In this issue of The Journal of Medical Ethics, xxx and colleagues report a randomized trial of the influence of default options on delivery room management of an extremely premature infant. They report that among respondents to the hypothetical vignette, those who received the resuscitation default were significantly more likely to choose resuscitation compared with those who were told that the default was comfort care. While the results warrant attention and further investigation, several methodological shortcomings limit the conclusions that can (...) be drawn from this study. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

An overview of the latest interdisciplinary research on human morality, capturing moral sensibility as a sophisticated integration of cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms. Over the past decade, an explosion of empirical research in a variety of fields has allowed us to understand human moral sensibility as a sophisticated integration of cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms shaped through evolution, development, and culture. Evolutionary biologists have shown that moral cognition evolved to aid cooperation; developmental psychologists have demonstrated that the elements that underpin (...) morality are in place much earlier than we thought; and social neuroscientists have begun to map brain circuits implicated in moral decision making. This volume offers an overview of current research on the moral brain, examining the topic from disciplinary perspectives that range from anthropology and neurophilosophy to justice and law. The contributors address the evolution of morality, considering precursors of human morality in other species as well as uniquely human adaptations. They examine motivations for morality, exploring the roles of passion, extreme sacrifice, and cooperation. They go on to consider the development of morality, from infancy to adolescence; findings on neurobiological mechanisms of moral cognition; psychopathic immorality; and the implications for justice and law of a more biological understanding of morality. These new findings may challenge our intuitions about society and justice, but they may also lead to more a humane and flexible legal system. Contributors Scott Atran, Abigail A. Baird, Nicolas Baumard, Sarah Brosnan, Jason M. Cowell, Molly J. Crockett, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Andrew W. Delton, Mark R. Dadds, Jean Decety, Jeremy Ginges, Andrea L. Glenn, Joshua D. Greene, J. Kiley Hamlin, David J. Hawes, Jillian Jordan, Max M. Krasnow, Ayelet Lahat, Jorge Moll, Caroline Moul, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Alexander Peysakhovich, Laurent Prétôt, Jesse Prinz, David G. Rand, Rheanna J. Remmel, Emma Roellke, Regina A. Rini, Joshua Rottman, Mark Sheskin, Thalia Wheatley, Liane Young, Roland Zahn. (shrink)

Viewing animals as a disposable resource is by no means novel, but does milking the cow for all its worth now represent a previously unimaginable level of exploitation? New technology has intensified milk production fourfold over the last 50 years, rendering the cow vulnerable to various and frequent clinical interventions deemed necessary to meet the demands for dairy products. A major question is whether or not the veterinary code of practice fits, or is in ethical tension, with the administration of (...) ‘efficient’ techniques, such as artificial insemination, to enhance reproduction levels among cattle? Vets perform these interventions and their ‘success’ is measured by the maximisation of milk production, requiring perpetually pregnant cows. Our empirical research on 33 farm vets explores how their professional ethical code promising to protect the welfare of the animal ‘above all else’, is increasingly in conflict with, and subordinate to, the financial demands of clients. Since vets cannot stand outside of the productive power–knowledge relations that have intensified the consumption of animal bodily parts and secretions, we argue that a process of adiaphorization’ occurs, whereby humans become morally indifferent to cruel practices deemed necessary to our consumerist ways of life. However, this indifference reflects and reinforces a taken-for-granted anthropocentrism among vets, animal owners and the population generally. We suggest that posthumanist ideas may offer new insights for the study of human–animal relations in organisations that transcend the coercive and negative impact of discourses that deny any alternative to prevailing farm/veterinary practices. Our study has major implications in relation to climate warming and zoonotic diseases, both partly derived from our unethical relationship to animals, that are increasingly threatening our, and their, lives. (shrink)

Among the available metaethical views, it would seem that moral realism—in particular moral naturalism—must explain the possibility of moral progress. We see this in the oft-used argument from disagreement against various moral realist views. My suggestion in this paper is that, surprisingly, metaethical constructivism has at least as pressing a need to explain moral progress. I take moral progress to be, minimally, the opportunity to access and to act in light of moral facts of the matter, whether they are mind-independent (...) or -dependent. For the metaethical constructivist, however, I add that moral progress ought also mean that agents come to be or could come to be motivated to act in light of the right kind of moral judgments. Together I take this to mean that, for all forms of constructivism, moral progress must be explained as a form of moral improvement, or agents aspiring to be better sorts of moral agents. In what moral improvement consists differs for various forms of constructivism. Here I distinguish between three different versions of metaethical constructivism: Humean constructivists as represented by Street, Kantian constitutivist constructivists as represented by Korsgaard, and constructivists about practical reason as represented by Carla Bagnoli. I conclude by showing that only constructivism as a view about practical reason can fully account for moral progress qua the opportunity for moral improvement. (shrink)

The book deepens our understanding of Arendt's conception of the role of violence in her political theory. But it also uses her work as a provocation to think about how we might engage with, build on, or criticize contemporary ideas of the political that have drawn on Arendtian themes-notably via the notion of "agonal" or "agonistic" politics as theorized in recent years by thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe and Bonnie Honig-and how we can read Arendt in different ways to challenge (...) or further our understanding of the political. (shrink)

We provide an account of chimpanzee-specific agency within the context of philosophy of action. We do so by showing that chimpanzees are capable of what we call reason-directed action, even though they may be incapable of more full-blown action, which we call reason-considered action. Although chimpanzee agency does not possess all the features of typical adult human agency, chimpanzee agency is evolutionarily responsive to their environment and overlaps considerably with our own. As such, it is an evolved set of capacities (...) for goal-directed behavior, which solves problems that chimpanzees naturally encounter. Thus, it ought not be understood as a deficient instance of human agency. (shrink)

The question ‘Why care about being an agent?’ asks for reasons to be something that appears to be non-optional. But perhaps it is closer to the question ‘Why be moral?’; or so I shall argue. Here the constitutivist answer—that we cannot help but have this aim—seems to be the best answer available. I suggest that, regardless of whether constitutivism is true, it is an incomplete answer. I argue that we should instead answer the question by looking at our evaluative commitments (...) to the exercise of our other capacities for which being a full-blown agent is a necessary condition. Thus, the only kind of reason available is hypothetical rather than categorical. The status of this reason may seem to undermine the importance of this answer. I show, however, that it both achieves much of what we want when we cite categorical reasons and highlights why agency is valuable. (shrink)

I consider an underappreciated problem for proponents of the Humean theory of motivation. Namely, it is unclear whether is it to be understood as a largely psychological or largely metaphysical theory. I show that the psychological interpretation of HTM will need to be modified in order to be a tenable view and, as it will turn out, the modifications required render it virtually philosophically empty. I then argue that the largely metaphysical interpretation is the only a plausible interpretation of HTM's (...) central claim that desires are necessary conditions for motivation. This interpretation also fits better with the important roles that HTM plays in both moral psychological and metaethical debates. (shrink)

Most views of agency take acting for reasons (whether explanatory or justifying) to be an important hallmark of the capacity for agency. The problem, however, is that the standard analysis of what it is to act in light of reasons is not sufficiently fine grained to accommodate what we will argue are the myriad types of ways that agents can do so. We suggest that a full account of acting for reasons must also recognize the relationship that agents have with (...) their reasons. We focus on two types of relationships. The first is the traditional case, where agents act in light of reasons that they take to be their own and that they endorse. We describe this as possessing an Endorsement Relationship with one's reasons. A second way of relating to reasons is what we will describe as possessing a Directed Relationship with one's reasons. This includes cases in which agents' actions are the product of reasons but toward which agents do not have an Endorsement Relationship. The Endorsement Relationship is uncontroversial. In this paper, we defend the existence and importance of the Directed Relationship. We show that it is a genuine but overlooked way of relating to, and thereby acting for, reasons. (shrink)

Sound has given rise to many rich theoretical reflections, but when compared to the study of images, the study of sound continues to be marginalized. How is the “sense” of sound constituted and elaborated linguistically, textually, technologically, phenomenologically, and geologically, as well as acoustically? How is sound grasped as an object? Considering sound both within and beyond the scope of the human senses, contributors from literature, film, music, philosophy, anthropology, media and communication, and science and technology studies address topics that (...) range from Descartes’s resonant subject to the gendering of hearing physiology in the nineteenth century, Cold War politics and the opera _Nixon in China_, sounds from the Mediterranean, the poetics of signal processing, and the acousmatic voice in the age of MP3s. In the interpretive challenges posed by voice, noise, antinoise, whispering, near inaudibility, and silence and in the frequent noncoincidence of emission and reception, sound confronts us with what might be called its inhuman qualities—its irreducibility to meaning, to communication, to information, and even to recognition and identification. _Rey Chow_ is Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature at Duke University. She is the author of _The Age of the World Target _and_ Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory_, both_ _published by Duke University Press. _James A. Steintrager _is Professor and Chair of English at the University of California, Irvine. _ Contributors:_ Caroline Bassett, Eugenie Brinkema, Iain Chambers, Michel Chion, Rey Chow,_ _Mladen Dolar, Veit Erlmann, Evan Johnson, Christopher Lee, Mara Mills, John Mowitt, Dominic Pettman, Tara Rodgers, Nicholas Seaver, James A. Steintrager, Jonathan Sterne. (shrink)

Being imitated has a wide range of pro-social effects, but it is not clear how these effects are mediated. Naturalistic studies of the effects of being imitated have not established whether pro-social outcomes are due to the similarity and/or the contingency between the movements performed by the actor and those of the imitator. Similarity is often assumed to be the active ingredient, but we hypothesized that contingency might also be important, as it produces positive affect in infants and can be (...) detected by phylogenetically ancient mechanisms of associative learning. We manipulated similarity and contingency between performed and observed actions in a computerized task. Similarity had no positive effects; however, contingency resulted in greater enjoyment of the task, reported closeness to others, and helping behavior. These results suggest that the pro-social effects of being imitated may rely on associative mechanisms. (shrink)

Maureen Donnelly has recently argued that directionalism, the view that relations have a direction, applying to their relata in an order, is unable to properly treat certain symmetric relations. She alleges that it must count the application of such a relation to an appropriate number of objects in a given order as distinct from its application to those objects in any other ordering of them. I reply by showing how the directionalist can link the application conditions of any fixed arity (...) relation, no matter its arity or symmetry, and its converse(s) in such a way that directionalism will yield the correct ways in which it can apply. I thus establish that directionalism possesses the same advantage Donnelly's own account of relations, relative positionalism, has over traditional positionalist accounts of relations, which do not properly treat symmetric relations. I then note some advantages that directionalism has over its closest competitors. This includes Donnelly's relative positionalism, since directionalism is not, like relative positionalism, committed to the involvement of relative properties in every irreducibly relational claim. I close by conceding that, as Donnelly notes, directionalism is committed to the primitive relation of order-sensitive relational application. But I don't find this notion as mysterious as Donnelly does. I conclude that, even if one construes this feature of directionalism as a drawback, the two views are at worst at a draw, other things being equal, since this drawback is mitigated by the advantage directionalism has over relative positionalism. (shrink)

History of science and philosophy of science have experienced a somewhat turbulent relationship over the last century. At times it has been said that philosophy needs history, or that history needs philosophy. Very occasionally, something entirely new is said to need them both. Often, however, their relationship is seen as little more than a marriage of convenience. This article explores that marriage by analyzing the citations of over 7,000 historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science. The data reveal that a small (...) but tightly-knit bridge does exist between the disciplines, and raises suggestions about how to understand that bridge in a more nuanced fashion. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Forster and Sober's [1994] solution to the curve-fitting problem. If their solution is correct, it will provide us with a solution to the New Riddle of Induction as well as provide a basis for choosing realism over conventionalism. Examining this solution is also important as Forster and Sober incorporate it in much of their other philosophical work (see Forster [1995a, b, 1994] and Sober [1996, 1995, 1993]). I argue that Forster and Sober's solution is (...) subject precisely to the problem they seek to solve. They provide a method of choosing among hypotheses but only at the cost of requiring that we have a method of choosing between different ways of conceptualizing the world. Thus the solution raises a new problem--the world-fitting problem. (shrink)

Constitutivists explicitly emphasize the importance of self-reflection for rational agency. Interestingly enough, there is no clear account of how and why self-reflection plays such an important role for these views. My aim in this paper is to address this underappreciated problem for constitutivist views and to determine whether constitutivist self-reflection is normatively oriented. Understanding its normative features will allow us to evaluate a potential way that constitutivism may meet its purported metaethical promise. I begin by showing why constitutivism, as exemplified (...) by Korsgaard’s and Velleman’s respective views, takes self-reflection to be a constitutive feature of rational agency. Closer examination of this claim suggests three underappreciated problems for the constitutivist’s apparent reliance on self-reflection. First, we have no picture of the specific role that self-reflection plays. Second, it is unclear in what sense it is a requirement for full-fledged agency and, thereby, for self-constitution. Third, it is not clear whether it has any necessary normative features, even given the often cited moral normativity associated with constitutivism. In §1, I will address the first and second questions. §2 will be dedicated to considering the third question. (shrink)

The content of dreams and changes to the self were investigated in students moving to University. In study 1, 20 participants completed dream diaries and memory tasks before and after they had left home and moved to university, and generated self images, “I am…” statements , reflective of their current self. Changes in “I ams” were observed, indicating a newly-formed ‘university’ self. These self, images and related autobiographical knowledge were found to be incorporated into recent dreams but not into dreams (...) from other periods. Study 2 replicated these findings in a different sample . We suggest that these data reflect a period of self-consolidation in which new experiences and self images are incorporated into autobiographical memory knowledge structures representing personal goals during sleep. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Caroline Franks Davis provides a clear, sensitive, and carefully argued assessment of the value of religious experiences as evidence for religious beliefs. Much more than an 'argument from religious experience', the inquiry systematically addresses underlying philosophical issues such as the role of interpretation in experience, the function of models and metaphors in religious language, and the way perceptual experiences in general are used as evidence for claims about the world. The author examines several arguments from religious experience and, using (...) contemporary and classic sources from the world religions, gives an account of the different types of experience. To meet sceptical challenges to religious experience, she draws extenisvely on psychological and sociological as well as philosophical and religious literature, probing deeply into the questions whether religious experiences are merely a matter of interpretation, whether there is irreducible conflict among religious experiences, and whether psychological and other reductionist explanations of religious experience are satisfactory. She concludes that religious experiences, like most experiences, are most effective as evidence within a cumulative style of argument which combines evidence from a wide range of sources. (shrink)

I show that defenses of the Humean theory of motivation often rely on a mistaken assumption. They assume that desires are necessary conditions for being motivated to act because desires themselves have a special, essential, necessary feature, such as their world-to-mind direction of fit, that enables them to motivate. Call this the Desire-Necessity Claim. Beliefs cannot have this feature, so they cannot motivate. Or so the story goes. I show that: when pressed, a proponent of HTM encounters a series of (...) prima facie counterexamples to this Claim; and the set of claims that seem to naturally complement the Desire-Necessity Claim as well as provide successful responses to these counterexamples turn out to deny the truth of this same claim. As a result, the Humean implicitly grants that it is at least equally plausible, if not more plausible, to claim that desires are not able to motivate in virtue of what they necessarily possess. Instead, desires contingently possess features that enable them to motivate. (shrink)

The current study explores role retreatism in secondary social studies teachers who coach athletics. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which social studies teacher-coaches retreat towards coaching and reasons for such prioritization. A case study relying primarily on interview and document data was conducted which included three secondary social studies teachers who coach football in the southeastern United States. Results indicate that participants prioritized coaching over teaching to cope with role conflict. The study further highlights (...) the unequal rewards system in American schools, which promotes athletics over academics. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Postmodernity, Gary B. Madison and Marty Fairbairn have collected instructive and illuminating essays that address the dilemmas left in the wake of the postmodern attack on foundationalism. This collection is a powerful statement on the many directions a postmetaphysical ethics might take. Contributors include Barry Allen, Caroline Bayard, Robert Bernasconi, Thomas W. Busch, M.C. Dillon, Marty Fairbairn, Paul Fairfield, Morny Joy, Richard Kearney, Gary B. Madison, Joseph Margolis, Tom Rockmore, Charles E. Scott, Evan Simpson, (...) and Mark Williams. (shrink)

We become aware of our bodies interoceptively, by processing signals arising from within the body, and exteroceptively, by processing signals arising on or outside the body. Recent research highlights the importance of the interaction of exteroceptive and interoceptive signals in modulating bodily self-consciousness. The current study investigated the effect of social self-focus, manipulated via a video camera that was facing the participants and that was either switched on or off, on interoceptive sensitivity and on tactile perception ). The results indicated (...) a significant effect of self-focus on SSDT performance, but not on interoception. SSDT performance was not moderated by interoceptive sensitivity, although interoceptive sensitivity scores were positively correlated with false alarms, independently of self-focus. Together with previous research, our results suggest that self-focus may exert different effects on body perception depending on its mode . While interoception has been previously shown to be enhanced by private self-focus, the current study failed to find an effect of social self-focus on interoceptive sensitivity, instead demonstrating that social self-focus improves exteroceptive somatosensory processing. (shrink)

Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments that in order to create an effective and productive capitalist system, individuals must pursue interests of both the self and society. Despite this assertion, modern economic theory has become tightly focused on the pursuit of economic self-interests at the expense of other, higher order motives. This paper will argue that the tendency to employ such an egocentric strategy often generates externalities and inequalities that serve to detract (...) from the greater welfare of society. However, by tempering these economic self-interests with non-economically motivated considerations, this paper will suggest that individuals may create tremendous benefits to society, precisely as Smith outlined more than two centuries ago. In defense of this assertion, this paper will review an array of theoretical arguments and empirical findings that suggest that today''s entrepreneurs are not only seeking to satisfy both selfish and ethical motivations, but in so doing they are also contributing substantially to the overall welfare of society through job creation, wealth redistribution, and a lack of discrimination. As such, it appears that spirit and impact of the capitalist system that Smith envisioned is being realized through entrepreneurship. (shrink)

In recent years, collective agency and responsibility have received a great deal of attention. One exciting development concerns whether collective, non-distributive responsibility can be assigned to collective non-agents, such as crowds and nation-states. I focus on an underappreciated aspect of these arguments—namely, that they sometimes derive substantive ontological conclusions about the nature of collective agents from these responsibility attributions. I argue that this order of inference, whose form I represent in what I call the Spaghetti Western Argument, largely fails, even (...) if the cases described are all too common. I show that it does not generate a generalizable, reliable conclusion about the kind of entity that is the plausibly responsible party. In particular, a group may lack agency in a given instance, be non-distributively responsible in that same instance and yet be a collective agent across time. (shrink)

Família e escola são os dois primeiros contextos de desenvolvimento afetivo, cognitivo e social da criança. As experiências vividas nos contextos familiar e escolar interferem nas aprendizagens escolares. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar os efeitos das relações afetivas familiares no desempenho escolar de alunos do Ensino Fundamental I e conhecer quais orientações são dadas a professores diante de alunos com problemas de aprendizagem ocasionados por afetos negativos nas relações familiares. Foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica integrativa de artigos científicos nas (...) bases de dados SciELO, PePSIC e BVS-Psi, utilizando-se o operador booleano AND e os descritores “relações familiares”, “desempenho acadêmico”, “desenvolvimento infantil”, “problemas de aprendizagem” e “afeto”, “interação pai(s) e filho(s)”, “motivação”, “parentalidade”, “empatia”, “rendimento escolar” e “aluno”. Foram adotados como critérios de inclusão: artigos publicados entre 2012 e 2022, em português, disponibilizados gratuitamente on-line e na íntegra. De 11.557 artigos encontrados, após aplicação dos critérios de inclusão, foram selecionados 80 e, destes, cinco contemplaram os objetivos deste estudo. Os dados foram analisados por meio da análise de conteúdo e apontam que a relação afetiva familiar positiva apresenta consequências positivas no desempenho escolar; as relações afetivas familiares negativas afetam negativamente; e que não são dadas orientações a professores sobre como lidar com alunos com problemas de aprendizagem, devido a problemas nas relações afetivas familiares. Observa-se que novos estudos devem ser desenvolvidos, considerando-se as lacunas identificadas no acervo selecionado. (shrink)

Rights of Women attracted much UK media attention in late 2014 by bringing a judicial review that challenged the reduced provisions for family law legal aid available for victims of domestic violence: R v The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice [2015] EWHC 35. In June 2015, within Rights of Women’s 40th anniversary year, Hannah Camplin interviewed the organisation’s Director Emma Scott about the decision to bring the judicial review, the advantages and challenges of the judicial review (...) process, and the experience of strategic litigation within the context of Rights of Women’s long history of campaigning for women’s rights. What emerged is a portrait of a feminist organisation in 2015, and, in a fast changing political and financial landscape, the dual importance of collaborative working and the need for flexibility in service provision and campaigning tools. (shrink)

This article explores German Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s notion of psychopolitics and his concept of the neoliberal subject. For Han, mental processes are now the primary target of power. This means that, according to Han, biopower must give way to what he calls psychopower since perspectives that critically seek to understand neoliberalism through a biopolitical lens are no longer adequate to contemporary regimes of neoliberal achievement. This article examines and evaluates Han’s argument that Foucauldian biopolitics is obsolete in today’s neoliberal (...) age because of biopolitics’ primary focus on the body over mental processes. We suggest that, instead of emphasizing the need to move beyond biopolitics, Han’s theorization of psychopolitics could benefit from paying closer attention to some of Foucault’s insights on biopower and from identifying key connections between biopolitics and psychopolitics. By highlighting some important continuities between Foucault’s biopolitics and Han’s psychopolitics (instead of emphasizing the discontinuities between both theorists’ perspectives, as Han tends to privilege), this article seeks to move towards improved theorizations of concepts like achievement, subjectivity, otherness or optimization, concepts that are key to Han’s understanding of contemporary neoliberal practices. (shrink)

This article explores German Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s notion of psychopolitics and his concept of the neoliberal subject. For Han, mental processes are now the primary target of power. This means that, according to Han, biopower must give way to what he calls psychopower since perspectives that critically seek to understand neoliberalism through a biopolitical lens are no longer adequate to contemporary regimes of neoliberal achievement. This article examines and evaluates Han’s argument that Foucauldian biopolitics is obsolete in today’s neoliberal (...) age because of biopolitics’ primary focus on the body over mental processes. We suggest that, instead of emphasizing the need to move beyond biopolitics, Han’s theorization of psychopolitics could benefit from paying closer attention to some of Foucault’s insights on biopower and from identifying key connections between biopolitics and psychopolitics. By highlighting some important continuities between Foucault’s biopolitics and Han’s psychopolitics (instead of emphasizing the discontinuities between both theorists’ perspectives, as Han tends to privilege), this article seeks to move towards improved theorizations of concepts like achievement, subjectivity, otherness or optimization, concepts that are key to Han’s understanding of contemporary neoliberal practices. (shrink)

1. The question of technology’s relation to politics was central to the work of many influential Cold War political thinkers. This paper identifies an overlapping critique of technology in the soci...

On the morning of the third day on Circe's island of Aeaea, Odysseus takes sword and spear in hand and leaves his demoralized and exhausted crew to seek out some sign of habitation. Eventually, from the height of a rocky point, he spies smoke rising in the distance. After debating with himself whether or not to investigate immediately, he determines first to return to his ships, in order to see about his comrades' dinner . Returning to the beach, he encounters (...) an enormous stag, which he takes to have been sent by a god who pitied him and which he kills, binds with a makeshift rope of brushwood and willow branches, and drags back to the camp. (shrink)

The ante rem structuralist holds that places in ante rem structures are objects with determinate identity conditions, but he cannot justify this view by providing places with criteria of identity. The latest response to this problem holds that no criteria of identity are required because mathematical practice presupposes a primitive identity relation. This paper criticizes this appeal to mathematical practice. Ante rem structuralism interprets mathematics within the theory of universals, holding that mathematical objects are places in universals. The identity problem (...) should be read as challenging this claim about universals. However, what mathematical practice presupposes is only relevant to what is true according to the theory of universals, if one takes it for granted such a theory offers the best interpretation of mathematics. In the current context, taking this for granted begs the question. Therefore, the appeal to mathematical practice in response to the identity problem is illegitimate. (shrink)

Medical ethics educators have a responsibility to assess the dominant ped­agogical methods and textbooks we utilize to advance our students’ knowledge about cultural differences and health disparities. In this essay, I argue that intersectional theory functions as an effective tool for the assessment and correction of diversity, equity, and inclusion training models for medical students. I critique, in particular, the additive conceptions of identity and diversity that dominate the literature. Intersectional theorists also provide helpful directives for how to train students (...) to be suspicious of social categories and their relations to power structures. Their ideas can be used to create parameters for case-based learning so as not to undertheorize the culture of medicine and to add depth to core concepts like autonomy and privacy through much-needed investigations of identity formation and expression. Ultimately, intersectional theory pushes medical ethicists to educate their students to understand difference, diversity, and inequity within a wider moral frame. (shrink)

I show that an overlooked feature of our moral life—moral status—provides a route to vindicating naturalist moral realism in much the same way that the Humean theory of motivation and judgment internalism are used to undermine it. Moral status presents two explanatory burdens for metaethical views. First, a given view must provide an ecumenical explanation of moral status, which does not depend on the truth of its metaethical claims (say, that there are mind-independent facts about moral status). Second, its explanation (...) must be consistent with persistent normative ethical disagreement about what constitutes moral status. I conclude that naturalist moral realism succeeds, while quasi-realism fails because it cannot meet the latter requirement. This argument has three results: we have a new route for metaethical vindication more generally and for naturalist moral realism in particular; quasi-realism's plausibility is undermined by an inability to explain disagreement, but not for the familiar reasons. (shrink)

This article explores German Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s notion of psychopolitics and his concept of the neoliberal subject. For Han, mental processes are now the primary target of power. This means that, according to Han, biopower must give way to what he calls psychopower since perspectives that critically seek to understand neoliberalism through a biopolitical lens are no longer adequate to contemporary regimes of neoliberal achievement. This article examines and evaluates Han’s argument that Foucauldian biopolitics is obsolete in today’s neoliberal (...) age because of biopolitics’ primary focus on the body over mental processes. We suggest that, instead of emphasizing the need to move beyond biopolitics, Han’s theorization of psychopolitics could benefit from paying closer attention to some of Foucault’s insights on biopower and from identifying key connections between biopolitics and psychopolitics. By highlighting some important continuities between Foucault’s biopolitics and Han’s psychopolitics (instead of emphasizing the discontinuities between both theorists’ perspectives, as Han tends to privilege), this article seeks to move towards improved theorizations of concepts like achievement, subjectivity, otherness or optimization, concepts that are key to Han’s understanding of contemporary neoliberal practices. (shrink)

The author reflects upon her role as a public health nurse striving to attain practice authenticity. Client assessment and nursing interventions were seemingly sufficient until she became curious about ‘Who is this person sitting across from me?’ and ‘What are her experiences in the world as a lone parent living in poverty at the margins of society?’ The author begins to think that she could shift from mere client investigation to pure wonderment about the Other by imagining herself as a (...) researcher, an explorer of another's life world. Ultimately this process enables her to enhance the ‘caring’ in her practice with the knowledge gained of the perceptions and meanings impoverished clients assigned to their everyday lives. Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative competence serves as the reference map guiding exploration. The author uses Habermas’ theoretical principles of intersubjective mutuality – the validity claims of comprehensibility, truth, sincerity, and legitimacy. Comprehensibility embodies understanding, an attitude of unconditional acceptance, and care respect of another's individual person and self‐defined reality. Intersubjective mutuality also requires that one dwell in the moment with the Other, satisfied that communication is founded on truth. Sincerity implies fostering the Other's expression of authentic self apart from oppressive distracters. Lastly, legitimacy reconciles the author's altruistic pursuit to know the Other's ontological truth with the reality of the present world. (shrink)