ExcerptDavid Lloyd Dusenbury, The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History. London: Hurst Publishers, 2021. Pp. 272. The Innocence of Pontius Pilate by David L. Dusenbury of the Danube Institute is a profound reflection on the differentiation of secular and religious authority that should excite theologians, historians, believers, as well as historical sociologists. The point of departure is the question of the innocence or guilt of Pilate, the Roman magistrate who condemned Jesus to death, which (...) has been a contested issue from soon after Jesus died to modern New Testament criticism. Was Pilate guilty of the highest crime— deicide—or had he been, in some sense, innocent or even just? More interesting than a mere overview of how different epochs and authors received the Pilate story, Dusenbury’s book investigates the ramifications of the only sense in which Pilate was innocent: he was innocent of an understanding of a kingdom not of this earth. As Paul puts it succinctly in I Corinthians: “None of the rulers of this age (saeculum) understood this [other kingdom]—for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (55). (shrink)

ExcerptAmerica’s prestige as the bearer of a liberal democratic world order has taken a dent due to both geopolitical power shifts and the debilitating polarization of American democratic culture. Relatedly, symbolic power has been shifting away from liberal ideals and standards of legitimacy globally.1 It has become ever harder to deny that a variety of non-Western civilizational states, China chief among them, will not conform, nor even try to conform, to the West’s liberal democratic standards. Though these states imported all (...) kinds of Western-style institutions in their earlier phases of modernization, they now seem ever more determined to break free from the West’s gravitational pull. (shrink)

This study aims to decode the hemodynamic responses evoked by multiple sound-categories using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The six different sounds were given as stimuli. The oxy-hemoglobin concentration changes are measured in both hemispheres of the auditory cortex while 18 healthy subjects listen to 10-s blocks of six sound-categories. Long short-term memory networks were used as a classifier. The classification accuracy was 20.38 ± 4.63% with six class classification. Though LSTM networks’ performance was a little higher than chance levels, it is (...) noteworthy that we could classify the data subject-wise without feature selections. (shrink)

The controversy around the accommodation of conscientious objections in medicine persists, especially for such contentious services as abortions. COs are typically considered in their negativ...

North Korea references gender equality in its socialist constitution, but the de facto social and legal circumstances that women face in the country are far below the de jure status they are purported to enjoy. North Korean women endure extremely low public health standards and pervasive harassment. Yet their growing market power and social influence are underestimated. Women account for the majority of North Korean border crossers, and their informal economic activities are supporting families while modernizing the economy. This essay (...) examines the dangers of exploitation that North Korean women face and highlights the ethical and legal imperatives of supporting their roles in marketizing the economy and liberalizing the society in one of the worst human rights–violating states. Women are North Korea's most deserving recipients of international assistance and the country's most promising partners to the world. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 1, Page 63-70, January 2022.

In C. elegans and D. melanogaster, specialized sites have an important role in meiotic recombination. Recent evidence has shown that these sites in C. elegans have a role in synapsis. Here we compare the initiation of synapsis in organisms with specialized sites and those without. We propose that, early in prophase, synapsis requires an initiator to overcome inhibitory factors that function to prevent synaptonemal complex (SC) formation between nonhomologous sequences. These initiators of SC formation can be stimulated by crossover sites, (...) possibly other types of recombination sites and also specialized sites where recombination does not occur. BioEssays 29: 217–226, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is currently reserved predominantly for bridging patients to a different destination therapy, but the use of ECMO as a destination therapy itself (ECMO-DT...

The American Urological Association (AUA) and American College of Surgeons (ACS) codes of professionalism require surgeons to disclose the specific roles and responsibilities of trainees to patients during the informed consent process. The objective of this study is to analyze how these requirements are met by urology training programs. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed to the program directors (PDs) of the 143 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education urology residency programs in the United States in 2021. Information was collected (...) regarding program demographics, aspects of the program’s consent process, and the disclosure to patients of the role and participation of residents in their surgery. There were 49 responses to the survey (34.3% response rate). Nearly 70 percent of PDs reported that attending physicians lead the consent process. The topics covered during consent discussion include possible complications (25%), expected recovery time (23%), length of the surgery (22%), the people involved (18%), and their specific roles (7%). Many PDs do not explicitly discuss trainee involvement (48.8%) or when a resident is to perform the majority of the case (87.8%). The majority of PDs (78.8%) communicate medical student involvement, but 73.2 percent reported having a patient decline participation of a trainee after describing their role. Despite the AUA and ACS codes of professionalism, many urologists do not disclose resident involvement in surgery to patients. Further discussions are needed to explore how to better balance resident education and patient autonomy. (shrink)

We report on the experience of creating a socially networked system, the Research-oriented Social Environment , for representing knowledge in the form of relationships between people, documents, and groups. Developed as an intercampus, interdisciplinary project of the University of California, this work reflects on a collaboration between scholars in the humanities, software engineering, and information studies by providing an opportunity not only to synthesize different disciplinary perspectives, but also to interrogate and challenge the assumptions each brings to team-based design projects (...) in the digital humanities. This work examines socially networked knowledge as both content and methodology for collaboration, calling for further critique and future investigation of epistemological questions in models of social networks. (shrink)

This article reviews current methods for evaluating models in the cognitive sciences, including theoretically based approaches, such as Bayes factors and minimum description length measures; simulation approaches, including model mimicry evaluations; and practical approaches, such as validation and generalization measures. This article argues that, although often useful in specific settings, most of these approaches are limited in their ability to give a general assessment of models. This article argues that hierarchical methods, generally, and hierarchical Bayesian methods, specifically, can provide a (...) more thorough evaluation of models in the cognitive sciences. This article presents two worked examples of hierarchical Bayesian analyses to demonstrate how the approach addresses key questions of descriptive adequacy, parameter interference, prediction, and generalization in principled and coherent ways. (shrink)

Tests of economic theory often focus on choice outcomes and find significant individual differences in these outcomes. This variability may mask universal psychological processes that lead to different choices because of differences across cultures in the information people have available when making decisions. On this view, decision making research within and across cultures must focus on the processes underlying choice.

Pothos suggests dispensing with the distinction between rules and similarity, without defining what is meant by either term. We agree that there are problems with the distinction between rules and similarity, but believe these will be solved only by exploring the representations and processes underlying cases purported to involve rules and similarity.

1. Kant on the “Conditions of the Possibility” of Experience -- Claude Piché // 2. Plato and Kantian Transcendental Constructivism -- Tom Rockmore // 3. Kant and Fichte on the Notion of (Transcendental) Freedom -- Violetta L. Waibel // 4. Fichte, Transcendental Ontology, and the Ethics of Belief -- Steven Hoeltzel // 5. Transcendental Philosophy as “Therapy of the Mind”: Fichte’s “Facts of Consciousness” Lectures -- Benjamin D. Crowe // 6. From Transcendental Philosophy to Hegel’s Developmental Method -- William F. (...) Bristow // 7. How Transcendental Is Cohen’s Critical Idealism? -- Halla Kim // 8. Heidegger’s Failure to Overcome Transcendental Philosophy -- Eric S. Nelson // 9. Others as the Ground of Our Existence: Levinas, Løgstrup, and Transcendental Arguments in Ethics -- Robert Stern // 10. Raising Validity Claims for Reasons: Transcendental Reflection in Apel’s Argumentative Discourse -- Matthias Kettner // 11. Transcendental Arguments Based on Question-Answer Contradictions -- Yukio Irie // 12. Consequences of the Transcendental-Pragmatic Consensus Theory of Truth -- Michihito Yoshime // 13. On Jürgen Habermas’s Cognitive Theory of Morality -- Yasuyuki Funaba . (shrink)

Kim Iryŏp was raised and initially educated in a devout Methodist Christian environment under the strict guidance of her fideistic pastor father and her mother, who believed in female education. Both parents died while she was in her teens, and she questioned her Christian faith at an early age. She was one of the first Korean women to pursue higher education in Korea and Japan. Kim became a prolific poet and essayist, her writings engaging cultural and social issues, and a (...) leading figure of the feminist “new woman” movement in the 1920s, which promoted women’s self-awareness, freedom, and rights in the context of the complex intersection of traditional Korean... (shrink)

I endeavor to explore Farber’s work leading into the Foundation in order to construct an understanding both of his idiosyncratic interpretation of Husserl, and of what lead to Farber’s break with phenomenology. A great irony of Farber’s career may turn out to be that a scholar so deeply bothered by presuppositions and so committed a methodological pluralist may have discarded phenomenology because of his own philosophical commitments, a fact noted by Farber’s former student, Sang-Ki Kim. In an essay in Farber’s (...) memory, Kim questions whether Farber himself was subject to the limitations and prejudices inherent in his commitments to scientific Marxism and naturalism. Farber’s pervasive interests in naturalism are likely influenced, in part, by consideration for the cancer research of his brother, Sidney. This work will first examine Farber’s attitudes towards metaphysics and naturalism. Second, it will turn to an examination of his interests in logic – which largely prompted his interests in phenomenology. Farber’s methodological pluralism is driven in part by his understanding of logic and in part his other interests. Further disagreements with Husserl will be reappraised in the concluding section of the essay. (shrink)

National identity and attachment to national culture have taken root even in this era of globalization. National sentiments find expression in multiple political spheres and cause troubles of various kinds in many societies, both domestically and across state borders. Some of these problems are rooted in history; others are the result of massive global immigration. As US Secretary of State John Kerry tries to broker a new round of Israel-Palestine peace talks, the Israeli government continues expanding its settlements in disputed (...) territories. As this proposal is being written, Japanese citizens are debating whether their politicians should visit the Yasukuni Shrine (靖國神社), where the spirits of fourteen Class A war criminals from WWII and more than one thousand others convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are honored with a distinguished resting place. As the Chinese government’s plan to bring economic prosperity to the Xinjian province unfolds, ethnic conflicts between Han Chinese and local Uyghur Muslims intensify. Tibetans still demonstrate to the Chinese government, some through the dramatic sacrifice of self-immolation, their determination to pursue a Tibet that is truly free and autonomous. The recent inflow of Muslim immigrants across Europa and North America forces those liberal democratic societies to rethink the meaning of multiculturalism. Should the state respect Muslim women’s freedom to wear burkas in public? What about other aspects of certain Muslim traditions such as arranged marriages or the honor killing of teenage girls who see boys their parents do not approve? Since these immigrants voluntarily moved from their homeland to a new society, do they have a duty to give up such practices, which conflict with their new societies’ fundamental commitment to individual autonomy? Eric Hobsbawm suggests that nationalism is a contingent phenomenon in history—it arises with important historical events such as industrialization and print journalism; eventually, it will disappear. Anthony Smith, on the other hand, argues that nationalism is deeply rooted in the human need for collective faith and dignity. How should we understand today’s nationalism? Is it a transient phenomenon that eventually will be eradicated from the world, or is it a timeless issue that confronts and will remain a challenge for every society? Is the conventional distinction between civic and cultural nationalism still relevant or helpful? The problems and ongoing challenges of nationalism are very much alive throughout East Asia where the myth of ethnically and culturally homogeneous nations is still paramount. In addition to the examples provided above, East Asian societies are increasingly multicultural, inevitably forcing their governments to come up with new immigration and border-control policies, revisit their laws regarding labor policies, sociopolitical discrimination, socioeconomic welfare, and, more fundamentally, rethink the constitutional make-up of the citizenry and the ideal of social harmony, one of their most cherished political values. Nevertheless, contemporary theoretical analyses, whether philosophical or empirical, of the phenomena surrounding nationalism, in all its forms, are almost exclusively focused on cases in western cultures and societies, preventing the East Asian people from developing a coherent idea of who they are or should be in a way that can track their deeply-held values and norms (such as Confucianism). One of the primary aims of this conference therefore is to address this ongoing neglect and explore new concepts and theories that are socially relevant in East Asia. Not only will this provide access to the particular experiences of nation, citizenship, and nationalism throughout East Asia but it will bring to bear philosophical concepts, approaches, and styles of reasoning about them that currently are not part of this critical debate. Providing an opportunity to hear these distinct and different East Asian voices and opening up these conceptual and methodological resources to scholars around the world will greatly advance the understanding and appreciation of nationalism. In addition to this primary aim, the proposed conference will achieve two other, novel, and important goals. First, by design, it will bring to bear a multi and interdisciplinary approach to the problems of nationalism. We are not privileging either conceptual or empirical studies in the organization of our conference and will bring together philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians, making every effort to invite scholars who explicitly employ or are interested in exploring different and at times hybrid approaches. Second, we will draw together scholars from around the world: China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, North America, and Europe, including leading figures in the field, who will serve as keynote speakers for the conference. Combining these two additional goals will enable us to organize a uniquely diverse conference, both in terms of intellectual discipline and national origin. Along with our primary aim of introducing East Asian voices and theories, this will make our event original, distinctive, and unprecedented in value. Our age is one in which it is unavoidable for people of different cultural backgrounds to live together in many different places. For the sake of justice and stability, a comprehensive re-examination of nationalism is both urgent and necessary. (shrink)

This paper argues that democratic collectives have reason to increase the voting power of their younger members. It first presents an intuitive case for weighted voting in general, before drawing support from a prominent principle of democratic inclusion – the all-affected principle. On a plausible understanding of that principle, a decision may affect people to varying degrees, and this variation should be reflected in the strength of their say. The paper then argues that exposure time to a decision’s effects is (...) typically a good proxy for tracking such variation, such that collectives have reason to gradually reduce their members’ voting power as they grow older. This holds, for example, in the ordinary parliamentary elections in representative democracies. It is then argued that we may build a similar case for age-weighting on a plausible version of the all-affected principle’s main rival, the all-subjected principle. The paper ends by addressing various objections. It argues that none of them undermine the case for age-weighting, and that some might even support age-weighting over its non-weighted (‘one person, one vote’) alternative. (shrink)

This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind...

There continues to be a vigorous public debate in our society about the status of climate science. Much of the skepticism voiced in this debate suffers from a lack of understanding of how the science works - in particular the complex interdisciplinary scientific modeling activities such as those which are at the heart of climate science. In this book Eric Winsberg shows clearly and accessibly how philosophy of science can contribute to our understanding of climate science, and how it (...) can also shape climate policy debates and provide a starting point for research. Covering a wide range of topics including the nature of scientific data, modeling, and simulation, his book provides a detailed guide for those willing to look beyond ideological proclamations, and enriches our understanding of how climate science relates to important concepts such as chaos, unpredictability, and the extent of what we know. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find (...) a ‘correct’ definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today. (shrink)

What is the source of aesthetic knowledge? Empirical knowledge, it is generally held, bottoms out in perception. Such knowledge can be transmitted to others through testimony, preserved by memory, and amplified via inference. But perception is where the rubber hits the road. What about aesthetic knowledge? Does it too bottom out in perception? Most say “yes”. But this is wrong. When it comes to aesthetic knowledge, it is appreciation, not perception, where the rubber hits the road. The ultimate source of (...) aesthetic knowledge is feeling. In this essay, we articulate and defend the very idea of affective knowledge and reveal aesthetic knowledge to be a species of the genus. We then show how the view resolves a thorny problem that has bedeviled aesthetic epistemologists: how to reconcile the seemingly direct character of aesthetic knowledge with the possibility of acquiring such knowledge from criticism. One learns from criticism, we argue, when it guides one’s engagement with an object so that one can appreciate it in virtue of those of its features that render it worthy of appreciation. (shrink)

An observation of Hume’s has received a lot of attention over the last decade and a half: Although we can standardly imagine the most implausible scenarios, we encounter resistance when imagining propositions at odds with established moral (or perhaps more generally evaluative) convictions. The literature is ripe with ‘solutions’ to this so-called ‘Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance’. Few, however, question the plausibility of the empirical assumption at the heart of the puzzle. In this paper, we explore empirically whether the difficulty we (...) witness in imagining certain propositions is indeed due to claim type (evaluative v. non-evaluative) or whether it is much rather driven by mundane features of content. Our findings suggest that claim type plays but a marginal role, and that there might hence not be much of a ‘puzzle’ to be solved. (shrink)

In Minker and Rajasekar (J Log Program 9(1):45–74, 1990), Minker proposed a semantics for negation-free disjunctive logic programs that offers a natural generalisation of the fixed point semantics for definite logic programs. We show that this semantics can be further generalised for disjunctive logic programs with classical negation, in a constructive modal-theoretic framework where rules are built from _claims_ and _hypotheses_, namely, formulas of the form \(\Box \varphi \) and \(\Diamond \Box \varphi \) where \(\varphi \) is a literal, respectively, (...) yielding a “base semantics” for general disjunctive logic programs. Model-theoretically, this base semantics is expressed in terms of a classical notion of logical consequence. It has a complete proof procedure based on a general form of the cut rule. Usually, alternative semantics of logic programs amount to a particular interpretation of nonclassical negation as “failure to derive.” The counterpart in our framework is to complement the original program with a set of hypotheses required to satisfy specific conditions, and apply the base semantics to the resulting set. We demonstrate the approach for the answer set semantics. The proposed framework is purely classical in mainly three ways. First, it uses classical negation as unique form of negation. Second, it advocates the computation of logical consequences rather than of particular models. Third, it makes no reference to a notion of preferred or minimal interpretation. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical sensitivity is a prerequisite for ethical nursing practices. Efforts to improve nurses’ ethical sensitivity are required to correctly recognise ethical conflicts and for sound decision-making. Because an emerging infectious disease response involves complex ethical issues, it is important to understand the factors that influence public health nurses’ ethical sensitivity while caring for patients with COVID-19, an emerging infectious disease.ObjectivesThis study aims to identify the relationship between nursing professionalism, the organisation’s ethical climate, and the ethical sensitivity of nurses who care (...) for emerging infectious disease patients in Korean public health centres. Further, it sought to identify factors influencing ethical sensitivity and the mediating effect of the organisational ethical climate to inform guidelines and improve ethical sensitivity.Research designThis was a cross-sectional descriptive study.Participants and research contextData were collected from February 3 to 8 March 2021. Participants included 167 nurses caring for patients with COVID-19 in public health centres in South Korea.Ethical considerationThis study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Chung-Ang University and followed the principles of research ethics.ResultsThe factors influencing ethical sensitivity were working at a COVID-19 disease direct response department, nursing professionalism, and organisation’s ethical climate. The organisation’s ethical climate showed a partial mediating effect on the influence of nursing professionalism on ethical sensitivity.ConclusionOur findings show that nurses’ ethical sensitivity can be improved by refining the organisation’s ethical climate and nursing professionalism. (shrink)

Physicians place significant weight on the distinction between acts and omissions. Most believe that autonomous refusals for procedures, such as blood transfusions and resuscitation, ought to be respected, but they feel no similar obligation to accede to requests for treatment that will, in the physician’s opinion, harm the patient (e.g., assisted death). Thus, there is an asymmetry. In this paper, we challenge the strength of this distinction by arguing that the ordering of values should be the same in both cases. (...) The reason for respecting refusals is that, in such cases, autonomy outweighs well-being. We argue that the same should be true in request cases, which means that requests should not be denied only due to the treatment being too harmful in the physician’s opinion. Our strategy is to consider and reject a number of arguments for the asymmetrical view, including an appeal to the doing–allowing distinction and positive and negative rights. The duty to respect refusals is still greater than the duty to grant requests on our view, but, by arguing that the ordering of values is the same in both cases, we show that there is less of a distinction in healthcare between requests and refusals than many currently believe. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of linked essays written by one of the leading philosophers of biology, Kim Sterelny, on the topic of biological evolution. The first half of the book explores most of the main theoretical controversies about evolution and selection. Sterelny argues that genes are not the only replicators: non-genetic inheritance is also extremely important, and is no mere epiphenomenon of gene selection. The second half of the book applies some of these ideas in considering cognitive evolution. Concentrating (...) on the mental capacities of simpler animals rather than those of humans, Sterelny argues for a general distinction between detection and representation, and that the evolution of belief, like that of representation, can be decoupled from the evolution of preference. These essays, some never before published, form a coherent whole that defends not just an overall conception of evolution, but also a distinctive take on cognitive evolution. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 539-563, December 2021.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spring Fishing Song, Prehistoric Paros JOHN ERIC HAMEL Come, tuna, iridescent whorl, Spin color through our rain-locked sea. Come, scatter winter’s smoke and spitting hail, The brazier’s headache, days of coiling clay, The endless shuttle. Let the restless needle be. Come, return the sea to life. The days of winter card our limbs to rope. Restore the muscle with your flesh, unfurl The cold’s crushing boredom into the (...) sun. We’ve burnished long enough our winter soul. The heat begins to double back. The stars That mark the Oar re-stroke at last the salt. All turns. By island and straight you loop and belt, In time with star and turning tide. Shake sail, Bring oar and rope. The barley weaves new fleece. Come, bless our boats, wake us from the hours Of dropping lines over bleached gunnel, The nights of damp and cold breathing sea. Raw mackerel for days to eat, until A line is bumped like a lover’s finger touch, And fins cut water fast as breakers flash. The circled sea within our fleet erupts With flailing fins as sharp as swords. We gaff the bleeding gills into our boats. arion 28.3 winter 2021 44 spring fishing song, prehistoric paros Come, strong fish with gemstone scale, Blow on the coals of our blood, renew our strength. The deep obsidian light of winter clouds Begins to pour molten copper thick as oil All down the sea. We’re born for sails and shrouds, We’re born in waters of a mother’s wave, And return our marble souls into the grave. 2017... (shrink)

In response to nutrient limitation, many animals, including Caenorhabditis elegans, slow or arrest their development. This process requires mechanisms that sense essential nutrients and induce appropriate responses. When faced with nutrient limitation, C. elegans can induce both short and long‐term survival strategies, including larval arrest, decreased developmental rate, and dauer formation. To select the most advantageous strategy, information from many different sensors must be integrated into signaling pathways, including target of rapamycin (TOR) and insulin, that regulate developmental progression. Here, how (...) nutrient information is sensed and integrated into developmental decisions that determine developmental rate and progression in C. elegans is reviewed. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 35-38.

Well-being is topic of perennial concern. It has been of significant interest to scholars across disciplines, culture, and time. But like morality, conceptions of well-being are deeply shaped and influenced by one's particular social and cultural context. We ought to pursue, therefore, a cross-cultural understanding of well-being and moral psychology by taking seriously reflections from a variety of moral traditions. This book develops a Confucian account of well-being, considering contemporary accounts of ethics and virtue in light of early Confucian thought (...) and philosophy. Its distinctive approach lies in the integration of Confucian moral philosophy, contemporary empirical psychology, and contemporary philosophical accounts of well-being. Richard Kim organizes the book around four main areas: the conception of virtues in early Confucianism and the way that they advance both individual and communal well-being; the role of Confucian ritual practices in familial and communal ties; the developmental structure of human life and its culmination in the achievement of sagehood; and the sense of joy that the early Confucians believed was central to the virtuous and happy life. (shrink)

Is there anything peculiarly bad about accepting moral testimony? According to pessimists, trusting moral testimony is an inadequate substitute for working out your moral views on your own. Enlightenment requires thinking for oneself, at least where morality is concerned. Optimists, by contrast, aim to show that trusting moral testimony isn’t bad largely by arguing that it’s no worse than trusting testimony generally. Essentially, they play defense. However, this chapter goes on the offensive. It explores two reasons for thinking that trusting (...) another person’s moral testimony is especially good. The first is an extended application of some of the lessons from recent discussions about epistemic injustice. The second, borrowing some cryptic epistemological thoughts from the young Marx, is that trusting another’s moral testimony is necessary for perfecting ourselves. It concludes that it can be better to accept moral testimony than to arrive at the same moral view on your own. (shrink)

The capacities required for both peace and war predate 100,000 years ago in the genus Homo are deeply entangled in the modes by which humans physically and perceptually construct their worlds and communities, and may not be sufficiently captured by economic models.