Many public debates about the societal significance and impact of agriculture are usefully framed by Paul Thompson’s distinction between the “agrarian” and the “industrial vision.” The key argument of the present paper is that the ongoing debate between these visions goes beyond academic philosophy and has direct effects on the political economy of agriculture by influencing the scope of rent-seeking activities that are undertaken primarily in the name of the agrarian vision. The existence of rent-seeking activities is shown to (...) reflect the fact that the agrarian vision is not universally supported, which is certainly true of the industrial vision as well. The key argument of the present paper is that these two philosophical visions of agriculture are not radically incongruent. Rather, they share a common ground within which they are even mutually supportive. If agricultural policy making is oriented toward this common ground, it may reduce overall dissatisfaction with the resulting institutional regime of agricultural production. Such an agricultural policy may also stimulate the emergence of new business practices that not only enable efficient agricultural production but also minimize negative ecological impact and preserve cultural landscapes. (shrink)

In her book, Oksala shows that the arguments for the ineliminability of violence from the political are often based on excessively broad, ontological conceptions of violence distinct from its concrete and physical meaning and, on the other hand, on a restrictively narrow and empirical understanding of politics as the realm of conventional political institutions.

This essay offers a review of the basic argument and a critique of some of the central claims of Johanna Oksala’s Foucault, Politics, and Violence.

This article explores some aspects of the renewed interest in moral economy and draws attention to the pitfalls if the concept is used too loosely. Edward P. Thompson and James C. Scott's model is examined to see how their elaboration of moral economy can be used to link food, popular indignation, reinvention of tradition, and relationships to the elite. Moral economy was an alternative to considering crowds as irrational, eruptive, or driven only by hunger. By studying how the notion (...) of moral economy has spread and taken on different meanings, it becomes clear that the term has been unevenly stretched in the social sciences. However, rather than dismissing it as overworked, it can be more precisely delimited and used to orient empirical and analytical observations of, in particular, humanitarian aid. (shrink)

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

Although widely studied in other domains, relatively little is known about the metacognitive processes that monitor and control behaviour during reasoning and decision-making. In this paper, we examined the conditions under which two fluency cues are used to monitor initial reasoning: answer fluency, or the speed with which the initial, intuitive answer is produced, and perceptual fluency, or the ease with which problems can be read. The first two experiments demonstrated that answer fluency reliably predicted Feeling of Rightness judgments to (...) conditional inferences and base rate problems, which subsequently predicted the amount of deliberate processing as measured by thinking time and answer changes; answer fluency also predicted retrospective confidence judgments. Moreover, the effect of answer fluency on reasoning was independent from the effect of perceptual fluency, establishing that these are empirically independent constructs. In five experiments with a variety of reasoning problems similar to those of Alter et al., we found no effect of perceptual fluency on FOR, retrospective confidence or accuracy; however, we did observe that participants spent more time thinking about hard to read stimuli, although this additional time did not result in answer changes. In our final two experiments, we found that perceptual disfluency increased accuracy on the CRT, but only amongst participants of high cognitive ability. As Alter et al.’s samples were gathered from prestigious universities, collectively, the data to this point suggest that perceptual fluency prompts additional processing in general, but this processing may results in higher accuracy only for the most cognitively able. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is one of the most influential and provocative figures in contemporary intellectual life. He argues that many of philosophy's traditional concerns are redundant, and that the goal of inquiry should not be truth but human betterment. In this collection a distinguished team of scholars grapples with the implications of his writings for social and political thought. Avoiding mindless adulation or ritual denunciation, they offer careful but critical investigations of the meaning of Rorty's work for a range of important (...) issues. Topics explored include anti-foundationalism; irony and commitment; justice; liberalism and utopianism; reason and aesthetics; humanism and anti-humanism; the Holocaust; the theory of international relations; social democracy and the pragmatist tradition. Each essay is followed by a reply written for this volume by Rorty. The volume also includes a substantial essay by Rorty on 'Justice as a Larger Loyalty'. This volume is indispensable for any reader interested in Rorty's work, or in contemporary debates in social, political or ethical theory. Contributors: Molly Cochran; Daniel Conway; Matthew Festenstein; Norman Geras; John Horton; David Owen; Richard Rorty; Kate Soper; Simon Thompson. (shrink)

Current scientific research on consciousness aims to understand how consciousness arises from the workings of the brain and body, as well as the relations between conscious experience and cognitive processing. Clearly, to make progress in these areas, researchers cannot avoid a range of conceptual issues about the nature and structure of consciousness, such as the following: What is the relation between intentionality and consciousness? What is the relation between self-awareness and consciousness? What is the temporal structure of conscious experience? What (...) is it like to imagine or visualize something, and how is this type of experience different from perception? How is bodily experience related to self-consciousness? Such issues have been addressed in detail in the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, inaugurated by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and developed by numerous other philosophers throughout the 20th century. This chapter provides an introduction to this tradition and its way of approaching issues about consciousness. We first discuss some features of phenomenological methodology and then present some of the most important, influential, and enduring phenomenological proposals about various aspects of consciousness. These aspects include intentionality, self-awareness and the first-person perspective, time-consciousness, embodiment, and intersubjectivity. We also highlight a few ways of linking phenomenology and cognitive. (shrink)

This research tested the hypothesis that prudence and altruism, in situations involving future desires, follow a similar developmental course between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Using a modified delay of gratification paradigm, 3- to 5-year-olds were tested on their ability to forgo a current opportunity to obtain some stickers in order to gratify their own future desires — or the current or future desires of a research assistant. Results showed that in choices involving current desires, altruistic behavior was (...) unrelated to age. However, prudence and altruism involving future situations were correlated with one another and with age. Children under 4 years of age demonstrated significantly less futureoriented prudence than the older children (F(1,49) = 15.75; p<.001) and significantly less altruism involving future situations (F(1,49) = 33.24; p<.001). The data for the 3-year-olds, but not for the older children, also showed agepartialled correlations between the two future-oriented choice situations. These results suggest that between 3 and 4 years, children acquire the ability to deal with future-oriented situations through the development of some common mechanism which affects both future-oriented prudence and altruism. (shrink)

This discussion examines the emergence of professional codes of ethics, influences that shape contemporary midwifery ethics, and the adequacy of codes to actualize values embedded in the midwifery ethics discourse. It considers the traditions of professional practice, the impact of institutionalization on health care, the application of a code of practice as a recent addition to those traditions, and the strengths and weaknesses of codes of ethics as models for ethical responses. That is, it sets out to articulate and deconstruct (...) existing frames of ethical response. The ethics of strangers (normative theory and abstract principles) are rejected as inadequate, and the ethics of intimates (feminist-relational ethics) are proposed as a more adequate guide for well-woman centred midwifery practice. (shrink)

We examined whether facial expressions of performers influence the emotional connotations of sung materials, and whether attention is implicated in audio-visual integration of affective cues. In Experiment 1, participants judged the emotional valence of audio-visual presentations of sung intervals. Performances were edited such that auditory and visual information conveyed congruent or incongruent affective connotations. In the single-task condition, participants judged the emotional connotation of sung intervals. In the dual-task condition, participants judged the emotional connotation of intervals while performing a secondary (...) task. Judgements were influenced by melodic cues and facial expressions and the effects were undiminished by the secondary task. Experiment 2 involved identical conditions but participants were instructed to base judgements on auditory information alone. Again, facial expressions influenced judgements and the effect was undiminished by the secondary task. The results suggest that visual aspects of music performance are automatically and preattentively registered and integrated with auditory cues. (shrink)

Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral purification yields a comprehensive andsystematic account of normative issues raised bycontroversial science. Hybridization proceeds bytaking concern for all these (...) elements to be a mark ofsound moral character. The advocate of hybridizationinfers that those who employ a strategy ofpurification seek to avoid accountability by dividingissues, and hence are not to be trusted. Lack of trustincreases perceived risk and challenges the legitimacyof government regulations to control social,environmental, and human health risks that areestablished under separate mandate, and administeredby separate agencies.The close alignment between government agencies, theiracademic affines, and the categories of purificationplaces the purified analysis in a favored politicalposition. Legitimation of science-based policy inareas like animal biotechnology becomes problematicbecause the concern of those who would take a hybridapproach (arguably the majority of lay persons) tounderstanding controversial science are excluded.Ironically, this exclusion heightens the perception ofrisk from animal biotechnology. The paper concludeswith a call for procedural approaches to incorporatingthe hybrid view of science‘s moral significance. (shrink)

Each of four sections in this paper sketches the philosophical problems associated with a different dimension of sustainability. The untitled introductory section surveys the oft-noted discrepancies between different notions of sustainability, and notes that one element of the ambiguity relates to the different points of view taken by a participant in a system and a detached observer of the system. The second section, “Sustainability as a System Describing Concept,” examines epistemological puzzles that arise when one attempts to assess the truth (...) or falsity of claims that attribute sustainability or non-sustainability. In particular, such claims generally presume bounded systems, but boundary conditions are value-laden. The third section, “Sustainability as a Goal Prescribing Concept,” examines puzzles that arise in attempting to define sustainability in normative terms. In particular, the question of whether sustainability is an intrinsic or instrumental value is examined. The final section, “Sustainability and Bliss,” offers an analysis of the moral responsibilities that human beings have, given the fact that knowledge of conditions for achieving sustainability can never be complete. (shrink)

An international team of contributors explore contemporary insights into the work of Georg Lukacs in political theory, aesthetics, ethics and social and ...

John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel can be given a reading that links events and the mentality of characters to mainstream schools of liberal and neo-liberal political theory: libertarianism, egalitarianism, and utilitarianism. Each of these schools is sketched in outline and applied to topics in rural political culture. While it is likely that Steinbeck himself would have identified with an egalitarian or utilitarian view, he resists the temptation to deny his Okie characters an authentic voice that matches none of these schools so (...) well as it articulates an agrarian mentality once associated with Thomas Jefferson and today articulated by Wendell Berry. This reading of The Grapes of Wrath, in turn, can be interpreted as both a rebuke to contemporary social theorists who continue to impose an ill-fitting left-right dichotomy on working class political culture in rural America and as a roadmap suggesting ways that philosophy and rural sociology might engage one another more directly and productively with respect to contemporary rural development and environmental quality issues. (shrink)

BackgroundFunding agencies have long used panel discussion in the peer review of research grant proposals as a way to utilize a set of expertise and perspectives in making funding decisions. Little research has examined the quality of panel discussions and how effectively they are facilitated.MethodsHere, we present a mixed-method analysis of data from a survey of reviewers focused on their perceptions of the quality, effectiveness, and influence of panel discussion from their last peer review experience.ResultsReviewers indicated that panel discussions were (...) viewed favorably in terms of participation, clarifying differing opinions, informing unassigned reviewers, and chair facilitation. However, some reviewers mentioned issues with panel discussions, including an uneven focus, limited participation from unassigned reviewers, and short discussion times. Most reviewers felt the discussions affected the review outcome, helped in choosing the best science, and were generally fair and balanced. However, those who felt the discussion did not affect the outcome were also more likely to evaluate panel communication negatively, and several reviewers mentioned potential sources of bias related to the discussion. While respondents strongly acknowledged the importance of the chair in ensuring appropriate facilitation of the discussion to influence scoring and to limit the influence of potential sources of bias from the discussion on scoring, nearly a third of respondents did not find the chair of their most recent panel to have performed these roles effectively.ConclusionsIt is likely that improving chair training in the management of discussion as well as creating review procedures that are informed by the science of leadership and team communication would improve review processes and proposal review reliability. (shrink)

Consumer response to genetically altered foods has been mixed in the United States. While transgenic crops have entered the food supply with little comment, other foods, such as the bioengineered tomato, have caused considerable controversy. Objections to genetically engineered food are varied, ranging from the religious to the aesthetic. One need not endorse these concerns to conclude that food biotechnology violates procedural protections of consumer sovereignty and religious liberty. Consumer sovereignty, a principle especially valued in this country, requires that information (...) be made available so each individual or group may make food choices based on their own values. And as yet, there is no policy provision for informing consumers about the degree to which food has been genetically engineered. (shrink)

Tolstoy writes in a letter to his friend A. A. Fet that what he has written in War and Peace, “especially in the epilogue,” is also said by Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation. Tolstoy adds, however, that Schopenhauer approaches “it from the other side.” Schopenhauer does indeed say much the same thing as Tolstoy says in his epilogue and elsewhere about history and the will. Each of these authors argues that history is not progressing and that it (...) is not governed by the actions of individual political or military leaders alone, but by the infinitely many actions of the multitude of people. What underlies this critique of history in each case is a quietist outlook on life, a perspective from which one must abandon the assertion of the will and accept life as it is given. Tolstoy's quietism, however, is a happy quietism; he wants his reader to joyfully embrace life for all that it has to offer. Schopenhauer's is an unhappy quietism; he wants his reader to accept life in the face of all that it is not. Thus, Tolstoy and Schopenhauer approach quietism, and consequently their critiques of history and the will, from different “sides.” These sides—to borrow Wittgenstein's way of speaking—are the sides of the happy and the unhappy. To approach quietism from one side rather than another is no small matter. In Tolstoy's case in particular, it made all the difference in the world. (shrink)

Hospital ethics, familiar enough in practice but surprisingly neglected in the literature, deals with the ethical problems that arise distinctively or typically in hospitals. More precisely, it consists of the ethical principles that shouldgovern 1) the conduct of healthcare professionals and other staff in their capacities as members of the hospital as an institution, and 2) the conduct of the hospital itself as an institution. It is a species of institutional ethics, which focuses on the ethical problems created or significantly (...) shaped by the institutional setting in which they occur. (shrink)

This paper examines confidentiality and its nature and analyses the guidelines laid down by the Hippocratic Oath as well as the British and World Medical Associations for maintaining such confidentiality between doctor and patient. There are exceptions to practically any code of rules and this is true also for confidentiality. Some of these exceptions make it appear that very little is confidential. The three values implicit in confidentiality would seem to be privacy, confidence and secrecy. Each of these values is (...) discussed and developed in this paper. In conclusion, the question is suggested that maybe in the face of death, doctor and patient need to re-examine the pre-suppositions of privacy, confidence and secrecy on which the confidential relationship is based. (shrink)

An analysis of social goals for agriculture presupposes an account of systematic interactions among economic, political, and ecological forces that influence the performance of agriculture in a given society. This account must identify functional performance criteria that lend themselves to interpretation as normative or ethical goals. Individuals who act within the system pursue personal goals. Although individual acts and decisions help satisfy functional performance criteria, individuals may never conceptualize or understand these criteria, and, hence, social goals for agriculture may not (...) be intentionally sought or desired by any human being. The statement of social goals is not, therefore, reducible to statements about individual desires and preferences, and the validity of social goals does not depend upon deriving a social welfare function, nor upon measuring interpersonal utility.The paper examines a series of strategies for defining social goals for agriculture, beginning with the statement of goals offered by William Aiken in 1983. Aiken's view stresses individually based constraints upon action, but social goals cannot be adequately defined on this view. Successively more adequate approaches to the problem of social goals are examined with respect to production and efficiency, Jeffersonian democracy, and ecosystem goals of community and self-reliance. The role of family farms, and the change in farm structure is evaluated in light of this analysis for social goals. (shrink)

the first might be said by anyone,the second by anyone present, and the third by the injured party herself, Hannah. In particular, if Hannah is given to her own senses – in a mirror, for example – she herself might employ any of these three forms of predication.

Recognizing the importance of increasing the levels of children's humane behavior toward animals other than humans relates to the developing of valid and reliable measures of such behavior. This study reports the psychometric properties of the Children's Treatment of Animals Questionnaire , which assesses children's humane behavior toward nonhuman animals. The findings, based on self-reports by 61 elementary school children , showed that the 13-item scale has adequate internal consistency. In addition, comparing two administrations of the scale over a five-week (...) period demonstrated good test-retest reliability. The scale's convergent validity was demonstrated with significant correlations between responses on the CTAQ and two previously validated measures of empathy. The study concluded that the CTAQ is a valid and reliable measure for assessing the degree to which children's behavior toward nonhuman animals is humane. Determining the sensitivity of the measure to change and the predictive validity of the measure will require further research. (shrink)

Emotion experience has failed to date to gain a central place in the study of consciousness. This special issue of the _Journal of Consciousness Studies_ presents the most recent views on the matter, with discussions of several aspects of emotion experience. Contributors from different disciplines address links between feelings, brain, body and world. What happens in the brain and in the body when we have feelings? How do feelings relate to our understanding of the world? The contributors also analyse emotion (...) experience per se — the character of moods, the role of emotion experience in demarcating the class of emotion, the alleged positive and negative character of affect, its embodied feel and its relation to action. (shrink)

A regular feature in Nursing Ethics will be the 'Codes and declarations' section. Suggestions and/or contributions from readers are welcome and should be sent to the editor, Verena Tschudin, at the address shown on the inside cover.

Arguments for the preservation of natural objects and environments sometimes appeal to the value of those objects as cultural heritage. Can something be valuable because of its relation to the historical past? I examine and assess arguments for preservation based upon heritage value and defend the thesis that we have an obligation to appreciate what our predecessors valued and to value those thingsthat have played an important role in our history. I show how this conception of our obligations can be (...) used to defend the preservation of natural objects and environments including wilderness areas. (shrink)