An extended version of Gieryn's notion of ‘boundary-work’, supplemented with insights of Thomas Goodnight, is used to represent the central role of rhetoric in disputes on the boundary of science and the public. From a study of the Tarasoff-case it is shown that the rhetorical process of turning obstacles into resources works to move the boundary between a science and the law. It is concluded that rhetorical scholars can and must play a part in the resolution of boundary disputes and (...) that concrete case-studies of boundary-work may deepen criticism of argument. (shrink)

Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics maps the ethical landscape of contemporary nursing. The book is the product of a collaboration between philosopher-ethicist Michael Yeo, nurse-ethicist Anne Moorhouse, and six representatives of various areas of professional nursing. It thus combines philosophical and ethical analysis with nursing knowledge and experience in a manner that is both understandable and relevant. The book is organized around six main concepts in nursing ethics: beneficence, autonomy, confidentiality, truth-telling, justice, and integrity. A chapter is devoted (...) to the elucidation of each of these concepts. In each chapter, historical background and conceptual analysis are supplemented by case studies that exemplify issues and show how the concept applies in nursing practice. In this new edition, the materials in each chapter have been updated to reflect recent developments in nursing and more generally in health care. In addition, a totally new chapter on ethical theory has been added. Complete with bibliographies and study questions for further analysis of cases, this book is ideally suited for textbook use. It will help both practitioners and students to deal better with the clinical problems and issues that are encountered in the field. However, it's simple prose and clear exposition of complex issues will make Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics attractive to anyone concerned about health care. (shrink)

The essay outlines modelling theory in terms of an active form of thinking. In contrast to concepts of theory whose validity can be described by a scientific explanatory approach with a systematic character and the claim to universalization regarding a specific field of research, the question here is about varieties of theory building. The focus is on theoretical activity, not on theory as a result. Based on ancient implications of the term θεωρία (theoria), models of a theoretical activity, attitude or (...) stance are brought into focus, whereby ways of distancing are constitutive in each case. What does theorizing mean from the perspective of a spectator and to what extent is purposelessness to be thought of as a critical potential? Does the theoretical performance of thought include a sense of possibility and to what extent is this articulated in the aesthetic forms of language? Do theoretical realizations in the literary medium move on a threshold between historical determinisms and the freedom of a conceivable future? To what extent do theoretical views have a synaesthetic dimension, and can we imagine poetic language as a medium of theoretical reflection? Is the nuanced linguistic nature of theoretical articulation modes the very condition of critical intervention? All these modellings of aesthetic distancing ask about the forms in which theory can be expressed, including ways of writing theoretical activity. (shrink)

_A portion of the revenue from this book’s sales will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to assist the humanitarian work of nurses, doctors, and other health care providers in the fight against COVID-19 and beyond._ _Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics_ is an introduction to contemporary ethical issues in health care, designed especially for Canadian audiences. The book is organized around six key concepts: beneficence, autonomy, truth-telling, confidentiality, justice, and integrity. Each of these concepts is explained and discussed with (...) reference to professional and legal norms. The discussion is then supplemented by case studies that exemplify the relevant concepts and show how each applies in health care and nursing practice. This new fourth edition includes an added chapter on end-of-life issues, and it is revised throughout to reflect the latest developments on topics such as global health ethics, cultural competence, social media, and palliative sedation, as well as ethical issues relating to COVID-19. (shrink)

La 4ème de couverture indique : "Cet ouvrage, qui réunit juristes, sociologues, anthropologue et psychanalyste, se propose de saisir la place du genre en bioéthique à l'heure de questions sociétales liées tant aux progrès de la médecine reproductive qu'aux rôles assignés aux femmes et aux hommes à l'intérieur de la famille ou en dehors de celle-ci. Il s'agit, au travers de regards croisés, d'éclairer le débat du genre au sein de la sphère bioéthique en identifiant, au sein et au-delà des (...) thèmes de la procréation, de la parentalité et du patrimoine, les questions juridiques qui peuvent naître de la rencontre de la bioéthique et du genre. Les sujets sont nombreux, regroupés autour d'interrogations telles que : le genre est-il reçu dans le droit du vivant? Que font les lois bioéthique au genre? Y a-t-il un âge pour procréer? Existe-t-il une égalité entre les femmes et les hommes en termes d'accès aux soins? Assiste-t-on à une désexualisation du couple? Peut-on parler de patrimoine sexuel?... Éventail d'interrogations, diversité des opinions : les meilleurs spécialistes de chaque question abordée y analysent les réponses fournies par le droit en livrant des pistes de réflexion sur le traitement des inégalités ou des différences existant entre hommes et femmes dans l'exercice, parfois l'existence, des droits et libertés qui sont les leurs en ce domaine.". (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccine refusal seems like a paradigm case of irrationality. Vaccines are supposed to be the best way to get us out of the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet many people believe that they should not be vaccinated even though they are dissatisfied with the current situation. In this paper, we analyze COVID-19 vaccine refusal with the tools of contemporary philosophical theories of responsibility and rationality. The main outcome of this analysis is that many vaccine-refusers are responsible for the belief that (...) they should not be vaccinated and epistemically rational in holding it. This is an important result because it provides insights into the legitimacy of certain public health policies. In particular, this result shows that a public health policy that would abandon the project of convincing certain vaccine-refusers with reasons – e.g., by simply making vaccination compulsory – is prima facie illegitimate. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reaching the Age of Majority:The Life Trajectory of the CIHR Institute of AgingYves Joanette, Anne Martin-Matthews, Réjean Hebert, and Joanne GoldbergThe Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) was created in 2001 under the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act S.C. 2000, c. 6 (Government of Canada, 2000). The creation of CIHR was in follow-up to the Canadian Medical Research Council (MRC) as well as to the National Health (...) Research and Development Program of Health Canada that, up until that point in time, had supported the breadth of health research in Canada. Two important characteristics of CIHR were crucial for the development of research on aging. The first was that CIHR, unlike MRC, was entrusted with the challenge of supporting the whole spectrum of health research, from the basic biomedical perspective to clinical research, research on health services and policies as well as social aspects of health research, not to mention research on ethics and other perspectives (including the science of research). The second characteristic of the nascent CIHR that impacted the community of research on aging was the decision that a small part of the overall CIHR budget would be used to address priority-driven questions or topics (strategic competitions), while the majority of the budget would be invested in grants and awards programs that would be investigator-initiated, as in the time of the MRC (open competition). Since its inception, CIHR has included 13 institutes that are central to the priority-driven actions. Institutes not only play an important convener role within their communities and among their stakeholders, but they are also expected to listen to the needs, gaps and opportunities in their area and to introduce initiatives---most of the time involving more than one Institute---in order to tackle these needs and gaps and to seize upon the opportunities.The Institute of Aging was introduced at the same time as the other 12 Institutes and it is clear that many challenges were awaiting the new Institute since, at that time, research on aging was still in its early years. This article is about the trajectory of the CIHR Institute of Aging in its first 18 years of existence. Having now reached an age that is either the age of majority or quite close to it, it is important to be able to provide a reflection on the evolution of the priorities over this period, while also taking a peek at some of the priorities that will surely come in the near future.The Early Years (2001-2004)The founding Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging was Dr. Réjean Hébert. A well-known and prolific [End Page 1] geriatrician and researcher, Dr. Hébert was the perfect person to launch the Institute. One of his first actions was, in fact, to harmonize the French and English names of the Institute. In French, the name of the Institute focused on Aging (Institut du vieillissement) while, in English, the name of the Institute focused on Healthy Aging. The CIHR Institute of Healthy Aging thus became the CIHR Institute of Aging in all versions of its documentation. But above and beyond this important name change, the real work of Dr. Hebert, accompanied by the first Institute Advisory Board1, chaired by Prof. Dorothy Pringle, was to identify the gaps, the needs and the opportunities. After a rigorous process came the first Strategic Plan of the CIHR Institute of Aging, which was clearly influenced by Dr. Réjean Hébert's vision of the aging population as an opportunity, instead of a catastrophe, for our society that comes, of course, with its own challenges. Dr. Hébert left CIHR during his first mandate as he was called upon to become the Dean of his Faculty, and then went on to become the first CIHR Scientific Director to sit as a Minister of Health and Social Services in the Québec Government. The main outcomes of Dr. Hebert's years (2001-2004) can be summarized as follows2.• Organizing many workshops and meetings to ensure that the Institute of Aging would become the premier national convener for research on aging, bridging between disciplines... (shrink)

Erarbeitet von Dominik Balg, Anne Burkard, Henning Franzen, Aenna Frottier, David Lanius, David Löwenstein, Hanna Lucks, Kirsten Meyer, Donata Romizi, Katharina Schulz, Stefanie Thiele und Annett Wienmeister. -/- Die Entwicklung argumentativer Fähigkeiten ist ein zentrales Ziel des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, ja überhaupt ein zentrales Bildungsziel. Wie aber kann das gelingen? In vielen verfügbaren Unterrichtsmaterialien werden argumentative Fähigkeiten eher vorausgesetzt als systematisch gefördert. Auch curriculare Vorgaben bleiben zumeist sehr unspezifisch. Lehrpersonen werden so weitgehend allein gelassen mit der Aufgabe, Lernende beim (...) Erwerb argumentativer Fähigkeiten zu fördern. Die vorliegende Aufgabensammlung soll dazu beitragen, diese Lücke zu schließen. Sie bietet Lehrpersonen reichhaltige Materialien für die spiralcurricular angelegte, systematische Förderung argumentativer Fähigkeit anhand exemplarischer Inhalte. Orientiert an klaren fachlichen Standards finden sich hier Aufgaben auf vier Niveaustufen, jeweils in Verbindung mit übersichtlichen Merkblättern. Die Aufgaben der beiden unteren Niveaustufen lassen sich bereits für jüngere Lernende der Sekundarstufe einsetzen, Aufgaben der obersten Niveaustufe richten sich an Lernende von Abschlussklassen oder der Studieneingangsphase. Für die Hand der Lehrpersonen werden die Aufgaben und Merkblätter durch fachliche und didaktische Kommentare sowie Lösungshinweise ergänzt. (shrink)

Analytic metaphysics has recently discovered biology as a means of grounding metaphysical theories. This has resulted in long-standing metaphysical puzzles, such as the problems of personal identity and material constitution, being increasingly addressed by appeal to a biological understanding of identity. This development within metaphysics is in significant tension with the growing tendency amongst philosophers of biology to regard biological identity as a deep puzzle in its own right, especially following recent advances in our understanding of symbiosis, the evolution of (...) multi-cellular organisms and the inherently dynamical character of living systems. Moreover, and building on these biological insights, the broadly substance ontological framework of metaphysical theories of biological identity appears problematic to a growing number of philosophers of biology who invoke process ontology instead. This volume addresses this tension, exploring to what extent it can be dissolved. For this purpose, the volume presents the first selection of essays exclusively focused on biological identity and written by experts in metaphysics, the philosophy of biology and biology. The resulting cross-disciplinary dialogue paves the way for a convincing account of biological identity that is both metaphysically constructive and scientifically informed, and will be of interest to metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and theoretical biologists. (shrink)

Across 13 essays "e; 12 of which were previously unavailable in English "e; Deleuze specialist Anne Sauvagnargues reveals the continuing potential of Deleuze, Guattari and Simondon to invent new concepts and new modes of creativity and existence. She redeploys their work, together with other key philosophers including Bergson, Lacan, Deligny and Ruyer, to create new concepts including geophilosophy, the artmachine, the ritornello, schizoanalysis and the machinic assemblage.

In this article, I will consider whether, and in what way, doxastic states can harm. I’ll first consider whether, and in what way, a person’s doxastic state can harm her, before turning to the question of whether, and in what way, it can harm someone else.

ABSTRACTOrganization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies (...) care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma. (shrink)

The standard view of ignorance is that it consists in the mere lack of knowledge or true belief. Duncan Pritchard has recently argued, against the standard view, that ignorance is the lack of knowledge/true belief that is due to an improper inquiry. I shall call, Pritchard’s alternative account the Normative Account. The purpose of this article is to strengthen the Normative Account by providing an independent vargument supporting it.

Human persons exist longer than a single moment in time; they persist through time. However, so far it has not been possible to make this natural and widespread assumption metaphysically comprehensible. The philosophical debate on personal identity is rather stuck in a dilemma: reductionist theories explain personal identity away, while non-reductionist theories fail to give any informative account at all. This chapter argues that this dilemma emerges from an underlying commitment, shared by both sides of in the debate, to an (...) ontology which that gives the priority to static unchanging things. The claim defended here is that the dilemma of personal identity can be overcome if we acknowledge the biological nature of human persons and switch to a process- ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary. Human persons are biological higher-order processes, rather than things, and their identity conditions can be scientifically investigated. (shrink)

Like the subtitle says, this is an intro to food ethics that also collects writings on food ethics by others. Topics include: animals, consumption, farming, identity, justice, paternalism, religion, and workers.

This paper aims to motivate a new beginning in metaphysical thinking about persistence by drawing attention to the disappearance of change in current accounts of persistence. I defend the claim that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which results from neglecting the constructive role of change for persistence. Neither of the two main competing views, perdurantism and endurantism, captures the idea of persistence as an identity through time. I identify the fundamental ontological reasons for this, namely the shared commitment (...) to what I call ‘thing ontology’: an ontology that gives the ontological priority to static things. I conclude by briefly indicating how switching to a process ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary may allow for overcoming the dilemma of persistence. (shrink)

Stimuli that resemble humans, but are not perfectly human-like, are disliked compared to distinctly human and nonhuman stimuli. Accounts of this “Uncanny Valley” effect often focus on how changes in human resemblance can evoke different emotional responses. We present an alternate account based on the novel hypothesis that the Uncanny Valley is not directly related to ‘human-likeness’ per se, but instead reflects a more general form of stimulus devaluation that occurs when inhibition is triggered to resolve conflict between competing stimulus-related (...) representations. We consider existing support for this inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and further assess its feasibility through tests of two corresponding predictions that arise from the link between conflict-resolving inhibition and aversive response: 1) that the pronounced disliking of Uncanny-type stimuli will occur for any image that strongly activates multiple competing stimulus representations, even in the absence of any human-likeness, and 2) that the negative peak of an ‘Uncanny Valley’ should occur at the point of greatest stimulus-related conflict and not (in the presence of human-likeness) always closer to the ‘human’ end of a perceptual continuum. We measured affective responses to a set of line drawings representing nonhuman animal-animal morphs, in which each continuum midpoint was a bistable image (Exp. 1), as well as to sets of human-robot and human-animal computer-generated morphs (Exp. 2). Affective trends depicting classic Uncanny Valley functions occurred for all continua, including the nonhuman stimuli. Images at continua midpoints elicited significantly more negative affect than images at endpoints, even when the continua included a human endpoint. This illustrates the feasibility of the inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and the need for further research into the possibility that the strong dislike of Uncanny-type stimuli reflects the negative affective consequences of cognitive inhibition. (shrink)

Investigating the theoretical and empirical relationships between transparency and trust in the context of surveillance, this volume argues that neither transparency nor trust provides a simple and self-evident path for mitigating the negative political and social consequences of state surveillance practices. Dominant in both the scholarly literature and public debate is the conviction that transparency can promote better-informed decisions, greater oversight, and restore trust damaged by the secrecy of surveillance. The contributions to this volume challenge this conventional wisdom by considering (...) how relations of trust and policies of transparency are modulated by underlying power asymmetries, socio-historical legacies, economic structures, and institutional constraints. They study trust and transparency as embedded in specific socio-political contexts to show how, under certain conditions, transparency can become a tool of social control that erodes trust, while mistrust-rather than trust-can sometimes offer the most promising approach to safeguarding rights and freedom in an age of surveillance. The first book addressing the inter-relationship of trust, transparency, and surveillance practices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of surveillance studies as well as appeal to an interdisciplinary audience given the contributions come from political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and civil society. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Signatures (DoS) figures prominently in both contemporary and historic herbal traditions across a diversity of cultures. DoS—conceptualized beyond its conventional interpretation as “like cures like”, which relies solely on plant morphology—can be viewed as a type of ecosemiotic communication system. This nuanced form of interspecies communication relies on the presence of “signatures”, or signs, corresponding to the therapeutic quality of different plants based on their morphology but also their aroma, taste, texture, and even their context in the (...) landscape. Despite its widespread contemporary dismissal by mainstream science as overly simplistic, childlike, primitive, and generally of limited value, we suggest that the recognition of “signatures” in plants may be considered as a form of communication between humans and plants. Drawing upon Indigenous thought, ecosemiotic theory, and lyric philosophy, we posit that understanding “signatures” metaphorically, as a reflection of the “shape of the world”, offers insights into the interconnectedness of all life forms—a profound affirmation of relational coherence between humans and the more-than-human. We advocate for another perspective on DoS: one which holds potential towards reorienting and restoring our relationships in the vibrant world of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

This Element has two aims. The first is to discuss arguments philosophers have made about the difference God's existence might make to questions of general interest in metaethics. The second is to argue that it is a mistake to think we can get very far in answering these questions by assuming a thin conception of God, and to suggest that exploring the implications of thick theisms for metaethics would be more fruitful.

It seems like people have character traits that explain a good deal of their behavior. Call a theory character realism just in case it vindicates this folk assumption. Recently, Christian Miller has argued that the way to reconcile character realism with decades of psychological research is to adopt metaphysical reductivism about character traits. Some contemporary psychological theories of character and virtue seem to implicitly endorse such reductivism; others resist reduction of traits to finer-grained mental components or processes; and still others (...) remain silent on the metaphysics of traits. In this paper we argue that character realists do not have to, and in fact should not, be reductivists. We introduce a theoretical dilemma for reductivist character realism. Then we explain how nonreductivists can meet the standards for empirical adequacy laid out by Miller and others. Further, we argue, hylomorphic nonreductivism avoids the theoretical dilemma that threatens reductivism. It also fits nicely the major commitments of recent models of virtue in psychology. Thus, character realists should not be reductivists. (shrink)

Defenders of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology hold that practical factors have implications for a belief’s epistemic status. Paradigm defenders of pragmatic encroachment have held—to state their positions roughly— that whether someone’s belief that p constitutes knowledge depends on the practical reasons that she has (Stanley 2005), that knowing p is necessary and sufficient for treating p as a reason for action (Hawthorne and Stanley 2008), or that knowing p is sufficient for reasonably acting as if p (Fantl and McGrath 2009: (...) 66). Although their defenders may not always pose their theses in the language of practical reasons, the idea of a practical reason is central to each of these views. Yet there remain issues concerning the nature and basis of practical reasons on which defenders of pragmatic encroachment have not taken a position, including—as I will explain—the issue of whether internalism or externalism about reasons is true. It may be thought that the position the defender of pragmatic encroachment takes on this does not make a difference to the truth or falsity of her main thesis. In this chapter, I will show that it does matter, in the sense that her view will generate different verdicts about cases depending on whether she endorses internal- ism or externalism about reasons. Given the role of cases in providing intui- tive support for or against the theory, this, in turn, makes a difference to the plausibility of pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Applied to video games, Csikszentmihalyi’s work on flow evidences that a positive gaming experience is intrinsically self-rewarding and primarily determined by the skill/challenge balance. A multi-layered measure of enjoyment is built to take these components into account. Gamers were asked to report the concentration-enjoyment they experienced during a first-person shooter game, and to better assess the gap between skill and challenge, the challenge enjoyment was also rated. Along with concentration level, concentration enjoyment is used to build a gaming experience typology (...) that accounts for the self-rewarding component. An enjoyment-based challenge mapping is also drawn up, crossing challenge enjoyment and challenge level. The results show that this integrative enjoyment measure strengthens the causal link between challenge and gaming experience. Most importantly, the findings suggest that challenge or concentration-based enjoyment measures outweigh the standard concentration and difficulty measures as they are more likely to ensure a pleasant and positive experience (flow or relaxation) for the gamers. Indeed, regardless of the reported level of challenge, a gamer is more likely to have a positive experience when challenged at a level she perceives as pleasant. This article emphasizes the importance for game publishers of gathering enjoyment-based concentration and challenge assessments to ensure a positive gaming experience and gamers’ commitment. (shrink)

The handbook is a partial survey of multiple areas of food ethics: conventional agriculture and alternatives to it; animals; consumption ethics; food justice; food workers; food politics and policy; gender, body image, and healthy eating; and, food, culture and identity. -/- Food ethics, as an academic pursuit, is vast, incorporating work from philosophy as well as anthropology, economics, environmental sciences and other natural sciences, geography, law, and sociology. This Handbook provides a sample of recent philosophical work in food ethics. This (...) philosophical work addresses ethical issues with agricultural production, the structure of the global food system, the ethics of personal food consumption, the ethics of food policy, and cultural understandings of food and eating, among other issues. The work in this Handbook draws on multiple literatures within philosophy, including practical ethics, normative ethics, and political philosophy, as well as drawing on non-philosophical work. Part I considers ethical issues concerning the industrial model of farming that dominates in developed countries, looking most closely at industrial crop farming and its environmental effects. Part II concerns the ethics of animal agriculture. Part III concerns the ethics of consumption: is it morally permissible to consume various products? Part IV concerns justice—including racial, social, and economic justice—in the food system. Part V discusses some ethical and legal issues with specific kinds of food policies, including healthy eating policies, food labeling, and agricultural guest worker programs. Part VI includes four essays taking a critical eye to our public discourse about, and personal experiences of, dieting, healthy eating, and obesity prevention. Lastly, the essays in Part VII concern the personal, social, and moral significance of food. (shrink)

Representations of the active brain have served to establish a particular domain of competence for brain mappers and to distinguish brain mapping’s particular contributions to mind/brain research. At the heart of the claims about the emerging contributions of functional brain mapping is a paradox: functional imagers seem to reject representations while also using them at multiple points in their work. This article therefore considers a love-hate relationship between scientists and their object: the case of the iconoclastic imager. This paradoxical stance (...) is the result of the formation of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a number of scientific traditions and their particular standards of what constitutes scientific evidence. By examining the various ways in which images are deployed and rejected, the origins of these conflicting tendencies can be traced to the technological, methodological, and institutional elements in the work of functional imagers. This approach provides insight into the current demarcation of imaging and reflects on features of visual knowledge. (shrink)

The mathematician Georg Cantor strongly believed in the existence of actually infinite numbers and sets. Cantor’s “actualism” went against the Aristotelian tradition in metaphysics and mathematics. Under the pressures to defend his theory, his metaphysics changed from Spinozistic monism to Leibnizian voluntarist dualism. The factor motivating this change was two-fold: the desire to avoid antinomies associated with the notion of a universal collection and the desire to avoid the heresy of necessitarian pantheism. We document the changes in Cantor’s thought with (...) reference to his main philosophical-mathematical treatise, the Grundlagen (1883) as well as with reference to his article, “Über die verschiedenen Standpunkte in bezug auf das aktuelle Unendliche” (“Concerning Various Perspectives on the Actual Infinite”) (1885). (shrink)

Reproductive tourism is a manifestation of a larger, more inclusive trend toward globalization of capitalist cultural and material economies. This paper discusses the development of cross-border assisted reproduction within the globalized economy, transnational and local structural processes that influence the trade, social relations intersecting it, and implications for the healthcare systems affected. I focus on prevailing gender structures embedded in the cross-border trade and their intersection with other social and economic structures that reflect and impact globalization. I apply a social (...) connection model of responsibility for unjust outcomes and consider strategies to counter structural injustices embedded in this industry. The concluding section discusses policy reforms and proposals for collaborative action to preclude further injustices and extend full human rights to all. (shrink)

As for Avicenna the human soul is a complete substance which does not inhere in the body nor is imprinted in it, asserting its survival after the death of the body seems easy. Yet, he needs the body to explain its individuation. The paper analyzes Avicenna's arguments in the De anima sections, V, 3 & 4, of the Shifā ' in order to explore the exact causal relation there is between the human soul and its body and confronts these arguments (...) with relevant passages in the Metaphysics. It argues that the causal relation between body and soul remains obscure and that, though Avicenna claims that there is a personal immortality and that the disembodied soul remains individuated, he does not provide a satisfactory ontological account for it. (shrink)

The general aim of this article is to consider whether various affective phenomena – feelings like the feeling of knowing, of familiarity, of certainty, etc., but also phenomena like curiosity, interest, surprise and trust – which have been labelled “epistemic emotions” in fact constitute a unified kind, i.e., the kind of the so-called “epistemic emotions”. Obviously, for an affective phenomenon to belong to the kind of the epistemic emotions, it has to meet two conditions: it has to qualify, first, as (...) an emotion, and, second, as an epistemic one. The paper is structured accordingly. The first part is devoted to the question whether the aforementioned affective phenomena really are emotions, while the second part bears on their hypothetical common epistemicity. (shrink)

In an effort to clear away confusions regarding the role of cultural analysis in historical explanation, this paper proposes a new approach to the issue of cultural autonomy. The premise is that there are two forms of cultural autonomy, analytic and concrete. Analytic autonomy posits the independent structure of culture-its elements, processes, and reproduction. It is achieved through the theoretical and artificial separation of culture from other social structures, conditions, and action. Concrete autonomy establishes the interconnection of culture with the (...) rest of social life, and is achieved by fleshing out the historically specific formulation of particular cultural structures. In addition to theoretically specifying the two forms of cultural autonomy, I demonstrate analytic and concrete autonomy in practice by examining two works that incorporate culture into the analysis of the same historical event. The rewards of recognizing both analytic and concrete cultural autonomy are twofold. First, cultural reductionism can be countered by establishing that culture is structural. Second and more important, once the independent nature of a cultural form is established, its causal contribution to concrete historical situations can be assessed accurately and integrated into historical explanation. (shrink)

This piece surveys recent work on the ethics of food production and distribution, paying closest attention to animal agriculture, plant agriculture, food justice, and food sovereignty.

In the course of our daily lives we make lots of evaluations of actions. We think that driving above the speed limit is dangerous, that giving up one’s bus seat to the elderly is polite, that stirring eggs with a plastic spoon is neither good nor bad. We understand too that we may be praised or blamed for actions performed on the basis of these evaluations. The same is true in the case of certain beliefs. Sometimes we blame people for (...) what they believe falsely or irrationally. On occasion, we praise them for their intellectual discoveries. The goal of the present study is to describe the foundations which allow for these kinds of judgments. If you think that people are not always forgivable for what they believe, you will find in this book the resources to defend this thought. (shrink)

Many philosophers have defended the view that we are subject to the following evidential ought: “One ought to believe in accordance with one's evidence.” Although they agree on this, a more fundamental question keeps dividing them: from where does the evidential ought derive its normative force? The instrinsicalist answer to this question is sometimes described as the claim that "there is a brute epistemic value in believing in accordance with one's evidence" (Cowie, 2014, 4005). But what does this really mean? (...) Intrinsicalists' negative claim is that the normative source of the evidential ought has nothing to do with the fulfilment of our epistemic purposes. But what is their positive claim exactly? This paper aims at improving our understanding of intrinsicalism. Its conclusion is that there is only one possible way of being an intrinsicalist. Intrinsicalists need to be constitutivists. (shrink)

This article surveys recent work on some issues in the ethics of food consumption. It is a companion to our piece on food justice and the ethics of food production.

Theodor W. Adornos posthum veröffentlichte Ästhetische Theorie exponiert die Krise der Kunst im Zeitalter ihrer gesellschaftlichen Integration. Gesättigt mit der Erfahrung konkreter Kunstwerke, hinterfragt sie das tradierte Kategoriensystem philosophischer Ästhetik. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt erstmals eine kommentierende Auslegung, um den dichten Text aufzuschließen und ein Weiterdenken von Adornos kritischer Ästhetik anzuregen.

As analysis of Kant’s account of virtue in the Lectures on Ethics shows that Kant thinks of virtue as a form of moral self-mastery or self-command that represents a model of self-governance he compares to an autocracy. In light of the fact that the very concept of virtue presupposes struggle and conflict, Kant insists that virtue is distinct from holiness and that any ideal of moral perfection that overlooks the fact that morality is always difficult for us fails to provide (...) an appropriate model of human virtue. No matter how morally good we are or become, virtue remains a disposition to do one’s duty from duty, out of necessitation by practical reason. Yet, even though finite rational beings require a power of self-constraint in accordance with the commands of duty to comply with the law (which we obey reluctantly), the virtuous agent displays a unified soul that is at peace. This picture of virtue uncovered from the Lectures on Ethics thus reveals the way in which Kant’s conception of virtue accords with his foundational commitments in his moral theory, while at the same time representing a more complex theory of moral character and a life lived in accordance with practical reason. (shrink)

A fallibilist theory of knowledge is employed to make sense of the idea that agents know what they are doing 'without observation' (as on Anscombe's theory of practical knowledge).

We compare the definition of virtue in philosophy with the definition and operationalization of virtue in psychology. We articulate characteristics that virtue is presented as possessing in the perennial western philosophical tradition. Virtues are typically understood as (a) dispositional (b) deep-seated (c) habits (d) that contribute to flourishing and (e) that produce activities with the following three features: they are (f) done well, (g) not done poorly, and (h) in accordance with the right motivation and reason. We form a definition (...) from these characteristics and defend our exclusion of some other characteristics from the definition. Using our definition as a rubric, we evaluate conceptions of virtue in psychology, showing how many fall short at operationalizing at least one component of the philosophical notion of virtue. (shrink)

In several papers (2013, 2014, 2015) Conor McHugh defends the influential view that doxastic responsibility, viz. our responsibility for our beliefs, is grounded in a specific form of reasons-responsiveness. The main purpose of this paper is to show that a subject’s belief can be responsive to reasons in this specific way without the subject being responsible for her belief. While this specific form of reasons-responsiveness might be necessary, it is not sufficient for doxastic responsibility.

This article examines whether a training program in ethical decision making can change young athletes’ doping attitudes. Fifty-two young elite athletes were randomly assigned to either an ethical decision-making training group or a standard-knowledge-based educational program group. Another 17 young elite athletes were recruited for no-treatment control purposes. The ethical decision-making training comprised six 30-min online sessions in which the participants had to work through 18 ethical dilemmas related to doping. The standard-knowledge-based educational program was also conducted in six online (...) sessions of comparable length to that of the ethical training. A short version of the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale was administered to measure the effects of the trainings on doping attitude. Prior to as well as after the intervention, the mean doping attitude scores of the young athletes were low to very low, indicating vehement rejections of doping. The results of our experiment showed that the ethical training led to an attenuation of these rejections. No intervention effect was found in the standard education group. The observed slight increase in the doping attitude score could be an indication that the ethical decision-making training was successful in breaking up the athletes’ stereotypical style of reasoning about doping. (shrink)