In “Ethics Consultation in U.S. Hospitals: Opinions of Ethics Practitioners,” Fox and colleagues note that despite efforts of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities to impr...

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory . The topics covered herein_from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism_are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

YOUNG L, and WHARF HIGGINS J.Nursing Inquiry2010;17: 346–358 Using participatory research to challenge the status quo for women’s cardiovascular healthCardiovascular health research has been dominated by medical and patriarchal paradigms, minimizing a broader perspective of causes of disease. Socioeconomic status as a risk for cardiovascular disease is well established by research, yet these findings have had little influence. Participatory research (PR) that frames mixed method research has potential to bring contextualized clinically relevant findings into program planning and policy‐making arenas toward (...) developing meaningful health and social policies relevant to primary prevention. In this article we provide an overview of a PR program that included two quantitative and one qualitative studies and then we discuss lessons learned. The PR process we found was empowering for lone mothers, and transformative for lone mothers and researchers. Further, PR as an approach to research opened spaces in practice and policy‐making arenas to raise upstream issues relevant to the health of low income lone mothers. We conclude that while PR is an effective approach to social determinants research, as a time‐intensive endeavor, and one that does not easily align with research tradition, researchers must consider the strengths and drawbacks of PR when planning to implement such an approach. (shrink)

As of December 1991, the Patient Self-Determination Act mandated that health care institutions which receive funding from Medicare or Medicaid provide written information about persons rights to participate in medical decision-making and formulate advance directives. The PSDA required each state…acting through a State agency, association, or other private nonprofit entity develop a written description of the law of the State concerning advance directives that would be distributed by providers or organizations under the requirements of [the Act].

As of December 1991, the Patient Self-Determination Act mandated that health care institutions which receive funding from Medicare or Medicaid provide written information about persons rights to participate in medical decision-making and formulate advance directives. The PSDA required each state…acting through a State agency, association, or other private nonprofit entity develop a written description of the law of the State concerning advance directives that would be distributed by providers or organizations under the requirements of [the Act].

This two-wave study investigated the temporal interplay between motivation and the intensity and reported impact of athletes’ emotions in training settings. In total, 217 athletes completed self-report measures of motivational climate, motivation regulations, emotional states (i.e., pleasant states, anger, and anxiety) experienced before practice at two time points during a 3-month period. Latent change score modeling revealed significantly negative paths from task-involving climate at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of dysfunctional anxiety and anger, and significantly positive (...) paths from ego-involving climate at time 1 to the latent change in dysfunctional anger (i.e., intensity and reported impact). The paths from controlled motivation at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of dysfunctional anxiety and vice versa were significantly positive. The path from controlled motivation at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of functional anger was significantly positive, but not vice versa. In addition, the paths from dysfunctional anger (i.e., intensity and reported impact) at time 1 to the latent change in motivation regulations were significant, but not vice versa. Overall, evidence provided suggested that the temporal interplay of motivation and emotions is contingent on the specific emotions. The findings highlight the role of coach-created motivational climate and the importance of identifying high levels of controlled motivation to help athletes better adapt to psychological stress. (shrink)

The lockdown resulting from coronavirus disease 2019 has had a huge impact on peoples’ health. In sport specifically, athletes have had to deal with frustration of their objectives and changes in their usual training routines. The challenging and disruptive situation could hold implications for their well-being. This study examined the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on changes in athletes’ reported eudaimonic well-being and goal motives over time. The relationship of resilience to changes in subjective vitality was also determined, and changes (...) in athletes’ goal motives were examined as potential mediators. Participants were 127 Spanish university athletes aged between 18 and 34 years. Approximately 4 months before the start of the lockdown in Spain, athletes responded to a questionnaire assessing their resilience, goal motives, and subjective vitality. Around 6 months later into the lockdown period, athletes’ goal motives and subjective vitality were assessed again. Growth modeling using hierarchical linear models revealed a significant decrease of autonomous goal motives and subjective vitality during the lockdown, but athletes did not show change over time in controlled goal motives. Path analysis, adjusting T2 measures for their corresponding T1 measures, showed that resilience significantly predicted changes in athletes’ autonomous goal motives, which then accounted for changes in subjective vitality. The indirect effect was significant. Resilience did not predict changes in athletes’ controlled goal motives. However, changes in controlled goal motives negatively predicted changes in subjective vitality during lockdown. The findings suggest negative impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on athletes’ goal motives and eudaimonic well-being. Results also support the hypothesized mediational role of autonomous goal motives in the relationship between resilience and subjective vitality during the lockdown. As such, findings confirm the relevance of resilience to a key feature of athletes’ eudaimonic well-being and the importance of enhancing their autonomous goal striving. (shrink)

This piece comprises short presentations given by contributors to a symposium organized by the journal Ethics & Social Welfare on the theme of global ethics for social work. The contributors offer their reflections on the extent to which universally accepted international statements of ethical principles in social work are possible or useful, engaging with debates about cultural diversity, relativism and the relevance of human rights in non-Western countries.

This paper is one of four interrelated papers resulting from the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control convened in June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society of Law, Medicine, Ethics. Each of the papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities for public health practitioners; legal competencies public health practitioners and legal and policy decision makers need (...) for use of these laws and authorities; crossdisciplinary and cross-jurisdiction coordination of law-based public health actions; and information on public health law best practices. Collectively, they are referenced as the “white papers.”Our purpose is to offer action options that will help to improve the legal competencies of public health practitioners and policy decision makers with respect to drafting, interpreting. (shrink)

This paper is one of four interrelated papers resulting from the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control convened in June 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Society of Law, Medicine, Ethics. Each of the papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities for public health practitioners; legal competencies public health practitioners and legal and policy decision makers need (...) for use of these laws and authorities; crossdisciplinary and cross-jurisdiction coordination of law-based public health actions; and information on public health law best practices. Collectively, they are referenced as the “white papers.”Our purpose is to offer action options that will help to improve the legal competencies of public health practitioners and policy decision makers with respect to drafting, interpreting. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar la idea de tiempo en Levinas, vinculándola con el deseo metafísico. Ambos rompen con las concepciones de la filosofía tradicional y abren otro modo de concebir la ética. En la obra de Levinas la ética es una forma «responsiva» capaz de conservar el espíritu de respuesta. Es una ética en la que no sólo el sujeto, el Yo, es puesto en duda, sino que también se cuestiona el espacio entre nosotros. Este cuestionamiento (...) es el fruto de la demanda (A n s p r u c h), demanda que surge a la vez como «petición de» o «reclamación» de algo y como «apelación a» alguien. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar la idea de tiempo en Levinas, vinculándola con el deseo metafísico. Ambos rompen con las concepciones de la filosofía tradicional y abren otro modo de concebir la ética. En la obra de Levinas la ética es una forma «responsiva» capaz de conservar el espíritu de respuesta. Es una ética en la que no sólo el sujeto, el Yo, es puesto en duda, sino que también se cuestiona el espacio entre nosotros. Este cuestionamiento (...) es el fruto de la demanda (A n s p r u c h), demanda que surge a la vez como «petición de» o «reclamación» de algo y como «apelación a» alguien. (shrink)

Speech is a major vehicle for enacting and enforcing misogyny, so can counter-speech stop the harms of misogynist speech? This paper starts with a discussion of the nature of misogyny, from Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Frye, up to K. Manne’s new work, here emphasizing the ways that women are attacked or undermined through speech and images. Misogyny becomes toxic when it sharply and steadily limits the life prospects, including daily functioning, of the women it targets. To address the questions of counter-speech, (...) one first needs a robust account of language—it’s power, how it functions, whether it can actually be gainsaid. Once the speech act is issued, can its damage be un-done, or substantially mitigated? To answer this, one must understand the kinds of harms that language achieves, and the kinds of counter-speech available. That is, one needs an understanding of how the speech of misogyny functions, rooted in a theory of how language works. This article offers a brief account of language as a complex set of social practices, which includes the speech of law, and an account of the power and limits of counter-speech. I argue that it is unhelpful to think in terms of free speech vs. censorship. Speech is not completely free, and censorship is a blunt tool. Instead, we should look at the ways that discursive harms are enacted and what kinds of normative changes could minimize the frequency of assault, and which changes might minimize the power of misogyny. (shrink)

Explaining Attitudes offers an important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Lynne Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach - practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that interprets beliefs as either brain states or states of immaterial souls is (...) a 'non-starter'. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of the whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality. (shrink)

relation between, say, a lump of clay and a statue that it makes up, or between a red and white piece of metal and a stop sign, or between a person and her body? Assuming that there is a single relation between members of each of these pairs, is the relation “strict” identity, “contingent” identity or something else?1 Although this question has generated substantial controversy recently,2 I believe that there is philo- sophical gain to be had from thinking through the (...) issues from scratch. Many of the charges and countercharges are based on the following dichotomy: For any x and y that are related as the lump of clay is to the statue that it makes up, either x is identical to y, or x and y are separate entities, independent of each other. By giving up this dichotomy, we will be able to begin to make sense, I hope, of an intermediate unity relation that holds promise for solving a raft of philosophical problems, including the problem of how persons are related to their bodies.3 And if I am correct, then this relation—constitution without identity—is ubiquitous and interesting in its own right, apart from the light that it sheds on human persons. (shrink)

Applying a medical conception of toxicity to speech practices, this paper calls for an epidemiology of discursive toxicity. Toxicity highlights the mechanisms by which speech acts and discursive practices can inflict harm, making sense of claims about harms arising from speech devoid of slurs, epithets, or a narrower class I call ‘deeply derogatory terms.’ Further, it highlights the role of uptake and susceptibility, and so suggests a framework for thinking about damage variation. Toxic effects vary depending on one’s epistemic position, (...) access, and authority. An inferentialist account of discursive practice plus a dynamic view of the power of language games offers tools to analyze the toxic power of speech acts. A simple account of language games helps track changes in our discursive practices. Identifying patterns contributes to an epidemiology of toxic speech, which might include tracking increasing use of derogatory terms, us/them dichotomization, terms of isolation, new essentialisms, and more. Using this framework, I analyze some examples of speech already said to be toxic, working with a rough concept of toxicity as poison. Finally, exploring discursive toxicity pushes us to find ways that certain discursive practices might “inoculate” one to absorbing toxic messages, or less metaphorically, block one’s capacity to make toxic inferences, take deontic stances that foster toxicity, etc. (shrink)

The very rules of our language games contain mechanisms of disregard. Philosophy of language tends to treat speakers as peers with equal discursive authority, but this is rare in real, lived speech situations. This paper explores the mechanisms of discursive inclusion and exclusion governing our speech practices, with a special focus on the role of gender attribution in undermining women’s authority as speakers. Taking seriously the metaphor of language games, we must ask who gets in the game and whose moves (...) can score. To do this, I develop an eclectic analysis of language games using basic inferential role theory and the concept of a semantic index, and develop the distinction between positional authority and expertise authority, which often conflict for members of oppressed groups. Introducing the concepts of master switches and sub-switches that attach to the index and change scorekeeping practices, I argue that women’s gender status conflicts with our status as authoritative speakers because sex marking in semantics functions as a master switch—“the F-switch”—on the semantic index, which, once thrown, changes the very game. An advantage of using inferentialism for understanding disregard of women’s discursive authority is that it locates the problem in the sanctioned moves, in the deontic structure of norms and practices of scorekeeping, and not primarily in the individual intentions of particular people. (shrink)

This work explores the vast differences between oral and literate cultures, offering an account of the intellectual, literary and social effects of writing, print and electronic technology.

Toxic speech inflicts individual and group harm, damaging the social fabric upon which we all depend. To understand and combat the harms of toxic speech, philosophers can learn from epidemiology, while epidemiologists can benefit from lessons of philosophy of language. In medicine and public health, research into remedies for toxins pushes in two directions: individual protections (personal actions, avoidances, preventive or reparative tonics) and collective action (specific policies or widespread “inoculations” through which we seek herd immunity). This paper is the (...) beginning of a project of identifying potential inoculations and antidotes to toxic speech. The essay brings a social practice theory of language, with special reliance on language‐games and inferential roles, into conversation with concepts from the study of biologic toxins. Some speech harms are acute while others are chronic and insidious; they have different methods of delivery, come in variable doses, and not everyone is equally susceptible to the power to harm. I argue that of the many kinds of challenges we might issue against toxic speech, challenging its expressive commitments has the greatest potential to stop the damage. The essay explores the different sorts of protections that inoculations and antidotes might offer against discursive toxins and sketches how to imagine these in the practices that govern our speech. The paper does not make policy recommendations, but an epidemiology of discursive toxicity reveals several kinds of “more speech” that might fight against “bad speech.”. (shrink)

Explaining Attitudes develops a new account of propositional attitudes - practical realism.

This chapter examines the role played by derogatory terms (e.g., ‘inyenzi’ or cockroach, ‘inzoka’ or snake) in laying the social groundwork for the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. The genocide was preceded by an increase in the use of anti-Tutsi derogatory terms among the Hutu. As these linguistic practices evolved, the terms became more openly and directly aimed at Tutsi. Then, during the 100 days of the genocide, derogatory terms and coded euphemisms were used to direct killers (...) to their victims. Understanding these speech acts helps to illuminate the important ways that power is enacted through discourse, how speech acts can prepare the way for physical and material acts, and how speech generates permissions for actions hitherto uncountenanced. Studying the role of speech acts and linguistic practices in laying the groundwork of the genocide illuminates how patterns of speech acts become linguistic practices that constitute permissibility conditions for non-linguistic behaviors. Further, the analysis presented here helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can be part and parcel of genocide, not only an antecedent to it. (shrink)

This article argues that the real promise of feminist philosophy of language is in its account of articulated normativity. Feminist philosophy of language began within a descriptivist framework, seeking to identify and root out sexist discursive practices, like naming practices that subsume women’s identity under men’s, descriptive practices that erase or undermine women’s accomplishments and presence as subjects, and so on. This approach had its limits, and led to increased attention to the discursive practices through which we articulate our experiences (...) and construct our lives. Examining the core frameworks through which feminists have analyzed the power of language to shape social reality and construct social selves, this article shows how language is normative in its production and reproduction of social norms by way of its content, forms, and constitutive discursive practices. The article urges feminists to use knowledge of the processes of articulation and legitimation to effect and explain feminist reconstitution of women as whole. (shrink)

Drawing on writers as diverse as Saul Kripke, Stanley Cavell, G. E. M. Anscombe, Jonathan Lear, and Bernard Williams, I offer an interpretation of Wittgenstein's key notion of a form of life that explains why Wittgenstein was so enigmatic about it. Then, I show how Hilary Putnam's criticism of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics and Richard Rorty's support of (what he takes to be) Wittgenstein's legacy in the philosophy of mind both require mistaken assumptions about Wittgenstein's idea of a form of (...) life. Finally, I consider the extent to which the idea of a form of life is subject to Donald Davidson's critique of the idea of a conceptual scheme. (shrink)

My aim is twofold: first, to root out the metaphysical assumptions that generate the problem of mental causation and to show that they preclude its solution; second, to dissolve the problem of mental causation by motivating rejection of one of the metaphysical assumptions that give rise to it. There are three features of this metaphysical background picture that are important for our purposes. The first concerns the nature of reality: all reality depends on physical reality, where physical reality consists of (...) a network of events.1 The second concerns the nature of causation, and the third concerns the conception of behavior. I try to vindicate a robust idea of mental causation. (shrink)

"This book is a comprehensive attack on several of the views that have been most influential in the philosophy of psychology during the last two decades. Professor Baker argues that mentalistic notions should not be eliminated, and need not be explained in terms of other notions, in cognitive science.' The book is interesting and shows an honest concern for clear argumentation. It deserves a wide readership." --Tyler Burge, University of California at Los Angeles"This book is a provocative and relentlessly argued (...) treatment of a deep and important topic: the fate of intentionality. Baker's arguments oblige those who wish to defend the current conception of cognitive science to rethink the discipline. She has put the ball squarely in the physicalists' court. ... Despite the technical character of the topic, the book is wonderfully readable."--John Heil, Visiting Fellow, University of California, BerkeleyThis stimulating book critically examines a wide range of physicalistic conceptions of mind in the works of Jerry A. Fodor, Stephen P. Stich, Paul M. Churchland, Daniel C. Dennett, and others. Part I argues that intentional concepts cannot be reduced to nonintentional (and nonsemantic) concepts; Part II argues that intentional concepts are nevertheless indispensable to our cognitive enterprises and thus need no foundation in physicalism.As a sustained challenge to the prevailing interpretation of cognitive science, this timely book fills a large gap in the philosophical literature. It is sure to spark controversy, yet its clarity makes it attractive as a text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Saving Belief should be read byphilosophers, psychologists, and others interested in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)