Purpose: To determine motives and attitudes towards life-sustaining treatments by clinical and preclinical medical students. Methods: This was a scenario-based questionnaire that presented patients with a limited life expectancy. The survey was distributed among 455 medical students in preclinical and clinical years. Students were asked to rate their willingness to perform LSTs and rank the motives for doing so. The effect of medical education was then investigated after adjustment for age, gender, religion, religiosity, country of origin, and marital status. Results: (...) Preclinical students had a significantly higher willingness to perform LSTs in all cases. This was observed in all treatments offered in cases of a metastatic oncologic patient and an otherwise healthy man after a traumatic brain injury. In the case of an elderly woman on long-term care, preclinical students had higher willingness to supply vasopressors but not perform an intubation, feed with a nasogastric tube, or treat with a continuous positive air-pressure ventilator. Both preclinical and clinical students had high willingness to perform resuscitation on a twelve-year-old boy with a TBI. Differences in motivation factors were also seen. Discussion: Preclinical students had a greater willingness to treat compared to clinical students in all cases and with most medical treatments offered. This is attributed mainly to changes along the medical curriculum. Changes in reasons for supplying LSTs were also documented. (shrink)

Critics of investment citizenship often appeal to the idea that citizenship should not be commodified. This chapter clarifies how the different arguments in support of this Commodification Objection are best understood as versions of wider claims in the literature on the moral limits of markets (MLM). Through an analysis of the three main objections – The Wrong Distribution Argument, The Value Degradation Argument, and the Motivational Corruption Argument – it claims that these objections rely on flawed and partial interpretations of (...) the broader debates. As such, they do not in fact support the conclusions critics of investment citizenship wish to draw from them. The paper concludes that the commodification objection to investment citizenship should therefore be abandoned, and that normative resistance to the practice should be made on other grounds. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 480-495, December 2021.

Should facts about motivation play a role in the justification of political ideals? Many theorists argue that political ideals should be tailored to the limitations of human nature—‘taking people as they are’—while others maintain that facts about motivation should be excluded. This article offers a critical intervention in this debate: the important question is not so much whether people can motivate themselves, or whether they are capable of being motivated, but what social mechanisms would be required to motivate them, and (...) whether these mechanisms are legitimate. Reframing the question of motivation as a political question of legitimacy, I argue that if people could only be motivated to act through illegitimate use of power, the ideal in question cannot be fully justified. (shrink)

While many argue investment-based criteria for immigration are wrong or at least problematic, skill-based criteria remain relatively uncontroversial. This is normatively inconsistent. This article assesses three prominent normative objections to investment-based selection criteria for immigrants: that they wrongfully discriminate between prospective immigrants that they are unfair, and that they undermine political equality among citizens. It argues that either skill-based criteria are equally susceptible to these objections, or that investment-based criteria are equally shielded from them. Indeed, in some ways investment-based criteria (...) are less normatively problematic than skill-based criteria. Given this analysis, the resistance to investment-based migration criteria, but not to skill-based criteria, is inconsistent. (shrink)

In the last few decades, residency in some of the world’s desired destination cities has become a privilege, as housing supply has not kept pace with population growth. This has led to a significant rise in housing prices and consequently to the exclusion of middle- and low-income populations on a large scale. These developments have received only scant attention in political theory despite their prominence in local policymaking and their contribution to processes of redrawing the boundaries of inclusion into local (...) political communities. My focus in this article is on the question ‘is it morally permissible for cities to sort members by economic means, and grant the better-off privileged access to residency?’ I explore this question by examining the main arguments used to support the city’s right to selectively admit would-be members. This allows me to delineate the limitations of the city’s general duty to be accessible to all segments of society and to present particular cases where the city has special obligations to incorporate nonmembers. (shrink)

It is argued that ideals emerge in the course of the individuation‐separation process, preserving the narcissism of primary Thingness. Ideals form an essential part of social structure, as opposed to communitas, where individuation is suspended. The anthropological distinction between social structure and communitas is reformulated in psychoanalytic terms. Structure and communitas are shown to correspond to two alternative organizations of narcissism. Ideals and myths figure among the manifestations of the narcissism of structure. In the last section, certain explanations of the (...) discourse of ideals are drawn from the preceding account. While the premises of the following reflections are broadly Kleinian, Lacanian concepts are supplemented, not on the basis of any definite synthesis but towards a piecemeal reconciliation. (shrink)

Este trabajo se enmarca en una investigación en curso sobre la representación de los genocidios en el cine documental. En esta instancia se indagará en torno a las características del testimonio del victimario en el cine documental, efectuando un mapeo por diversas producciones. Se presentará un posible esquema que prestará atención en la matriz narrativa de los testimonios y los modos de responsabilidad que allí se exponen. De este modo, se presentarán dos grandes polos que oscilarán entre la entrevista –más (...) ligada a brindar información “objetiva”– y el trabajo de confesión –ámbito donde el perpetrador medita sobre su subjetividad–. (shrink)

As even those who endorse it concede, cosmopolitanism has a motivational problem. There is a need for strategies to generate support of global norms conducive to cosmopolitanism, but which do not rely primarily on the motivating force of the moral argument. This article makes the case for civic vigilance as an answer to this problem. It argues that support for cosmopolitan norms could be advanced by encouraging a recognition of the ‘boomerang effect’: the ways in which global injustice undermines the (...) freedom of one’s own political community. The article offers evaluative criteria for different motivational strategies, assesses prominent alternatives to moral motivation, and finally defends the appeal to civic vigilance. (shrink)

Excerpt from Geschichte der Deutschen Philosophie Seit Leibniz Die präftabilirte @armonie 124. Demeiß be? Dafeinß (öotteß 125. (öotteäbegriff 128. Die befie 28elt unb ihre 92othroenbigteit 128. Determinifmuß 132; Dollfommenheit ber qbelt 133; Dheobicee 134; baß Döfe 140. Dranfcenbeng (R)otteä 143. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original (...) format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The essay proposes that children should not participate in custody proceedings because they lack a place in the public world, a concept which was developed by Arendt and which I elaborate on the basis of her writings. Arendt’s concepts of place in the world and of childhood are correlated, polar ethical concepts. ‘Place in the world’ as described by Arendt combines commitment to worldbuilding as a collaborative enterprise, relations of mutual-recognition among equal co-builders of the public world, an inviolable place (...) in public and private realms, and self-disclosure through the staging of public appearances. We should recognize children as rightful participants in divorce proceedings when we are ready to treat them as occupants of place in the world, split between public and private realms and corresponding public and private voices. Recent practices of children’s participation undermine the intimate realm of childhood as well as the public world. (shrink)

Departing from Durkheim’s assertion of the primacy of public time, I argue that time is manufactured through the legal organization of society in the form of a corporate body. As a corporation, society enjoys fictive immortality, and it is this legal fiction that allows the flow of historical time. The institution of time, and of the corporate structure in general, is made possible through the political triumph over communal aspirations for timelessness, oneness and death: aspirations for an eternal present, to (...) which I refer as the communal body. The passage from a founding, pre-historical experience of timelessness into historical time is accomplished through the construction of a perpetual corporate body in place of a communal body that lacks a temporal dimension. I will argue that the establishment of historical time and of the corporate organization of society necessitates the normative regulation of sexuality. Thus, the relaxation of the traditional structure of historical time and of sexual morality in contemporary society are closely intertwined. (shrink)

How does state policy shape our most intimate desires? This groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of desire shows how Orthodox desires and their discontents are reshaped at the intersection of religion, reproduction and politics, highlighting how ethical choreographies between personal desire and the state emerge even in the most traditional settings.

David Axelsen has recently introduced a novel critique of the motivational argument against cosmopolitanism : even if it were the case that lack of motivation could serve as a normative constraint, people’s anti-cosmopolitan motivations cannot be seen as constraints on cosmopolitan duties as they are generated and reinforced by the state. This article argues that Axelsen 's argument misrepresents the nationalist motivational argument against cosmopolitanism : the nationalist motivational argument is best interpreted as an argument about normative feasibility rather than (...) as an argument about the technical feasibility. Nationalists ' objection to cosmopolitanism arises not from the impossibility of cosmopolitan motivation, but from the moral costs of achieving and sustaining it. Given this interpretation, this article argues that Axelsen fails to demonstrate that nationalists would have to accept cosmopolitan conclusions from their own premises. (shrink)

In this paper I take issue with Allison's ‘two aspect’ view of Kant's transcendental distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves. Unlike those of Allison's critics, who criticize him, and by implication Kant, based on some form of the ‘two world’ view, I argue that, even Allison's methodological, more moderate interpretation, nevertheless includes an excessive commitment to the role of things-in-themselves in Kant's theoretical philosophy, a commitment which is both unnecessary and incompatible with Kant's text. I offer an alternative interpretation which, in (...) my view, is at once more accurate, and more defensible against the familiar claim that Kant's philosophy is either incompatible with itself or it inevitably leads to idealism. (shrink)

In this paper I take issue with Allison's ‘two aspect’ view of Kant's transcendental distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves. Unlike those of Allison's critics, who criticize him, and by implication Kant, based on some form of the ‘two world’ view, I argue that, even Allison's methodological, more moderate interpretation, nevertheless includes an excessive commitment to the role of things-in-themselves in Kant's theoretical philosophy, a commitment which is both unnecessary and incompatible with Kant's text. I offer an alternative interpretation which, in (...) my view, is at once more accurate, and more defensible against the familiar claim that Kant's philosophy is either incompatible with itself or it inevitably leads to idealism. (shrink)

Ortega y Gasset is known for his philosophy of life and his effort to propose an alternative to both realism and idealism. The goal of this article is to focus on an unfamiliar aspect of his thought. The focus will be given to Ortega’s interpretation of the advancements in modern mathematics in general and Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers in particular. The main argument is that Ortega acknowledged the historical importance of the Cantor’s Set Theory, analyzed it and articulated a (...) response to it. In his writings he referred many times to the advancements in modern mathematics and argued that mathematics should be based on the intuition of counting. In response to Cantor’s mathematics Ortega presented what he defined as an ‘absolute positivism’. In this theory he did not mean to naturalize cognition or to follow the guidelines of the Comte’s positivism, on the contrary. His aim was to present an alternative to Cantor’s mathematics by claiming that mathematicians are allowed to deal only with objects that are immediately present and observable to intuition. Ortega argued that the infinite set cannot be present to the intuition and therefore there is no use to differentiate between cardinals of different infinite sets. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Virtue, the centerpiece of ancient ethics, has come under attack by virtue skeptics impressed by results of psychology experiments including Milgram's obedience studies. The virtue skeptic argues that experimental findings suggest that character structures are so fragile vis-å-vis situational factors as to be explanatorily superfluous: virtues and robust character traits are a myth, and should be replaced by situation-specific "narrow dispositions" (Gilbert Harman) or "local traits" (John Doris). This paper argues that the virtue skeptics' sweeping claims are ill-founded. First, (...) blending Aristotelian and contemporary insights about virtue, I reach a decision about a reasonable, non-straw definition of "virtue" and of "character trait." Next, I argue that explanations give by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett for the Milgram findings covertly invoke character traits. Reflection reveals that more robust, cross-situationally consistent traits are needed for explanation of subject behavior, and that it is reasonable to suppose that such traits were in place. (shrink)

This book examines the unique views of philosopher Jacob Sigismund Beck, a student of Immanuel Kant who devoted himself to an exploration of his teacher's doctrine and to showing that Kant's transcendental idealism is, contra to the common view, both internally consistent and is not a form of subjective idealism. In his attempt to explain away certain apparent contradictions found in Kant's system, Beck put forward a new reading of Kant's critical theory, a view, which came to be known as (...) the Standpunctslehre, the Doctrine of the Standpoint. Author Lior Nitzan reconstructs, step by step, the historical development of Beck's doctrine. He shows how Beck's unique view is drastically different from that of his contemporaries and presents the relevance of Beck to contemporary debates about the proper interpretation of Kant's notion of objectivity, the refutation of idealism and the role of the thing in itself in Kant's transcendental idealism. In doing so, Nitzan presents a defense of Beck's radical perspective of Kant's theory and claims that some of Kant's negative responses to it may in fact be due more to the adversary academic environment at the time than to Kant's true, well considered, opinion. Jacob Sigismund Beck's Standpunctslehre challenges the two dominant schools in the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism-the "two world" and the "two aspect" view. It presents a new way of understanding Kant's transcendental idealism, according to which the thing in itself plays no positive role in relation to the possibility of experience. Moreover, it claims that eliminating the thing in itself as the ultimate object of knowledge is not to admit idealism but in fact is the only way to consistently uphold realism. In addition, the book also addresses the question why, assuming that the proposed interpretation is correct, Kant had chosen not to make his true intentions clear. (shrink)

In traditional societies the relationship between the group members was more personal and less individual. Most societies were patriarchal, hierarchical and static and most people understood themselves according to their social position. Only a small minority of the members tried to differentiate themselves from the collective in order to follow their potential of individuality. In modern times the social relations became less personal and more individual and the ideal was to allow every citizen to strive for accomplishing his special vocation. (...) The ideal of the vocation of man was presented in the writings of many philosophers and it reflected social, technological and scientific changes. Kant’s ideal of autonomic reason and Nietzsche’s ideal of authenticity were the two ideals of individuality. The first aim of this paper is to reexamine the limits of these ideals by following the ideas of different writers and to convince that this historical change should be conceived as the burden of individuality. The second aim is to rethink the relation between the imperative of individuality and the status of metaphysics in the writings of modern philosophers. (shrink)

This article presents a new understanding of the problem of cosmopolitan motivation in war, comparing it to the motivational critique of social justice cosmopolitanism. The problem of cosmopolitanism’s “motivational gap” is best interpreted as a political one, not a meta-ethical or ethical one. That is, the salient issue is not whether an individual soldier is able to be motivated by cosmopolitan concerns, nor is it whether being motivated by cosmopolitanism would be too demanding. Rather, given considerations of legitimacy in the (...) use of political power, a democratic army has to be able to motivate its soldiers to take on the necessary risks without relying on coercion alone. Patriotic identification offers a way to achieve this in wars of national defense, but less so in armed humanitarian interventions (AHIs). Two potential implications are that either AHIs should be privatized or that national armies should be transformed to become more cosmopolitan. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the political motivation argument against cosmopolitanism, according to which the extension of social justice beyond bounded communities would be motivationally unstable, and thus unjustified. It does so through an analysis of the stability problem, and a reconstruction of the three most prominent anti-cosmopolitan arguments—Rawlsian statism, liberal nationalism, and civic republicanism—as solutions to this problem. It then examines, and rejects, three prominent objections, each denying a different level of the argument. The article concludes that the civic republican version (...) of the argument is the most plausible, and implications for cosmopolitanism are considered. (shrink)

This article provides a new interpretation of Richard Rorty’s notion of the private-public distinction. The first section of the article provides a short theoretical overview of the origins of the public-private distinction in Rorty’s political thought and clarifies the Rortian terminology. The main portion of the article is dedicated to the critique of Rorty’s private-public distinction, divided into two thematic sections: (i) the private-public distinction as undesirable and (ii) the private-public distinction as unattainable. I argue that Rorty’s formulation provides plausible (...) answers to the first kind of criticism, but not to the second. Finally, a reformulation of the private-public distinction will be suggested, which both mitigates the second line of criticism and better coheres with Rorty’s general theory. (shrink)

Summary The article deals with the political thought of the young Spanish philosopher and intellectual, José Ortega y Gasset (1883?1955). The main aim is to examine to what extent his political thought was articulated in a systematic manner, and to understand if it was meant to be practically implemented. Ortega's political thought has been described as liberal on the one hand, and anti-democratic and conservative on the other. The disparities regarding Ortega's politics usually arise from his declarations, which aimed to (...) confront the changing social and political situation in Spain. To many researchers, these declarations seem incoherent, evolutionary, or ideas that can be directly deduced from the evolution of his philosophical theory. The extent to which Ortega's political theory was systematic will be understood through focusing on the role designed for the Spanish intellectuals in Ortega's declarations and works. Instead of considering his political thought in relation to either his philosophy or the political events and changing circumstances in Spain, I will attempt to examine how, during the years of his youth, his political declarations were always guided by a consistent feature with a practical political purpose: to challenge the Spanish intellectuals to promote social awareness of and reflection on the country's problems, and to consider potential solutions to these problems. (shrink)

הייתכן לדבר על השתיקה כשפה? במסע ארוך המשתרע על שבעה עשר פרקים מנסה המחבר להתמודד עם התפיסה המקובלת בימינו, לפיה השתיקה האנושית היא שפה פרטית, פנימית ואינטימית, כזו הנגישה רק לאדם כיחיד. תחילת המסע להתגברות על תפיסה זו מצוי בבחינה מחודשת של הרציונאליזם ואידיאל האינדיבידואליות המודרני בזיקה עם הגישה שלנו אל השתיקה האנושית. בעוד ששפת המילים מוגדרת כשפה המשקפת את העולם, המהווה תמונה של המציאות, שפת השתיקה מתוארת כשיקוף של הפרטי שרק היחיד ככזה יכול לגשת אליו. האומנם השתיקה היא שפה (...) פרטית? רגעים של שתיקה נחשפים במהלך הספר כחלק מהדיאלוג של האדם עם עצמו, עם הזולת ועם מכלול המציאות שמסביבו. ניתוח היחסים בין התחזקות האמונה המודרנית בפוטנציאל הרציונאליזם ו/או מדע האדם לבין תהליך הגדרת השתיקה כשפה פרטית עומד במרכז הדיון. האמונה בכוחן של המילים לשקף ולשלוט על המציאות כמו גם האמונה בכוחו של מדע האדם לתאר באופן אובייקטיבי/מדעי את האדם כסובייקט אנושי ניצבים למבחן מחודש. מטרת הדיון לאפשר לשפת השתיקה לחשוף עצמה כשפה שאיננה פרטית, כשפה של דיאלוג של האדם עם עולם החיים ו/או המציאות האנושית שהוא חלק בלתי נפרד ממנו. היחס של החברה לשפת השתיקה כמו גם יחסה לשפת המילים הוא שיקוף של יחסה לתפקידו של האדם החי בה. הגדרת השתיקה כשפה פרטית מהווה חלק מתהליך ההתעצמות ההיסטורי של ניכור האדם מעצמו ומעולם החיים שהוא חלק ממנו. שתי סוגיות מרכזיות השזורות זו בזו ושמופיעות לאורך כל פרקי הספר: סוגיית הניכור החברתי ובחינה מחדש של החלק של הרציונאליזם בהתעצמות תחושת הניכור של האדם המודרני. (shrink)