracies. However, a regime-type perspective is unable to account for disparities in human rights violations within democratic and non-democratic regimes. This paper disaggregates regime-type and analyzes the relationship between citizens’ participation and human rights violations. I argue that a participative citizenry, as captured by high (...) voter turnout, is indicative of an active and vigilant populace who are more likely to hold governments accountable and ensure better human rights protections. The paper tests the relationship between human rights and voter turnout among 89 democratic countries from 1976 to 2008. The findings demonstrate that a participative citizenry enhances governmental respect for human rights. (shrink)

Democratic societies are rife with talk of trust in institutions such as governments, banks, news agencies, medical practitioners, nuclear power plants, weather forecasters and social network sites. These institutions are anonymous in the sense that citizens tend to know very little about them. Philosophers have argued that trust in the absence of sufficient evidence may fit a child who trusts its parents but is inappropriate for the vigilant citizens of a democratic society. In this article, I defend the (...) appropriateness of trusting anonymous institutions against its critics. To this end, I develop two principles of appropriateness that apply to a wide range of trusting attitudes. First, the principle of epistemic duties according to which the truster should not be culpably ignorant about the trustee, where, what constitutes culpable ignorance will depend on the relationship of trust. Second, the principle of appropriate normative expectations according to which a truster should have normative expectations that fit the relationship with the trustee and the valued outcome at stake in the trust relation. I then show that it is often appropriate to trust anonymous institutions. In fact, the evidential requirements on trust are sometimes so low as to allow citizens to trust institutions which they know literally nothing about. (shrink)

Una lectura política de la sociedad moderna, coloca en disputatio la Vigilia y la Letargia. El poder impera por la vigilancia, el estar alerta, sobre todo para el control y para la guerra. A su vez, busca la supresión de la letargia, el descanso y la pacificación. Las sociedades del yo gobiernan dom..

Society typically shows conscientious objectors more deference than civil disobedients, on the grounds that they appear more conscientious and less strategically minded than the latter. Kimberley Brownlee challenges this standard picture in Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience, where she claims that civil disobedience is more conscientious than conscientious objection, in virtue of its communicativeness. Brownlee conceives of conscientious conviction as necessarily communicative, and distinguishes it from ‘conscience’—the set of practical moral skills involved in adequately responding to (...) complex situations. This review article argues that Brownlee’s account of conviction is too narrow, as it excludes many core beliefs which we would want to classify as convictions although they violate one or more of the criteria of communicativeness, while her account of conscience is incomplete, because it ignores some of the persistent obstacles for the development of conscience produced by structural injustice. The article identifies these obstacles and offers some strategies for protecting against them, namely, vigilance, self-scrutiny, empathy and collaborative ambivalence. (shrink)

Any humane society needs a just and compassionate way to care for those who are sick, and should be vigilant in identifying and eliminating barriers that frustrate efforts to adequately care for the sick. Some current insurance underwriting practices constitute effective barriers to access to healthcare and serve to diminish the place of freedom and justice in our healthcare system.

This paper explores recent vigilance attending pedophilia in the UK context. It examines governmental and popular responses to the perceived threat posed by child sex offenders, exhibited respectively in provisions for sex offender orders within the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, and in press and public campaigns for the “naming and shaming” of paedophiles. These two responses cohabit in current contexts of concern about childhood as innocence and vulnerability, and are worked out against the figure of the paedophile as a (...) “dangerous individual”; nevertheless, they invoke different visions of political community. Developing Foucault's observation that contemporary political rationalities combine two distinct models of political community, that of the juridically constituted polity and that of the society rendered calculable and organized through normalizing models of risk, the paper argues that both of these models are evident in governmental and popular responses to paedophilia. However, where the former, a technical and administrative response to a problem of social order, aims to achieve public safety through the professional prediction and management of risk, the latter is premised on the elimination of danger,demanding the public outing of paedophiles and their exorcism from the community. While these responses contest whether danger can be turned into risk through professional management, they are mutually enhancing in fostering governmental and popular concern with public and community safety. (shrink)

Gandhi was a political and social activist rather than a philosopher or thinker. However, the level of morality and purity in his politics was so high that it took politics to the spiritual and philosophical level. The same thing can be said for his social and economic thoughts. Therefore, Gandhi's Swaraj is cultural, political and spiritual because politics was a spiritual ( religious) work for him. The question of Swaraj was not just a political question for him, nor did Swaraj (...) mean for him only the expulsion of the British from India but freedom from slavery mentality as well . Thus, Gandhian Swaraj goes beyond the concept of political sef rule and freedom. Swaraj is one's self rule over body and soul, a comprehensive self control. Swaraj is an equally important question in post independent India too. Swaraj is a vigilance for civil rights, public welfare, constitutionalism and good governance in a politically independent country. It empowers civil society. Hence Swaraj is continuous effort of independence and insistence on truth against arbitrary power of state and thus Swaraj creates and empowers civil society. From this point of view, Locke, Mill, and Rousseau are seen together in his Swarajist thoughts. Therefore, for Gandhi, Swaraj is a continuous process . (shrink)

Coherence plays an important role in psychology. In this article, I suggest that coherence takes two main forms in humans’ cognitive system. The first belong to ‘system 1’. It relies on the degree of coherence between different representations to regulate them, without coherence being represented. By contrast other mechanisms, belonging to system 2, allow humans to represent the degree of coherence between different representations and to draw inferences from it. It is suggested that the mechanisms of explicit coherence evaluation have (...) social functions. They are used as means of epistemic vigilance—to evaluate what other people tell us. They can also be turned inwards to examine the coherence of our own beliefs. Their function is then to minimize the chances that we are perceived as being incoherent. Evidence from different domains of psychology is briefly reviewed in support of these hypotheses. (shrink)

Vigilanz wird alltäglich ausgeübt, etwa im Bereich der Sicherheit, des Rechts, der Religionen oder auch der Öffentlichen Gesundheit: überall dort, wo wir auf etwas achten, gegebenenfalls auch etwas tun oder melden sollen. Der Münchner SFB 1369, in dem dieser Band entstanden ist, untersucht die Geschichte, kulturellen Varianten und aktuellen Formen dieses Phänomens nichtinstitutioneller, aber doch hochgradig funktionaler Wachsamkeit. Der erste Band der Publikationsreihe,Vigilanzkulturen' widmet sich der zeitlichen Dimension von Vigilanz. So wie menschliche Aufmerksamkeit erheblichen Schwankungen unterliegt, ist auch Wachsamkeit zeitlich (...) instabil. Die hohe physiologisch-kognitive Intensität von Wachsamkeit lässt sich nur schwer auf Dauer stellen. Wird über längere Zeit hinweg ein ereignisloses oder unstrukturiertes Geschehen beobachtet, sinkt die Aufmerksamkeit oder richtet sich auf anderes. Kulturelle Anleitungen zur Wachsamkeit arbeiten daher in der Regel selbst mit zeitlichen Strukturen: mit Rhythmisierungen, Habitualisierungen oder Dramatisierungen. Sie geben vor, in welcher Abfolge Wachsamkeit herauf- oder herabgestuft werden soll oder sie variieren denkbare Gefahren. Sie arbeiten mit natürlichen Zeitverläufen (wie Tag und Nacht, Licht und Dunkelheit), die sie, kulturell überformt, nutzbar machen. Darüber hinaus können auch Techniken und Medien helfen, Wachsamkeit zu verstetigen. Der Band untersucht diese zeitliche Gestaltung der Wachsamkeit anhand historisch spezifischer Konstellationen. Er versammelt Beiträge aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen wie Geschichte, Ethnographie, Kunstgeschichte, Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft, um die Zeiten der Wachsamkeit zu erforschen. (shrink)

As philosophers throughout the ages have asked: What is justice? What is truth? What is art? What is law? In _Education Reconfigured_, the internationally acclaimed philosopher of education, Jane Roland Martin, now asks: What is education? In answer, she puts forward a unified theory that casts education in a brand new light. Martin’s "theory of education as encounter" places culture alongside the individual at the heart of the educational process, thus responding to the call John Dewey made over a century (...) ago for an enlarged outlook on education. Look through her theory’s lens and you can see that education takes place not only in school but at home, on the street, in the mall—everywhere and all the time. Look through that lens and you can see that education does not always spell improvement; rather, it can be for the better or the worse. Indeed, you can see that education is inevitably a maker and shaper of both individuals and cultures. Above all, Martin’s new educational paradigm reveals that education is too important to be left solely to the professionals; that it is one of the great forces in human society and, as such, deserves the attention and demands the vigilance of every thoughtful person. (shrink)

Addressing climate change is among the most challenging ethical issues facing contemporary business and society. Unsustainable business activities are causing significant distributional and procedural injustices in areas such as public health and vulnerability to extreme weather events, primarily because of a distinction between primary emitters and those already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Business, as a significant contributor to climate change and beneficiary of externalizing environmental costs, has an obligation to address its environmental impacts. In this paper, we (...) explore the role of firms’ climate change targets in shaping their emissions trends in the context of a large multi-country sample of companies. We contrast two intentions for setting emissions reductions targets: symbolic attempts to manage external stakeholder perceptions via “greenwashing” and substantive commitments to reducing environmental impacts. We argue that the attributes of firms’ climate change targets are diagnostic of firms’ underlying intentions. Consistent with our hypotheses, while we find no overall effect of setting climate change targets on emissions, we show that targets characterized by a commitment to more ambitious emissions reductions, a longer target time frame, and absolute reductions in emissions are associated with significant reductions in firms’ emissions. Our evidence suggests the need for vigilance among policy-makers and environmental campaigners regarding the underlying intentions that accompany environmental management practices and shows that these can to some extent be diagnosed analytically. (shrink)

Recent developments in artificial intelligence based on neural nets—deep learning and large language models which together I refer to as NEWAI—have resulted in startling improvements in language handling and the potential to keep up with changing human knowledge by learning from the internet. Nevertheless, examples such as ChatGPT, which is a ‘large language model’, have proved to have no moral compass: they answer queries with fabrications with the same fluency as they provide facts. I try to explain why this is, (...) basing the argument on the sociology of knowledge, particularly social studies of science, notably ‘studies of expertise and experience’ and the ‘fractal model’ of society. Learning from the internet is not the same as socialisation: NEWAI has no primary socialisation such as provides the foundations of human moral understanding. Instead, large language models are retrospectively socialised by human intervention in an attempt to align them with societally accepted ethics. Perhaps, as technology advances, large language models could come to understand speech and recognise objects sufficiently well to acquire the equivalent of primary socialisation. In the meantime, we must be vigilant about who is socialising them and be aware of the danger of their socialising us to align with them rather than vice-versa, an eventuality that would lead to the further erosion of the distinction between the true and the false giving further support to populism and fascism. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis paper examines the reception of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, a philosophy quarterly which was founded in conjunction with the International Society of Phenomenology and for which Marvin Farber served as editor until his death in 1980. From its founding in 1940, Farber relied on the editorial support of many of Husserl's enthusiastic students who found themselves intellectual exiles, including Husserl's son. Farber's professional and personal interaction with Husserl's ardent followers reveals a dramatic story of (...) former students who were ever vigilant about maintaining the core values of the Master's unique philosophy, and Farber's personal philosophical transformation from a publicist of Husserl's work to a guarded critic intent on avoiding the promotion of sectarianism. (shrink)

Women are routinely subjected to penetrating surveillance during pregnancy. On the surface, this may appear to flow from a cultural commitment to protect babies – a cultural practice of “better safe than sorry” that is particularly vigilant given the vulnerability of fetuses and babies. In reality, pregnancy occasions incursions against human rights and well-being that would be anathema in other contexts. Our cultural practices concerning risk in pregnancy are infused with oppressive norms about women’s responsibility for pregnancy outcomes and (...) the demands of extreme self-sacrifice from women to protect their fetuses. Of particular concern is our culture’s willingness to enforce norms concerning risk during pregnancy using coercive measures including forced cesarean sections and criminal penalties for exposing fetuses to risk. This chapter will consider assaults on self-determination, bodily integrity and privacy inherent in such interventions, as well as the structural violence and “mangled pieties” that buttress such practices in our unjust society. (shrink)

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG) has changed the corporate accountability mechanism. This has developed a socially responsible ‘corporate self-regulation’, a synthesis of governance and responsibility in the companies of strong economies. However, unlike in the strong economies, this convergence has not been visible in the companies of weak economies, where the civil society groups are unorganised, regulatory agencies are either ineffective or corrupt and the media and non-governmental organisations do not mirror the corporate (...) conscience. Using the case of Bangladesh, this article investigates the convergence between CSR and CG in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment. (shrink)

In a nearly paradoxical manner, the virtue of martial courage is best understood through violent acts that are typically vicious, such as killing, maiming, and bombing. To ameliorate this worry, I make a new distinction that is dependent on whether the agent acts in accord with social norms or against them. We usually understand martial courage through social courage, where soldiers are courageous through performing violent acts that society determines are necessary. While this understanding is accurate for a just (...) war, violence cannot be virtuous when fighting for an unjust cause. The oppositional form of martial courage involves acting contrary to social norms by refusing to fight on behalf of an unjust cause or in unjust ways. As a virtue, martial courage should include bravely renouncing and resisting unjust wars. In this way, oppositional courage provides a non-violent grounding for martial courage: while martial courage often requires violence, it also requires a vigilant readiness to refuse to be violent when justice requires oppositional courage. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and conversational agents, emphasizing their potential benefits while also highlighting the need for vigilant monitoring to prevent unethical applications. Design/methodology/approach As AI becomes more prevalent in academia and research, it is crucial to explore ways to ensure ethical usage of the technology and to identify potentially unethical usage. This manuscript uses a popular AI chatbot to write the introduction and parts of the body of (...) a manuscript discussing conversational agents, the ethical usage of chatbots and ethical concerns for academic researchers. Findings The authors reveal which sections were written entirely by the AI using a conversational agent. This serves as a cautionary tale highlighting the importance of ethical considerations for researchers and students when using AI and how educators must be prepared for the increasing prevalence of AI in the academy and industry. Measures to mitigate potential unethical use of this evolving technology are also discussed in the manuscript. Originality/value As conversational agents and chatbots increase in society, it is crucial to understand how they will impact the community and how we can live with technology instead of fighting against it. (shrink)

In On the People’s Terms, Philip Pettit incorporates the Sieyèsian notion of constituent power into his constitutional theory of non-domination. In this article, I argue that Emmanuel Sieyès’s understanding of liberty precludes such an appropriation. While a republican, his conceptualisation of liberty in the face of commercial society stood apart from theories of civic vigilance, preferring instead to disentangle individuals from politics and maximise what he understood to be their non-political freedoms. Sieyès saw that liberty was heightened through relations (...) of representation and commercial dependency. This conception of liberty was pivotal to the identity of the nation, and so allowed Sieyès to assess forms of collective injustice committed by the French nobility. It also provided the normative foundation of his theory of constituent power. For Sieyès, constituent power guarded against legislative excess in a decidedly minimal sense, intending instead to separate citizens from the political sphere so they were not burdened with ongoing participation or public vigilance. (shrink)

This article formulates a progressive conception of communitarian democracy which rests upon the distinction between deliberative and dedicated conceptions of community. Deliberative communities seek fallibilistic change through a non-Enlightenment conception of practical reason. According to this pragmatist conception of practical reason, members of deliberative communities jointly attempt to formulate political truth independently of any a priori or non-deliberative standards of the right and the good. By contrast, dedicated communities seek what they regard as the truth about reality and insist upon (...) adhering to those cultural and social givens of their society which express this truth. The distinction between deliberative and dedicated communities is relevant to the debate between liberalism and communitarianism. Rather than viewing this debate as one between those who value community and those who do not, it is better understood as a controversy over the appropriate kind of community. Typically, liberals seek deliberative communities, while communitarians seek dedicated ones. However, a person committed to deliberativism as the method of social change can also regard deliberativism as defining a certain conception of community and the conception of the persons who are its members. Consequently, in this view, almost every serious person is a communitarian, but some people are deliberative communitarians while others are dedicated communitarians. Communitarian democracy is an attempt to describe a deliberative community. Communitarian democrats seek freedom, equality, and solidarity for the purpose of devising joint solutions to social problems. In order to achieve this, communitarian democrats devise a civic discourse shorn of dedicated features, which values each citizen equally as a member of the community. This has implication for at least three conflicts in political and constitutional affairs. Since no irreducibly dedicated premises are possible in this civic discourse, dedicated arguments are impossible without translation into deliberative terms. This implies a particular conclusion to the debate about religion in the public square, namely, that dedicated religious discourse must be translated into its deliberative counterpart, if it has one, before its proponents may use it in public justification. (The article pays close attention to Michael Perry?s work concerning the role of religion in the public square.) Similarly, concerning multicultural conceptions of the right and the good, communitarian democrats can accept only those multicultural conceptions translatable into deliberative discourse. And, finally, communitarian democrats must guard against constitutional atrophy, the process by which initially deliberative structures become dedicated through lack of vigilance, criticism, and challenge. In a communitarian democracy, atrophied deliberative structures may be just as inefficient and unfair as some decidedly dedicated structures and must be similarly avoided. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity by Steven B. SmithSteven NadlerSteven B. Smith. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii + 270. Cloth, $30.00.Steven B. Smith’s aim in this elegant, well-written book is to restore Spinoza to his important and rightful place in the history of political and religious thought. At the heart of the book is (...) a discussion of the central themes of the Theological-Political Treatise, with a good deal of attention given both to Spinoza’s other writings and to other political thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes, as well as to the immediate historical situation in the mid-seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. But this is more than just a commentary on a work that for a long time has largely (and unjustly) been ignored by philosophers. Smith has a full appreciation of the radical nature of the Treatise, and uses it to bring out what is peculiarly fascinating about Spinoza’s religious and political ideas.According to Smith, it was Spinoza who first made the “Jewish Question”—the problem of how the Jews, after centuries of separation and ghettoization, can be granted admission to, and even assimilation into, the modern polity—central to reflection on the “theological-political problem,” that is, the problem of the place and role of religion in the state. Smith sees Spinoza’s solution to both problems in the process of secularization. Jews must, in order to become an integrated part of modern society, shed their ancient, traditional identity; Judaism has to be transformed from “an authoritative body of revealed law into what today would be called a modern secular identity” (xiii). The allegiance of Jews must be transferred from the Law to laws, from a life of halakhic (or Jewish legal) ritual to a life focussed on nonsectarian, civil and social duties. Particularism—and this would be true of all historical religious identities that will, ideally, be absorbed into the modern state—must be exchanged for universalism.Smith shows how Spinoza’s thinking on the Jewish question is intimately bound up with his particular political philosophy. He argues, in fact, that the Treatise represents the “first and most profound expression of the Jewish-liberal symbiosis that has survived to the present.” For the kind of polity that will make Jewish emancipation possible and foster the emergence of a modern, secular, nonparticularistic Jewish identity is the democratic, liberal state. But if liberalism, through its offer of toleration and participation, nourishes modern Judaism, it is no less true, Smith claims, that it has taken its own sustenance from Jewish traditions. Rabbinic Judaism, with its emphasis on law, has long served as a model for classical liberal thought.Spinoza himself is, in Smith’s eyes (although Smith is certainly not the first to suggest this) the “prototype” of the modern emancipated Jew, liberated from (and even critical of) religious tradition and authority. He is, in other words, the first “secular Jew.” Amsterdam, meanwhile, with its linked traditions of toleration and commerce, is the prototype of the modern, liberal society, one that both offers the conditions for Jewish emancipation and is ever vigilant against interference from ambitious religious authorities. Smith does not really take note of the fact that Dutch society in the Golden Age, with its rigid system of regent families controlling the all-important municipal governments, was far from democratic. And it seems to me misleading to speak of Spinoza as a “secular Jew.” Spinoza seems to have liberated himself—with a [End Page 321] little help from his congregation’s rabbis—not only from an orthodox conformity to Jewish traditions, but from any sense of Jewish identity whatsoever. Perhaps it might be more accurate to call Spinoza the “first secular citizen.”One of the more contentious claims of Smith’s book is his insistence that Spinoza’s Treatise contains an esoteric dimension, an intentionally hidden doctrine that only the most careful readers could ascertain. Part of the defense of this Straussian model is the identification of “deliberate contradictions” in the text. I, for one, do not see any esoteric doctrines in the Treatise; nor... (shrink)

The problem of cultural environment is not new, but the use of the theory on cultural environment is clearly a new approach to the consideration of familiar questions. That is the problem, is it true that the context has become such that man, as an individual, is becoming increasingly smaller, weaker, more tightly defined and restrained, in a society which is steadily developing in the direction of becoming multi-dimensional and ambiguous with its “logic of imposition”? As for the cultural (...) environment, is it true that the part in it where man has no right to choose, the part which he is compelled to adapt to, will grow bigger and bigger than the part each individual, each community can create, build, and amend? More concretely, is it true that the European rationalist and anthropological culture has become too “classical” and “secular,” now getting replaced by a “fast-food culture” or “stewing-pot culture”? Or is it only a “superficial choice” of globalization times? Is the present philosophy too weak, leaving society to the mercy of less-than-clairvoyant logics of life, in which “such environment, such man” is only one of many behavioral logics which are not too bad in modern social relation? Or has the role of philosophy itself changed - the “Flat world” philosophy now deprived of the responsibility to control, regulate, and, as necessary, determine the context, as it was in the past? Base upon reliable qualitative and quantitative datas, thepaper prover that: 1. If natural environment is the regrouping of factors outside the social-human system making conditions necessary for this system to exist and develop, then cultural environment is regrouping of factors inside the social-human system making sufficient conditions for each subsystem of this system to identify itself and progress. 2. Never in the past has the cultural environment in Vietnam been so rich and varied, so dynamic and positive, so encouraging and attractive, with so many opportunities and challenges as is now the case. The degree of richness and diversity, the dynamic and active rhythm of Vietnam’s cultural environment are now enough to foster good ideas and stimulate discovery and creation. But on the flip side, there are still many challenges andattractions, so hopefully every individual, family, and community will become vigilant before the risk of losing the way or making a mistake. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to explore the acceptance of social robots as companions. Understanding what affects the acceptance of humanoid companions may give society tools that will help people overcome loneliness throughout pandemics, such as COVID-19 and beyond. Based on regulatory focus theory, it is proposed that there is a relationship between goal-directed motivation and acceptance of robots as companions. The theory of regulatory focus posits that goal-directed behavior is regulated by two motivational systems—promotion and prevention. People (...) with a promotion focus are concerned about accomplishments, are sensitive to the presence and absence of positive outcomes (gains/non-gains), and have a strategic preference for eager means of goal-pursuit. People with a prevention focus are concerned about security and safety, are sensitive to the absence and presence of negative outcomes (non-losses/losses), and have a strategic preference for vigilant means. Two studies support the notion of a relationship between acceptance of robots as companions and regulatory focus. In Study 1, chronic promotion focus was associated with acceptance of robots, and this association was mediated by loneliness. The weaker the promotion focus, the stronger was the sense of loneliness, and thus the higher was the acceptance of the robots. In Study 2, a situationally induced regulatory focus moderated the association between acceptance of robots and COVID-19 perceived severity. The higher the perceived severity of the disease, the higher was the willingness to accept the robots, and the effect was stronger for an induced prevention (vs. promotion) focus. Models of acceptance of robots are presented. Implications for well-being are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Christian PerspectiveUlrich DuchrowTogether we are facing a global kairos of humanity because these years are decisive for whether our civilization will irreversibly continue to produce death or whether we find a way out toward a life-enhancing new culture. So let me try to make a humble contribution to our common search for liberation from suffering toward life through justice.suffering caused by economic injustice in (...) the axial age and in the capitalist civilization of modernityWe do not need to spend much time on describing the sufferings caused by economic injustice. They cry to high heaven every day. Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, speaks of more than 60 million people dying of hunger and its consequences every year, especially children, although there is more than enough to feed them. That is an annual World War II against the poor. He continues to say: “A child that dies of hunger is murdered.” He calls this a daily crime against humanity.1 Others call it structural genocide.2 All these victims are human beings with a human face, according to biblical tradition created in the image of God. So we are talking about murdering living images of God, about blasphemy.Also, the blue planet Earth’s suffering is growing dramatically. The extinction of species is accelerating, desertification is expanding, the poisoning of water and soil is increasing, and climate change is producing irreversible effects like lifting the sea level, devouring islands in the Pacific and growing parts of Bangladesh, creating weather disasters everywhere, and possibly increasing temperature in parts of Africa by ten degrees. We all know this, but so far we have not been able to make the necessary changes in global economics and politics to stop or at least slow it.Often forgotten are the psychological and spiritual sufferings and diseases of a growing number of people. In India an average of more than fifty farmers, driven into debt beyond their means, commit suicide daily out of despair.3 Workers suffer increasing stress and anxiety, and middle-class people fall into depression, projected to be the second most common illness in 2020, according the World Health Organization. So what are the roots of all of this? [End Page 27]My thesis is that what we are experiencing now started nearly three thousand years ago within what is called the Axial Age, beginning in the eighth century bce, in the whole of Eurasia from Greece to China. At that time a new economy started to appear in daily life, built on money and private property. It had tremendous social as well as psychological and spiritual effects. To analyze what happened then helps us understand what is happening today. Looking at the responses to this development by the different faiths and philosophies in Israel/Judah, India, China, and Greece may also help us to better understand the tasks and possibilities of engaged Buddhists and liberation theologians in our age.The philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term “Axial Age.”4 According to him, the experience of violent crises between 800 and 200 bce might have prompted the parallel efforts of the prophets, the Buddha, Confucius, Daoism, and Greek philosophy to find new foundations for living together. He characterized the new approach as intellectual and spiritual (geistig), looking only marginally at the economic and political context. Recently Karen Armstrong and, based on her findings, Jeremy Rifkin took up this theory, looking particularly at war and violence as causes for the responses within the different cultures.5 Also José María Vigil, who is present here, has just published a chapter in his book on Theology of Axiality and Axial Theology.6 As far as the sociohistoric context of the Axial Age is concerned my thesis comes nearest to what David Graeber has worked out in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years,7 although he is not very interested in the religious responses. Combining his insights with my own research,8 let me summarize how the new economy affects ancient societies.Money as unit of account was used in the palaces and temples of Mesopotamia as early... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics ed. by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie VigenJohn KiessEthnography as Christian Theology and Ethics Edited by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie Vigen New York: Continuum, 2011. 304 pp. $29.95Over the past decade, an increasing number of Christian theologians and ethicists have turned to ethnographic methodologies in order to attend more closely to the complexities of lived faith and the bodily character of (...) theological knowledge. For those wishing to get a glimpse of what this looks like in practice, what its implications might be for theology and ethics, and how one might set off and do it oneself, this book is an excellent introduction.Editors Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen organize the book into three parts. The first part orients readers to the use of ethnography in cultural anthropology and reviews the recent “ethnographic turn” in Christian theology and ethics. This is followed by a brief survey of theological critiques of social science and a defense of ethnography against these critiques. Scharen and Vigen argue that the use of ethnography, far from compromising the integrity of theology, has the potential to renew and enrich the discipline through the incorporation of long-overlooked forms of local wisdom. As a method attuned to practical, often noncognitive forms of knowledge, ethnography can help scholars move away from an exclusive focus on texts to a deeper consideration of the theological and ethical claims “embedded and embodied” in the lives and practices of everyday communities (xxii). [End Page 190]Naturally, the best argument for such an approach is exemplification. The second part of the book presents an impressive collection of ethnographic work from contexts as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, Oregon, Chiapas, Nairobi, and Gulu. Contributors employ ethnography to compare pastoral leadership in two African American churches, track grassroots dissent on the issue of contraception among women living with HIV/AIDS, and reimagine the debate on physician-assisted suicide from the perspective of the poor and disabled. Particularly effective are Vicini’s exploration of the liturgical response of local churches to the legacy of violence in Chiapas and Whitmore’s critical examination of his own place as a white researcher in Northern Uganda, which makes hauntingly transparent the ethical complexities of the research process itself.The final part of the book offers a more practical how-to guide for those looking to do ethnography, covering such issues as institutional review board approval, interview methodology, and accountability to research subjects. This part, like the rest of the book, will be a gift for graduate students facing down a dissertation proposal or scholars contemplating the use of ethnography in their work. Admirably reflexive, vigilantly attentive to issues of power and privilege, and articulate about the ways that research can be a form of discipleship, one can only hope this book will succeed in its aim of encouraging other scholars to “go and do likewise.”Those who have already incorporated ethnographic techniques in their scholarship or who are looking for a fuller articulation of the relation between ethnography, ethics, and theology may find themselves less satisfied with the book. Its treatment of existing options (virtue ethics, Catholic social ethics) and thinkers (David Ford, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank) is thin, and a number of key figures in the broader story of the ethnographic turn in theology (Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hans Frei) are conspicuously missing. Their absence is felt particularly strongly in the unanswered questions the volume provokes, including how to account for God’s difference when appeals to experience become primary (Barth), and how to avoid positivism when appeals to the “reality” of the church become the point of departure for ecclesiology (Bonhoeffer).Such provocations, however, are reminders that we are still at the very early stages of the ethnographic turn in Christian theology and ethics. If this volume is any indication, the future of this exciting intersection of thought and practice looks very promising indeed. [End Page 191]John KiessLoyola University MarylandCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)