In 2005, Ethiopia changed its abortion law to curb its high maternal mortality. This has led to a considerable reduction in deaths from unsafe abortions. Abortion is now legal if the woman’s pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, if her health is endangered, if the fetus has a serious deformity, if she suffers from a physical or mental deficiency, or if she is under 18 years of age. The word of the woman, if in compliance with the law, (...) is sufficient to qualify for an abortion. In this context, where the law makes the door slightly open, health workers become important in deciding who gets access to safe services and who doesn’t, thus creating considerable ethical dilemmas. The objective of this study was to explore abortion service providers’ personal experiences and reflections, perceptions of the abortion law, and ethical and dilemmas that arise. Data collection took place from March to May 2016 in Addis Ababa, at different health clinics providing abortion services. Thirty in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions were conducted with 41 abortion service providers at governmental and non-governmental clinics. Content analysis was drawn upon in the interpretation of the findings. When working in a context where the law has slightly opened the door for abortion seeking women, the health workers describe conflicting concerns, burdensome responsibilities, and ambiguity concerning how to interpret and implement the law. They describe efforts to balance their religious faith and values against their professional obligations and concern for women’s health and well-being. This negotiation is particularly evident in the care of women who fall outside the law’s indications. They usually handle ethical dilemmas and decision-making alone without guidance. Moreover, many health workers face a stigma from fellow colleagues not performing abortions and therefore keep their job a secret from family and friends. Health workers in Ethiopia experience ethical dilemmas trying to maneuver between the abortion law, their personal values, and their genuine concern for the health of women. More research is needed to further explore this. (shrink)

The increasing standardization, specialisation and monetarization of academic publishing is designed to foster quality in research and expression. But these tendencies also pose serious challenges to the expression of cultural difference, particularly with regard to philosophy and religious studies. Scholars from various cultural backgrounds outside of mainstream universities often find themselves marginalised when the quality of their work is judged through the metrics of mainstream academic publishing. Smaller journals which give a forum to local research are gradually disappearing or becoming (...) irrelevant. The corporate control of publishing limits the access and distribution of information making it difficult for smaller regional universities to access and conduct research. But these challenges to the expression of cultural difference also reflect the deeper tendencies of the information age. To approach this problem, we need to consider the conflict between culture and spirit on the one hand, with the flows of information and capital on the other. I will introduce this problem through an idea of hermeneutics presented by George McLean. I will then discuss the approaches to this problem by such writers as Michel Serres, Jean Francois Lyotard, Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida. I will show that these latter writers devise strategies to reach something outside of the cybernetic flows of information in the media age, but that their solutions are incomplete because they rely on intellectual concepts of redemption and ignore the concrete practices of spiritual redemption. The issue that cross-cultural journals must consider is how to emphasize something beyond the merely intellectual; how to amplify practice within its expression. I will address this issue in the spirit of a poem by Emily Dickinson entitled “Publication – is the Auction” which supplies the title of this essay. (shrink)

Trust makes cooperation possible. It enables us to learn from others and at a distance. It makes democratic deliberation possible. But it also makes us vulnerable: when we place our trust in another’s word, we are liable to be deceived—sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Our evolved mechanisms for deciding whom to trust and whom to distrust mostly rely on face-to-face interactions with people whose reputation we can both access and influence. Online, these mechanisms are largely useless, and the institutions that might (...) supplant them need to have their own trustworthiness verified. Currently, those institutions are mostly corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, which have checkered track records at best. To make matters worse, the social media sector is a natural monopoly, and companies like Facebook have shown that they are willing to use their market power unscrupulously. For these reasons, we argue that social media should be treated like other natural monopolies: it should either be nationalized, highly regulated, or broken up through antitrust legal actions. (shrink)

This essay explores how the distinctively anthropological concept of culture provides uniquely valuable insights into the workings of science in its cultural context. Recent efforts by anthropologists to dislodge the traditional notion of culture as a homogenous, stable whole have opened up a variety of ways of imagining culture that place power differentials, flux, and contradiction at its center. Including attention to a wide variety of social domains outside the laboratory, attending to the ways nonscientists actively engage with scientific knowledge, (...) and focusing on the complex interactions that flow both into and out of research laboratories are ways the activities of both scientists and nonscientists can be situated in the heterogeneous matrtx of culture. Three images—the citadel, the rhizome, and the string figure—allow us to picture the discontinuous ways science both permeates and is permeated by cultural life. (shrink)

Experiments are commonly thought to have epistemic privilege over simulations. Two ideas underpin this belief: first, experiments generate greater inferential power than simulations, and second, simulations cannot surprise us the way experiments can. In this article I argue that neither of these claims is true of experiments versus simulations in general. We should give up the common practice of resting in-principle judgments about the epistemic value of cases of scientific inquiry on whether we classify those cases as experiments or simulations, (...) per se. To the extent that either methodology puts researchers in a privileged epistemic position, this is context sensitive. (shrink)

Medical ethics assumes a clear boundary between clinical research and clinical medicine: one produces knowledge for the benefit of future patients, while the other provides optimal care to individuals right now. It also assumes that the two cannot be integrated without sacrificing the needs of the current patient to those of future patients. But integration could allow us to provide better care to everyone, now and in the future.

Insufficient attention has been paid to the ways in which Newtonian conceptualizations of time encourage the view in contemporary psychology that only efficient causal explanations are viable, explanations that ultimately render meaningful, purposive, morally rich human actions and relationships illusory. In short, psychology’s pervasive adoption of Newtonian assumptions about time and causation renders the discipline incapable of understanding human behavior, its primary focus of study, in any but fundamentally inhuman ways. This paper aims (1) to provide a critique of the (...) Newtonian conception of time and its commitment to efficient causality, particularly as commonly present in contemporary psychological theory and practice, and (2) to examine the phenomenological account of time provided in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Specifically, we will explore some of the ways in which Levinas’ account of time as fundamentally intersubjective provides an alternative conceptual grounding for understanding the therapeutic relationship as one of infinite ethical responsibility. (shrink)

Payment to recruit research subjects is a common practice but raises ethical concerns relating to the potential for coercion or undue influence. We conducted the first national study of IRB members and human subjects protection professionals to explore attitudes as to whether and why payment of research participants constitutes coercion or undue influence. Upon critical evaluation of the cogency of ethical concerns regarding payment, as reflected in our survey results, we found expansive or inconsistent views about coercion and undue influence (...) that may interfere with valuable research. In particular, respondents appear to believe that coercion and undue influence lie on a continuum; by contrast, we argue that they are wholly distinct: whereas undue influence is a cognitive distortion relating to assessment of risks and benefits, coercion is a threat of harm. Because payment is an offer, rather than a threat, payment is never coercive. (shrink)

Coregulation refers to the process by which relationship partners form a dyadic emotional system involving an oscillating pattern of affective arousal and dampening that dynamically maintains an optimal emotional state. Coregulation may represent an important form of interpersonal emotion regulation, but confusion exists in the literature due to a lack of precision in the usage of the term. We propose an operational definition for coregulation as a bidirectional linkage of oscillating emotional channels between partners, which contributes to emotional stability for (...) both partners. We propose several distinctions and raise unanswered questions that will need to be addressed in order to understand the relevance of coregulation for well-being in adulthood. (shrink)

Many states offer generous provision of fertility treatment, but this article asks whether and how such state funding can be justified. I argue that, at most, there is limited justification for state funding of fertility treatment as one good among many that could enable citizens to pursue valuable life projects, but not one that should have the privileged access to funding it is currently given. I then consider and reject reasons one might think that fertility treatment has a special claim (...) to funding, over the other goods that might enable life projects. First, I deny that fertility treatment has a special claim to funding on the grounds that infertility is a disease or disability. Second, I argue that individuals do not have a right to assistance with the project of having a child of their own. Third, I deny that providing fertility treatment is a special case on the grounds that having children is good for society. However, there may be one exception: states have a reason to fund fertility treatment for same sex couples that does not apply to heterosexual couples. (shrink)

This article examines the regulation of Latina youth sexualities in the context of sexual and reproductive health care provision. In-depth interviews with health care providers working in two Latino-serving community health centers are analyzed for how they interpret and respond to the sexual and reproductive practices of their low-income Latina teen patients. The author finds that providers emphasize teenage pregnancy as a social problem among this population to the exclusion of other dimensions of youth sexualities and encourage Latina girls’ adherence (...) to a life course trajectory that conforms to middle-class, heteronormative ideals as a solution to this problem. By relying on such understandings, providers construct meanings of sexual citizenship that require participation in bourgeois heteronormativity. These findings suggest that Latino-serving community health centers, their providers, and their teen patients could benefit from questioning the assumptions that inform providers’ appraisals of Latina youth and developing a more inclusive approach to Latina youth sexualities beyond a discourse of pregnancy prevention. Such efforts could allow community health centers to actively participate in disrupting the structural inequalities that shape their young patients’ lives. (shrink)

The rule of rescue describes the moral impulse to save identifiable lives in immediate danger at any expense. Think of the extremes taken to rescue a small child who has fallen down a well, a woman pinned beneath the rubble of an earthquake, or a submarine crew trapped on the ocean floor. No effort is deemed too great. Yet should this same moral instinct to rescue, regardless of cost, be applied in the emergency room, the hospital, or the community clinic? (...) -/- In health care, the desire to save lives at any cost must be reconciled with the reality of resource scarcity. As one example, the estimated cost for prophylactic Factor VIII to treat one patient with hemophilia for one year is $300,000. Costs of this magnitude have been accepted by public and private insurers in the developed world, even though, in principle, these sums could provide greater overall health benefit if allocated to pay for the unmet health care needs of many other patients. Looking forward, however, broad application of the rule of rescue will be increasingly untenable. But the moral instinct will remain: the desire to help those weakest among us, especially when their small numbers allow us to see them as unique individuals. What, then, is the ethical framework that can guide coverage and reimbursement decisions for orphan drugs into the future? (shrink)

Social network research is widely considered atheoretical. In contrast, in this article I argue that network analysis often mixes two distinct theoretical frameworks, creating a logically inconsistent foundation. Relationalism rejects essentialism and a priori categories and insists upon the intersubjectivity of experience and meaning as well as the importance of the content of interactions and their historical setting. Formalism is based on a structuralist interpretation of the theoretical works of Georg Simmel. Simmel laid out a neo-Kantian program of identifying a (...) priori categories of relational types and patterns that operate independently of cultural content or historical setting. Formalism and relationalism are internally consistent theoretical perspectives, but there are tensions between them. To pave the way for stronger middle-range theoretical development, I disaggregate the two approaches and highlight the contradictions that must be addressed or resolved for the construction of any general and inclusive theory. (shrink)

The question of authenticity centers in the lives of women of color to invite and restrict their representative roles. For this reason, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Uma Narayan advocate responding with strategic essentialism. This paper argues against such a strategy and proposes an epistemic understanding of the question of authentic- ity. The question stems from a kernel of truth—the connection between experience and knowledge. But a coherence theory of knowledge better captures the sociality and the holism of experience and knowledge.

In this article we report relevant data that shed light on the topic of hope and patients’ expectations in the use of DBS, for standard, approved, and established indications, based on a broader qualitative study on the ethical and social challenges that healthcare providers face in the field of DBS.

We argued last year in this journal that extensive integration of research and care is a worthy goal of health system design, and we second the call from Ruth Faden and colleagues to move toward learning health care systems. As they recognize, learning health care systems demand the coordination of research and medical ethics—two sets of normative commitments that have long been considered distinct. In offering a novel ethics framework for such systems, Faden et al. advance the scholarly debate about (...) how best to do this and challenge us to think more deeply about its practical implications. However, we believe that at least three issues they raise require additional attention. First, the research‐care distinction has more normative bite than they are willing to concede. Second, the role for independent oversight requires clarification. Finally, they neglect the concept of stewardship as a guiding obligation of learning health care systems. (shrink)

We argued last year in this journal that extensive integration of research and care is a worthy goal of health system design, and we second the call from Ruth Faden and colleagues to move toward learning health care systems. As they recognize, learning health care systems demand the coordination of research and medical ethics—two sets of normative commitments that have long been considered distinct. In offering a novel ethics framework for such systems, Faden et al. advance the scholarly debate about (...) how best to do this and challenge us to think more deeply about its practical implications. However, we believe that at least three issues they raise require additional attention. First, the research‐care distinction has more normative bite than they are willing to concede. Second, the role for independent oversight requires clarification. Finally, they neglect the concept of stewardship as a guiding obligation of learning health care systems. (shrink)

In the article “Nudging and Informed Consent”, Cohen argues that the use of “nudging” by physicians in the clinical encounter may be ethically warranted because it results in an informed consent where obligations for beneficence and respect for autonomy are both met. However, the author's overenthusiastic support for nudging and his quick dismissal of shared decision-making leads him to assume that “soft” manipulation is un-problematic and that “wisdom” on the side of medical professionals will suffice to guard against abuse. Opposing (...) this view, we propose that: 1) patient preferences and values should not be boiled down to rational or irrational decisions based on cognitive reasoning alone, 2) potential threats to the physician-patient must be mitigated and could be minimized by employing alternative strategies that acknowledge the impact of cognitive heuristics in shaping decision-making but maintain transparency and trust, and 3) patient preferences and values can be legitimately influenced only under specific circumstances. The latter include: (1) exhaustion of other means; (2) evidence that nudging is effective in a specific context; (3) evidence of clear and active public misinformation (e.g., industry promoting smoking); (4) explicit pubic dialogue between various stakeholders including medical professional societies about nudging; (5) upholding shared decision-making as a preferred approach; and (6) a rich understanding of clinical reality beyond the simple dichotomy of beneficence-autonomy. (shrink)

The sublime has been a relatively neglected topic in recent work in philosophical aesthetics, with existing discussions confined mainly to problems in Kant's theory.1 Given the revival of interest in his aesthetic theory and the influence of the Kantian sublime compared to other eighteenth-century accounts, this focus is not surprising. Kant's emphasis on nature also sets his theory apart from other eighteenth-century theories that, although making nature central, also give explicit attention to moral character and mathematical ideas and generally devote (...) more discussion to art and artifacts than Kant did.2 Recent postmodern and poststructuralist theories of the sublime tend to concentrate on the concept in art and .. (shrink)

Neuroscientists are increasingly put into situations which demand critical reflection about the ethical and appropriate use of research tools and scientific knowledge. Students or trainees also have to know how to navigate the ethical domains of this context. At a time when neuroscience is expected to advance policy and practice outcomes, in the face of academic pressures and complex environments, the importance of scientific integrity comes into focus and with it the need for training at the graduate level in the (...) responsible conduct of research . I describe my experience teaching RCR in a graduate neuroscience program and identify three personal reflections where further dialogue could be warranted: mobilizing a common set of competencies and virtues standing for professionalism in the neurosciences; tailoring RCR for the neurosciences and empowering students through the active engagement of mentors; soliciting shared responsibility for RCR training between disciplines, institutions and governmental or funding agencies. (shrink)

The opening argument in the Metaphysics M.2 series targeting separate mathematical objects has been dismissed as flawed and half-hearted. Yet it makes a strong case for a point that is central to Aristotle’s broader critique of Platonist views: if we posit distinct substances to explain the properties of sensible objects, we become committed to an embarrassingly prodigious ontology. There is also something to be learned from the argument about Aristotle’s own criteria for a theory of mathematical objects. I hope to (...) persuade readers of Metaphysics M.2 that Aristotle is a more thoughtful critic than he is often taken to be. (shrink)

Recent work by Kahan et al. (2017) on the psychology of motivated numeracy in the context of intracultural disagreement suggests that people are less likely to employ their capabilities when the evidence runs contrary to their political ideology. This research has so far been carried out primarily in the USA regarding the liberal–conservative divide over gun control regulation. In this paper, we present the results of a modified replication that included an active reasoning intervention with Western European participants regarding both (...) the hierarchy–egalitarianism and individualism–collectivism divides over immigration policy (n = 746; considerably less than the preregistration sample size). We reproduce the motivated numeracy effect, though we do not find evidence of increased polarization of high-numeracy participants. (shrink)

Abstract:The examination of racist, normalized ideology within American education is not new. Theoretical and practical conceptions of social justice in education have attempted to attend to educational inequality. Oftentimes, these attempts have reinstated the status quo because they were framed within the same Eurocentric paradigm. To address this, Django Paris proposed culturally sustaining pedagogy as a means of empowering minoritized students by sustaining the cultural competence of their communities and dismantling coloniality within educational practices. He, Michael Domínguez, and others argue (...) that epistemic expansion is imperative for equitizing educational spaces and closing the ontological distance between teachers and students. Drawing from their work as well as scholarship from the fields of educational policy, urban education, Afrocentrism, and Indigenous studies, this paper seeks to expand the discussion about culturally relevant and responsive music education to account for students’ musical epistemologies and the ways in which “epistemic travel” might inform normalized musical practices. (shrink)

The Asian American identity is intimately associated with upward class mobility as the model minority, yet women's earnings remain less than men's, and Asian American women are perceived to have strong family ties binding them to domestic responsibilities. As such, the exact class status of Asian American women is unclear. The immediate association of this ethnic identity with a specific class as demonstrated by the recently released Pew study that Asian Americans are “the highest-income, best-educated” ethnicity contrasts with another study (...) that finds Asian American women have the highest suicide rates in the United States. To understand these contrasting statistics, this article explores Asian American women's sense of authenticity. If the individual's sense of authenticity is intimately related with one's group identity, the association of the Asian American identity with a particular class ambivalently ensnares her as dichotomously inauthentic—as both the poor Asian American woman who fails to achieve economic upward mobility and the model minority Asian American woman who engages in assimilation practices. Feminist philosophers understand that identities change, but exactly how these transformations occur remains a mystery. The article ends with three speculations on the difficulties for practicing and recognizing individual acts that transform one's group identity. (shrink)

Dubljević and company’s proposed approach for incorporating a socio-political perspective into neuroethics has clear potential to help mitigate the effects of research ‘hype’ relating to neuroethics. Their approach serves as a social regulation meant to improve the realizability of neuroethics research. Drawing on Dubljević et al. s suggestion, we consider how incorporating a socio-political perspective in other scientific disciplines could help the scientific community as a whole move beyond the infamous ‘reproducibility crisis’ in science. The reproducibility crisis is a concern (...) in science stemming from the revelation that most scientific results are difficult, or impossible, to replicate (Frias-Navarro et al., 2020). By applying the four principles proposed by Dubljević et al., the scientific community can avoid many of the pitfalls that have led to the reproducibility crisis, such as the file drawer effect, a publication bias preventing negative results from being published, or the publish-or-perish culture - the pressure for scientists to publish highly influential papers in high impact journals in order to keep their funding (Rosenthal, 1979; Begley & Ioannidis, 2015). As such, we argue that, in its final form, this socio-political framework begs for true open science, wherein systematically sharing data would enable enlightened policymaking by showing a picture closer to the ground-level realities of scientific research. (shrink)

With so much attention on the issue of voice in democratic theory, the inverse question of how people come to listen remains a marginal one. Recent scholarship in affect and neuroscience reveals that cognitive and verbal strategies, while privileged in democratic politics, are often insufficient to cultivate the receptivity that constitutes the most basic premise of democratic encounters. This article draws on this scholarship and a recent case of forum theatre to examine the conditions of receptivity and responsiveness, and identify (...) specific strategies that foster such conditions. It argues that the forms of encounter most effective in cultivating receptivity are those that move us via affective intensity within pointedly mediated contexts. It is this constellation of strategies—this strange marriage of immersion and mediation—that enabled this performance to surface latent memory, affect and bias, unsettle entrenched patterns of thought and behaviour, and provide the conditions for revisability. This case makes clear that to lie beyond the domain of cognitive and verbal processes is not to lie beyond potential intervention, and offers insight to how such receptivity might be achieved in political processes more broadly. (shrink)

Critics of clinical equipoise have long argued that it represents an overly permissive, and therefore morally unacceptable, mechanism for resolving the tensions inherent in clinical research. In particular, the equipoise requirement is often attacked on the grounds that it is not sufficiently responsive to the interests of individual patients. In this paper, we outline a view of equipoise that not only withstands a stronger version of this objection, which was recently articulated by Deborah Hellman, but also plays important roles in (...) clarifying the discussion. (shrink)

Utilizing Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work, I argue that the gestaltian framework’s co-determinacy of the theme and the horizon in seeing and experiencing the world serves as an encompassing epistemological framework with which to understand racism. Conclusions reached: as bias is unavoidably part of being in the world, defining racism as bias is superfluous; racism is sedimented into our very perceptions and experiences of the world and not solely a prejudice of thought; neutral perception of skin color is impossible. Phenomenology accounts for (...) the dynamic changes in expressions of racism and the interconnections of both race and sex for women of color. (shrink)

Books M and N of Aristotle's Metaphysics receive relatively little careful attention. Even scholars who give detailed analyses of the arguments in M-N dismiss many of them as hopelessly flawed and biased, and find Aristotle's critique to be riddled with mistakes and question-begging. This assessment of the quality of Aristotle's critique of his predecessors (and of the Platonists in particular), is widespread. The series of arguments in M 2 (1077a14-b11) that targets separate mathematical objects is the subject of particularly strong (...) criticism by Annas and Ross. Two related arguments in this series (1077a14-20 and 1077a24-31) will serve as cases in point. The principal charges made against these arguments (that Aristotle misunderstands or misrepresents his opponents' views, and that he engages in question-begging because he presupposes his own metaphysical views) are frequently made against Aristotle's critique of Platonist positions more generally. If, as I argue, these charges are false for our two test case arguments, then there is good reason to think that they might also be false when they are leveled against the other arguments in this M 2 series. And, although presenting an argument for this is beyond the scope of this paper, this suggests that these two charges are more often than not false when applied to Aristotle's critique of Platonist mathematical views in M-N and beyond. (shrink)

The continuum between nature and artefact is occupied by objects and environments that embody a relationship between natural processes and human activity. In this paper, I explore the relationship that emerges through human interaction with the land in the generation and aesthetic appreciation of industrial farming in contrast to more traditional agricultural practices. I consider the concept of a dialectical relationship and develop it in order to characterise the distinctive synthesising activity of humans and nature which underlies cultivated environments. I (...) argue that a more harmonious relationship, and greater aesthetic value, may be located within traditional farming landscapes. This position is supported and illustrated through a discussion of two agricultural practices in the UK, hedge-laying and stonewalling. (shrink)

The evangelical doctor, John Wyclif (1320-1384), a prominent, if controversial, Oxford master, is commonly identified as the evening star of scholasticism and the morning star of the Reformation. That Wyclif was a bold thinker is reflected in his philosophical system and in his theological and political views. Our interest here is in Wyclif's now little known natural philosophy. What I wish to examine is whether he can, with any justice, be dubbed the morning star of a reformation in science as (...) well as religion, for his contribution anticipates some developments of early modern natural philosophy. (shrink)

The omen of the door and the eagle at Iliad 24.314–21 appears to have sparked scant scholarly interest, but deserves careful attention. The omen itself forms part of an analogy, for the eagle is likened in the size of its wingspan to a large, barred door. This simile might seem unremarkable, merely a convenient means of depicting great size, a casual juxtaposition of two ordinary nouns. The omen, on the whole, might be dismissed as nothing more than a conventional expression (...) of divine favor. But closer scrutiny will reveal that there is, in fact, nothing arbitrary or haphazard in the selection of the terms of the analogy. Appreciation of the elegance and subtlety of the simile in turn reveals the full import of the omen. (shrink)

Just as the nation is imagined and produced through everyday rhetoric and maps and flags, it is also constructed on the skin, and through bodies, by different types of corporeal `flagging'. In this article, I use two examples of contemporary surgical procedures to explore these dynamics. Aesthetic surgeries on `white' subjects are not often interrogated for their racializing effects, but I use the concept of `flagging' to explore how these surgeries work in the UK to align `white' bodies with a (...) white nation. US media coverage of Iraq invasion veterans with prosthetic limbs circulates narratives of heroism and patriotism, and I explore how the apparent `visibility' of these limbs works to re-embed notions of the US as a transcendent Christian nation. In these two examples of corporeal modification, the nation is `flagged' on the skin, reiterating relationships of belonging that echo practical and conceptual links with property. Propertied belonging — possessive and constitutive — unfolds through bodies, producing whiteness not only as property itself, but also as unmarked, habitual terrain. (shrink)

Rimé makes the important observation that the literature on adult emotion and emotion regulation has largely focused on the individual level of analysis. He argues, we believe correctly, that emotion research would benefit by addressing the fact that emotional events provoke not only individual responses, but systematic social responses as well. We present examples of our own research that are in accord with Rimé's central claims, and that demonstrate the benefits of considering the goals that are provoked and satisfied by (...) emotions, as well as the social context of emotional responding. We conclude by advocating a dynamic systems approach that would allow an integration of individual and social levels of analysis in the study of adult emotion and emotion regulation. (shrink)

Tree-chopping in the Aeneid has long been seen as a disturbingly violent symbol of the Trojans' colonization of Italy. The paper proposes a new reading of the poem which sees Aeneas as progressive extirpator not just of foreign rivals but also of his own Trojan relatives. Although the Romans had no family “trees” as such, their genealogical stemmata (“garlands”) had “branches” (rami) and “stock” (stirps), and their vocabulary of family relationships takes many of its metaphors from planting, adoption, and uprooting, (...) while plant life is often described in human metaphors. Imperial historians use the growth and collapse of trees to mark the rise and fall of dynasties; natural historians like Columella and Pliny use metaphors of adoption, abortion, and adultery to characterize the perversions of agriculture and horticulture. It is thus no coincidence that Aeneas' encounters with Hector, Priam, Deiphobus, and others often take place against a background of real or metaphorical trees (tree similes, headless or mutilated human trunks, ancient trees and woods). These encourage us to see an element of dynastic encroachment in scenes that look pious and peaceable but confirm Aeneas' ascendancy and claim to Trojan succession. The Polydorus episode in particular can be read not just as a grotesque interlude but as a nightmare about endlessly reproducing heirs; one loose strand from Priam's house is allowed to remain, while Virgil deals imperfectly with the problem of Aeneas' own successors. The paper ends by re-examining Virgil's account of grafting in Georgics 2 and arguing that it is viewed positively, perhaps in order to cast Augustus' adoption of heirs as a miracle solution. (shrink)

In debates about nature conservation, aesthetic appreciation is typically understood in terms of valuing nature as an amenity, something that we value for the pleasure it provides. In this paper I argue that this position, what I call the hedonistic model, rests on a misunderstanding of aesthetic appreciation. To support this claim I put forward an alternative model based on disinterestedness, and I defend disinterestedness against mistaken interpretations of it. Properly understood, disinterestedness defines a standpoint which precludes self-interest and utility, (...) and it does not entail a passive subject abstracted from who they are. This standpoint is compatible with a 'situated aesthetic' in which appreciation of aesthetic qualities is grounded in an embedded subject who is sensitive to the context and narrative of the object. The alternative model provides a conception of aesthetic value which distinguishes it from amenity value, and it also defines a non-instrumental approach that offers the opportunity for enhanced appreciation and attention to nature's value. (shrink)

This dissertation develops a psychoanalytic model of ideology which accounts for the formation of sexual difference. I attempt to distinguish both the origin of sexually differentiated identity and the necessity of a political force at work in founding that origin. With Lacan, I locate the origin in the subjects's psychical accession to the Law of the Father, an accession that is linked to the individual establishment of a relation to the phallus as transcendental signifier. I advance a critique of Lacan (...) through an inquiry into the coming-to-be of the Father's Law as origin, an analysis which is shaped through readings of Althusser, Irigaray, and Derrida. My readings are an attempt to politicize the phallus, or to defend the thesis that 'the psychical is political,' through revealing the dynamics at play in establishing an origin that only ever appears as given. If subject-formation is organized and established around sexual difference through the function of the phallus, then an understanding of this ideological 'contract' reveals subjectivity and sexual difference to be intertwined in the psychic and political development of individuals, a coalition that endures through the lawful 'interpellation' of sexual identity. Conditions of emergence are also, potentially, conditions of transformation because these conditions expose the limits of any order or organization of sexual difference, the limits of its founding principle. If the limits of the phallus are disclosed, if we can reveal the energy that founds the phallus as or at the origin, then we can begin to conceptualize other founding acts. If, in other words, the law of sexual difference functions ideologically, then it is subject to vicissitudes of force. Thus origin can be reclaimed by other significations. In particular, it might be possible to conceptualize an origin that is rooted in a feminine genealogy and that doesn't require the intervention of the Father's Name. Such a genealogy would challenge the economy that maintains patriarchy, and hence its creation might make possible a feminine subjectivity. (shrink)

This review essay examines three recent books addressing recurring or current controversies in public education. One is historically based, a second focuses on a range of questions, and the third concentrates on the single issue of school choice. All of them, however, may be read against a backdrop of tension among three enduring liberal democratic values: individualism, diversity and unity. Public education is surely aimed at individual success and at preparing future adults to make choices, ideally among a range of (...) opportunities. The existence of a multicultural society and the development of identity politics, however, mean that members of groups often wish to preserve their particular identities despite a common education. Finally, public education has been based on inculcating values that ostensibly we all share in common. Each of these aims may conflict with one or both of the others. Therefore, setting the proper course requires an ongoing attempt to strike the proper balance among them. It is within this framework that I examine these books. (shrink)

Among the most characteristic motifs in Greek mythology is the sexual union of a god with a mortal woman and the resultant birth of a hero. The existence of hexameter poetry listing the women thus favoured – the famous women in the underworld in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, and above all theEoiai– is evidence of an interest in the women involved, not only in their heroic sons, and suggests that already at an early date the theme was the (...) object not merely of passive reception but of an active consciousness. TheEoiai, indeed, saw such unions as an integral part of an earlier and better age, when mortals and immortals were closer:ξυναὶ γὰρ τότε δαῖτες ἔσαν, ξυνοὶ δὲ θόωκοιἀθανάτων τε θεῶν καταθνητοῖς τ' ἀνθρώπων(fr. 1 Μ–W)But it was not to be supposed that such a potentially rich theme would receive a unitary treatment. Already in their first appearances – at least, the first appearances for us – many individual stories are clearly distinguished by their different circumstances. A common variable is the existence, the kind and the degree of difficulty experienced by the woman as a result of the encounter. Polymele, for instance, mother of Eudorus by Hermes atIliad16.179–92, has seemingly no difficulty in leaving her child to be brought up by her father while she goes on to marry a mortal husband. But suffering of some sort is perhaps more usual, and famous sufferers include Cassandra, punished for spurning Apollo's advances; Danae, first imprisoned by her father in a brazen tower to prevent her pregnancy, and then locked in a chest with her baby and set afloat on the waves; and Semele, destroyed when her lover Zeus appeared to her in his true form. Such different experiences could suggest further multiple versions of the same general theme, diverging especially in the consequences of the union (or attempted union) for the mortal partner. Even the same characters could potentially undergo quite different variants of the story; the chief constant is the unfailing popularity of the mythical motif. (shrink)

Patricia Williams in her book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, describes being denied entrance in the middle of the afternoon by a “saleschild.” Utilizing the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this article explores their interaction phenomenologically. This small interaction of seemingly simple misunderstanding represents a limit condition in Merleau-Ponty’s analysis. His phenomenological framework does not explain the chasm between the “saleschild” and Williams, that in a sense they do not participate in the same world. This interaction between the “saleschild” and (...) Williams represents a moment when the two contest exactly what is reason in our society. To the extent that society discerns one’s actions as reasonable and the other’s actions as unreasonable, our society participates in determining that which constitutes reason. Williams’s work speaks precisely to this chasm as evident in her text’s subtitle, Memoirs of a Mad Woman. This decision relegates one subject to “judiciousness” and relegates the other to “madness.”. (shrink)