This paper examines the legal and ethical aspects of traceback testing, a process in which patients who have been previously diagnosed with ovarian cancer are identified and offered genetic testing so that their family members can be informed of their genetic risk and can also choose to undergo testing. Specifically, this analysis examines the ethical and legal limits in implementing traceback testing in cases when the patient is deceased and can no longer consent to genetic testing.

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the (...) needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she's responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why. From the Hardcover edition. (shrink)

"A thematic exposition focused on the "whole man," especially in his practical, aesthetic, ethical, and religious dimensions, moving from consideration of the stream of consciousness and consciousness as selective according to interests, through the ethical and religious aspects of man's aspiration and experience, to the humanistic bases of James' pragmatism and radical empiricism ... Dooley's account is remarkably clear and streamlined, stressing the consistency rather than the tensions in James' thought. Thus, while James' own texts provide at once the (...) most authoritative and the most attractive approach to his thought for readers at all levels, Dooley's book seems most likely to be helpful as supplementary reading for teachers and students in introductory courses.". (shrink)

Crane's fundamental philosophical view, Dooley finds, is that reality is comprised of changing and interrelated processes.

I examine experiences of married couples to better understand whether economic shifts that push couples into gender-atypical work/family arrangements influence gender inequality. I draw on in-depth interviews conducted in 2008 with stay-at-home husbands and their wives in 21 married-couple families with children. I find that the decision to have a father stay home is heavily influenced by economic conditions, suggesting that men’s increased job instability and shifts in the relative employment conditions of husbands and wives push some men into at-home (...) fatherhood. However, this shift in family arrangements can promote change toward greater gender equality even in couples that initially hold entrenched, gendered beliefs. The data indicate that at-home fathers come to value their increased involvement in children’s care in ways that reduce gender differences in parenting and that have the potential to translate into institutional change, particularly when they reenter the labor force. Furthermore, at-home father arrangements generally appear to provide increased support for women’s employment and promote changes in women’s work behavior that may reduce inequities that stem from traditionally gendered divisions in work/family responsibilities. (shrink)

Seit Ende der 70er Jahre, eine graduelle Erosion der Sozialrechte, hervorgehend aus den sukzessiven Restrukturierungen der auf der EU-Ebene geförderten nationalen Arbeitsmärkte, sowie das nachfolgende Vordringen der Wettbewerbsgesellschaft, brachten die soziale Anomie mit sich, indem sie gleichlaufend der neuen normativen disziplinarischen Ordnung den Weg ebneten. Diese neuartige Ordnung heißt Gestaltung oder Umgestaltung der individuellen und kollektiven Identität durch Einsperrung der Menschen in die Beziehungsschemas, die Angst, Gleichgültigkeit, Intoleranz gegenüber anderen oder eben Schamempfindungen und Gefühle des Selbstachtungsverlusts begünstigen. In den Extremstfällen (...) läuft dies auf Selbstvernichtung hinaus. (shrink)

What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, Noëlle McAfee contends that politics needs something that only psychoanalysis has been able to offer: an understanding of how to work through anxieties, ambiguity, fragility, and loss.

Since the 1970s, at least, and presumably under the influence of the later Wittgenstein, certain advocates of Aristotle’s ethics have insisted that a proper validation of the virtues of character must proceed only from within, or be internal to, the particular evaluative outlook provided by possession of the virtues themselves. The most influential advocate of this line of thinking is arguably John McDowell, although Rosalind Hursthouse and Daniel C. Russell have also more recently embraced it. Here I consider whether a (...) distinction between the ‘substantive virtues’ and the ‘virtues of will power’ ultimately threatens that way of thinking about Aristotle’s ethics. If so, it would encourage a different reading of Aristotle’s ethics, one that McDowell has described as a “historical monstrosity”. (shrink)

The article is concerned with the everyday activities of sociology, focusing on ethnography. It argues that empirical study of the ethnomethods of ethnography allows for a deeper insight into the dynamics and procedures of this research practice. Based on empirical data from two ethnographic studies, I suggest to observe how such an investigation is conducted in various situations: in the field, on the ethnographer’s desk, in data sessions, in conferences and in written papers. This serves to gather and produce empirical (...) traces from the field. These are de- and re-contextualized while they are taken into the sociological field. This process can be analyzed drawing on Goffman’s notion of Frame Analysis, particularly drawing on his notion of keyings. Ethnography can thus be described as a trans-situational practice that systematically couples situations and communications in order to understand and reconstruct other social practices for sociological reasons. (shrink)

Political philosopher Noelle McAfee proposes a powerful new political theory for our post-9/11 world, in which an old pathology-the repetition compulsion-has manifested itself in a seemingly endless war on terror. McAfee argues that the quintessentially human desire to participate in a world with others is the key to understanding the public sphere and to creating a more democratic society, a world that all members can have a hand in shaping. But when some are effectively denied this participation, whether through (...) trauma or terror, instead of democratic politics, there arises a political unconscious, an effect of desires unarticulated, failures to sublimate, voices kept silent, and repression reenacted. Not only is this condition undemocratic and unjust, it may lead to further trauma. Unless its troubles are worked through, a political community risks continual repetition and even self-destruction. McAfee deftly weaves together her experience as an observer of democratic life with an array of intellectual schemas, from poststructural psychoanalysis to Rawlsian and Habermasian democratic theories, as well as semiotics, civic republicanism, and American pragmatism. She begins with an analysis of the traumatic effects of silencing members of a political community. Then she explores the potential of deliberative dialogue and other "talking cures" and public testimonies, such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help societies work through, rather than continually act out, their conflicts. _Democracy and the Political Unconscious_ is rich in theoretical insights, but it is also grounded in the practical problems of those who are trying to process the traumas of oppression, terror, and brutality and create more decent and democratic societies. Drawing on a breathtaking range of theoretical frameworks and empirical observations, _Democracy and the Political Unconscious_ charts a course for democratic transformation in a world sorely lacking in democratic practice. (shrink)

Many philosophers working on virtue theory have resisted the idea that the virtues are practical skills, apparently following Aristotle’s resistance to that idea. Bucking the trend, Matt Stichter defends a strong version of this idea in The Skillfulness of Virtue by marshaling a wide range of conceptual and empirical arguments to argue that the moral virtues are robust skills involving the cognitive-conative unification of Aristotelian phronêsis (‘practical intelligence’). Here I argue that Aristotle overlooks a more delimited kind of practical intelligence, (...) strongly analogous to his own account of phronêsis, that unifies complex forms of expertise such as medicine or even high-level sports. Insofar as the skill model of virtue is compelling, it must draw on a robust conception of practical expertise (technê) like the one developed here rather than the ordinary, anemic conception of practical skills. (shrink)

Graham, Noelle Comparisons are drawn between media reporting of eating disorders and other.forms of self-harm. Proper understanding of these illnesses can protect sufferers from further harm caused by inaccurate and insensitive reporting.

In De Anima III.3 Aristotle presents his official discussion of phantasia (“imagination” in most translations). At the very outset of the discussion Aristotle offers as an endoxon that “phantasia is that in virtue of which we say that a phantasma occurs to us” (428a1-2). Now a natural reading of this claim, taken up by many commentators, can pose a problem for Aristotle’s overall account of perception. Here I argue that, although it would be silly to deny that Aristotle considers phantasia (...) to be that in virtue of which a phantasma occurs to someone, it is not silly to deny that phantasmata are present in every case in which phantasia is operative. This suggestion bolsters the idea that, according to Aristotle’s account of veridical perception, we can understand the world as making itself perceptually manifest to the perceiver. (shrink)

The word 'rationalism,' as it appears in philosophical discussions of ethics and morality, signifies at least one of a cluster of theses, each of which connects some aspect of ethical experience to reason or rationality. The most provocative rationalist thesis arises in contemporary discussions in metaethics; and it is this thesis that remains the most likely referent, in contemporary discussions, of the phrase 'moral rationalism.' The thesis is more accurately referred to, however, as metaethical rationalism, since it concerns the provenance (...) and nature of moral obligations, rather than their substance. A strong version of metaethical rationalism maintains that if someone is morally obligated to perform a certain action, then performing that action is what she has the strongest reasons, all things considered, to do. A weaker version of metaethical rationalism claims that if someone is morally obligated to perform a certain action, then performing that action is something that she has a reason to do, even though the reason might not be decisive: another reason, for instance of prudence, might trump the reason she has to act morally. It is rationalism in this metaethical guise that will be the ultimate focus of this essay. (shrink)

Currently, the number of individuals affected by Alzheimer’s disease is rapidly increasing, expected to reach 14 million in the United States within 30 years. In spite of this impending crisis, less than 50 percent of primary care physicians disclose the diagnosis of dementia to their patients. This failure negatively impacts not only patients but also caregivers, whom dementia patients require to help them meet their needs and who often serve as important decision makers, either as surrogates or as designated healthcare (...) agents for the patient. If caregivers are not informed about and prepared to deal with the challenges they face, their health, both emotional and physical, is put at risk. We will argue that both patient and caregiver have the right to be informed of the diagnosis, as their interests are intertwined, especially as the disease progresses and the caregiver becomes the primary advocate for the patient. The caregiver of an individual with dementia therefore becomes intimately connected to the patient’s autonomy in a way few caregivers of other diseases do. In this article, we will show that a timely and thorough disclosure of the diagnosis is morally obligated by the core principles of medical ethics. As the population ages, primary care physicians must see themselves in a triadic relationship with both the dementia patient and caregiver, recognizing that the interests of both are deeply interdependent. (shrink)

If a utopia is a near perfect, or even a demonstrably superior, society, is there anything that endangers that society as soon as it is achieved? Yes. Prosperity! I have shown in “More's Utopia and the New World Utopias: Is the Good Life an Easy Life?”, that the actually existing, “real” New World Utopian communities were severely challenged by success. For example, the vigor of the Jansonite community in Bishop Hill, Illinois (1846-1860) sharply declined when that community met their survival (...) needs and had to deal with surpluses and comfort. As soon as communal efforts and group sacrifices produced prosperity, the attractiveness of communism faded. (shrink)

For more than forty years Jacques Derrida has attempted to unsettle and disturb the presumptions underlying many of our most fundamental philosophical, political, and ethical conventions. In The Philosophy of Derrida, Mark Dooley examines Derrida's large body of work to provide an overview of his core philosophical ideas and a balanced appraisal of their lasting impact. One of the author's primary aims is to make accessible Derrida's writings by discussing them in a vernacular that renders them less opaque and (...) nebulous. Derrida's unusual writing style, which mixes literary and philosophical vocabularies, is shown to have hindered their interpretation and translation. Dooley situates Derrida squarely in the tradition of historicist, hermeneutic and linguistic thought, and Derrida's objectives and those of "deconstruction" are rendered considerably more convincing. While Derrida's works are ostensibly diverse, Dooley reveals an underlying cohesion to his writings. From his early work on Husserl, Hegel and de Saussure, to his most recent writings on justice, hospitality and cosmopolitanism, Derrida is shown to have been grappling with the vexed question of national, cultural and personal identity and asking to what extent the notion of a "pure" identity has any real efficacy. Viewed from this perspective Derrida appears less as a wanton iconoclast, for whom deconstruction equals destruction, but as a sincere and sensitive writer who encourages us to shed light on out historical constructions so as to reveal that there is much about ourselves that we do not know. (shrink)

The most long-standing criticism of virtue ethics in its traditional, eudaimonistic variety centers on its apparently foundational appeal to nature in order to provide a source of normativity. This paper argues that a failure to appreciate both the giving and taking of reasons in sustaining an ethical outlook can distort a proper understanding of the available options for this traditional version of virtue ethics. To insist only on giving reasons, without also taking (maybe even considering) the reasons provided by others, (...) displays a sadly illiberal form of prejudice. The paper finds and criticizes such a distortion in Jesse Prinz’s recent discussion of the ‘Normativity Challenge’ to Aristotelian virtue ethics, thus highlighting a common tendency that we can helpfully move beyond. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between corporate diversification strategy and the pollution activity of subsidiaries within the U.S. chemical industry using TRI data (EPA's Toxic Release Inventory). The subsidiaries of conglomerates were found to exhibit higher pollution levels for direct emissions than those of firms pursuing more related diversification strategies. Additionally, the subsidiaries of conglomerates exhibited more variance in overall pollution emissions compared to related diversified firms.

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social (...) media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as... (shrink)

This article studies the chronic and acute anomic social impacts of the development of market societies in Europe over the past few decades. Focusing on the firm but linking micro and macro levels, it argues that the passage from the welfare state to disembedded markets and neoliberal governance has generated individual and collective anomie by depriving social actors of agency and voice while caging them in the disciplinary constraints of an ideal competition society. Promoted by public and private governors animated (...) by visions of managerial omnipotence, this reconfiguration has hollowed out the cluster of rights that was the basis of democratic and social citizenship in Europe. The article discusses the manifestations of anomie, stressing the violence flowing from the radical uncertainty to which atomized employees and more broadly citizens are facing in the reification of collective goals, which have been reduced to participation in market society. Drawing on the classical literature (Durkheim, Parsons, Merton) but expanding upon it, the article examines exit solutions, at the individual and collective levels, involving violence against the self (suicide) and others (mobbing, xenophobia, fascism), and concludes that Europe seems to be heading towards a protracted period of danger-laden chronic and acute anomie. (shrink)

Vinícius de Moraes, no Soneto de Fidelidade, elabora a fidedigna atuação do eu-lírico sobre a dedicação ao amor. A propulsão da fidelidade está na forma de anular-se para o outro, distanciando-se do raciocínio ao pensá-lo, pois pensar no que ama deslumbra o encanto para além da visão. Argumenta-se sobre as angústias, os relacionamentos e o amor que influenciavam nas tomadas de decisões e na aceitação dos fatos e das desilusões. Inserido na ótica histórica da Segunda Grande Guerra, sob a condição (...) de reler sobre o uso do amor enquanto cura (ou loucura), identifica-se a vivência do poema com a fidelização eufórica, passional, irracional até o ponto de tornar-se banal. Recorre-se, então, à Banalidade, categoria sublinhada por Arendt como a ocorrência que interfere no raciocínio, na capacidade de pensar e na relação humana, por intermédio da ausência de reflexão e adesão irrestrita ao cumprimento da lei, mesmo em acordo com o usufruto do mal. Neste ensaio, encontra-se a aproximação da lírica ao contexto da guerra, o adorno do sentimento ao extremo do amor à pátria, a expressão de Eichmann, de cujo relato se extrai o magnetismo de governança do III Reich que conduziu a massificação de seus súditos a um ideário manipulador no conceito de fidelidade. (shrink)

In § 60 of the Critique of Judgment, entitled ‘On the doctrine of method of taste,’ Kant suggests that the study of so-called humaniora (ancient Roman and Greek literature) will help one to become a good artist. I will argue that a proper, namely emotional, engagement with humaniora will further the two components of humanity in ourselves: the feeling of sympathy and the ability to communicate feelings. I will discuss two options of how a strengthening of these two components might (...) contribute to the creation of good artworks: it will help one to create artworks that arouse the universal communicable pleasure in the beautiful, or it will help one to create artworks that arouse sympathetic feelings. Siding with the latter option, I will argue that emotions can contribute to the enlivening of aesthetic ideas and, thus, to good art. (shrink)

Decades of feminist research has revealed the dismal labor conditions for women in global supply chains. Given this reality, why does Walmart use women in its supply chain as icons of female empowerment? Combining the Marxist notion of a “spatial fix” with a feminist analysis of symbolic resources, we develop the concept of a “gender fix” to understand a growing field of corporate programs that use women as symbolic resources to restore the image of firms as ethical actors. The gender (...) fix encompasses a wide range of corporate empowerment strategies to capture a broad pattern of action. A second term is necessary to situate Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy within its corporate positioning as leader of a vast supply chain network. We identify Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy as “outsourcing feminism.” Walmart’s use of the outsourcing feminism strategy stems from its commanding position in supply chains, which allows it to extract a symbolic surplus from women business owners from whom it sources products. When Walmart argues that it uplifts these women, its strategy targets the consumer end of the supply chain, emphasizing sourcing practices that promote a racially diverse, selfless, and middle-class femininity. In so doing, Walmart deflects attention from the treatment of women in other segments of its supply chain (e.g., its stores and factories). (shrink)

Ein Einstiegs- und Nachschlagwerk für das Philosophiestudium: Die Einträge liefern Definitionen und Kurzanalysen zu Kants Schriften, Grundbegriffen und Positionen. Sie können unabhängig voneinander gelesen werden, ergeben zusammengenommen aber auch eine vollständige Einführung. Das Kleine Kant-Lexikon beginnt mit einem Überblick zu Kants Leben und Werk sowie den zentralen Positionen seiner Philosophie. Auf diese Einführung folgen als erster Hauptteil detailliertere Analysen der wichtigsten Werke und Schriften Kants, als zweiter Hauptteil die Grundbegriffe seiner Philosophie zum Nachschlagen. Die Beiträge wurden von renommierten Expertinnen und (...) Experten der Kantforschung verfasst, sind dabei aber knapp und leicht verständlich. Das Lexikon erleichtert so die Lektüre von Kants Werken, Literaturhinweise helfen bei Referaten und Hausarbeiten. (shrink)

The following article outlines spiritual formation as it occurs at His Mansion Ministries, a communal ministry centered on Jesus Christ that focuses on helping men and women struggling with life-controlling behaviors and attitudes. Spiritual formation is argued to be a beautiful movement from self to other, a movement that is rooted in a conversion of the self to God. This movement is displayed in the community of His Mansion and the relationships therein. This spiritual movement is also seen in the (...) work and learning that is accomplished at His Mansion. The experience of relationships, work, and learning in the world is typically oriented around the self. At His Mansion Ministries, we believe that spiritual formation happens as a person, in submission to God and his love, moving from being oriented around the self to being aware of and acting for the good of others. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 1 Seiten: 361-372.

Journal Name: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Volume: 2013 Issue: 195 Pages: 169-196.

O objetivo central deste artigo é desenvolver a ideia sobre a utilidade ética da pecuária industrial com ênfase nas doenças zoonóticas a partir do referencial teórico de Peter Singer. Com o aumento da demanda em âmbito global por proteína animal, foram empreendidos novos métodos de manejo que submetem os animais a situações opostas ao bem-estar. Além do mais, essas mudanças são responsáveis pela ascensão das doenças zoonóticas. Desse modo, o presente trabalho trata-se da revisão bibliográfica dos livros Ética Prática e (...) Libertação Animal do Peter Singer e artigos buscados nas plataformas: Scielo, Elsevier e Google Acadêmico. Assim, conclui-se que a pecuária industrial possui uma utilidade duvidosa dentro dos limites da pesquisa porque gera maior desprazer do que prazer. (shrink)

In this paper I draw on some of the work of John McDowell in order to develop a realist account of normative reasons for action. On the view defended here, there can be correct moral judgments that capture the reasons there are for acting in certain ways; and the reasons themselves are just some of the morally relevant facts of the situation about which the judgment is made. Establishing this account relies crucially, I argue, on an appeal to substantive ethical (...) theory, to a theory that allows for the attribution of truth to the judgments in question. The account defended here can in fact be equally well supported by ethical theories as otherwise diverse as those of Aristotle and Kant. The resulting account is a version of moral realism, but one that is not committed to defending a realist account of the nature of moral value. (shrink)

Rüdiger Bittner has recently argued against a Kantian ‘maxims account’ of reasons for action. In this paper I argue—against Bittner—that Kantian maxims are not to be understood as reasons for action, but rather as reasons for reasons. On the interpretation presented here, Kantian maxims are the reasons for an agent’s being motivated by whatever more immediate reasons actually motivate her. This understanding of Kantian maxims suggests a recognizably realist Kantian position in ethics.

Causal reductionism is the widespread assumption that there is no room for additional causes once we have accounted for all elementary mechanisms within a system. Due to its intuitive appeal, causal reductionism is prevalent in neuroscience: once all neurons have been caused to fire or not to fire, it seems that causally there is nothing left to be accounted for. Here, we argue that these reductionist intuitions are based on an implicit, unexamined notion of causation that conflates causation with prediction. (...) By means of a simple model organism, we demonstrate that causal reductionism cannot provide a complete and coherent account of ‘what caused what’. To that end, we outline an explicit, operational approach to analyzing causal structures. (shrink)

This article discusses which barriers hamper access to, and participation in, cultural life for members of vulnerable groups, in particular persons belonging to old and new minorities and persons with disabilities in the context of digitization. It then examines what role public authorities can play in addressing and dismantling these barriers. The article adopts a bottom-up approach, in that it is based on a qualitative study, which gives voice to vulnerable groups. The qualitative research involved interviews with different organisations representing, (...) or working with, vulnerable groups in 12 European Union Member States (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Spain). In that regard, the article approaches vulnerability from a distinct conceptual standpoint, identifying vulnerability as a condition caused by structural barriers. On the whole, the article shows that, while digitization of cultural content, goods and services, offers increased opportunities for culture to be democratised and for its consumption by wider and more varied audiences to be enhanced, it also engenders structural barriers and creates additional challenges. Furthermore, while digitisation has ensured more diverse representation in cultural content, vulnerable groups still face stereotypical and negative portrayals within mainstream cultural content. The thematic analysis of the qualitative interviews also captures different dimensions of access to digital cultural and supports the identification of effective policy measures to bridge the ‘digital divide’ and assist in the fulfilment of cultural rights of vulnerable groups. (shrink)

This chapter explores the relationship between public philosophy and deliberative democracy, both at a broad philosophical level and more granularly at the forms of deliberative practice that political theorists and philosophers have embraced and tried to foster. Deliberative democracy theory promises to create a culture of robust public inquiry, scrutiny, and judgment to which the more formal sectors of the public sphere, namely legislatures, must respond. Deliberators consider various points of view, work through costs and consequences, work through what must (...) be given up, and develop a public will on which public policies can rest. Beyond the classroom, some philosophers and social theorists have applied the cognitivist aspect of critical thinking to assess the value of more public deliberations, arguing that the outcomes of deliberation are valuable to the extent that they track the truth. (shrink)