How do we judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? If an action is wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Why should we give such reasons priority over our other concerns and values? In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other. According to his contractualist view, thinking about right and wrong is thinking (...) about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject. He shows how the special authority of conclusions about right and wrong arises from the value of being related to others in this way, and he shows how familiar moral ideas such as fairness and responsibility can be understood through their role in this process of mutual justification and criticism. Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong. (shrink)

Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a given concept might be (...) measurable on different types of scales—e.g., some ordinal and some cardinal. An underappreciated impossibility theorem due to Anna Khmelnitskaya shows that seemingly plausible constraints on aggregation across scale types are inconsistent. This impossibility threatens to render the notion of overall Fness incoherent. We attempt to defuse this threat, arguing that the impossibility depends on an overly restrictive conception of measurement and of how measurement constrains aggregation. Adopting a more flexible—and, we think, more perspicuous—conception of measurement opens an array of possibilities for aggregation across disparate scale types. (shrink)

Much has changed in maternal-fetal medicine since the early 2000s, when the previous ethical frameworks for fetal therapy trials were established. We applaud Hendriks and colleagues for taking on t...

Unlike inert objects, organisms and their cells have the ability to initiate activity by themselves and thus change their properties or states even in the absence of an external cause. This crucial difference led us to search for principles suitable for the study organisms. We propose that cells follow the default state of proliferation with variation and motility, a principle of biological inertia. This means that in the presence of sufficient nutrients, cells will express their default state. We also propose (...) a principle of variation that addresses two central features of organisms, variation and historicity. To address interdependence between parts, we use a third principle, the principle of organization, more specifically, the notion of the closure of constraints. Within this theoretical framework, constraints are specific theoretical entities defined by their relative stability with respect to the processes they constrain. Constraints are mutually dependent in an organized system and act on the default state.Here we discuss the application and articulation of these principles for mathematical modeling of morphogenesis in a specific case, that of mammary ductal morphogenesis, with an emphasis on the default state. Our model has both a biological component, the cells, and a physical component, the matrix that contains collagen fibers. Cells are agents that move and proliferate unless constrained; they exert mechanical forces that act (i) on collagen fibers and (ii) on other cells. As fibers are organized, they constrain the cells’ ability to move and to proliferate. This model exhibits a circularity that can be interpreted in terms of the closure of constraints. Implementing our mathematical model shows that constraints to the default state are sufficient to explain the formation of mammary epithelial structures. Finally, the success of this modeling effort suggests a stepwise approach whereby additional constraints imposed by the tissue and the organism can be examined in silico and rigorously tested by in vitro and in vivo experiments, in accordance with the organicist perspective we embrace. (shrink)

This paper generalizes the (epistemic) preface paradox beyond the principle of belief aggregation and constructs a similar paradox for deontic reasoning. The analysis of the deontic case yields a solution strategy---restricting belief/obligation aggregation rather than giving it up altogether---that can be transferred to the epistemic case. Our proposal amounts to a reasonable compromise between two goals: (i) sticking to bridge principles between evidence and belief, such as the Lockean Thesis, and (ii) obtaining a sufficiently strong logic of doxastic and deontic (...) reasoning. (shrink)

In the last decade, the organization of pharmaceutical research on neglected tropical diseases has undergone transformative change. In a context of perceived “market failure,” the development of new medicines is increasingly handled by public-private partnerships. This shift toward hybrid organizational models depends on a particular form of exchange: the sharing of proprietary assets in general and of intellectual property rights in particular. This article explores the paradoxical role of private property in this new configuration of global health research and development. (...) Rather than a tool to block potential competitors, proprietary assets function as a lever to attract others into risky collaborative ventures; instead of demarcating public and private domains, the sharing of property rights is used to increase the porosity of that boundary. This reimagination of the value of property is connected to the peculiar timescape of global health drug development, a promissory orientation to the future that takes its clearest form in the centrality of “virtual” business models and the proliferation of strategies of deferral. Drawing on the anthropological literature on inalienable possessions, we reconsider property’s traditional exclusionary role and discuss the possibility that the new pharmaceutical “commons” proclaimed by contemporary global health partnerships might be the precursor of future enclosures. (shrink)

This project was provoked by the almost nonexistent pushback from the Democratic liberal establishment to the (2020) exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse, despite his acknowledged killing of two Black Lives Matters protesters against the police murder of George Floyd. It builds on three prior articles arguing for the revival of ancient Dionysian practice, Haitian Vodou, and Indigenous South American shamanism to empower leftist revolution. In essence, I propose an assemblage of spiritual practices that are accessible today for the neo-colonized 99% of (...) the global population, by synthesizing and reconstructing three democratic, lower-SES, Indigenous religions, all of which share a militant defiance of their respective tyrannical plutocracies. To avoid cultural appropriation, I center these reconstructed spiritual practices on the figure of the “mage,” a psychosocial healer loosely analogous to a shaman. And the mage’s signature activity, “magic,” I redefine naturalistically as free interpersonal performative action, practiced using two theoretical disciplines (philosophy and psychology) and two practical disciplines chosen by each mage. More precisely, Spirit/Dance channels the “spirits” of dead ancestors, historical figures, legendary heroes, mythical beings, and fictional characters, into the three ultimate objectives of “mindfulness” for psyches/souls, “liberation” for mindful bodies, and “social justice” for liberated communities, indirectly empowering long-term revolution. (shrink)

Some recent uses of artificial intelligence for facial recognition, evaluating resumes, and sorting photographs by subject matter have revealed troubling disparities in performance or impact based on the demographic traits of subject populations. These disparities raise pressing questions about how using artificial intelligence can work to promote justice or entrench injustice. Political theorists and philosophers have developed nuanced vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for understanding and adjudicating disputes about what justice requires and what constitutes injustice. The interdisciplinary community committed to understanding (...) and conscientiously using big data could benefit from this work. Thus, in the spirit of encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration, this piece examines contemporary scholarship in political theory and philosophy to illustrate some of the vocabularies and frameworks political theorists and philosophers have developed for thinking about justice and injustice. It then draws on these frameworks to illuminate how the use of artificial intelligence can implicate questions of justice, with a focus on institutional discrimination, structural injustice, and epistemic injustice. Ultimately, the piece argues that the use of artificial intelligence—far from representing a decision to take power out of human hands—represents a novel way of harnessing human power, making questions of justice central to its conscientious undertaking. (shrink)

The policy of earmarked paternity leave aims to promote mothers’ position in the labor market and fathers’ relationship with their child. Critics argue that the policy prevents parents from pursuing their own ideas about what is best for them. This provides reason to consider whether the policy is paternalistic or, in other ways, disrespectful of parental autonomy. I argue that the state implicates itself in the gender inequalities that result from parents’ unequal parental leave agreements when the state financially facilitates (...) such agreements. This argument for earmarked paternity leave is not disrespectful of parental autonomy. (shrink)

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

In this essay, after a brief decolonial analysis of the concept of “poetry” in Indigenous communities, I will investigate the poetic-philosophical implications of Cherokee culture, more specifically the poetic essence of the Cherokee language, the poetic aspects of Cherokee myth (pre-history) and post-myth (history), and the poetic-philosophical powers of Cherokee ritual. My first section analyzes the poetic essence, structure, special features, and historical context of the Cherokee language, drawing on Ruth Holmes and Betty Sharp Smith’s language textbook, Beginning Cherokee. My (...) second section considers poetic aspects of the pre-history and history of the Cherokee Nation considered as a text, using Robert J. Conley’s The Cherokee Nation: A History. And my third section investigates the poetic nature of the Cherokee rituals’ myth-ontological background and its existential psychological implications, via J. T. Garrett & Michael Tlanusta Garrett’s The Cherokee Full Circle: A Practical Guide to Ceremonies and Traditions. Collectively, these analyses will suggest that, just as the Cherokee and other tribes are the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over Indigenous peoples of the North American continent, so poetry writ large (including Indigenous philosophy) is the slandered, disenfranchised, suppressed and covered-over arche of western philosophy (as I have previously explored via a new interpretation of Nietzsche). In short, I will argue that both poetry and Cherokee culture can be understood as indigenous “absences” which are in truth vital and enduring presences. (shrink)

In his influential history of the post-1967 history of the Palestinian Occupation, radical Israeli architect Eyal Weizman show how even well-meaning decolonial efforts from privileged allies can be coopted by the colonizers, in what I call “de-decolonizing.” Here I focus on one of his examples, namely IDF (Israeli Defense Force) military professors repurposing the anarcho-communist philosophy of French postmodernist Gilles Deleuze into a weapon against Palestinian guerrilla resistance. My conclusion is that attempted decolonizing via (inevitably complicit) privileged allies must include (...) what Weizman calls “co-resistance,” and I call “reconstruction.” In other words, when a Deleuzian “line of flight” to “escape” is impossible, as arguably for Palestinians today, then one should follow the heroic example of the Bedouins, who (as Weizman acknowledges) are the only Arabs who have never stopped rebuilding their Palestine. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss epistemic and ethical concerns brought about by machine learning (ML) systems implemented in medicine. We begin by fleshing out the logic underlying a common approach in the specialized literature (which we call the _informativeness account_). We maintain that the informativeness account limits its analysis to the impact of epistemological issues on ethical concerns without assessing the bearings that ethical features have on the epistemological evaluation of ML systems. We argue that according to this methodological approach, (...) epistemological issues are _instrumental_ to and _autonomous_ of ethical considerations. This means that the informativeness account considers epistemological evaluation uninfluenced and unregulated by an ethical counterpart. Using an example that does not square well into the _informativeness account_, we argue for ethical assessments that have a substantial influence on the epistemological assessment of ML and that such influence should not be understood as merely informative but rather regulatory. Drawing on the case analyzed, we claim that within the theoretical framework of the informativeness approach, forms of epistemic injustice—especially _epistemic objectification_—remain unaddressed. Our analysis should motivate further research investigating the regulatory role that ethical elements play in the epistemology of ML. (shrink)

Comparative religion scholar Thomas Berry’s influential concept of “Earth jurisprudence” has been helpfully elaborated in three principal books. My first section identifies four of their common themes, deriving therefrom an implicit narrative: (1) the basis of ecology is autopoiesis, which (2) originally generated human communities and Indigenous vernacular laws, which were (3) later reasserted by forest defenders who fought to create the Magna Carta’s “Charter of the Forest,” which is (4) now championed globally by the Indian physicist and eco-activist Vandana (...) Shiva’s Earth Democracy movement. My next three sections identify mutually exclusive elements of the three books, deriving the following alternative narrative: self-conscious new dancing rituals (Cullinan) could empower an historically informed reconstruction of private property (Burdon) via commons-based vernacular law (Weston and Bollier). And my conclusion offers one template for such a strategy, namely a new environmental variation on my dancing-poetic conception of legal justice, christened “emerald star-law.”. (shrink)

Conflict over who belongs in women-only spaces is now part of mainstream political debate. Some think women-only spaces should exclude on the basis of sex, and others think they should exclude on the basis of a person’s self-determined gender identity. Many who take the latter view appear to believe that the only reason for taking the former view could be antipathy towards men who identify as women. In this paper, we’ll revisit the second-wave feminist literature on separatism, in order to (...) uncover the reasons for women-only spaces as feminists originally conceived them. Once these reasons are understood, those participating in debates over women-only spaces will be in a better position to adjudicate on whether shifting from sex to gender identity puts any significant interests at stake. (shrink)

In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States of America (US) intelligence agency, developed what is famously known as Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Its mission was to surveil, misinform, misdirect and subvert or destroy black ‘subversive’ militant groups. The main intention of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent the rise of a messiah’ who could ‘unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement’. This insight is important as it reveals how those outside of black life (FBI) would (...) invoke biblical language to define the possibility of revolution. This article through Black liberation theology seeks to present the idea of messianism as both an experience of Africans and oppressed peoples in the Global North and Global South. The idea of messianism is part of biblical reception in Africa and the African experience of colonialism. In South Africa, messianism would be observed from the perspective of African Christianity, while another form of messianism would be seen from Nat The Prophet Turner as well as the radical identity of Christ in Black liberation theology. The article will not take lightly the idea of surveillance of black militant groups in the same way as the priestly class surveillance Christ ministry. At the same time, the article would reflect on why lunacy is associated with those that seek to subvert oppression. This article seeks to discuss the role of messianism and militancy in Black or African Christianity and highlighting biblical reception and African affectivity. Contribution: This article explores the imaginative ways the Bible or its themes have been used by both the oppressor and the oppressed, often the latter using the Bible for its prerogative, namely, revolution and liberation. (shrink)

BackgroundHealth behavior change is among the top recommendations for improving health of patients with lifestyle-related chronic diseases. An array of behavior change techniques have been developed to support behavior change initiation and maintenance. These BCTs often show limited success when they are not informed by theory, leading to a mismatch between the intention of the BCT and patients’ needs or expectations. Previous studies have identified a number of resources which patients may require to initiate and maintain health behavior change. Indeed, (...) not yet well established is how BCTs address these resources, i.e., the functional mechanisms of BCTs.PurposeProvide a theoretical framework of the functional mechanisms of BCTs for developing and implementing successful interventions for health behavior change.MethodsConceptual review, including literature analysis and synthesis as well as conceptualization of a new model based on the synthesis.ResultsThrough the integration of dual-process models as well as reward and motivation proceeding, i.e., affective, emotional, or intuitive neurobiological cues, into the rational framework of rather linear cognitive or task-related decision progress, we categorize previously identified resources into three distinct sets: external, internal reflective, and internal affective resources. Based on this triad, we classify BCTs according to their functional mechanisms into facilitating, boosting, and nudging. Consequently, we present a simplified Behavior Change Resource Model that is centered on patients’ resources.ConclusionThe model can be applied to develop health behavior change interventions, which promote engagement and empowerment. Future studies should aim at testing the applicability and practicality of the BCRM. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that a number of Hume’s claims generate a putative inconsistency with regard to complex ideas and independent existence. I first provide a prima facie argument for the existence of this inconsistency. Then, I examine a number of attempts to rescue Hume from this problem, and argue that each of them fails, before proposing my own solution.

This work introduces the framework for selecting architecture in 5G networks, considering various technological, performance, economic, and operational factors. With the emergence of 5G technology, the architecture selection process has become pivotal in meeting diverse requirements for ultra-high-speed connectivity, low latency, scalability, and diverse service demands. The evaluation comprehensively analyses different architecture options, including centralized, distributed, cloud-based, and virtualized architectures. Factors such as network performance, scalability, cost-effectiveness, security, and compatibility are considered within a multi-criteria decision-making framework. Findings reveal each architecture (...) option's diverse strengths and limitations, emphasizing the importance of aligning architectural choices with specific use cases, deployment scenarios, and business objectives. We used the concept of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology to control the various criteria. We used the single-valued neutrosophic set (SVNS) to deal with vague and inconsistent data. The SVNS is integrated with the hyperSoft set. The proposed methodology uses a single-valued neutrosophic hyperSoft set (SVNHSS) to select the best 5G architecture. We used the VIKOR method as an MCDM method to rank the alternatives. The proposed framework provides stakeholders with a structured methodology to evaluate and prioritize architecture options, facilitating informed decision-making in the complex landscape of 5G network deployments. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze survey data from more than 1,000 financial services employees to understand how gender inequality manifests itself in employees' informal networks. I found that even when Black and white women had jobs in which they controlled organizational resources and had ties to powerful employees, they received less work-related help from their network members than did white men. Drawing on status characteristics theory, I explain that network members were less likely to invest in women than in white (...) men because of cultural beliefs that rank women below that of white men. While past research has documented how employers use gender to rank workers and distribute rewards unequally, my research indicates that workers use gender to categorize and rank their network members as well. (shrink)

Sacred Harp singers the world over gather weekly to sing out ofThe Sacred Harp, a collection of shape-note songs first published in 1844. Their tradition is highly ritualized, and it plays an important role in the lives of many participants. Following the implementation of lockdown protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Sacred Harp singers quickly and independently devised a variety of means by which to sing together online using Zoom, Jamulus, and Facebook Live. The rapidity and creativity with (...) which Sacred Harp singers developed ways to sustain their activities attests to the strength and significance of this community of practice, and in this article I describe each modality and provide an account of how it came to be developed and widely used. As a participant-observer, I completed extensive fieldwork across these digital sites and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 other singers. I found that online singing practices have reshaped the Sacred Harp community. Many singers who did not previously have the opportunity to participate now have access, while others have lost access due to technological barriers or lack of interest in online activities. At the same time, geographical barriers have disintegrated, and singing organizers must make an effort to maintain local identity. A stable community of singers has emerged in the digital realm, but it is by no means identical to the community that predated the pandemic. I also identify the ways in which online singing has proven meaningful to participants by providing continuity in their personal and communal practice. Specifically, online singing allows participants to access and celebrate their collective memories of the Sacred Harp community, carry out significant rituals, and continue to grow as singers. While no single modality replicates the complete Sacred Harp singing experience, together they function “like pieces in a puzzle”, allowing individual participants to access many of the elements of Sacred Harp singing that are most meaningful to them. (shrink)

Comparative risk assessment is playing an ever-increasing role in environmental policy priority setting, as manifested in national and numerous subnational comparative risk projects. It is widely accepted that public values, interests, and concerns should play an important role in CRA. However, the philosophical basis for public involvement in CRA has not been adequately explored, nor have comparative risk projects always made explicit their rationales for public involvement. The author examines the political, normative, and epistemic rationales for public involvement and explores (...) the case for public involvement in the making of ethical, valuation, and evidentiary judgments. The author considers key issues each rationale raises, problems eachfaces, and some of the implications of each for specific aspects of CRA. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 29-31.

In this article, I build on my recent conceptions of law as poetry and of justice as dance by articulating three new conceptions of the relationship between law and justice. In the first, “poetry-based justice”, justice consists of a rigid choreography to a kind of musical recitation of the law’s poetry. In the second, “dancing-based law”, justice consists of spontaneous, freely improvised movement patterns that the poetry of the law tries to capture in a kind of musical notation. And in (...) the third, “reciprocal-legal justice”, justice and law consist of a reciprocally determining artistic collaboration between the democratic dancing masses and the aristocratic poetising elites. Given that each of these predominates in one of three types of community, I then present a reclassification of right-leaning, centrist and leftist societies as dominated by “literalist”, “kinetic” and “mutualist” communities (respectively), and offer suggestions for legislators and activists working in each type. In conclusion, law and justice, qua poetry and dance, become more flexible, inclusive and open to creative improvising and collaboration, a new form that I name, after Astraea, Greek goddess of divine justice, “astral legal justice”. (shrink)

The 'no-supervenience' theorem (Reason, 2019; Reason and Shah, 2021) is a proof that no fully self-aware system can entirely supervene on any objectively observable system. I here present a simple, non-technical summary of the proof and demonstrate its implications for four separate theories of consciousness: the 'property dualism' theory of David Chalmers; the 'reflexive monism' of Max Velmans; Galen Strawson's 'realistic monism'; and the 'illusionism' of Keith Frankish. It is shown that all are ruled out in their current form by (...) the no-supervenience theorem, except for Chalmers' theory, which I show requires humans to behave irrationally. (shrink)

Darrel Moellendorf places hope at the core of his call for climate-change vision and action, positing a ‘hopeful vision of a sustainable and prosperous world’ committed to ‘green growth’ – along th...

Ethical climate (EC) has been broadly described as how well institutions respond to ethical issues. Developing a tool to study and evaluate EC that aims to achieve sustained improvements requires a contemporary framework with identified relevant drivers. An extensive literature review was performed, reviewing existing EC definitions, tools and areas where EC has been studied; ethical challenges and relevance of EC in contemporary paediatric intensive care (PIC); and relevant ethical theories. We surmised that existing EC definitions and tools designed to (...) measure it fail to capture nuances of the PIC environment, and sought to address existing gaps by developing an EC framework for PIC founded on ethical theory. In this article, we propose a Paediatric Intensive Care Ethical Climate (PICEC) conceptual framework and four measurable domains to be captured by an assessment tool. We define PICEC as the collective felt experience of interdisciplinary team members arising from those factors that enable or constrain their ability to navigate ethical aspects of their work. PICEC both results from and is influenced by how well ethical issues are understood, identified, explored, reflected on, responded to and addressed in the workplace. PICEC encompasses four, core inter-related domains representing drivers of EC including: (1) organisational culture and leadership; (2) interdisciplinary team relationships and dynamics; (3) integrated child and family-centred care; and (4) ethics literacy. Future directions involve developing a PICEC measurement tool, with implications for benchmarking as well as guidance for, and evaluation of, targeted interventions to foster a healthy EC. (shrink)

Epistemic structuralism, the idea that social structures have an immense influence on our inquiries and epistemic behavior, presents a unique challenge to the emerging field of vice epistemology. The most extreme application of this challenge results in the rejection of vice explanations in favor of structural explanations for epistemic behavior. Some vice epistemologists have expressed the intuitive idea that vice explanations and structural explanations may be synthesized, but the exact details of such a synthesis have yet to be adequately examined. (...) This paper starts by trying to gain clarity about structuralism and structuralist explanations in epistemology, then it discusses how a well-developed vice-structural explanation can be done. I end this paper by briefly noting a few crucial issues that demand further investigation. (shrink)

This article challenges a reductive analysis of social practices by distinguishing five kinds of reason for following the rules of conventional practices. Depending on one’s preferred intellectual tradition, conventional practices enable coordination, facilitate cooperation, constitute activities, fulfil reciprocity, or specify abstract rights. Instead of being rival theories of social practices, these different models complement one another in a normative analysis of social practices. By distinguishing five kinds of reasons to follow conventional rules, this paper supports a more dynamic conventionalist analysis (...) of subjects like property, the law, professional obligation, civic responsibility, and culture. (shrink)

That which constitutes a ‘good death’, or dying well, has long been of interest to philosophers and clinicians alike. While difficult to define due to its deeply personal nature and dependency on spiritual and cultural beliefs and past experiences, Wilkinson1 has drawn parallels from art and music to consider key ethical components. Few in clinical practice would dispute that a ‘good death’ is one that does not rob the person of a valuable life, is aligned with the preferences of the (...) patient and/or their family, where comfort and solace is provided, distress to family and caregivers is minimised or even that dying is not prolonged. However, what is more contentious is how tensions within the principles of a ‘good death’ should be managed or prioritised. In the context of caring for critically ill babies and children, the tension often takes the form of prolonging the dying process through providing life-sustaining interventions to meet the needs of, and to lessen the longer term distress of, the bereaved family, who must live with the decisions that are made. Though often justifiable, such interventions may result in considerable moral distress within caregivers—particularly, as often the case, when interventions are perceived by some clinicians to be of greater benefit to the family than the patient. Some clinicians may have difficulty …. (shrink)

In this research work, we have explored the physical and topological properties of the crystal structure of metal-insulator transition superlattice. In recent times, two-dimensional substantial have enamored comprehensive considerations owing to their novel ophthalmic and mechanical properties for anticipated employment. Recently, some researchers put their interest in modifying this material into useful forms in human life. Also, Metal-Insulator Transition Superlattice is useful in form of a thin film to utilize as two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides. Moreover, we have defined the computed-based (...) bond properties such as the degree constructed topological indices and their heat of formation for single crystal and monolayered structure of Ge-Sb-Te. Also, this structure is one of the most interesting composites in modern resources of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how our experience of pain and suffering structure our experience over time. I argue that pain and suffering are not as easily dissociable, in living and in conceptual analysis, as philosophers have tended to think. Specifically, I do not think that there is only a contingent connection between physical pain and psychological suffering. Rather, physical pain is partially constitutive of existential suffering. My analysis is informed by contemporary thinking about pain and suffering as well as (...) Indian Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

This paper proposes that we should think of epistemic agents as having, as one of their intellectual activities, a gatekeeping task: To decide in light of various criteria which ideas they should consider and which not to consider. When this task is performed with excellence, it is conducive to the acquisition of epistemic goods such as truth and knowledge, and the reduction of falsehoods. Accordingly, it is a worthy contender for being an intellectual virtue. Although gatekeeping may strike one simply (...) as the virtue of open- mindedness, I argue that it is not; gatekeeping does not favor a characteristic disposition to be willing to consider novel or opposing ideas. In fact, being told that an agent is excellent at gatekeeping reveals nothing about how frequently she considers or refuses to consider ideas. This paper will introduce and motivate the notion of gatekeeping, and offer some preliminary arguments in support of its candidacy as an intellectual virtue. (shrink)

Controversies surrounding social media platforms have provided opportunities for institutional reflexivity amongst users and regulators on how to understand and govern platforms. Amidst contestation, platform companies have continued to enact projects that draw upon existing modes of privatized governance. We investigate how social media companies have attempted to achieve closure by continuing to set the terms around platform governance. We investigate two projects implemented by Facebook (Meta)—authenticity regulation and privacy controls—in response to the Russian Interference and Cambridge Analytica controversies surrounding (...) the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Drawing on Goffman’s metaphor of stage management, we analyze the techniques deployed by Facebook to reinforce a division between what is visible and invisible to the user experience. These platform governance projects propose to act upon _front-stage data relations:_ information that users can see from other users—whether that is content that users can see from “bad actors”, or information that other users can see about oneself. At the same time, these projects relegate _back-stage data relations_—information flows between users constituted by recommendation and targeted advertising systems—to invisibility and inaction. As such, Facebook renders the user experience actionable for governance, while foreclosing governance of back-stage data relations central to the economic value of the platform. As social media companies continue to perform platform governance projects following controversies, our paper invites reflection on the politics of these projects. By destabilizing the boundaries drawn by platform companies, we open space for continuous reflexivity on how platforms should be understood and governed. (shrink)

Digital media and technologies have significantly transformed the ways we relate to the world, in the triple sense of Selbstwelt, Mitwelt, and Umwelt. Think of the quantification of the self, the number of followers and likes on social media, or using Google maps and similar tools to orient ourselves in a city, to find and choose a good restaurant, and so on. One might say that digital media and technologies have actually transformed our interpretation, understanding, and access to the world. (...) Now, if hermeneutics is the philosophy of interpretation, then we might suppose that hermeneutics should pay attention to these transformations. For us, digital hermeneutics is the study of the ways digital media and technologies mediate between humans and the world. It is also the study of the ways digital media and technologies are embedded in non-technological relations between humans and the world – psychological, social, cultural, and so on. (shrink)

We investigate how people ascribe responsibility to an agent who caused a bad outcome but did not know he would. The psychological processes for making such judgments, we argue, involve finding a counterfactual in which some minimally benevolent intention initiates a course of events that leads to a better outcome than the actual one. We hypothesize that such counterfactuals can include, when relevant, epistemic intentions. With four vignette studies, we show that people consider epistemic intentions when ascribing responsibility for a (...) bad outcome. We further investigate which epistemic intentions people are likely to consider when building counterfactuals for responsibility ascription. We find that, when an agent did not predict a bad outcome, people ascribe responsibility depending on the reasons behind the agents’ lack of knowledge. People judge agents responsible for the bad outcome they caused when they could have easily predicted the consequences of their actions but did not care to acquire the relevant information. However, when this information was hard to acquire, people are less likely to judge them responsible. -/- . (shrink)

This article discusses the term erotology, which was applied to medieval Islamicate ‘ilm al-bah (the science of coitus), as well as other world traditions of sexual knowledge, by European sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who contrasted it with their own forms of inquiry into sexual matters in the modern field of sexual science. It argues that the homogenisation and minimisation of all ancient and non-European forms of medical knowledge about sex, even one as substantial as the (...) ‘ilm al-bah tradition, supported a particular story about the origins of sexology's own emergence as a new and unprecedented biomedical and scientific way of knowing, characterised by an opposition assumed between sexuality and religion, by a view of sexual variations as perversions or pathologies, and by a view of Arabs and Muslims as sexually excessive. The article focusses on French, English, German, Austrian, and Italian sources of the 19th century that discussed the history of sexual medicine, relating these accounts to recent attempts to historicise sexology. It considers how forms of colonial hierarchy and exoticist views of non-European cultures impacted the dismissal of ‘ilm al-bah among European sexual scientists and how they may continue to exert an influence on forms of modern historical inquiry that are not attentive to scholarship on medieval Islamicate sexual medicine. (shrink)

The article provides a critical analysis of a postfeminist identity that is emergent in a set of beauty advertisements, called ‘entitled femininity’. Three major discursive themes are identified, which are constitutive of this postfeminist feminine identity: 1) ‘It’s about me!’ focuses on pampering and pleasuring the self; 2) ‘Celebrating femininity’ reclaims and rejoices in feminine stereotypes; and 3) ‘Girling women’ encourages a youthful disposition in women of all ages. The article shows that entitled femininity occupies an ambivalent discursive space, which (...) celebrates as well as repudiates feminism, and re-installs normative gendered stereotypes. The ambivalence, it is argued, contributes to fostering a culture of post-critique, which numbs resistance and deflects criticism. For all its appearances to be pro-women, feminine entitlement based squarely on an entitlement to consume offers a rather limited and problematic vision of femininity and gender equality. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Rawls and Human Rights Minimalism State Sovereignty and the Role of Human Rights Rawls's Political Liberalism and the Doctrine of Human Rights in LoP The Importance of the Role in LoP of Rawls's Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights Rawls's Arguments for the Narrow Doctrine ldquo;Ideal” and “Non‐ideal” Theory in LoP Strategies for the International Enforcement of Respect for Human Rights Conclusion Notes.

In 2005, President George Bush read John Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. After his experiences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Bush began the first White...