Warming temperatures in the circumpolar north have led to new discussions around climate-driven frontiers for agriculture. In this paper, we situate northern food systems in Canada within the corporate food regime and settler colonialism, and contend that an expansion of the conventional, industrial agriculture paradigm into the Canadian North would have significant socio-cultural and ecological consequences. We propose agroecology as an alternative framework uniquely accordant with northern contexts. In particular, we suggest that there are elements of agroecology that are already (...) being practiced in northern Indigenous communities as part of traditional hunter-gatherer food systems. We present a framework for agroecology in the North and discuss its components of environmental stewardship, economies, knowledge, social dimensions and governance using examples from the Dehcho region, Northwest Territories, Canada. Finally, we discuss several challenges and cautions in creating policy around agroecology in the North and encourage community-based research in developing and testing this framework moving forward. (shrink)

Most people have a clear sense of what they mean by disability, and have little trouble identifying conditions they consider disabling. Yet providing a clear and consistent definition of disability is far from straightforward. Standardly, disability is understood as the restriction in our abilities to perform tasks, as a result of an impairment of normal physical or cognitive human functioning. However, which inabilities matter? We are all restricted by our bodies, and are all incapable of performing some tasks, but most (...) of these inabilities are not considered disabilities. If, then, we are to avoid the category of disability becoming overly broad—and thus politically and practically useless—we need some way of picking out the specific inabilities that are disabling. I argue that our answer should be informed by an account of the opportunities individuals are entitled to be able to perform as a matter of justice. Thus, to be disabled is to have these opportunities restricted, and not to deviate from the species norm or lack any ability that might improve our well-being. (shrink)

In this essay we argue against preventing people from amassing extreme wealth via increased taxation. The first argument in favor of such a proposal, recently advanced by Ingrid Robeyns (2018), states that billionaires’ resources would be better spent addressing morally important goals such as meeting disadvantaged people’s needs and solving collective action problems. In response to this claim, we argue that billionaires are typically in a better position to benefit the poor and to solve collective action problems than public officials. (...) The second argument in favor of preventing extreme wealth accumulation, advanced by Robeyns and Robert Reich (2018), states that billionaires have an inappropriate amount of influence in public life, which undermines political equality. We argue that corporate leaders tend to be more accountable to their fellow citizens than public officials. We then consider and criticize the objection that billionaires’ success is typically a result of public investment, which entitles public officials to enforce taxes that demand a return on the public investment. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 24 Seat belt mandates seem like a paradigmatic case of justified paternalism. Even those who generally object to paternalism often concede that seat belt laws are justified. Against this near-consensus in favor of mandates, I argue that seat belt laws are unjust and public officials should not enforce them. The most plausible exceptions to a principle of anti-paternalism do not justify seat belt mandates. Some argue that seat belt mandates are not paternalistic because unbelted riders are (...) not fully autonomous. Others claim that the decision to ride unbelted harms other people. Yet these attempts to defend seat belt mandates on non-paternalistic grounds cannot overcome the case against seat belt mandates. I therefore conclude that _even_ seat belt mandates are unjust. With this comprehensive case against seat belt mandates, I demonstrate the more general difficulties in justifying any form of coercive paternalism. (shrink)

The computer revolution has had an enormous effect on all aspects of the practice of medicine, yet little thought has been given to the role of social media in identifying treatment choices for incompetent patients. We are currently living in the ?Internet age? and many people have integrated social media into all aspects of their lives. As use becomes more prevalent, and as users age, social media are more likely to be viewed as a source of information regarding medical care (...) preferences. This article explores the ethical and legal issues raised by the use of social media in surrogate decision making. (shrink)

I argue that it is permissible for pregnant women to expose their unborn children to risks and injury. I begin with the premise that abortion is permissible. If so, then just as a pregnant woman may permissibly prevent an unborn child from experiencing any future wellbeing, she also may permissibly provide her child relatively poorer prospects for wellbeing. Therefore, it is permissible for pregnant women to take risks and cause prenatal injury. This argument has revisionary implications for policies that prevent (...) medical research and drug use during pregnancy. It also explains why moralistic criticism of pregnant women is unwarranted. (shrink)

The actions performed by individuals, as consumers and citizens, have aggregate negative consequences for the environment. The question asked in this paper is to what extent it is reasonable to hold individuals and institutions responsible for environmental problems. A distinction is made between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility. Previously, individuals were not seen as being responsible for environmental problems, but an idea that is now sometimes implicitly or explicitly embraced in the public debate on environmental problems is that individuals are appropriate (...) targets for blame when they perform actions that are harmful to the environment. This idea is criticized in this paper. It is argued that instead of blaming individuals for performing actions that are not environmentally friendly we should ascribe forward-looking responsibility to individuals, a notion that focuses more on capacity and resources than causation and blameworthiness. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that a great share of forward-looking responsibility should also be ascribed to institutional agents, primarily governments and corporations. The urge to ascribe forward-looking responsibility to institutional agents is motivated by the efficiency aim of responsibility distributions. Simply put, if responsibility is ascribed to governments and corporations there is a better chance of creating a society in which the opportunities to act in an environmentally friendly way increase. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that prescription drug laws violate patients' rights to self-medication. Patients have rights to self-medication for the same reasons they have rights to refuse medical treatment according to the doctrine of informed consent (DIC). Since we should accept the DIC, we ought to reject paternalistic prohibitions of prescription drugs and respect the right of self-medication. In section 1, I frame the puzzle of self-medication; why don't the same considerations that tell in favour of informed consent also (...) justify a right of self-medication? In section 2, I show that the prescription drug system was historically motivated by paternalism. In section 3, I outline the justifications for the DIC in more detail. I show that consequentialist, epistemic, and deontic considerations justify the DIC. In sections 4–6, I argue that these considerations also justify rights of self-medication. I then propose that rights of self-medication require non-prohibitive prescription policies in section 7. I consider two objections in sections 8 and 9: that patients ought not to make medically risky or deadly decisions, and that unrestricted access to prescription-grade pharmaceuticals would result in widespread misuse and abuse. Section 10 concludes. (shrink)

Friedrich Hayek’s account of “spontaneous order” has generated increasing interest in recent decades. His argument for the superiority of the market in distributing knowledge without the need for central oversight has appealed to progressive democratic theorists, who are wary of the hubris of state planning and attracted to possibilities for self-organization, and to Foucaultians, who have long counseled political theory to cut off the King’s head. A spontaneous social order, organized by an invisible hand, would appear to dispense with arbitrary (...) power and foster creativity and individual liberty. This article challenges this view by highlighting the centrality of submission to Hayek’s account of spontaneous order. It shows that Hayek struggles to obscure the providentialism underpinning the account of social order he derives from Adam Ferguson and the Scottish Enlightenment. Nonetheless, his own account of spontaneous order relies on faith in the workings of the market, and submission to unintelligible market forces. (shrink)

Recent arguments for the basic status of economic liberty can be deployed to show that all liberty is basic. The argument for the basic status of all liberty is as follows. First, John Tomasi’s defense of basic economic liberties is successful. Economic freedom can be further defended against powerful high liberal objections, which libertarians including Tomasi have so far overlooked. Yet arguments for basic economic freedom raise a puzzle about the distinction between basic and non-basic liberties. The same reasons that (...) economic liberties and the traditionally defined list of basic liberties are basic can also be given for all other liberties. Therefore, high liberals and Rawlsian libertarians ought to accept almost all other liberties as basic, even liberties that may strike us as trivial, silly, or unimportant. This claim has revisionary implications for high liberalism. Namely, liberals should endorse strong institutional protections for almost all liberties, even at the expense of other social values. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 1, pp 64 - 86 Five times in the extant corpus, Aristotle refers to a distinction between two ways of being a ‘that for the sake of which’ that he sometimes marks by using genitive and dative pronouns. Commentators almost universally say that this is the distinction between an aim and beneficiary. I propose that Aristotle had a quite different distinction in mind, namely: that which holds between something and the aim or objective it is (...) in the business of producing or achieving, and that which holds between some instrument and the user of that instrument. (shrink)

Despite his awareness that organisms are well suited to the habitats they are typically found in, Aristotle nowhere tries to explain this. It is unlikely that he thinks this “fit” (as I call it) between organisms and their habitats is simply a lucky coincidence, given how vehemently he rejects that as an explanation of the fit between organisms’ various body parts. But it is quite puzzling that Aristotle never explicitly addresses this, since it is a question that seemed so pressing (...) to later philosophers and biologists such as Darwin. In this paper I offer a solution to that puzzle. As I argue, the type of habitat an organism lives in is partly constitutive of its essence or nature. The reason Aristotle does not ask, for instance, why marsh-dweller birds live in marshes, is that it is simply constitutive of their nature that they do so. Given that habitat is built into a kind’s essence, the answer to such a question is obvious and the question would have seemed to him trivial. By attending to the details of his biological treatises, I show that Aristotle’s conception of a living being’s essence is much more nuanced than one can glean from his discussions in the Physics and Metaphysics alone. (shrink)

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork among Japanese Shin Buddhists who have an enduring commitment to volunteering with Hansen's disease patients in Japan and its former colonies. I trace the negotiation of emotions in this Jōdo Shinshū ethical context, identifying the Buddhist, Japanese, and global liberal vocabularies that ascribe moral value to various emotional responses to suffering and injustice. I argue that for these Buddhists, companionship rather than compassion serves as both an ethical ideal and a focal point of emotional (...) practice. (shrink)

_Offers a striking new reading of Agamben’s political thought and its implications for political action in the present._.

Public officials should compensate the victims of wrongful conviction and enforcement. The same considerations in favor of compensating people for wrongful conviction and enforcement in other cases support officials’ payment of reparations to the victims of unjust enforcement practices related to the drug war. First, we defend the claim that people who are convicted and incarcerated because of an unjust law are wrongfully convicted. Although their convictions do not currently qualify as wrongful convictions in the legal sense, we argue that (...) the same reasons for legally recognizing other wrongful convictions support conceiving of these cases as wrongful convictions. If so, then people who suffered wrongful convictions associated with unjust laws, like others who were wrongfully convicted, are entitled to compensation and reparation. We then argue that America’s drug laws are unjust laws. Therefore, people who were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses are entitled to compensation. (shrink)

This article responds to Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke’s recent critique of Political Marxism and their proposal for an alternative, ‘radical agency-centred’ historicism. While sympathetic to the critiques raised by the authors, I am less convinced by the conclusions they reach. Rather than abandon Political Marxism altogether, I argue that there remains much of value in the tradition. Through an analysis of the differential path of capitalist development in settler-colonial Canada, I suggest that bringing the methodological insights of Uneven and (...) Combined Development to bear on the theoretical material of Political Marxism can alleviate the problems identified by the authors. (shrink)

The suggestion that individuals should be considered disadvantaged, and consequently entitled to compensation, only if they consider themselves disadvantaged (Dworkin’s ‘continuity test’) is initially appealing. However, it also faces problems. First, if individuals are routinely mistaken, then we routinely fail to assist the deserving. Second, if individuals assess their circumstances differently then the state will provide different levels of assistance to people in identical situations. Thus, should we instead ignore individuals’ convictions and provide assistance that some, at least, do not (...) feel they need? One set of cases where this dilemma is salient are those in which disabled individuals disagree over whether they are disadvantaged. Focussing on these, I argue that despite objections, individuals should have a voice in determining whether they are disadvantaged. However, I contend that our goal should not be ensuring continuity with individuals’ ethical convictions (concerning the pursuits they deem worthwhile or valuable), but their convictions regarding whether they are relevantly disadvantaged (whether they have what they are entitled to). (shrink)

This article argues for an interpretation of Aristotle’s biological account of familial resemblance that allows us to read Aristotle’s embryology as employing the same concept of “form” as he employs in his Metaphysics. The dominant view for the last several decades has been that in order to account for the phenomenon of inherited characteristics, Aristotle’s biology must appeal to a “sub-specific” form, one that includes all of the traits that parents pass on to their offspring. That view, however, is not (...) only inconsistent with Aristotle’s essentialist metaphysics, but it also renders the embryological theory internally inconsistent. The interpretation I offer avoids both inconsistencies, and better coheres with what he actually says in Generation of Animals. (shrink)

This paper argues that individuals in many high-income countries typically have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and consume plant-based protein instead, given the negative effects of beef production and consumption. Beef production is a significant source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, high levels of beef consumption are associated with health risks, and some cattle production systems raise animal welfare concerns. These negative effects matter, from a variety of moral perspectives, and give us collective moral (...) reasons to reduce beef production and consumption. But, as some ethicists have argued, we cannot draw a straight line from the ethics of production to the ethics of consumption: even if a production system is morally impermissible, this does not mean that any given individual has moral reasons to stop consuming the products of that system, given how miniscule one individual’s contributions are. This paper considers how to connect those dots. We consider three distinct lines of argument in support of the conclusion that individuals have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and shift to plant-based protein, and we consider objections to each argument. This argument applies to individuals in high beef-consuming and high greenhouse gas-emitting high-income countries, though we make this argument with a specific focus on the United States. (shrink)

Between his calling into question, on the one hand, the apparently unquestionable value of compassion itself, and his refusal, on the other hand, to concede that suffering is unconditionally bad, Nietzsche has been understood by many as expressing a callous indifference, or worse, to most human suffering. This article aims to show that this interpretation relies on an oversimplified characterization of the relevant moral emotions. Compassion (or pity, either of which word can be used to translate the German das Mitleid) (...) is ‘a polyphonous being’, as Nietzsche insists in Daybreak (1881). A closer look at some key passages in Nietzsche’s text, and some help from Greek thinkers Nietzsche points us toward, will demonstrate that this term has meanings that have been lost to us. Recovering those meanings will shed light both on Nietzsche’s critique of compassion (or pity) and on his own attitude toward suffering. (shrink)

Over the past 25 years, there has been growing recognition of the importance of studying the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of genetic and genomic research. A large investment into ELSI research from the National Institutes of Health Human Genomic Project budget in 1990 stimulated the growth of this emerging field; ELSI research has continued to develop and is starting to emerge as a field in its own right. The evolving subject matter of ELSI research continues to raise new research (...) questions as well as prompt re-evaluation of earlier work and a growing number of scholars working in this area now identify themselves as ELSI scholars rather than with a particular discipline. Due to the international and interdisciplinary nature of ELSI research, scholars can often find themselves isolated from disciplinary or regionally situated support structures. We conducted a workshop with Early Career Researchers in Oxford, UK, and this paper discusses some of the particular challenges that were highlighted. While ELSI ECRs may face many of the universal challenges faced by ECRs, we argue that a number of challenges are either unique or exacerbated in the case of ELSI ECRs and discuss some of the reasons as to why this may be the case. We identify some of the most pressing issues for ELSI ECRs as: interdisciplinary angst and expertise, isolation from traditional support structures, limited resources and funding opportunities, and uncertainty regarding how research contributions will be measured. We discuss the potential opportunity to use web 2.0 technologies to transform academic support structures and address some of the challenges faced by ELSI ECRs, by helping to facilitate mentoring and support, access to resources and new accreditation metrics. As our field develops it is crucial for the ELSI community to continue looking forward to identify how emerging digital solutions can be used to facilitate the international and interdisciplinary research we perform, and to offer support for those embarking on, progressing through, and transitioning into an ELSI research career. (shrink)

I argue that young patients should be able to access neuroenhancing drugs without a diagnosis of ADHD. The current framework of consent for pediatric patients can be adapted to accommodate neuroenhancement. After a brief overview of pediatric neuroenhancement, I develop three arguments in favor of greater acceptance of neuroenhancement for young patients. First, ADHD is not relevantly different from other disadvantages that could be treated with stimulant medication. Second, establishing a legitimate framework for pediatric neuroenhancement would mitigate the bad effects (...) of diversion and improve research on neuroenhancement and ADHD. Third, some pediatric patients have rights to access neuroenhancements. I then consider several objections to pediatric neuroenhancement. I address concerns about addiction, advertising, authentic development, the parent–child relationship and equal opportunity and conclude that these concerns may inform a framework for prescribing neuroenhancement but they do not justify limits on prescribing. (shrink)

_Offers a striking new reading of Agamben’s political thought and its implications for political action in the present._.

Aging transcends and intersects all structured social differences as a fluid complex of positionalities: a temporal situatedness in relation to gender, class, race, and sexuality. Age's operation as an organizing principle of power remains undertheorized in feminist philosophy. This article employs a geographical lens to spatialize feminist thought on old age to enrich understanding of factors underpinning expectations and practices of what particular bodies can and should do in particular spaces. Vignettes from twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork with six older (...) individuals in a midwestern American city demonstrate the utility of advancing not just an embodied feminist philosophy of aging, but one that is emplaced to deepen understanding of the body as situated in time and space. A person's situatedness in dynamic place-events, ranging from daily life at home and engagement in supportive social spaces to experiences of discrimination and even inclement weather, produce distinct ways of being old. Investigating intimate geographies of later life from the micro to macro scale can help destabilize and challenge the objectification, control, and Othering of old people, the majority of whom are female. This article contributes greater “body a-where-ness” to feminist philosophy and stimulates novel investigation into the spatiotemporal situatedness of later life. (shrink)

O povo Kaingang é o mais populoso do Sul do Brasil e está entre os mais numerosos povos indígenas do país. Neste trabalho faz-se uma relação entre as informações encontradas na literatura e a atualidade na Terra Indígena Kaingang em relação ao conhecimento que possuem sobre o uso de plantas para a cura de doenças e como interpretam a ação da erva no organismo. Para isto, realizou-se uma pesquisa de campo em uma Terra Indígena Kaingang no Paraná, cujo entrevistas forneceram (...) confirmações históricas em relação aos etnoconhecimentos da etnia, da evolução dos aspectos químicos e das atitudes perante a química e os remédios de origem farmacêutica e natural. (shrink)

Is disability disadvantageous? Although many assume it is paradigmatically so, many disabled individuals disagree. Whom should we trust? On the one hand, pervasive mistrust of already underrepresented groups constitutes a serious epistemic injustice. Yet, on the other, individuals routinely adapt to mistreatment and deprivation and claim to be satisfied. If we take such “adaptive preferences” (APs) at face value, then injustice and oppression may not be recognized or rectified. Thus, we must achieve a balance between taking individuals’ preferences and self-assessment (...) as definitive, and ignoring them entirely. Furthermore, current accounts of APs suffer from an ambiguity: are APs an unreliable guide to individuals’ interests, or to just policy? This chapter argues that we should distinguish between those that are unreliable in the former sense (“well-being APs”), and the latter (“justice APs”). Although all APs are nonautonomous, only well-being APs are irrational. Thus, preferences may be diagnosed as unreliable from the perspective of justice without impugning individuals’ rational capacities. (shrink)

I argue that public officials and health workers ought to respect and protect women’s rights to make risky choices during childbirth. Women’s rights to make treatment decisions ought to be respected even if their decisions expose their unborn children to unnecessary risks, and even if it is wrong to put unborn children at risk. I first defend a presumption of medical autonomy in the context of childbirth. I then draw on women’s birth stories to show that women’s medical autonomy is (...) often ignored during labor. Medical interventions are performed during childbirth without women’s consent. Childbirth is risky and some coercive medical interventions may be understood as attempts to protect children and to prevent mothers from acting impermissibly. However, even if it is wrong to make risky choices during childbirth, women have rights to do wrong in these cases. Therefore, coercive medical interventions are impermissible during childbirth and institutions should adopt specific protections for obstetric autonomy. (shrink)

Background:Breastfeeding is currently strongly recommended by midwives and paediatricians, and the recommendations are based on documents provided by the World Health Organization and public health authorities worldwide.Research question:The underlying question is, how are non-breastfeeding mothers affected emotionally when informed that breastfeeding is the safest and healthiest option?Research design:The method used is an anonymous web-based qualitative survey exploring the narratives of non-breastfeeding mothers, published on Thesistools.com. The aim is to achieve qualitative knowledge about the emotions of non-breastfeeding mothers.Participants and research context:Participants (...) were based in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and were selected through a purposeful sample.Ethical considerations:The online survey anonymizes responses automatically, and all respondents had to tick a box agreeing to be quoted anonymously in scientific articles. The study conforms to research ethics guidelines.Findings:Respondents describe how they were affected, and the following themes emerged in studying their descriptions: depression, anxiety and pain, feeling failed as a mother and woman, loss of freedom/feeling trapped, relief and guilt.Discussion:The themes are discussed against the background of the ethics of care and a theory of ethically responsible risk communication.Conclusion:Three conclusions are made. First, the message should become more empathetic. Second, information should be given in an attentive dialogue. Third, information providers should evaluate effects in a more inclusive way. (shrink)

A great deal of research has examined computer-mediated communication discussions in educational environments for evidence of learning. These studies have often been disappointing, with analysts not finding the kinds of ‘quality’ talk that they had hoped for. In this study we draw upon elements of discursive psychology as we oriented to what was happening in the talk from the participants’ perspective in addition to what should be happening from the researcher/instructor perspective. We examine the talk of undergraduate nutrition science students (...) within web logs, exploring ways in which the students, when asked to make blog posts on their beliefs about and experiences with dietary supplements, display knowing in dynamic and fluid ways. We analyzed 152 blog posts students were asked to make prior to attending the lecture on the topic. Our findings point to how students negotiate and at times resist doing being a knowledgeable student, using disclaimers such as ‘I don’t know’ and script formulations to minimize accountability for their posts. Our findings highlight how students oriented to the blogs as a venue for institutional talk, responding to the required academic task while simultaneously managing their identities as students. (shrink)

:Self-ownership theorists argue that many of our most morally urgent and enforceable rights stem from the fact that we own ourselves. Critics of self-ownership argue that the claim that people own their bodies commits self-ownership theorists to several implausible conclusions because self-ownership theory relies on several vague moral predicates, and any precisification of the required predicates is seemingly too permissive or too restrictive. I argue that this line of criticism does not undermine the case for self-ownership theory because self-ownership theory (...) does not require precisification of each moral concept that it is based on and, even if it did, the theory’s alleged extensional inadequacy does not undermine its justification. (shrink)

Risks, including health and technological, attract a lot of attention in modern societies, from individuals as well as policy-makers. Human beings have always had to deal with dangers, but contemporary societies conceptualise these dangers as risks, indicating that they are to some extent controllable and calculable. Conceiving of dangers in this way implies a need to analyse how we hold people responsible for risks and how we can and should take responsibility for risks. Moral Responsibility and Risk in Societycombines philosophical (...) discussion of different concepts and notions of responsibility with context-specific applications in the areas of health, technology and environment. The book consists of two parts addressing two crucial aspects of risks and responsibility: holding agents responsible, i.e. ascribing and distributing responsibility for risks and taking responsibility for risk. More specifically, the book discusses the values of fairness and efficacy in responsibility distributions and makes distinctions between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility as well as individual and collective responsibility. Additionally, it analyses what it means to take responsibility for technological risks, conceptualizing this kind of responsibility as a virtue, and furthermore, explores the notion of responsible risk communication and the implications for adult-child relationships. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, bioethics, public health ethics, engineering ethics, philosophy of risk and moral philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter addresses an interpretive question about why Aristotle identifies generation, growth and nourishment as the three distinct functions or activities of nutritive soul. Scholars typically try to explain this by appealing to the shared goal of these activities, though there is no consensus about what that goal is: Does Aristotle think that generation is a way of keeping oneself alive (and thus that the shared goal is self-maintenance), or is nourishment really a quasi-generative activity (and thus that the shared (...) goal is “form (re)production”)? Rather than taking that approach, Gelber offers a different but complementary way of accounting for the unity of these activities, by focussing on the continuity of their shared physiological basis. As it is argued here, the fact that these biological processes form a continuous cycle stems from Aristotle’s adherence, in his biological theory, to principles from his hylomorphic metaphysics. Attending to the details in works such as Generation of Animals that focus on the mechanisms underlying generation, growth and nourishment, it is shown how we can construct a coherent account of the unity of the three nutritive soul activities. (shrink)

This argues for a reading of PA I.1, 639b11-640a9 as a continuous argument, which I divide into 3 main sections. Aristotle’s point in the first section is that teleological explanations should precede non-teleological explanations in the order of exposition. His reasoning is that the ends cited in teleological explanations are definitions, and definitions—which are not subject to further explanation—are appropriate starting points, insofar as they prevent explanations from going on ad infinitum. Moreover, I argue that Aristotle proceeds in the following (...) two sections to criticize certain non-teleological accounts offered by his predecessors on the grounds that they are explanatorily defective: I take Aristotle’s complaints to be that those accounts—unlike teleological explanations—neither begin from appropriate starting points nor entail the phenomena that they purport to explain. Along the way, I am defending an alternative way of understanding what "hypothetical necessity" refers to, for Aristotle. Comments are welcome! (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 10, Page W1-W2, October 2012.

Disability through the Lens of Justice offers a contextual framework for considering the limitations that disability places on individuals. Specifically, those that prevent individuals from having control in certain domains of their life, by restricting the availability of acceptable options or the ability to choose between them. Begon argues that our theory of justice should be concerned with the lives individuals can lead, and not with whether their bodies and minds function typically. The problem that disability raises is not the (...) mere fact of difference, but the ways in which that difference is accommodated (or not) and the limitations it may cause. In Disability Through the Lens of Justice, Begon offers a new framework to the disability and justice model. She argues that achieving justice does not require 'normalisation', or the elimination of difference, but through implementating a model which enables all individuals to control their lives as they choose. (shrink)

The papers published in this issue were presented at North American Nietzsche Society (NANS) sessions held in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association from the end of 2007 through 2009. I would like to thank Richard Schacht and the other members of the program committee for their continued service to Nietzsche studies, and I thank Cameron Smith for invaluable editorial assistance in the production of this issue. The first three papers published here were presented on December (...) 29, 2007 at the Eastern Division Meeting in Baltimore, where NANS held an ‘Author Meets Critics’ session devoted to a discussion of Robert B. Pippin’s Nietzsche, moraliste français: La conception .. (shrink)

Concerted, timely action for mitigating climate change is of uttermost importance to keep global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible. Air traffic already plays a strong role in driving climate change and is projected to grow—with only limited technical potential for decarbonizing this means of transport. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the expansion of air traffic or even facilitate a reduction in affluent countries. Effective policies and behavioral change, especially among frequent flyers, can help to lower greenhouse gas (...) emissions. For both, a positive evaluation and public support is indispensable. This study contributes to understanding air travel behavior and the perception of regulative policies. We examined the role of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, efficacy, global identity, and justice concerns for intentions to avoid flights and aviation-related environmental policy support. We conducted an online survey study with a quota sample of N = 2,530 participants in Germany. The strongest positive predictors of intentions to refrain from flying and policy support were perceived behavioral control to travel without flying, efficacy beliefs that avoiding air travel contributes to climate change mitigation, and intergenerational justice concerns; pro-travel attitude was a negative predictor. Moreover, we tested whether the provision of additional information on climate impact, global and intranational inequalities as well as subsidies affected the intention to avoid air travel and policy support. We found no effects of the different types of information. Nor did we find an interaction between the type of information provided and global or national identity. Our results highlight the need for a shift within the mobility sector that facilitates attractive and accessible transport alternatives in order to strengthen people’s behavioral control to choose other means than planes and their efficacy perceptions. Moreover, raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on future generations and developing strategies to promote people’s concern for intergenerational justice might motivate people to reduce air travel and thereby contribute to a livable future for new generations. (shrink)