In the “Chapter on the Benefits to the Performer of the Dharma” in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Buddha proclaims the many remarkable transformations that will take place in the six sense faculties of the performer of the dharma. An analysis of this chapter clarifies both the sūtra’s normative vision for the performance of the dharmabhāṇaka who announces his sensory enhancements and the nature of the bodily transformations that the sūtra promises to enact upon him as a consequence of his performance. This (...) paper demonstrates that the performed sūtra enacts the interdependent rituals of abhi⋅eka and darśan through verbal practices of impersonation, self-praise, and ontological transformation. In the process, it sheds new light on the self-referentiality of some Mahāyāna sūtras as a form of performed and performative utterance that aims to transform both speakers and listeners. As in other traditions of sensory-somatic transformation through verbal impersonation in ancient South Asia, the ritual-dramatic utterance of the sūtra engenders a manifestation of presence that takes shape in the complex embodied intersections among the “original” speaker, the performer, and the audience. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar ist eine australische Philosophin und Professorin für feministische, politische und Rechtsphilosophie an der McGill University in Montreal, Kanada. Neben der Forschung zur Rechtsphilosophie widmete sich Stoljar den Schnittstellen von Sozialphilosophie, politischer Philosophie und Moralpsychologie. In diesem Kontext verortet sie auch das Konzept der Autonomie.

Nutrition and hydration—including artificially delivered, or assisted, nutrition and hydration (ANH)—are typically considered ordinary or proportionate care in the Roman Catholic moral tradition. They are thus morally obligatory, except when the benefit to the patient does not justify the burden their administration places on the patient or when they no longer prolong life (e.g., in end-stage disease when death is imminent). A review of Church documents and the medical literature provides convincing evidence that there are cases in which ANH provides (...) little hope of benefit and may impose an excessive burden on the patient. This paper closely examines advanced dementia of the Alzheimer’s (DAT) type and shows how ANH can be properly considered extraordinary care and hence is not obligatory in patients with advanced DAT. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 8.2 (Summer 2008): 291–305. (shrink)

Looks at the scientific basis for theories of drama, and explains how Cage's ideas have affected modern theater.

Joseph Raz’s The Morality of Freedom is well known for defending both a perfectionist form of liberalism and an ‘externalist’ conception of autonomy. John Christman proposes that there is a logical connection between the two theses and argues that externalist accounts of autonomy should be rejected on the basis that they are perfectionist. Christman’s perfectionism argument contains two premises: externalist theories of autonomy entail political perfectionism and political perfectionism is not defensible. I argue that neither premise is true. Externalist theories (...) of autonomy do not entail political perfectionism. Further, even assuming for the sake of argument that premise is true, premise is false. The strongest challenge to political perfectionism is that it is incompatible with the value of respect. I argue that those defending political perfectionism misconstrue what is required for respect. Once we see that respect is secured through features inherent in processes, the value of respect can be reconciled with political perfectionism. Political perfectionism is a defensible thesis and premise is false. (shrink)

This paper proposes a refocusing of consent for clinical genetic testing, moving away from an emphasis on autonomy and information provision, towards an emphasis on the virtues of healthcare professionals seeking consent, and the relationships they construct with their patients. We draw on focus groups with UK healthcare professionals working in the field of clinical genetics, as well as in-depth interviews with patients who have sought genetic testing in the UK’s National Health Service. We explore two aspects of consent: first, (...) how healthcare professionals consider the act of ‘consenting’ patients; and second how these professional accounts, along with the accounts of patients, deepen our understanding of the consent process. Our findings suggest that while healthcare professionals working in genetic medicine put much effort into ensuring patients’ understanding about their impending genetic test, they acknowledge, and we show, that patients can still leave genetic consultations relatively uninformed. Moreover, we show how placing emphasis on the informational aspect of genetic testing is not always reflective of, or valuable to, patients’ decision-making. Rather, decision-making is socially contextualised – also based on factors outside of information provision. A more collaborative on-going consent process, grounded in virtue ethics and values of honesty, openness and trustworthiness, is proposed. (shrink)

Searches for the sources and means for a disciplined practical approach to exploring human experience.

Feminist epistemologies hold that differences in the social locations of inquirers make for epistemic differences, for instance, in the sorts of things that inquirers are justified in believing. In this paper we situate this core idea in feminist epistemologies with respect to debates about social constructivism. We address three questions. First, are feminist epistemologies committed to a form of social constructivism about knowledge? Second, to what extent are they incompatible with traditional epistemological thinking? Third, do the answers to these questions (...) raise serious problems for feminist epistemologies? We argue that some versions of two of the main strands in feminist epistemology – feminist standpoint theory and feminist empiricism – are committed to a form of social constructivism, which requires certain departures from traditional epistemological thinking. But we argue that these departures are less problematic than one might think. Thus, (some) feminist epistemologies provide a plausible way of understanding how (some) knowledge might be socially constructed. (shrink)

Der deutsche Barockdichter Georg Philipp Harsdörffer skizziert eine Theorie der Emblematik, die vor allem dessen Anwendungsvielfalt hervorhebt. Er hebt dabei besonders den Unterschied zwischen buchinterner und buchexterner Verwendung auf, indem er sich nicht nur für die Aufnahme der Embleme in Büchern, sondern auch auf Geschirr und Tapeten ausspricht. Der Beitrag liest Harsdörffers extensive Überlegungen nicht nur als Beiträge zur Theorie und Geschichte der Embleme als ›Sinn-Bilder‹, sondern auch als Beitrag zur Designgeschichte. German Baroque poet Georg Philipp Harsdörffer delineates a theory (...) of emblematics that clearly sets itself apart from other contemporary theories, especially by its versatility. In particular, the author negates the difference between internal and external usage of emblems in books not only by promoting the incorporation of emblems into printed works but also by supporting their depiction on dishes and tapestries. This article strives to read Harsdörffer’s extensive thoughts on the matter of emblems not simply as another work on the theory and history of emblematics but rather as a contribution to design history as well. (shrink)

Everyday ethics refers to those issues which have a sometimes unrecognized moral dimension and that arise regularly within healthcare and research. These issues are often contrasted to dramatic ethics issues (i.e. issues that have seemingly higher stakes such as those arising in acute care situations or with invasive or life-threatening interventions). Claims have been made that scholarly bioethics tends to focus on dramatic ethics to the detriment of everyday ethics discussions. However, empirical evidence showing this has been lacking. Our own (...) research investigating bioethics discussions in the Parkinson’s disease literature suggested this trend. Consequently, we decided to characterize the context and content of the Parkinson’s disease bioethics literature to empirically test the hypothesis that everyday ethics is under discussed. We conducted a broad literature search using the keywords “Parkinson’s disease” AND (“ethics” OR “bioethics”) and classified results inductively based on the context in which the bioethics discussion occurred. In line with our hypothesis and initial observations, we found that there is indeed a greater focus on dramatic ethics where topics such as deep brain stimulation and neuronal cell transplantations, dominated bioethics discussions. Given the potential utility of everyday ethics in improving healthcare and research, this mismatch in focus ought to be addressed. There is a clear need for further understanding and discussion of everyday ethical issues in scholarly bioethics. (shrink)

Game theory is central to modern understandings of how people deal with problems of coordination and cooperation. Yet, ironically, it cannot give a straightforward explanation of some of the simplest forms of human coordination and cooperation--most famously, that people can use the apparently arbitrary features of "focal points" to solve coordination problems, and that people sometimes cooperate in "prisoner's dilemmas." Addressing a wide readership of economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers, Michael Bacharach here proposes a revision of game theory that resolves (...) these long-standing problems. In the classical tradition of game theory, Bacharach models human beings as rational actors, but he revises the standard definition of rationality to incorporate two major new ideas. He enlarges the model of a game so that it includes the ways agents describe to themselves their decision problems. And he allows the possibility that people reason as members of groups, each taking herself to have reason to perform her component of the combination of actions that best achieves the group's common goal. Bacharach shows that certain tendencies for individuals to engage in team reasoning are consistent with recent findings in social psychology and evolutionary biology. As the culmination of Bacharach's long-standing program of pathbreaking work on the foundations of game theory, this book has been eagerly awaited. Following Bacharach's premature death, Natalie Gold and Robert Sugden edited the unfinished work and added two substantial chapters that allow the book to be read as a coherent whole. (shrink)

In the literature of collective intentions, the ‘we-intentions’ that lie behind cooperative actions are analysed in terms of individual mental states. The core forms of these analyses imply that all Nash equilibrium behaviour is the result of collective intentions, even though not all Nash equilibria are cooperative actions. Unsatisfactorily, the latter cases have to be excluded either by stipulation or by the addition of further, problematic conditions. We contend that the cooperative aspect of collective intentions is not a property of (...) the intentions themselves, but of the mode of reasoning by which they are formed. We analyse collective intentions as the outcome of team reasoning, a mode of practical reasoning used by individuals as members of groups. We describe this mode of reasoning in terms of formal schemata, discuss a range of possible accounts of group agency, and show how existing theories of collective intentions fit into this framework. (shrink)

In this paper I make the case for a feminist hinge epistemology in three steps. My first step is to explain hinge epistemologies as contemporary epistemologies that take Wittgenstein’s work in On Certainty as their starting point. My second step is to make three criticisms of this literature as it currently stands. My third step is to introduce feminist epistemologies, which argue that social factors like race and gender affect what different people and groups justifiably believe, and argue that developing (...) a feminist hinge epistemology is both plausible and desirable. (shrink)

Context: The topic of my article, fragility, is a theme that has been little broached in philosophy and phenomenology, except by Ricœur, in the fifties, and recently Chrétien. I aim to bring it ….

This article follows Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and Gregory of Nyssa in a journey of epistemic dispossession. It begins by tracing two ways of wandering off this trail, two epistemological sirens that tempt wayfarers from a path of epistemic dispossession. These are skepticism and anti‐skepticism, elaborated by Wittgenstein and Cavell as joined in their enthronement of epistemically‐anchored certainty. Following Wittgenstein and Cavell into an exploration of the forms of life and death that sustain and are sustained by grasping at such (...) certainty, this article yet identifies two sources of un‐peace in their projects. One is an ill‐confessed threat that looms over their work, and the other is the inhuman difficulty of resisting the skeptical temptations of isolation and domination after this threat is named. It is the threat of death, which becomes, under the skeptic's anxiety, the threat of murder. That is, the skeptic denies finitude in such a way that he refuses to come to terms with the way that death attends life, and such refusal introduces as a skeptical temptation the further threat of murder. The difficulty of resisting skeptical temptations rides on the incompleteness of epistemic dispossession, which will always undo itself unless deepened into a more radical form of dispossession. Such forms of dispossession are suggested by Cavell and perfected in Gregory's descriptions of his sister Macrina. Macrina illumines epistemic dispossession as a form of love that refuses certain relationships to property. Yielding a vision for how dispossession might meet the threat of murderousness, Macrina's life thus interprets relationships of property, love, and death that complete epistemic dispossession. (shrink)

Intensive Caring is the perfect resource to help everyone involved navigate the complexities of healthcare during serious illness and end-of-life care in alignment with Catholic values and faith.

Background: Moral distress is a complex phenomenon frequently experienced by critical care nurses. Ethical conflicts in this practice area are related to technological advancement, high intensity work environments, and end-of-life decisions. Objectives: An exploration of contemporary moral distress literature was undertaken to determine measurement, contributing factors, impact, and interventions. Review Methods: This state of the science review focused on moral distress research in critical care nursing from 2009 to 2015, and included 12 qualitative, 24 quantitative, and 6 mixed methods studies. (...) Results: Synthesis of the scientific literature revealed inconsistencies in measurement, conflicting findings of moral distress and nurse demographics, problems with the professional practice environment, difficulties with communication during end-of-life decisions, compromised nursing care as a consequence of moral distress, and few effective interventions. Conclusion: Providing compassionate care is a professional nursing value and an inability to meet this goal due to moral distress may have devastating effects on care quality. Further study of patient and family outcomes related to nurse moral distress is recommended. (shrink)

From the contents: La fenetre sur l'absolu selon Fink (Laszlo Tengelyi).- Temps, espace et monde chez le jeune Fink (Marc Richir).- L'auto-reference de la phenomenologie (Bernhard Waldenfels).- Phenomenologie et critique chez Fink et Husserl (Ronald Bruzina).- Le spectateur phenomenologisant: au seuil du non-agir et du non-etre (Natalie Depraz).- Nouvelle determination de l'ideal (Hans Rainer Sepp).

Against the recent attempts by Irwin and Furley to subsume the final cause in the efficient cause, I try to read the notion of final causality as the result of a deconstruction made by Aristotle of the "divine cause" of the Timaeus. The final cause indicates a special dependency relationship in which a single event is essentially connected only to one of its consequences, and accidentally to all the others.

The upper time limit on growing embryos in culture for research could be revised, following a new recommendation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the regulator of embryo research and fertility treatments in the UK. The recommendation was agreed at a meeting of the HFEA Authority, as part of wider discussions about modernising fertility law in the UK.1 Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended), embryos which have been donated or created for research may be (...) grown in culture for up to 14 days or until the appearance of the primitive streak (whichever occurs sooner).2 This rule is widely replicated in other jurisdictions which permit the use of embryos in research.3 When this rule was adopted nearly 35 years ago, there was no prospect of sustaining embryos in vitro for more than a few days, and until recently, it has not posed a significant barrier to research.4 However, pressure to review the limit has grown following the publication of two studies in 2016 which demonstrated the technical feasibility of growing embryos to and potentially beyond the 14-day-limit.5 6 Proponents of changing the limit point to possible benefits of allowing …. (shrink)

I have been anxious to improve the nick of time... to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.It is never too late to give up our prejudices.Inspired by Thoreau’s Walden and Other Writings, these epigraphs speak to the bridging potential I see in literature and art.1 Literature can link global issues of the day to human struggles that are anything but new, narratively fusing the past and (...) future together, helping the present to appear. When I make reference to aesthetic works in my classes, I am striving with my students to “improve the nick of time... [and] toe that line” of the present moment right there in the classroom. But what... (shrink)

Presented as an imaginary dialogue with the author of Art and Agency , this paper displays a number of methodological shared positions: the contextualist nature of his epistemology, his focus on relations rather than on objects, his sense of pragmatism, his proximity with the notion of “person-objects” such as developed by the author of the present paper, his attention to the meso-social level and, eventually, his neutral standing in front of research objects. In spite of a few disagreements, all these (...) properties bring to light a convergence between Gell’s anthropological approach and the kind of sociological methodology presently practiced in certain trends of French sociology. (shrink)

This is a reflection on the visual installation piece, Hanging On, produced collaboratively for the Feminist Legal Studies ‘At the Kitchen Table’ zine in 2016. The author and co-artist considers the research that informed and helped conceptually drive the aesthetics of the piece, including academic research on abortion within literary aesthetics. How these concepts ‘translated’ into hands-on artistic practice and physical materials is discussed, including the difficulties and knowledge gained from the process. The author finally considers the benefits of such (...) interdisciplinary, aesthetic encounters within contemporary feminist knowledge production. (shrink)

Following the well-publicised case of Dr Sarah Benn, the former General Practioner (GP) who was suspended from the UK medical register earlier this year for breaching injunctions in order to peacefully protest climate change,1 uncertainty and wider discourse has persisted about the extent to which doctors can be involved in protests without risking regulatory action. In response to this uncertainty, in July the General Medical Council (GMC) published an explanation of how it manages concerns about doctors’ actions as part of (...) protests and activism. It includes the statement that they are bound by law to refer any conviction resulting in a custodial sentence directly to a Medical Practioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing.2 They also state that the nature of the protest does not impact their consideration of whether there was a serious breach of professional standards or a risk to public protection.2 The move to clarify the GMC’s position has been cautiously welcomed by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change but with criticisms that important questions remain unanswered, such as the GMC’s rationale for determining that public confidence in doctors is harmed by convictions arising from environmental activism.3 Interest in this issue shows little sign of fading, as regulatory action continues to be taken against climate activist doctors. Dr Diana Warner, a retired GP, was suspended from the medical register in August following a series of convictions for …. (shrink)

The book explores Oakeshott's thought on the key role human imagination plays in relation to the political. It addresses four main themes: imagination, foundational narratives, the question of political societies' identities as well as that of human living-together, to use Hannah Arendt's expression. The book's main objective is to show that Oakeshott may be rightfully understood to be a philosopher of the imagination as well as a foundationalist thinker in the Arendtian narrative constructivist tradition.

Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 1-4.

In the course of his argument for a common law conception of Constitu- tional Bills of Rights and judicial review, Wil Waluchow claims that there is a principled distinction to be drawn between a community’s ‘opinions’ or ‘mere moral preferences’ and its ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ moral commitments. Moreover, he argues that it is possible for judges to identify a community’s authentic moral commitments and apply them to decide particular cases. If he is right, it is not the case that judges, (...) in making a decision about the application and scope of constitutional rights, are inevitably importing their own subjective moral standards into the decision. I analyze Waluchow’s use of the moral opinions -moral commitments distinction. I argue first that the distinction presupposes a descriptive methodology of constitutional interpretation. I suggest however, that the methodology of interpretation in Bills of Rights cases is constructive and involves substantive, ‘evaluative and justificatory’ reasoning by interpreters and judges. I then argue that the moral opinions-moral commitments distinction either cannot do the work that Waluchow’s argument requires, or, if it is modified to do the work, it becomes a substantive distinction. A substantive conception of authenticity creates a problem for Waluchow because it undermines his purely procedural account of democratic self-governance.Resumen:Wil Waluchow al desarrollar su argumento a favor de una concepción propia del common law para las constituciones y para el judicial review, sostiene que existe una distinción de principio entre las “opiniones” de la comunidad o sus “simples preferencias morales” y los compromisos morales “verdaderos” o “auténticos”. Además, sostiene que para los jueces es posible identificar los compromisos morales auténticos de una comunidad y aplicar los mismos en la decisión de casos concretos. Si tiene razón, entonces los jueces al decidir casos concretos sobre el alcance de los derechos constitucionales no canalizan sus propios estándares mora- les subjetivos a las decisiones. En este estudio analizo el uso que hace Waluchow de la distinción entre opiniones morales y compromisos morales. Argumento en primer término que la distinción presupone una metodología descriptiva de la interpretación constitucional, y sugiero que no obstante lo anterior, la metodología de interpretación de los derechos constitucionales es constructiva e implica por parte de los intérpretes y jueces un razonamiento “evaluativo y de justificación” sustantivo. Posteriormente argumento que la distinción entre opiniones morales y compromisos morales no tiene el alcance que pretende y requiere el trabajo de Waluchow y si se modifica, entonces se convierte en una distinción sustantiva. Una concepción sustantiva de autenticidad le genera un problema a Waluchow porque debilita su explicación puramente procedi- mental de un auto-gobierno democrático. (shrink)