Phase 1 healthy volunteer clinical trials—which financially compensate subjects in tests of drug toxicity levels and side effects—appear to place pressure on each joint of the moral framework justifying research. In this article, we review concerns about phase 1 trials as they have been framed in the bioethics literature, including undue inducement and coercion, unjust exploitation, and worries about compromised data validity. We then revisit these concerns in light of the lived experiences of serial participants who are income-dependent on phase (...) 1 trials. We show how participant experiences shift attention from discrete exchanges, behaviors, and events in the research enterprise to the ongoing and dynamic patterns of serial participation in which individual decision-making is embedded in collective social and economic conditions and shaped by institutional policies. We argue in particular for the ethical significance of structurally diminished voluntariness, routine powerlessness in setting the terms of exchange, and incentive structures that may promote pharmaceutical interests but encourage phase 1 healthy volunteers to skirt important rules. (shrink)

Despite broader changes in the health care industry and gender dynamics in the United States, men continue to be a minority in the traditionally female occupation of nursing. As a caring profession, nursing emphasizes empathy, emotional engagement, and helping others—behaviors and skills characterized as antithetical to hegemonic notions of a tough, detached, and independent masculine self. The current study examines how nursing and related organizations “mobilize masculinities” in their efforts to recruit men to nursing. Analyzing recruitment materials, I assess the (...) mobilization and construction of masculinities in the context of textual, spoken, and visual content. Results reveal how organizations simultaneously mobilize aspects of hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities through ideological gendering practices. I identify three distinct types of mediated mobilization: full hegemonic co-option, partial hegemonic co-option, and alternative construction of masculinities. Empirically, the study illustrates the content of nursing recruitment material aimed at men and the ongoing contradictions endemic to men’s entry into caring professions. Complementing existing structural and interactional approaches, the study advances theory on how the mobilization of masculinities operates as an ideological gendering practice at the organizational level. (shrink)

This collection of recent articles by leading scholars is designed to illuminate one of the greatest and most influential philosophical books of all time. It includes incisive commentary on every major theme and argument in the Meditations, and will be valuable not only to philosophers but to historians, theologians, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

Theorizing a sociology of emotion that links micro-level resources to macro-level forces, this article extends previous work on emotional capital in relation to emotional experiences and management. Emerging from Bourdieu’s theory of social practice, emotional capital is a form of cultural capital that includes the emotion-specific, trans-situational resources that individuals activate and embody in distinct fields. Contrary to prior conceptualizations, I argue that emotional capital is neither wholly gender-neutral nor exclusively feminine. Men may lay claim to emotional capital as a (...) valued resource within particular fields. The concept of emotional capital should be seen as distinct from emotion management and felt emotional experience and distinctions between primary and secondary sources of capital clarify the simultaneously durable and evolving nature of capital and the habitus. To illustrate these conceptual refinements, I use interview and diary data from male nurses. Men bring primary emotional capital, developed during primary socialization, to the nursing profession while also developing secondary capital through occupational socialization centered on empathy and compassion. The construct of emotional capital is refined as a structured yet dynamic resource developed through primary and secondary socialization and activated and embodied in everyday emotion practice. (shrink)

Integrity is a critical determinant of the effectiveness of research organizations in terms of producing high quality research and educating the new generation of scientists. A number of responsible conduct of research (RCR) training programs have been developed to address this growing organizational concern. However, in spite of a significant body of research in ethics training, it is still unknown which approach has the highest potential to enhance researchers’ integrity. One of the approaches showing some promise in improving researchers’ integrity (...) has focused on the development of ethical decision-making skills. The current effort proposes a novel curriculum that focuses on broad metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day social and professional practices that have ethical implications for the physical sciences and engineering. This sensemaking training has been implemented in a professional sample of scientists conducting research in electrical engineering, atmospheric and computer sciences at a large multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, and multi-university research center. A pre-post design was used to assess training effectiveness using scenario-based ethical decision-making measures. The training resulted in enhanced ethical decision-making of researchers in relation to four ethical conduct areas, namely data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. In addition, sensemaking training led to researchers’ preference for decisions involving the application of the broad metacognitive reasoning strategies. Individual trainee and training characteristics were used to explain the study findings. Broad implications of the findings for ethics training development, implementation, and evaluation in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

IntroductionIn recent years, there has been something of an explosion of news stories about various college and university campuses across North America experiencing heightened levels of political advocacy and political unrest. Visible examples include the “canceling” of invited speakers who have been deemed offensive by select student groups1 or petitions calling for the removal of instructors who have been accused of using harmful language.2 While these examples shed light on some of the more intense political debates circulating in higher educational (...) institutions, they are also newsworthy stories precisely because they suggest strong divisiveness in worldviews in action—the contradiction between different…. (shrink)

Although Responsible Conduct of Research training is common in the sciences, the effectiveness of RCR training is open to question. Three key factors appear to be particularly important in ensuring the effectiveness of ethics education programs: educational efforts should be tied to day-to-day practices in the field, educational efforts should provide strategies for working through the ethical problems people are likely to encounter in day-to-day practice, and educational efforts should be embedded in a broader program of on-going career development efforts. (...) This article discusses a complex qualitative approach to RCR training development, based on a sensemaking model, which strives to address the afore-mentioned training concerns. Ethnographic observations and prior RCR training served the purpose of collecting information specific to a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research center with the goal of identifying metacognitive reasoning strategies that would facilitate ethical decision-making. The extensive qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of nine metacognitive reasoning strategies on which future RCR training will be developed. The implications of the findings for RCR training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Although Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training is common in the sciences, the effectiveness of RCR training is open to question. Three key factors appear to be particularly important in ensuring the effectiveness of ethics education programs: (1) educational efforts should be tied to day-to-day practices in the field, (2) educational efforts should provide strategies for working through the ethical problems people are likely to encounter in day-to-day practice, and (3) educational efforts should be embedded in a broader program of (...) on-going career development efforts. This article discusses a complex qualitative approach to RCR training development, based on a sensemaking model, which strives to address the afore-mentioned training concerns. Ethnographic observations and prior RCR training served the purpose of collecting information specific to a multi-disciplinary and multi-university research center with the goal of identifying metacognitive reasoning strategies that would facilitate ethical decision-making. The extensive qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of nine metacognitive reasoning strategies on which future RCR training will be developed. The implications of the findings for RCR training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

À travers une enquête qualitative par entretiens menée auprès des sportifs de haut niveau de l’INSEP, nous nous intéressons à leur rythme de vie qui articule des temps nombreux et variés : temps sportif, temps scolaire ou universitaire, temps professionnel, temps de récupération, temps de loisir privé et social, etc. Dans ce contexte il apparaît que leur temps objectif et leur temps subjectif ne coïncident pas toujours. Nous identifions à la fois une capacité générale de ces sportifs à gérer une (...) organisation temporelle particulièrement chargée, mais aussi de profondes variations d’un profil de sportif à l’autre, d’où l’idée d’une construction sociale du temps subjectif. Après avoir présenté l’organisation objective des temps à l’INSEP, nous analysons le poids de plusieurs facteurs sportifs et extra-sportifs pour expliquer cette disjonction et comprendre quels éléments ont tendance à favoriser un meilleur vécu d’un emploi du temps objectivement chargé. Cela nous conduit à ouvrir la discussion sur la conception des différentes temporalités de la préparation des sportifs qui demeure floue, entre temps de travail et temps de loisir. Cette préparation s’inscrit elle-même dans un contexte institutionnel spécifique : la construction du rythme de vie de ces sportifs est alors la recherche d’un compromis entre temps collectif et temps individuel. (shrink)

It is customary to remark, in writings on retributivism, that the meaning of the term is so diffuse and variably applied that there is no one concept or justificatory principle picked out by the term. Cottingham identified 9 different ideas captured by the term retributivism, and a similar paper could today no doubt identify as many again. This edited volume of essays on retributivism does justice to that customary remark, by bringing together a range of writings on retributivism many (...) of which present quite different ways of construing the core of retributivist thinking, the virtues of it, and its role in criminal justice.The book is organised around three themes: the first part entitled ‘Conceptualizing Retributivism’, the second ‘Philosophical Perspectives on Retributivism’, and the third ‘Retributivism and Policy’. In the following I provide an overview of the chapters, before making some general remarks on the emerging themes of the edited collec .. (shrink)

This is the first book to explore the cognitive science of effortless attention and action. Attention and action are generally understood to require effort, and the expectation is that under normal circumstances effort increases to meet rising demand. Sometimes, however, attention and action seem to flow effortlessly despite high demand. Effortless attention and action have been documented across a range of normal activities--from rock climbing to chess playing--and yet fundamental questions about the cognitive science of effortlessness have gone largely unasked. (...) -/- This book draws from the disciplines of cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, behavioral psychology, genetics, philosophy, and cross-cultural studies. Starting from the premise that the phenomena of effortless attention and action provide an opportunity to test current models of attention and action, leading researchers from around the world examine topics including effort as a cognitive resource, the role of effort in decision making, the neurophysiology of effortless attention and action, the role of automaticity in effortless action, expert performance in effortless action, and the neurophysiology and benefits of attentional training. -/- Contributors: Joshua M. Ackerman, James H. Austin, John A. Bargh, Roy F. Baumeister, Sian L. Beilock, Chris Blais, Matthew M. Botvinick, Brian Bruya, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Marci S. DeCaro, Arne Dietrich, Yuri Dormashev, László Harmat, Bernhard Hommel, Rebecca Lewthwaite, Örjan de Manzano, Joseph T. McGuire, Brian P. Meier, Arlen C. Moller, Jeanne Nakamura, Evgeny N. Osin, Michael I. Posner, Mary K. Rothbart, M. R. Rueda, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Edward Slingerland, Oliver Stoll, Yiyuan Tang, Töres Theorell, Fredrik Ullén, Robert D. Wall, Gabriele Wulf. (shrink)

The problem of suffering crucially focuses on meaninglessness. Meaningful suffering—suffering having some “point” or function—is not as problematic as absurd suffering that cannot be rendered purposeful. This issue is more specific than the problem of the “meaning of life” (or “meaning in life”). Human lives are often full of suffering experienced as serving no purpose whatsoever – indeed, suffering that may threaten to make life itself meaningless. Some philosophers—e.g., D.Z. Phillips and John Cottingham—have persuasively argued that the standard analytic (...) methods of philosophy of religion in particular ought to be enriched by literary reading and interpretation, especially when dealing with issues such as this. The problem of evil and suffering can also be explored from a perspective entangling literary and philosophical approaches (Kivistö & Pihlström, 2016). This double methodology is in this paper applied to the problem of evil and suffering by considering an example drawn from Holocaust literature: Primo Levi’s work is analyzed as developing an essentially ethical argument, with a philosophical-cum-literary structure, against theodicies seeking to render suffering meaningful. By means of such a case study, I hope to shed light on the problem of meaningless suffering, especially regarding the moral critique of “theodicist” attempts to interpret all suffering as meaningful. (shrink)

Descartes held the doctrine that the eternal truths are freely created by God. He seems to have thought that a proper understanding of God's freedom entails such a doctrine concerning the eternal truths. In this paper, I examine Descartes' account of divine freedom. I argue that Descartes' statements about indifference, namely that indifference is the lowest grade of freedom and that indifference is the essence of God's freedom are not incompatible. I also show how Descartes arrived at his doctrine of (...) the creation of the eternal truths by consideration of the nature of God's freedom. Footnotes1 In this paper, I employ the following abbreviations:AT: Descartes, René Oeuvres de Descartes, C. Adam and P. Tannery (eds) (Paris: J. Vrin, 1996) (cited by volume and page number).CSM: Descartes, René The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols 1 and 2, J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch (transl.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) (cited by volume and page number).CSMK: Descartes, René The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 3, J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, A. Kenny (transl.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) (cited by page number). (shrink)

Dans la première méditation, Descartes a conclu, en regard des songes, « qu'il n'y a point d'indices concluants, ni de marques assez certaines par où l'on puisse distinguer nettement la veille d'avec la sommeil [...] » . À la fin de la sixième méditation, il a conclu qu'il y a de tels indices, mais qu'on a besoin de la garantie de Dieu pour savoir si ces indices sont réellement des indices de la veille. Cottingham a proposé une objection générale (...) contre tels indices de la veille: On peut rêver cet indice. Selon les raisonnements de Cottingham, il s'agit de l'existence de l'indice. Or, chez Leibniz et Descartes il ne s'agit pas de cela, mais il est question de savoir si l'indice est vraiment un indice de la veille. La prétention que l'indice puisse être présent en songe fait une pétition de principe. Notre examen des indices que Leibniz et Berkeley ont proposés révèle cette pétition. (shrink)

This interview with John Cottingham explores some major themes in his recent work in moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion. It begins by discussing his views on the task of philosophy and focuses particularly on philosophy’s role in achieving an overall view of the world and for understanding and achieving the good life. It also discusses some ‘limits of philosophy’ with respect to understanding and achieving the good life; i.e., some ways in which philosophical reflection on the good (...) life needs to draw on insights found in other domains such as psychoanalysis and religious faith and spiritual practice. The role of philosophy and spiritual practice in coming to religious faith and supporting it is also discussed. (shrink)

The best way to understand the Meditations is through the lens of Descartes's theistic metaphysics rather than via his programme for physical science. This applies to his use of the concept of ‘nature’ in the Sixth Meditation, which serves Descartes's goal of theodicy. In working this out, Descartes reaches a conclusion about the functional role of sensory perception that is, paradoxically, not far from that offered by Darwinian naturalism. So far from being inherently geared to tracking the truth, the role (...) of sensation is linked to its survival value for the organism. In virtue of his theistic metaphysics however, Descartes is able to set this conclusion against the background of other cognitive faculties that are in principle accurate detectors of the truth; the absence of such a resource for modern Darwinian naturalists creates difficulties for the presumption that humans are cognitively equipped to search for the truth. (shrink)

Few contemporary philosophers have made as wide-ranging and insightful a contribution to philosophical debate as John Cottingham. This collection brings together friends, colleagues and former students of Cottingham, to discuss major themes of his work on moral philosophy. Presented in three parts the collection focuses on the debate on partiality, impartiality and character; the role of emotions and reason in the good life; the meaning of a worthwhile life and the place of theistic considerations in it. The original (...) contributions to this volume celebrate Cottingham’s work by embracing and furthering his arguments and, at times, in the best spirit of philosophical engagement, challenging and confronting them. The volume concludes with Cottingham’s specially commissioned responses to the contributions. (shrink)

The Sixth Meditation deals, as its title proclaims, with ‘the existence of material things, and the real distinction between the mind and body of man’. In this paper, I want to start by examining Descartes' argument for the existence of material things—for the existence of an ‘external’, physical world around us. Next, in section two, I shall use this argument concerning the external world to bring out an important general point about the ‘dialectical’ way in which Descartes presents his reasoning (...) in the Meditations. This will lead me on to the third section of the paper, which will analyse the concept of ‘nature’ and the role it plays in Descartes' reasoning, particularly in the Sixth Meditation. And this in turn will bring me to the fourth and final part of the paper, which will focus on what is by general consensus the most fascinating part of the Sixth Meditation —Descartes' account of the relation between mind and body. What I shall try to do in this final section is to highlight a curious tension between Descartes' recognition of the facts of human experience on the one hand, and on the other hand his doctrine that we are essentially incorporeal or non-physical substances. (shrink)

Queer objects are crucial to the narrative strategies of Dennis Cooper’s George Miles cycle where they support his exhaustive inventory of what it means to have a sexual type. In Frisk, Cooper transforms some objects into media to blur the boundaries between the writing subject and the objects he desires. The snuff photos, seen at too young an age, form the point of reference for Dennis the narrator’s erotic life but they acquire their force in a looping narrative structure that (...) calls into question their status as representation as well as their capacity to communicate. The novel thus elicits a new theorization of the relation between objects and media that discloses the stakes for fiction in a queer subjectivity that takes the self as another object at the same time as it probes the limits of realism. I situate Cooper in a genealogy of autofiction that extends back to Marcel Proust and Jean Genet and forward to J.T. LeRoy, Ben Lerner, Maggie Nelson, and Sheila Heti. The essay concludes by contrasting Cooper’s narrative achievements to the collapse of the writing subject into the autobiographical self in the more recent examples. (shrink)

In this article, we develop an approach for the moral assessment of research and development networks on the basis of the reflective equilibrium approach proposed by Rawls and Daniels. The reflective equilibrium approach aims at coherence between moral judgments, principles, and background theories. We use this approach because it takes seriously the moral judgments of the actors involved in R & D, whereas it also leaves room for critical reflection about these judgments. It is shown that two norms, namely reflective (...) learning and openness and inclusiveness, which are used in the literature on policy and technological networks, contribute to achieving a justified overlapping consensus. We apply the approach to a case study about the development of an innovative sewage treatment technology and show how in this case the two norms are or could be instrumental in achieving a justified overlapping consensus on relevant moral issues. (shrink)

This chapter discusses methodology in feminist history of philosophy and shows that women philosophers made interesting and original contributions to the debates concerning the cosmological argument. I set forth and examine the arguments of Mary Astell, Damaris Masham, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, Emilie Du Châtelet, and Mary Shepherd, and discuss their involvement with philosophical issues and debates surrounding the cosmological argument. I argue that their contributions are original, philosophically interesting, and result from participation in the ongoing debates and controversies about the (...) cosmological argument, causal principles, and necessary existence. (shrink)

In the year since He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whose genes were edited as embryos, reactions and revelations have continued, including the recent announcement that He and two colleagues have been sentenced to jail time and hefty fines. But what of Nana and Lulu, now infants, whose lives and futures are often missing in discussions of He's ethical violations? Their status remains a mystery. Other than learning that they were born prematurely by emergency C-section, we know nothing (...) about their well-being. We know even less about a third gene-edited child said to have been born last summer.Meanwhile, the controversy over He's reckless actions—and the debate about reproductive... (shrink)

An appropriate kind of curved Hilbert space is developed in such a manner that it admits operators of $\mathcal{C}$ - and $\mathfrak{D}$ -differentiation, which are the analogues of the familiar covariant and D-differentiation available in a manifold. These tools are then employed to shed light on the space-time structure of Quantum Mechanics, from the points of view of the Feynman ‘path integral’ and of canonical quantisation. (The latter contains, as a special case, quantisation in arbitrary curvilinear coordinates when space is (...) flat.) The influence of curvature is emphasised throughout, with an illustration provided by the Aharonov-Bohm effect. (shrink)

To be able to believe that a dog with a broken paw is not really in pain when it whimpers is a quite extraordinary achievement even for a philosopher. Yet according to the standard interpretaion, this is just what Descartes did believe. He held, we are informed, the ‘monstrous’ thesis that ‘animals are without feeling or awareness of any kind’. The Standard view has been reiterated in a recent collection on animal rights, which casts Descartes as the villain of the (...) piece for his alleged view that animals merely behave ‘ as if they feel pain when they are, say, kicked or stabbed’. The basis for this widely accepted interpretation is Descartes' famous doctrine of ‘animal machine’ ; a doctrine that one critic condemns as ‘a grim fortaste of a mechanically minded age’ which ‘brutally violates the old kindly fellowship of living things’. (shrink)