Making a Difference presents fifteen original essays on causation and counterfactuals by an international team of experts. Collectively, they represent the state of the art on these topics. The essays in this volume are inspired by the life and work of Peter Menzies, who made a difference in the lives of students, colleagues, and friends. Topics covered include: the semantics of counterfactuals, agency theories of causation, the context-sensitivity of causal claims, structural equation models, mechanisms, mental causation, causal exclusion argument, free (...) will, and the consequence argument. (shrink)

Understanding the pervasiveness of sin is central to Christian theology. The question of why humans are so sinful given an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God presents a challenge and a puzzle. Here, we investigate Friedrich Schleiermacher’s biocultural evolutionary account of sin. We look at empirical evidence to support it and use the cultural Price equation to provide a naturalistic model of the transmission of sin. This model can help us understand how sin can be ubiquitous and unavoidable, even though (...) it is not biologically transmitted, and even if there is no historical Fall that precipitated the tendency to sin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.3 (2000) 28-39 [Access article in PDF] Chateaubriand and the Politics of (Im)mortality Marie-hélène Huet In the twenty-sixth book of his Mémoires d'outre-tombe, Chateaubriand recounts his 1821 arrival at the French embassy in Berlin. He cites a flattering portrait of him written by the Baroness of Hohenhausen and published in the morning press on March 22: "M. de Chateaubriand is of a somewhat short, yet slender, stature. His (...) oval face has an expression of reverence and melancholy. He has black hair and black eyes that glow with the fire of his mind." 1 At this point, Chateaubriand flatly adds: "Mais j'ai les cheveux blancs; j'ai plus d'un siècle, en outre, je suis mort" ("But I have white hair; I am more than a century old, besides, I am dead") [2:39]. 2 Of course, those startling words, "en outre, je suis mort" do not refer to the year 1821, nor to the time Chateaubriand is writing this account. Rather, they refer to the time we, readers, turn to this specific page of the Mémoires: as you are reading this, Chateaubriand reminds us, I am dead. The words wrest us away from the event he is relating, his arrival in Berlin, to remind us in the most direct terms that our reading of these words necessarily entails the death of their author. Moreover, the French en outre brings us back to the very title of the Mémoires d'outre-tombe: outre-tombe, from beyond the grave.In 1836, Chateaubriand signed a contract with a society of shareholders: in exchange for an immediate payment of 156,000 francs and a life annuity, he sold "the literary ownership of his Mémoires as they existed and as they would exist at his death." 3 Commenting on this transaction, Maurice Levaillant notes: "With this agreement, Chateaubriand bought material security at the price of a concession that he never got over: instead of appearing after a period he had first prescribed as fifty years after his death, his Mémoires would suddenly appear, so to speak, live from his grave" [xv]. As Chateaubriand put it in his avant-propos, the publication would take place "as soon as my bell tolls!" [1:1].The contract for the Mémoires is described as a painful necessity: "No one can know how much I have suffered from having been required to mortgage my grave" [1:1]. The formula "mortgage my grave" is suggestive in that it metonymically shifts the object of economic exchange from the work being sold, that is, the Mémoires, to the grave, which Chateaubriand always associated with literary creation. Indeed, the association between memoirs and tomb that provides the title of the work is echoed and amplified by a constant relation within the text between the grave and the act of writing. [End Page 28]In the avant-propos, a few lines after lamenting the mortgaging of his grave, Chateaubriand also reports that he has secured an islet in the bay of Saint-Malo, the Grand-Bé, to serve as his burial site. 4 Proposing an arrangement rigorously parallel to the desired legal agreement for the Mémoires, he adds that, should he die outside of France: "I wish that my body not be brought back to my homeland until fifty years after an initial burial" [1:3]. A half-century of silent mourning seemed to be the ideal length of time for the public to wait before discovering, and possibly disturbing, both his mortal remains and his immortal work.Not that this intimate relationship between death and writing resulted from the specific circumstances of the Mémoires. Twenty years earlier, in the second preface to the Essai sur les Révolutions, Chateaubriand had already described himself as "a writer who believed he had reached the end of his life, and who, in the destitution of exile, had nowhere to write, but upon his own gravestone" [7]. The tomb stands for death, just as it stands for Chateaubriand's creative works. In an essay... (shrink)

Understanding the pervasiveness of sin is central to Christian theology. The question of why humans are so sinful given an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God presents a challenge and a puzzle. Here, we investigate Friedrich Schleiermacher’s biocultural evolutionary account of sin. We look at empirical evidence to support it and use the cultural Price equation to provide a naturalistic model of the transmission of sin. This model can help us understand how sin can be ubiquitous and unavoidable, even though (...) it is not biologically transmitted, and even if there is no historical Fall that precipitated the tendency to sin. (shrink)

Background:Nurses working within acute psychiatric settings often face multifaceted moral dilemmas and incompatible demands.Methods:Qualitative individual and focus group interviews were conducted.Ethical considerations:Approval was received from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Ethical Research Guidelines were followed.Participants and research context:Thirty nurses working within acute psychiatric wards in two mental health hospitals.Results:Various coping strategies were used: mentally sorting through their ethical dilemmas or bringing them to the leadership, not ‘bringing problems home’ after work or loyally doing as told and trying to make (...) oneself immune. Colleagues and work climate were important for choice of coping strategies.Discussion:Nurses’ coping strategies may influence both their clinical practice and their private life. Not facing their moral distress seemed to come at a high price.Conclusions:It seems essential for nurses working in acute psychiatric settings to come to terms with distressing events and identify and address the moral issues they face. As moral distress to a great extent is an organisational problem experienced at a personal level, it is important that a work climate is developed that is open for ethical discussions and nourishes adaptive coping strategies and moral resilience. (shrink)

Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation Edited by BeebeeHelen, HitchcockChristopher and PriceHuwOxford University Press, 2017. xii + 336 pp.

Book Review Hélène Landemore : Democratic Reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 279 pages. ISBN 978-0691155654. Price: £27.95.

Revisionist approaches to the ethics of war seem to imply that civilians on the unjust side of a conflict can be legitimate targets of defensive attack. In response, some authors have argued that although civilians do often causally contribute to unjustified global threats – by voting for war, writing propaganda articles, or manufacturing munitions, for example – their contributions are usually too ‘small’, or ‘remote’, to make them liable to be intentionally killed to avert the threat. What defenders of this (...) view lack, however, is a theory of causal contribution. This article sketches and defends a theory of causal contribution. We then apply it to the kinds of situation that defenders of the view are interested in. We argue, however, that since degrees of causal contribution turn out to be sensitive to particular features of the situation that are extrinsic to the agent's action, whether an agent makes a small or a large contribution to a threat may not only be very difficult to discern but in many cases may not line up very well with the kinds of intuition about liability that defenders of the view want to uphold. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is increasingly considered to be integral to development; however, social and cultural norms impact on the extent to which women in developing countries engage with, and accrue the benefits of, entrepreneurial activity. Using data collected from 49 members of a rural social enterprise in North India, we examine the relationships between social entrepreneurship, empowerment and social change. Innovative business processes that facilitated women’s economic activity and at the same time complied with local social and cultural norms that constrain their (...) agency contributed to changing the social order itself. We frame emancipatory social entrepreneurship as processes that empower women and contribute to changing the social order in which women are embedded. (shrink)

The modern view of causation can be traced back to the mechanistic science of Descartes, whose rejection of Aristotelian physics, with its concept of substantial forms, in favor of mechanical explanations was a turning-point in the history of philosophy. However the reasoning which led Descartes and other early moderns in this direction is not well understood. This book traces Descartes' groundbreaking theory of scientific explanation back to the mathematical demonstrations of Aristotelian mechanics and interprets these advances in light of the (...) available arguments for and against substantial forms. It also examines how Descartes' new theory led him to develop a metaphysical foundation for his science that could avoid skeptical objections. It will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the philosophy and science of the early modern period. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Preference utilitarians are concerned to maximize the autonomous choices of individuals; for this reason, they argue that nurses ought to advocate for those patients who desire assistance with ending their lives. This approach prompts us to consider, then, the moral validity of nursing involvement in measures intended to end the lives of patients. In this article, the terms of preference utilitarianism are set out and considered in order to determine whether this approach offers sufficient philosophical support for sanctioning a role (...) for nursing in euthanasia. Ultimately, it is found that preference utilitarianism is lacking in this respect, as well as in its fitness for guiding nursing activity in general. In particular, it is found that nurses are required to exchange a handmaiden relationship with the medical profession for an equally undignified relationship with patients. If nursing involvement in measures intended to end the lives of patients is to find sufficient philosophical support, then we need to look elsewhere. (shrink)

_New Public Management and the Reform of Education_ addresses complex and dynamic changes to public services by focusing on new public management as a major shaper and influencer of educational reforms within, between and across European nation states and policy actors. The contributions to the book are diverse and illustrate the impact of NPM locally but also the interplay between local and European policy spheres. The book offers: A critical overview of NPM through an analysis of debates, projects and policy (...) actors A detailed examination of NPM within 10 nation states in Europe A robust engagement with the national and European features of NPM as a policy strategy The book actively contributes to debates and analysis within critical policy studies about the impact and resilience of NPM, and how through a study of educational reforms in a range of political systems with different traditions and purposes a more nuanced and complex picture of NPM can be built. As such the book not only speaks to educational researchers and professionals within Europe but also to policymakers, and can inform wider education and policy communities internationally. (shrink)

How nursing as a profession is valued may be changing and needs to be explored and understood in a global context. We draw on data from two empirical studies to illustrate our argument. The first study explored the value of nursing globally, the second investigated the experiences of overseas trained nurses recruited to work in a migrant capacity in the UK health care workforce. The indications are that nurses perceive themselves as devalued socially, and that other health care professionals do (...) not give nursing the same status as other, socially more prestigious professions, such as medicine. Organizational and management structures within the NHS and the independent care home sector devalue overseas nurses and the contribution they make to health care. Our conclusions lead us to question the accepted sociocultural value of the global nursing workforce and its perceived contribution to global health care, and to consider two ethical frameworks from which these issues could be discussed further. (shrink)

Poetics of futurism: Zaum, shiftology, nonsense -- Poetics of Deleuze: structure, stoicism, univocity -- The materialist manifesto -- Shiftology #1: from performativity to dramatisation -- Shiftology #2: from metaphor to metamorphosis -- The see-sawing frontier: linguistic spatiotemporalities -- Concllusion: Suffixing, prefixing.

In an earlier article, it was found that the terms of preference utilitarianism are insufficiently sound for guiding nursing activity in general, including in relation to nursing involvement in euthanasia. In this article, I shall examine the terms of a more traditional philosophical approach in order to determine the moral legitimacy, or otherwise, of nursing engagement in measures intended to end the lives of patients. In attempting this task, nursing practice is considered in light of what I shall call a (...) ‘nursing‐as‐healing‐praxis’ approach which includes an account of the moral purpose of nursing and the virtues necessary for realizing that purpose. Ultimately, it is concluded that the terms of this approach rule out the involvement of nurses in euthanasia such that if euthanasia can be justified at all, those outside the nursing profession must provide for its administration. (shrink)

Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of philology and William Gass's concept of transreading, Huiwen (Helen) Zhang employs “transreader” to suggest the integration of four roles in one: reader, translator, writer, and scholar. “Transreader” recognizes that close reading, literary translation, creative writing, and cultural hermeneutics are interdependent activities with intertwined goals: to transfer, transvalue, transform, and transcend the canon. From this perspective, Lu Xun, China's Nietzsche, is a twentieth-century transreader of the canon, and his prose poem “Revenge (The Second)” delivers (...) a self-referential ethics of transreading. Zhang's transreading of this poem shows why slow reading is today more necessary than ever, in what sense translation is a universal dilemma, how humanity grows when its expression grows more subtle, and that transreading opens a space for genuine communication. (shrink)

This paper identifies two conceptions of security in contemporary concerns over the vulnerability of computers and networks to hostile attack. One is derived from individual-focused conceptions of computer security developed in computer science and engineering. The other is informed by the concerns of national security agencies of government as well as those of corporate intellectual property owners. A comparative evaluation of these two conceptions utilizes the theoretical construct of “securitization,”developed by the Copenhagen School of International Relations.

This paper considers the moral status of bystanders affected by medical research trials. Recent proposals advocate a very low threshold of permissible risk imposition upon bystanders that is insensitive to the prospective benefits of the trial, in part because we typically lack bystanders' consent. I argue that the correct threshold of permissible risk will be sensitive to the prospective gains of the trial. I further argue that one does not always need a person's consent to expose her to significant risks (...) of even serious harm for the sake of others. That we typically need the consent of participants is explained by the fact that trials risk harmfully using participants, which is very hard to justify without consent. Bystanders, in contrast, are harmed as a side-effect, which is easier to justify. I then consider whether the degree of risk that a trial may impose on a bystander is sensitive to whether she is a prospective beneficiary of that trial. (shrink)

This is a review of William Hasker's 'The Emergent Self' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).

In 1776, the first living giant anteater to reach Europe arrived in Madrid from Buenos Aires. It survived 6 months in the Real Sitio del Buen Retiro before being transferred to the newly founded Real Gabinete de Historia Natural. In 1853, 77 years later, a second anteater was brought to London by two German showmen and exhibited at a shop in Bloomsbury, where it was visited by the novelist Charles Dickens. The animal was subsequently purchased by the Zoological Society of (...) London, which classed it as one of the most important additions to the menagerie since its formation in 1828. Drawing on recent work in animal biography, this article assesses the reception of the two anteaters and considers their cultural and scientific significance. I examine the logistics of the exotic animal trade and trace the transatlantic networks that permitted anteaters-and knowledge about them-to move between continents. I also study the modes of representation, from painting to taxidermy, that enabled the anteaters to reach new audiences. By focusing in detail on the lives of two exceptional anteaters, the article illuminates understandings of the species more broadly and shows how different spaces and places shaped the creation and dissemination of zoological knowledge. I emphasise, in particular, the tensions that emerged between imperial and colonial science and the competing knowledge regimes of the natural history museum, the menagerie, and the field. (shrink)

Originally published in 1940, this book contains a succinct introduction to Boethius, the influential medieval philosopher who was writing during the final days of the Western Roman Empire. Barrett keeps the general reader in mind as she explains Boethius' philosophy and his role in keeping Greek thinking available to his fellow Romans even as they were being conquered by the Ostrogoths. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in ancient thought and in Late Antique philosophy.

Feminist standpoint theory has a troubled history that has limited its use and development as a core feminist epistemological project. This article revisits debates from its past, and re-examines an apparent central problem: that of the realism identifiable in FST. Looking closely at the criticism leveled against one particular standpoint theorist—Nancy Hartsock—I show the criticism not only to be unfounded, as has previously been argued, but also unnecessary. I demonstrate that the accusations of supposedly realist contradictions in Hartsock's work are (...) easily resolvable by engagement with critical realism. I argue that CR not only accommodates Hartsock's conception of realism, and so dissolves any contention, but that CR complements and shores up FST's central claim: that situated knowledge carries with it an epistemic privilege. Another contemporary conception of realism is being developed—New Materialism —that, it could be argued, would also be a suitable ontology with which to develop FST. I show how NM could present problems for FST as a fundamentally political project, and conclude that CR offers a more fruitful future collaboration for FST. (shrink)

The development of bioethics primarily at the cognitive level further perpetuates the tendency to construe all aspects of our lives, including our bodies, as technical systems. For example, if we consider the moral issue of organ sales without taking our embodiment into account, there appear to be no sound arguments for opposing such sales. However, it is important to consider the aspects of the phenomenal body that challenge rational deliberation by exploring an embodied approach to the ethical dilemma produced by (...) a proposed kidney exchange as presented in one of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog films. What is sought is a description of a body-measure that would serve as a critique of strictly cognitive bioethical deliberations. (shrink)