Bringing together Luce Irigaray's early psychoanalytically orientated writings with her more recent and more explicitly political writings, Irigaray and Politics weaves together the ontological, political and ethical dimensions of Irigaray's philosophy of sexuate difference in imaginative ways.

: Although "brain death" and the dead donor rule—i.e., patients must not be killed by organ retrieval—have been clinically and legally accepted in the U.S. as prerequisites to organ removal, there is little data about public attitudes and beliefs concerning these matters. To examine the public attitudes and beliefs about the determination of death and its relationship to organ transplantation, 1351 Ohio residents ≥18 years were randomly selected and surveyed using random digit dialing (RDD) sample frames. The RDD telephone survey (...) was conducted using computer-assisted telephone interviews. The survey instrument was developed from information provided by 12 focus groups and a pilot study of the questionnaire. Three scenarios based on hypothetical patients were presented: "brain dead," in a coma, or in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Respondents provided personal assessments of whether the patient in each scenario was dead and their willingness to donate that patient's organs in these circumstances. More than 98 percent of respondents had heard of the term "brain death," but only one-third (33.7%) believed that someone who was "brain dead" was legally dead. The majority of respondents (86.2%) identified the "brain-dead" patient in the first scenario as dead, 57.2 percent identified the patient in a coma as dead (Scenario 2), and 34.1 percent identified the patient in a PVS as dead (Scenario 3). Nearly one-third (33.5%) were willing to donate the organs of patients they classified as alive for at least one scenario, in seeming violation of the dead donor rule. Most respondents were not willing to violate the dead donor rule, although a substantial minority was. However, the majority of respondents were unaware, misinformed, or held beliefs that were not congruent with current definitions of "brain death." This study highlights the need for more public dialogue and education about "brain death" and organ donation. (shrink)

Some feminist epistemologists make the radical claim that there are varieties of epistemically valid warrant that agents access only through having lived particular types of contingent history, varieties of epistemic warrant to which, moreover, the confirmation-theoretic accounts of warrant favored by some traditional epistemologists are inapplicable. I offer Aristotelian virtue as a model for warrant of this sort, and use loosely Aristotelian vocabulary to express, and begin to evaluate, a range of feminist epistemological positions.

A growing number of multi-stakeholder initiatives seek to improve labor and environmental standards through third-party certification. Fairtrade, one of the most popular third-party certifications in the agro-food sector, is currently expanding its operations from its traditional base in commodities like coffee produced by peasant cooperatives to products like flowers produced by hired labor enterprises. My analysis reveals how Fairtrade’s engagement in the hired labor sector is shaped by the tensions between traditional market and industrial conventions, rooted in price competition, bureaucratic (...) efficiency, product standardization and certification and alternative domestic and civic conventions, rooted in trust, personal ties, and concerns for societal wide benefits. At the global level, these tensions shape Fairtrade’s global standard setting as reflected in Fairtrade’s recently revised labor standards. At the local level, these tensions shape the varied impacts of certification on the ground as revealed through a case study of certified flower production in Ecuador. (shrink)

The concept of paternalism is intricately tied to the concept of autonomy. It is commonly assumed that when paternalistic interventions are wrong, they are wrong because they impede individuals’ autonomy. Our aim in this paper is to show that the recent shift towards conceiving of autonomy relationally highlights a separate conceptual space for a nonpaternalistic kind of interpersonal intervention termed maternalism. We argue that maternalism makes a twofold contribution to the debate over the ethics of interpersonal action and decision-making. Descriptively, (...) it captures common experiences that, while not unusual in everyday life, are largely absent from the present discussion. Normatively, it describes a type of intervention with justification conditions distinct from the standard framework of paternalism. We explicate these contributions by describing six key differences between maternalism and paternalism, and conclude by anticipating and responding to potential objections. (shrink)

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the philosophical and bioethical issues raised by the creation of the draft social values framework developed to facilitate data collection and country-specific presentations at the inaugural workshop on "Social values and health priority setting" held in February 2011. -/- DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Conceptual analysis is used to analyse the term "social values", as employed in the framework, and its relationship to related ideas such as moral values. The structure of the framework (...) (process and content values) is considered in light of current debate in philosophy and bioethics about the political and moral aims served by these kinds of values, and the extent to which they are either suited to, or sufficient for, the policy context. -/- FINDINGS: There is much to be gained by engaging with the arguments presented in the philosophical literature in order to further refine the framework. The framework should remain neutral in respect of the importance of procedural values in different contexts and should be as inclusive as possible in respect of the principles it includes. Further development would be best served by taking a multidisciplinary approach. The framework could provide a valuable space in which future debates about procedural/substantive values can be considered. -/- ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper brings philosophical and bioethics perspectives to bear on a new framework proposed for the analysis of social values in health priority setting. It identifies how such a practical, policy-focused framework might be informed by engagement with deeper, and often unresolved, questions or principle around resource allocation in health. (shrink)

Brain–Computer Interface research is an interdisciplinary area of study within Neural Engineering. Recent interest in end-user perspectives has led to an intersection with user-centered design. The goal of user-centered design is to reduce the translational gap between researchers and potential end users. However, while qualitative studies have been conducted with end users of BCI technology, little is known about individual BCI researchers’ experience with and attitudes towards UCD. Given the scientific, financial, and ethical imperatives of UCD, we sought to gain (...) a better understanding of practical and principled considerations for researchers who engage with end users. We conducted a qualitative interview case study with neural engineering researchers at a center dedicated to the creation of BCIs. Our analysis generated five themes common across interviews. The thematic analysis shows that participants identify multiple beneficiaries of their work, including other researchers, clinicians working with devices, device end users, and families and caregivers of device users. Participants value experience with device end users, and personal experience is the most meaningful type of interaction. They welcome end-user input, but are skeptical of limited focus groups and case studies. They also recognize a tension between creating sophisticated devices and developing technology that will meet user needs. Finally, interviewees espouse functional, assistive goals for their technology, but describe uncertainty in what degree of function is “good enough” for individual end users. Based on these results, we offer preliminary recommendations for conducting future UCD studies in BCI and neural engineering. (shrink)

An exploration of the traumas and possibilities of embodiment as it is lived in a political world. Unveiling the influence of phenomenology, particularly in that of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, on contemporary thought, it cuts across different disciplines in its analysis.

En contraste con la interpretación de Marta Nussbaum que adjudica a los estoicos ortodoxos una concepción meramente cognitivista de las pasiones y del rol pedagógico de la poesía en la formación moral de los individuos, en este escrito se argumentará que para estos filósofos las pasiones tienen un elemento cognitivo y uno no-cognitivo , razón por la cual nos podemos valer de los elementos cognitivos y no-cognitivos de la poesía para ayudar al hombre en su formación moral. Se mostrará que (...) esta propuesta tiene sus raíces en el pensamiento platónico. (shrink)

Feminist criticism of health care and ofbioethics has become increasingly rich andsophisticated in the last years of thetwentieth century. Nonetheless, this body ofwork remains quite marginalized. I believe thatthere are (at least) two reasons for this.First, many people are still confused aboutfeminism. Second, many people are unconvincedthat significant sexism still exists and aretherefore unreceptive to arguments that itshould be remedied if there is no largerbenefit. In this essay I argue for a thin,``core'' conception of feminism that is easy tounderstand and (...) difficult to reject. Corefeminism would render debate within feminismmore fruitful, clear the way for appropriaterecognition of differences among women andtheir circumstances, provide intellectuallycompelling reasons for current non-feminists toadopt a feminist outlook, and facilitatemutually beneficial cooperation betweenfeminism and other progressive socialmovements. This conception of feminism alsomakes it clear that feminism is part of alarger egalitarian moral and political agenda,and adopting it would help bioethics focus onthe most urgent moral priorities. In addition,integrating core feminism into bioethics wouldopen a gateway to the more speculative parts offeminist work where a wealth of creativethinking is occurring. Engaging with thisfeminist work would challenge and strengthenmainstream approaches; it should also motivatemainstream bioethicists to explore othercurrently marginalized parts of bioethics. (shrink)

An “intrinsically mixed” state is a mixed state of a system that is ‘orthogonal’ to every pure state of that system. Although the presence of such states in the quantum theories of infinite systems is well known to those who work with such theories, intrinsically mixed states are virtually unheralded in the philosophical literature. Rob Clifton was thoroughly familiar with intrinsically mixed states. I aim here to introduce them to a wider audience—and to encourage that audience to cultivate their acquaintance (...) by suggesting that intrinsically mixed states undermine assumptions framing standard discussions of the quantum measurement problem. (shrink)

Do we mentally simulate olfactory information? We investigated mental simulation of odors and sounds in two experiments. Participants retained a word while they smelled an odor or heard a sound, then rated odor/sound intensity and recalled the word. Later odor/sound recognition was also tested, and pleasantness and familiarity judgments were collected. Word recall was slower when the sound and sound-word mismatched. Sound recognition was higher when sounds were paired with a match or near-match word. This indicates sound-words are mentally simulated. (...) However, using the same paradigm no memory effects were observed for odor. Instead it appears odor-words only affect lexical-semantic representations, demonstrated by higher ratings of odor intensity and pleasantness when an odor was paired with a match or near-match word. These results suggest fundamental differences in how odor and sound-words are represented. (shrink)

The family presents an interesting challenge to many conceptions of collective activity and the makeup of social groups. Social philosophers define social groups as being comprised of individuals who knowingly consent to their group membership or voluntarily act to continue their group membership. This notion of voluntarism that is built into the concept of a social group rests upon a narrow conception of agency that is difficult to extend beyond able-minded autonomous adults. Families, however, are often comprised of members who (...) supposedly lack this developed sense of agency and are therefore considered incapable of consenting to join or remain in a group: infants and small children. So, the family seems to be an odd fit for the designation of social group, even though it is often heralded as a paradigm example of one. In this paper I argue that children and infants are in fact agents who are capable of collective intentionality, especially in the context of the family where they act cooperatively and reciprocally with their caretakers. In doing so, I present an understanding of the family as a social group that has degrees of voluntarism for all members in the forms of joint readiness and joint commitment. I argue for this in three steps. First, I employ Margaret Gilbert’s concepts of joint commitment and joint readiness as a framework for collective intentionality. Second, echoing Carol Gould, I argue that we ought to expand our understanding of agency beyond the ideal case. Third, I draw upon recent research from Michael Tomasello that demonstrate a child’s ability to act cooperatively and reciprocally. Together these steps provide a strong foundation for the claim that children and infants are agents capable of collective intentionality within families. (shrink)

This is the first of a two-part introduction to some interpretive questions that arise in connection with quantum field theories (QFTs). Some of these questions are continuous with those familiar from the discussion of ordinary non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM). For example, questions about locality can be rigorously posed and fruitfully pursued within the framework of QFT. A stark disanalogy between QFTs and ordinary QM – the former, but not the latter, typically admit infinitely many putatively physically inequivalent realizations – prompts (...) relatively novel questions, questions about how to understand and adjudicate different strategies for equipping quantum theories with content. Part I sketches the fate of locality and related notions in QFT, then documents the non-uniqueness unprecedented in ordinary QM but rampant in QFT. Part II presents foundations issues raised by non-uniqueness. (shrink)

Gendered barriers to women’s advancement in STEM disciplines are subtle, often the result of gender practices, gender stereotypes, and gendered occupational cultures. Professional socialization into scientific cultures encourages and rewards gender practices that help to maintain gendered barriers. This article focuses more specifically on how individual women scientists’ gender practices potentially sustain gender barriers. Findings based on interview data from thirty women in academic STEM fields reveal that women draw on gendered expectations and norms within their disciplines to discursively distance (...) themselves from other women they perceive as having deviated from such norms and expectations. The types of distancing in which these respondents engage reflect and support gendered structures, cultures, and practices that ultimately disadvantage women and obscure gender inequality. I conclude by discussing the implications of women scientists’ distancing practices for efforts to change the gendered cultures of STEM disciplines. (shrink)

On Itamar Pitowsky’s subjective interpretation of quantum mechanics, “the Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics [QM] is just a new kind of probability theory”, one whose probabilities correspond to odds rational agents would accept on the outcomes of gambles concerning quantum event structures. Our aim here is to ask whether Pitowsky’s approach can be extended from its original context, of quantum theories for systems with an finite number of degrees of freedom, to systems with an infinite number of degrees of (...) freedom, such as quantum field theory and quantum statistical mechanics in the thermodynamic limit. An impediment to generalization is that Pitowsky adopts the framework of event structures encoded by atomic algebras, whereas the algebras typical of QM for infinitely many degrees of freedom are usually non-atomic. We describe challenges to Pitowsky’s approach deriving from this impediment, and sketch and assess strategies Pitowsky might use to meet those challenges. Although we offer no final verdict about the eventual success of those strategies, a testament to the worth of Pitowsky’s approach is that attempting to extend it engages us in provocative foundational issues. (shrink)

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) focuses on specific community needs, and produces results that directly address those needs. Although conducting ethical CBPR is critical to its success, few academic programs include this training in their curricula. This article describes the development and evaluation of an online training course designed to increase the use of CBPR in mental health disciplines. Developed using a participatory approach involving a community of experts, this course challenges traditional research by introducing a collaborative process meant to encourage (...) increased participation by special populations and narrow the parity gap in effective mental health treatment and services delivery. (shrink)

Se plantea en este ensayo la discutida posición de Sócrates acerca de las leyes de Atenas: tanto la ley democrática y positiva, como la ley tradicional no-escrita. Se argumenta sobre las fuentes que tenemos, especialmente la Apología y el Critón de Platón, y los Memorabilia de Jenofonte. Se concluye que Sócrates no dejó nunca, a lo largo de su dilatada existencia, de intentar persuadir sobre la justicia, sosteniendo que, bajo ningún concepto, era justo hacer daño, ni incumplir las leyes o (...) las órdenes de la autoridad superior (humana o divina). (shrink)

The paper addresses the contemporary features of aesthetic capitalism (Böhme, 2001; 2017) in the city, connecting beauty studies with established analyses of ‘territorial stigmatization’ (Wacquant, 2007) in the framework of critical whiteness studies. My argument is that beautification practices in marginal public spaces can be regarded as an attitude of aesthetic neocolonialism. The text investigates the role that art plays in establishing spaces of difference, focusing on the analysis of the idea of beauty exhibited and used in processes of urban (...) transformation. This beautifying operation could mask the intent of domesticating the ‘urban exotic’, representing the aesthetics of the ‘urban other’, overlapping processes of hypervisibilization and invisibilization within the production of normative white visual domains. The resulting transformation is viewed as a new field of value extraction from the urban space while at the same time being a new arena for privilege and inequality production. (shrink)

Design arguments make a case for the existence of God based on examples of apparent design or purposiveness in the natural world. Current versions of the argument proceed, not in terms of analogies between the universe and human artifacts, but as inductive arguments to the best explanation of the data. Theism is offered as the simplest hypothesis that can explain facts such as the mathematical elegance and intelligibility of the laws of the nature. The design argument has recently received new (...) life from discoveries regarding the fine-tuning required for any universe capable of sustaining life. (shrink)

What is wonder? What would it mean to live our lives in wonder or with wonder? Is it possible for wonder to play an integral role in our aesthetic, ethical, and pedagogical experiences? Philosophy is said to begin with wonder. For Plato, wonder is the arche that grounds all philosophical inquiry. I propose to begin my ethical and aesthetic investigation of wonder with Plato, but, unlike Plato who places the imagination’s capacity to be astonished at the bottom of a hierarchy (...) that quests for knowledge and understanding, I will argue that an ethics and aesthetics based on wonder would allow for the imagination to play an active role in all our encounters. First, I look at different philosophical treatments of wonder and then consider the role wonder plays as a virtue. Next I examine the wondrous in relation to aesthetic and ethical experiences, exploring art exhibits and a play, and conclude by drawing upon the many sides of wonder and considering its role in education. In my wanderings on wonder, I seek to value wonder as an integral part of ourselves, in all our imaginings, understandings, growth, and knowledge acquisition. (shrink)

La filosofia contemporanea, in particolare la fenomenologia husserliana, e il tomismo ";possono intendersi"; secondo Edith Stein, che ripercorre la questione dell'essere, centrale nella dottrina tomista, facendo tuttavia ricorso all'immagine trinitaria proveniente dall'insegnamento di Agostino. Si delinea così il rapporto fra l'io e il tu che, nella persona umana, costituisce l'essere come amore, in quanto la persona si viene costruendo a partire essenzialmente dall'incontro, secondo la logica della relazione che si rivela appunto come logica dell'amore.

Este informe se enmarca en el proyecto que desde hace dos años venimos desarrollando dentro del Departamento de Investigación de la Universidad Siglo 21, en Córdoba, Argentina. Hemos abordado a través de metodología cualitativa las representaciones que los jóvenes ingresantes a la Universidad tienen acerca de la misma y del estudio universitario. En el presente reporte exponemos una serie de ejes que, de acuerdo a nuestro análisis de los discursos relevados, dan cuenta de valoraciones emergentes al momento de evaluar la (...) universidad pública en relación a la privada y viceversa. Nuestra intención es comprender y describir cuáles son las nociones entramadas en el análisis que los ingresantes realizan de una y otra institución, las cuales se ponen en juego al momento de optar y evaluar aquéllas. (shrink)

This article examines the legal, economic, and ethical arguments supporting and opposing comparable worth. The co- authors advance opposing views on the wisdom of adopting comparable worth as a public policy, and those views are not reconciled within the limits of this essay.

Luce Irigaray argues that the way to overcome the culture of narcissism in the Western tradition is to recognize sexuate difference and to refigure subjectivity as sexuate. This article is an attempt to unpack how Irigaray's philosophical refiguring of love as an intermediary works in this process of reimagining subjectivity as sexuate. If we trace the moments in Irigaray's philosophy where she engages with Hegel's dialectic, and rethinks this dialectical process via the question of sexual difference and a refiguring of (...) love, a clearer reading of her work as groundbreaking and ultimately refiguring our ontological structures becomes possible. Consequently, if we do not understand Irigaray's radical reformulation of love, we will miss her larger ontological project and fail to properly appreciate her comments on other types of difference—for example, differences of race, tradition, religion. This article argues that as we begin to appreciate the ways in which Irigaray refigures both love and thought as the intermediary, an intermediary that fundamentally disrupts phallocentric binary logic, we can begin to imagine how refiguring the most intimate human experience of love can lead us toward the realization of an ethical political community in which difference in all forms is nourished. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo Derrida ha concebido el exceso del concepto kierkegaardiano de muerte, especialmente en relación con “la muerte del otro” en oposición a la propia muerte. A pesar de las críticas que Lévinas dirige a lo religioso en Temor y temblor, en cuanto implica una suspensión de la ética, Derrida descubre en Kierkegaard una ética más exigente, una ética que suspende la ética: la ética del superviviente. Kierkegaard llevó a cabo, según Derrida, “un doblete (...) no dogmático del dogma, uno que repite la posibilidad de la religión sin religión”. La tesis que aquí se defiende es que esta ética del deber absoluto que Derrida descubre en Temor y temblor, en oposición a las éticas que dan sentido a la vida a pesar de la muerte, se resuelve en torno al tema central de la muerte del otro. Se mostrará cómo esta ética que defiende Derrida se corresponde con la “ética segunda” que Kierkegaard señala en Temor y temblor y desarrolla en Las obras del amor, especialmente en la articulación del deber absoluto de “amar a los muertos”. (shrink)