Emphatic claims of a “microbiome revolution” aside, the study of the gut microbiota and its role in organismal development and evolution is a central feature of so-called postgenomics; namely, a conceptual and/or practical turn in contemporary life sciences, which departs from genetic determinism and reductionism to explore holism, emergentism and complexity in biological knowledge-production. This paper analyses the making of postgenomic knowledge about developmental symbiosis in Drosophila melanogaster by a specific group of microbiome scientists. Drawing from both practical philosophy of (...) science and Science and Technology Studies, the paper documents epistemological questions of artefactuality and representativeness of model organisms as they emerge in the day-to-day labour producing and being produced by the “microbiome revolution." Specifically, the paper builds on all the written and editorial exchanges involved in the troubled publication of a research paper studying the symbiotic role of the microbiota in the flies’ development. These written materials permit us to delimit the network of justifications, evidence, standards of knowledge-production, trust in the tools and research designs that make up the conditions of possibility of a postgenomic fact. More than reframing the organism as a radically novel multiplicity of reactive genomes, we conclude, doing postgenomic research on the microbiota and symbiosis means producing a story that deviates from the scripts embedded into the sociotechnical experimental systems of post-Human Genome Project life sciences. (shrink)

Liberal societies conventionally treat religion as unique under the law, requiring both special protection and special containment. But recently this idea that religion requires a legal exception has come under fire from those who argue that religion is no different from any other conception of the good, and the state should treat all such conceptions according to principles of neutrality and equal liberty. Cécile Laborde agrees with much of this liberal egalitarian critique, but she argues that a simple analogy (...) between the good and religion misrepresents the complex relationships among religion, law, and the state. Religion serves as more than a statement of belief about what is true, or a code of moral and ethical conduct. It also refers to comprehensive ways of life, political theories of justice, modes of voluntary association, and vulnerable collective identities. Disaggregating religion into its various dimensions, as Laborde does, has two clear advantages. First, it shows greater respect for ethical and social pluralism by ensuring that whatever treatment religion receives from the law, it receives because of features that it shares with nonreligious beliefs, conceptions, and identities. Second, it dispenses with the Western, Christian-inflected conception of religion that liberal political theory relies on, especially in dealing with the issue of separation between religion and state. As a result, Liberalism's Religion offers a novel answer to the question: Can Western theories of secularism and religion be applied more universally in non-Western societies?--. (shrink)

Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they should have dignity and basic rights. A movement referred to as ‘new dignitarianism’ has recently reclaimed human dignity to fend off the threats to human uniqueness that it perceives to arise from these developments. This ‘new’ dignitarianism, however, is not new at all. Drawing on a debate between two Enlightenment philosophers, this (...) article shows that dignitarianism has already surfaced in the eighteenth century as the negative image of another movement: naturalism. Building on this historical account, I propose to understand dignitarianism and naturalism as opposing ideal-types on a normative spectrum. Doing so allows us to see a thus-far neglected problem, which I call the Zero-Sum Problem: any gains a concrete theory makes by approximating one ideal-type, it loses by moving away from the other. I end by showing how accepting this fact is a first step to more practically viable theories that attempt to find a middle ground between the two ideal-types. (shrink)

1. La philosophie politique contemporaine : en français et en anglais François Boucher (FB) : Votre travail semble habité par une volonté d'établir des ponts entre la pensée politique française et anglo-américaine. Cette volonté est déjà visible dans votre ouvrage de 2000, Pluralist Thought and the State in Britain and France (1900-1925), qui compare les penseurs pluralistes du début XXe en France et en Angleterre. Elle est également au cœur de Critical Republicanism, The Hijab Controversy an...

Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they should have dignity and basic rights. A movement referred to as ‘new dignitarianism’ has recently reclaimed human dignity to fend off the threats to human uniqueness that it perceives to arise from these developments. This ‘new’ dignitarianism, however, is not new at all. Drawing on a debate between two Enlightenment philosophers, this (...) article shows that dignitarianism has already surfaced in the eighteenth century as the negative image of another movement: naturalism. Building on this historical account, I propose to understand dignitarianism and naturalism as opposing ideal-types on a normative spectrum. Doing so allows us to see a thus-far neglected problem, which I call the Zero-Sum Problem: any gains a concrete theory makes by approximating one ideal-type, it loses by moving away from the other. I end by showing how accepting this fact is a first step to more practically viable theories that attempt to find a middle ground between the two ideal-types. (shrink)

Do we have the right to deny others access to our body? What if this would harm those who need personal services or body parts from us? Ccile Fabre examines the impact that arguments for distributive justice have on the rights we have over ourselves, and on such contentious issues as organ sales, prostitution, and surrogate motherhood.

In his recent Rescuing Justice and Equality, G. A. Cohen mounts a sustained critique of coerced labour, against the background of a radical egalitarian conception of distributive justice. In this article, I argue that Cohenian egalitarians are committed to holding the talented under a moral duty to choose socially useful work for the sake of the less fortunate. As I also show, Cohen's arguments against coerced labour fail, particularly in the light of his commitment to coercive taxation. In the course (...) of defending those claims, I claim that Cohen's remarks on freedom of occupational choice and taxation exhibit partiality towards the interests of the better-off to the detriment of the less fortunate – a partiality which is in tension with his commitment to equality. (shrink)

This book articulates a cosmopolitan theory of the principles which ought to regulate belligerents' conduct in the aftermath of war. Throughout, it relies on the fundamental principle that all human beings, wherever they reside, have rights to the freedoms and resources which they need to lead a flourishing life, and that national and political borders are largely irrelevant to the conferral of those rights. With that principle in hand, the book provides a normative defence of restitutive and reparative justice, the (...) punishment of war criminals, the resort to transitional foreign administration as a means to govern war-torn territories, and the deployment of peacekeeping and occupation forces. It also outlines various reconciliatory and commemorative practices which might facilitate the emergence of trust amongst enemies and thereby improve prospects for peace. The book offers analytical arguments and normative conclusions, with many historical and/or contemporary examples. (shrink)

The republican tradition seems to have a blind spot about global justice. It has had little to say about pressing international issues such as world poverty or global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage: extra rempublicam nulla justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice is the primary virtue of republican institutions; and at any rate most would agree that republican values have traditionally been realized in the polis not in the cosmopolis. The article sketches a republican account of (...) global non-domination which suggests that duties of distributive justice are not bounded to the institutions of a single society. In particular, it argues that republicans have good reasons to seek to curb those global inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying domination. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the need to promote a people-centred corporate social responsibility framework in a context where many human needs and rights remain unsatisfied and where businesses may have both a positive and a negative impact on the quality of life of human beings today and tomorrow and may even lead to irreversible damage. Our normative definition of CSR is consistent with the criteria established by the EU Commission in 2011. We conceive CSR as a responsibility (...) towards human development in two complementary ways: a holistic responsibility shared by companies together with other actors to safeguard humanity and a direct liability of each company for its impact on stakeholders' capabilities. We apply Nussbaum's list of central capabilities and concept of thresholds to specify the nature and extent of corporate responsibilities towards employees, subcontractors, investors, customers, and humanity as a whole. In addition, we leverage fieldwork in developing and developed countries to analyse the effect of business activities on human capabilities. We demonstrate that by quantifying the impact of businesses' activities on various dimensions of stakeholders' lives, and especially on the most vulnerable ones, these businesses can be held accountable for the negative externalities they produce. (shrink)

This article explores the possible convergence between the capabilities approach and utilitarianism to specify CSR. It defends the idea that this key issue is related to the anthropological perspective that underpins both theories and demonstrates that a relational conception of individual freedoms and rights present in both traditions gives adequate criteria for CSR toward the company's stakeholders. I therefore defend "relational capability" as a means of providing a common paradigm, a shared vision of a core component of human development. This (...) could further lead to a set of indicators aimed at assessing corporate social performance as the maximization of the relational capability of people impacted by the activities of companies. In particular, I suggest a way of evaluating the contribution of extractive companies to the communities close to their industrial sites in extremely poor areas, not from the viewpoint of material resources and growth, but from the viewpoint of the quality of the social environment and empowerment. (shrink)

The book theoretically examines the recent and topical debates over democracy and social rights, arguing that there are four fundamental rights that should be constitutionalized; minimum income; housing; healthcare; and education. The theoretical discussion is explored within an analysis of important legal cases.

During the second half of the 20th century several American multidisciplinary social science „disaster research groups“ conducted numerous field studies after earthquakes, factory explosions and “racial riots”, both inside and outside of the United States. Their aim was to investigate the reactions and behavior of individuals, organizations and communities to disasters. All of these groups were either promoted or at least partly founded by different branches of the US military. This article will analyze the groups’ studies and findings on the (...) question of disasters’ psychological effects. The main focus will be on the stance the scientists took on the diagnosis of psychological trauma—especially Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—and the post disaster therapeutic interventions that became widespread in the 1970s and early 1980s. The disaster researchers questioned the need for, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of “disaster mental health”. At the same time they advocated early ideas of resilience, which later became one of the most important concepts in disaster management and beyond. (shrink)

This article argues that we must sever the ethics of war termination from the ethics of war initiation: a belligerent who embarks on a just war at time t1 might be under a duty to sue for peace at t2 before it has achieved its just war aims; conversely, a belligerent who embarks on an unjust war at t1 might acquire a justification for continuing at t2. In the course of making that argument, the article evaluates the various ways in (...) which belligerents end their wars. (shrink)

Many believe that agent-centred considerations, unlike agent-neutral reasons, cannot show that victims have the right to kill their attackers in self-defence, let alone establish that rescuers have the right to come to their help. In this paper, I argue that the right to kill in self- or other-defence is best supported by a hybrid set of reasons. In particular, agent-centred considerations account for the plausible intuition that victims have a special stake, which other parties lack, in being to thwart the (...) attackers. That special stake plays an important part justifying victims' right to obtain help, and rescuers' right to give it. (shrink)

Western philosophy has long excluded the work of women thinkers from their canon. Presenting Women Philosophers addresses this exclusion by examining the breadth of women's contributions to Western thought over some 900 years. Editors Cecile T. Tougas and Sara Ebenreck have gathered essays and other writings that reflect women's deep engagement with the meaning of individual experience as well as the continuity of their philosophical concerns and practices. Arranged thematically, the collection ranges across eras and literary genres as it emphasizes (...) the intellectual significance of written work by key figures—for example, Hildegard of Bingen's visionary writings, Iris Murdoch's fiction, Hannah Arendt's historical narratives, and the oral storytelling in black women's literary tradition. The collection also brings to light the philosophical importance of little-known work by such writers as Mme de Sablé and Mme de Condorcet. This wide-ranging collection offers non-philosophers an introduction to women's thought but also promises to engage advanced students of philosophy with new research on unrecognized contributions. Author note: Cecile T. Tougas, formerly an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, is a teacher of Latin and Algebra at Ben Franklin Academy in Atlanta.Sara Ebenreck is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Mary's College of Maryland. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt has become a commonplace that human beings possess human rights ‘simply in virtue of being human’. Exactly what this formula entails and whether it is cogent remains largely obscure, however. To remedy this situation, the article distinguishes between an interpretation of the formula according to which ‘being human’ is a practical condition for holding human rights and a reading which takes ‘being human’ to be a moral reason for holding human rights. It argues that only under the second reading (...) is there a limited sense in which it is correct that human beings possess human rights ‘simply in virtue of being human’. The article also considers if the concept of human dignity can provide a more convincing approach to the formula, and argues that it cannot. (shrink)

This paper argues that the self, as both the centre of our identity and the focus of our spiritual life, has not been given enough consideration with regard to the ethics of managers and leaders. Informed by models of self-realisation and the Jungian process of individuation, our discussion suggests that the way we perceive and interpret our self affects our moral behaviour. In particular, integrity of the self fully participates in enhancing servant leadership and consistent ethical practice. We illustrate the (...) argument with comments from various managers on the statement: ‘Being true to your self’. (shrink)

Just war theorists who argue that war is morally justified under certain circumstances infer implicitly that establishing the military institutions needed to wage war is also morally justified. In this paper, I mount a case in favor of a standing military establishment: to the extent that going to war is a way to discharge duties to protect fellow citizens and distant strangers from grievous harms, we have a duty to set up the institutions that enable us to discharge that duty. (...) I then respond to four objections drawn from Ned Dobos's recent book Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine. (shrink)

This paper argues that the self, as both the centre of our identity and the focus of our spiritual life, has not been given enough consideration with regard to the ethics of managers and leaders. Informed by models of self-realisation and the Jungian process of individuation, our discussion suggests that the way we perceive and interpret our self affects our moral behaviour. In particular, integrity of the self fully participates in enhancing servant leadership and consistent ethical practice. We illustrate the (...) argument with comments from various managers on the statement: ‘Being true to your self’. (shrink)

Should religion be singled out in the law? This Article evaluates two influential theories of freedom of religion in political theory, before introducing an alternative one. The first approach, the Substitution approach, argues that freedom of religion can be adequately expressed by a substitute category: typically, freedom of conscience. The second, the Proxy approach, argues that the notion of religion should be upheld in the law, albeit as a proxy for a range of different goods. After showing that neither approach (...) adequately meets crucial desiderata for an inclusive theory of religious freedom, the Article sets out the Disaggregation approach and defends against the alternatives. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a compositional semantics for sentences with enough and too followed by a to-infinitive clause and for resultative constructions with so... that within the framework of possible world semantics. It is proposed that the sentential complement of these constructions denotes an incomplete conditional and is explicitly or implicitly modalized, as if it were the consequent of a complete conditional. Enough, too, and so are quantifiers that relate an extent predicate and the incomplete conditional (expressed by the (...) sentential complement) and are interpreted as comparisons between two extents. The first extent is the maximal extent that satisfies the extent predicate. The second extent is the minimal or maximal extent of a set of extents that satisfy the (hidden) conditional, where the sentential complement supplies the consequent and the main clause the antecedent. This approach permits to predict (a) the context-dependent interpretation of these constructions and (b) the duality relations between the degree words. (shrink)

Treason is one of the most serious legal offences that there are, in most if not all jurisdictions. Laws against treason are rooted in deep-seated moral revulsion about acts which, in the political realm, are paradigmatic examples of breaches of loyalty. Yet, it is not altogether clear what treason consists in: someone’s traitor is often another’s loyalist. In this paper, my aim is twofold: to offer a plausible conceptual account of treason, and to partly rehabilitate traitors. I focus on informational (...) treason, as the act of passing secret intelligence to foreign actors without authorization. I argue that informational treason is sometimes justified, indeed morally mandatory; even when it is morally wrong, its beneficiaries are sometimes justified, indeed obliged, to make use of the intelligence thereby provided. (shrink)

Ethics review committees have become a common institution in English-speaking research communities, and are now increasingly being adopted in a variety of research environments. In light of existing debates on the aptness of ethics review boards for assessing research work in the social sciences, this article investigates the ways in which researchers navigate issues of research ethics in the absence of a formal review procedure or of an ethics review board. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, the article (...) questions the overall utility of ethics review boards. Highlighting the importance of space for sharing, the authors argue for the development of a new type of structure that takes into account researchers’ ‘ethos of responsibility’ as an adequate ethical compass for research in the social sciences. (shrink)

Cécile Fabre draws back the curtain on the ethics of espionage and counterintelligence. In a book rich with historical examples she argues that spying is only justified to protect against ongoing violations of fundamental rights. Blackmail, bribery, mass surveillance, cyberespionage, treason, and other nefarious activities are considered.

Despite increasing the presence of ‘ethics talk’ in business and management curricula, the ability of business ethics educators to question the system and support the development of morally responsible agents is debatable. This is not because of a lack of care or competence; rather, this situation points towards a more general tendency of education to become focused on economic growth, as Nussbaum claims. Revisiting the nature of ethics education, I argue that much moral learning occurs through the imagination, and not (...) solely through the rational mind. Individuals are complex, and a great part of what we are lies below the threshold of consciousness. In this respect, ethics education must take into account the psyche and its influence on conscious behaviour, which can best be apprehended through the imagination. Echoing Jung’s concerns about unconscious and indiscriminate masses, I thus explore how imagination and creative material contribute to enhancing both self-knowledge and ethical reflection in the context of organisational life and business education. I especially consider how moral development and social awareness are tied up with individual psychological understanding, and argue that Jung’s analytical psychology offers insightful tools to explore our individuality. (shrink)

Transition education is a major challenge to be taken up. It is not simply a question of teaching a person a specific area of ​​knowledge – in this case ecological and societal questions – but rather recognizing that individuals are built by their reflections, with their feelings and according to their experiences. None of these dimensions should be left aside if we want to promote the full development of each individual. In this sense it seems important to us to explain (...) the values ​​that underlie our educational offer and the goals pursued by transition education, as well as its founding roots. This chapter thus starts by presenting the pillars for head-heart-body learning, namely a pedagogy that is relational and transformational, integrative and holistic, inter- and transdisciplinary, rooted and open. Secondly, we structure the pedagogy of the transition around six major areas of questioning, corresponding to the six gates of the FORTES approach. Eventually, drawing on the competency-based approach we present the six main transversal skills to be acquired. (shrink)

Gossip is pervasive and complex. It lubricates and wrecks social relationships. Many people openly confess to loving “a good gossip” yet acknowledge that gossiping, while often gratifying, is sometimes morally problematic. Surprisingly, gossip has not received much attention in moral philosophy. In this article, I argue that, notwithstanding its valuable relational and social functions, it is wrongful, at least in some of its forms, when and to the extent that it amounts to a particular kind of failure to treat others (...) (be they gossipees or fellow gossipers) with the concern and respect they are owed as persons. (shrink)

Practical Knowledge, Science and Disasters. The History of Social Science Disaster Research, 1949–1979. During the second half of the twentieth century several US-American social science “disaster research groups” conducted field studies after earthquakes, factory explosions and “racial riots”. Their aim was to provide practical knowledge that could be applied in the planning and managing of future disasters of both peace- and wartime nature. In this paper, I will elaborate on how this research goal conflicted with some scientists’ aspirations to develop (...) more theoretical knowledge and their own ideals of “scientificity”. I will also show how the generated research results came to be ‘impractical knowledge’, which was difficult or impossible to apply. Furthermore this paper analyzes the scientific practices that were involved at different stages of the knowledge production process and contributed to disaster research's ‘precarious’ character. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article presents a qualitative case study that explores how faculty and administrators at one community college conceptualized and experienced academic community within their institution and how that conceptualization helped shape the part-time faculty work environment. Using a combined framework of academic community and care ethics, this study utilizes data from 55 interviews with full-time and part-time faculty and administrative leaders from a large community college. Findings from this study indicate that defining membership, a sense of belonging, and shared mission (...) and goals are key components to their understanding of academic community. From these three components, the study found that when participants included adjunct faculty as members of their academic community, they also reported a sense of responsibility or obligation to supporting them. (shrink)