In celebrating the epistemological reform and empowerment of non-white peoples in the academy, we propose a manifesto that seeks to dislodge the complacencies within Sikh Studies and within Sikh communities, and invite non-Sikhs to engage with radical Sikhi social justice. By dwelling at feminist intersections of postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, and decolonization studies, we are inspired to share the radical possibilities of Sikh Studies, and we also urge Sikh Studies and Sikh people to inhabit an explicit political orientation of insurrection (...) and subversion. Importantly, such a feminist decolonial orientation may well hold promise for other fields of study on the margins as well. In particular, we foreground eight points of action: gendering Sikh Studies; de-policing intimate desire and the diversity of relationships; disrupting Eurocentric knowledge production; de-territorializing diasporas; challenging caste politics; disrupting Islamophobia; undoing our roles in contemporary colonialisms; and fostering care and responsibility for the nonhuman world. In this manifesto we hope to develop interdisciplinary connections, critical interventions, and broader alliances to cultivate debates and action that both challenge tradition and participate within broader political campaigns for social justice. (shrink)

In this timely and highly original merging of theory and practice, conflict photographer and critical theorist Rita Leistner applies Marshall McLuhan's semiotic theories of language, media, and technology to iPhone photographs taken during a military embed in Afghanistan. In a series of what Leistner calls iProbes—a portmanteau of iPhone and probe—Leistner reveals the face of war through the extensions of man. As digital photography becomes more ubiquitous, and as the phones we carry with us become more advanced, the process (...) of capturing images becomes more democratic and more spontaneous. Leistner's photos result from both access and impulse. Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan will appeal anyone with an interest in the conflicts in the Middle East, the seminal communications theorist, or iPhone apps and photography. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the ethically difficult situations experienced by care providers working in a nursing home. Individual interviews using a narrative approach were conducted. A phenomenological-hermeneutic method developed for researching life experience was applied in the analysis. The findings showed that care providers experience ethical challenges in their everyday work. The informants in this study found the balance between the ideal, autonomy and dignity to be a daily problem. They defined the culture they work in (...) as not supportive. They also thought they were not being seen and heard in situations where they disagree with the basic values of the organization. The results are discussed in terms of Habermas’s understanding of modern society. Care settings for elderly people obviously present ethical challenges, particularly in the case of those suffering from dementia. The care provider participants in this study expressed frustration and feelings of powerlessness. It is possible to understand their experiences in terms of Habermas’s theory of modern society and the concept of the system’s colonization of the life world. (shrink)

The doctor patient relationship starts with a story. Doctors' notes, a patient's chart, the recommendations of ethics committees and insurance justifications all hinge on written and verbal narrative interaction. The "practice" of narrative profoundly affects decision making, patient health and treatment and the everyday practice of medicine. In this edited collection, the contributors provide conceptual foundations, practical guidelines and theoretical considerations central to the practice of narrative ethics.

In this paper, I consider the claim that a corporation cannot be held to be morally responsible unless it is a person. First, I argue that this claim is ambigious. Person flags three different but related notions: metaphysical person, moral agent, moral person. I argue that, though one can make the claim that corporates are metaphysical persons, this claim is only marginally relevant to the question of corporate moral responsibility. The central question which must be answered in discussions of corporate (...) moral responsibility is whether corporations are moral agents or moral persons. I argue that, though we can make a case for saying corporations are moral agents, they are not moral persons, and hence, we can hold them responsible. In addition, we need not treat them the way we would be obligated to treat a moral person; we needn't have the same scruples about holding a corporation morally responsible as we would a moral person. (shrink)

Background:A total of 71,000 people in Norway suffer from some form of dementia in 2013, of whom approximately 30,000 are in nursing homes. Several studies focus on the experiences of those who have close relatives and who are staying in a nursing home. Results show that a greater focus on cooperation between nursing staff and relatives is a central prerequisite for an increased level of care. Benefits of developing systematic collaboration practices include relief for nursing staff, less stress, and greater (...) mutual understanding. Going through studies focusing on the experiences of nursing home patients’ relatives, negative experiences are in the majority. In this study, relatives are invited to share positive experiences regarding the care of their loved ones; a slightly different perspective, in other words.Aim:The aim of the study is to investigate relatives of persons with dementia’s experiences with quality care in nursing homes.Method:The study is a part of a larger project called Hospice values in the care for persons with dementia and is based on a qualitative design where data are generated through narrative interviews. The chosen method of analysis is the phenomenological–hermeneutical method for the study of lived experiences.Participants and research context:Participants in the project were eight relatives of persons with dementia who were living in nursing homes, long-term residences. The sampling was targeted, enrolment happened through collective invitation. All relatives interested were included.Ethical considerations:The Norwegian Regional Ethics Committee and the Norwegian Social Science Data Services approve the study.Findings:Findings show that relatives have certain expectations as to how their loved ones ought to be met and looked after at the nursing home. The results show that in those cases where the expectations were met, the relatives’ experiences were associated with engagement, inclusion and a good atmosphere. When the expectations were not met, the relatives experienced powerlessness, distrust and guilt.Discussion:The results are discussed considering the concepts of trust, power and asymmetry.Conclusion:When asked about experiences with quality care, the relatives spoke both of expectations met and of expectations not met. Results in this study are important knowledge for developing units where performing quality care is the overall aim. (shrink)

Across two studies, a wide age range of participants was interviewed about the nature of death. All participants were living in rural Madagascar in a community where ancestral beliefs and practices are widespread. In Study 1, children (8–17 years) and adults (19–71 years) were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. The death in question was presented in the context of a narrative that focused either on the corpse or on the ancestral practices associated with the afterlife. Participants (...) aged 8 years and older claimed that death brings an end to most bodily and mental processes. Nevertheless, particularly in the context of the religious narrative, they claimed that certain mental processes continue even after death. This assertion of an afterlife was more evident among adults than children, especially with respect to cognitive processes, such as knowing and remembering. In Study 2, 5‐ and 7‐year‐olds were asked similar questions in connection with the death of a bird and a person. Seven‐year‐olds consistently claimed that bodily and mental processes cease at death, whereas 5‐year‐olds were unsystematic in their replies. Together, the two studies replicate and extend findings obtained with Western children showing that, in the course of development, different conceptions of death are elaborated—a biological conception in which death terminates living processes and a religious conception in which death marks the beginning of a new form of spiritual existence. (shrink)

'Manning successfully argues that theory and ethics should once again be reunited...thorough and provocative...'—THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW.

When is it permissible to move an issue out of normal politics and treat it as a security issue? How should the security measures be conducted? When and how should the securitization be reversed? Floyd offers answers to these questions by combining security studies' influential securitization theory with philosophy's long-standing just war tradition, creating a major new approach to the ethics of security: 'Just Securitization Theory'. Of interest to anyone concerned with ethics and security, Floyd's innovative approach enables scholars to (...) normatively evaluate past and present securitizations, equips practitioners to make informed judgements on what they ought to do in relevant situations, and empowers the public to hold relevant actors accountable for how they view security. (shrink)

Proposing that the interaction between reader and literature involves four “modes of textual engagement” — recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock — The Uses of Literature bridges the gap between literary theory and common-sense beliefs about why we read literature.

Introduction:To meet and take care of people with dementia implicate professional and moral challenges for caregivers. Using force happens daily. However, staff also encounter challenges with the management in the units. Managing the caretaking function is also significant in how caretakers experience working in dementia care.Purpose:The purpose of this study is to explore the caregiver’s experiences with ethical challenges in dementia care settings and the significance of professional leadership in this context.Method:The design is qualitative, and data appear through narrative interviews. (...) A total of 23 caretakers participated in the study. The transcribed interviews were subjected to a phenomenological-hermeneutical interpretation.Ethical considerations:The respondents signed an informed consent for participation prior to the interviews. They were assured anonymity and confidentiality in the publication of the data. Ricoeur’s method for interpretation ensures anonymity as the researcher relates to the data as one collective text. The study is part of a larger research project in ethics, in its entirety approved in line with the Helsinki Convention.Results:The findings show that the caretakers experienced inadequacy. Some of them described a negative work atmosphere where they experienced that their leaders did not take them seriously. Because of this, informal negative sub-groups functioned as an exclusive debriefing arena. Some of the informants described the opposite experience where the leaders actively supported them.Discussion:The analyses of the findings are discussed in light of the concepts of trust and mistrust in leadership.Conclusion:There is a correlation between the leadership and the caregivers’ experience of being in difficult situations. (shrink)

In this paper, I survey liberal and communitarian defenses of privacy, paying particular attention to defenses of privacy in the workplace. I argue that liberalism cannot explain all our of intuitions about the wrongness of workplace invasions of privacy. Communitarianism, on the other hand, is able to account for these intuitions.

The aim of this article is to relate the concept of 'force' to that of 'spiritual education'. Starting from it, we can better understand the link, fundamental for Simone Weil also in the political sphere, between immanence and transcendence. The predominance of force over immanence seems, indeed, to decree the impossibility of a 'just' politics. Weil shows that awareness of the predominance of force in this world is a first and indispensable step towards justice. This explains the centrality that Weil (...) attaches to the education of attention, particularly for those who are to assume governmental roles. Reflection on politics and justice thus assumes, in the last years of Weil's life, the role of an 'otherwise than power', effective on two levels: firstly, as a reflection on power and the forms of government to be given to France liberated from the Nazis; secondly, as a project of true spiritual education for those who will be called to govern at any level. (shrink)

Rita Carter ponders the nature, origins, and purpose of consciousness in this fascinating inquiry into the toughest problem facing modern science and philosophy. Building on the foundation of her bestselling book _Mapping the Mind, _she considers whether consciousness is merely an illusion, a by-product of our brain's workings, some as yet inexplicable feature or property of the material universe or—as the latest physics may suggest—the very fundament of reality. Little, she discovers, is as it first seems. Carter draws from (...) a solid body of knowledge—empirical findings and theoretical hypotheses--about consciousness, much of it derived from recent discoveries about the brain. Her lively, accessible narrative ranges widely over new ways of thinking about the subject and what direction new research is taking. Leading scholars from a range of perspectives provide topical essays that complement Carter's account. The book also discusses how traditional approaches—philosophical, scientific, and experiential—might be brought together to create a more complete understanding of consciousness. (shrink)

I have become curious about reciprocity within clinical practice. A vast topic that mobilizes considerations of money, knowledge, kinship, power, culture, and uses of the body, reciprocity is a strong means by which to achieve the egality required of just health care. Within health care, reciprocity might enable not only so‐called shared decision‐making and patient autonomy. It might open the door to mutual acknowledgement of the value of each participant's beliefs and habits. It might appear as a humble realization that (...) no one understands what health is and a concurrent welcoming curiosity about one another's conception of how the body and speech and mind work. From the intimate to the international levels of care, such forms of reciprocity may culminate in the radical and powerful state of reciprocal recognition.In this short essay, I will focus on one aspect of reciprocity in health care: the narrative and potentially reciprocal nature of attention in health care. A critical element in the development of therapeutic alliance, clinical accuracy, and effective practice, attention requires a donation of the self as a vessel into which can enter that which is perceived or, from the other side, a penetrating of that which is perceived so that one sees it from within its own vessel. (shrink)

What does it mean to get hooked by a work, whether a bestseller or a classic, a TV series or a painting in a museum? What is this aesthetic experience that makes us feel captivated? What do works of art do, and how, in particular, do they bind us to them? In "Hooked," Rita Felski builds an aesthetics premised on our attachments rather than our free agency and challenges the ethos of critical aloofness that is so much a part (...) of modern intellectuals' self-image. The result is sure to be as widely read, and as controversial, as Felski's 2015 book, "The Limits of Critique." Felski looks at several "attachment devices." One of these is "attunement"--those affinities and stirrings that often fall below the threshold of consciousness. Why, for example, are we drawn to a painting or piece of music in ways we struggle to explain, while being left cold by others whose merits we duly acknowledge? Another attachment device is "identification"--a widespread response to fiction that is often invoked by critics but usually treated as synonymous with either identity or empathy. But Felski shows that identifying has no neat fit with identity categories, and it can trigger ethical, political, or intellectual affinities that have little to do with co-feeling. What people most commonly identify with, Felski argues, are characters who are alluring, arresting, or alive, not in spite of their aesthetic qualities but because of them. This kind of identification is not limited to naïve readers or over-invested viewers, but is also a defining aspect of what scholars in the humanities do. Relatedly, academic "interpretation" emerges here as another circuit of connection: critics forge ties to the works they explicate, the methods they use, the disciplinary identities they inhabit. "Hooked" returns us to the fundamentals of aesthetic experience, showing that the social meanings of artworks do not lie encrypted in their depths, within reach only of expert critics, but are generated within the embrace of captivated audiences. (shrink)

We welcome the critical appraisal of the database used by the behavioral sciences, but we suggest that the authors' differentiation between variable and universal features is ill conceived and that their categorization of non-WEIRD populations is misleading. We propose a different approach to comparative research, which takes population variability seriously and recognizes the methodological difficulties it engenders.

Educational phenomena and child development fascinate many disciplines for which they offer a tremendous field of experimentation and application. More than a hundred years ago, when educational sciences adopted the main institutional emblems of an academic discipline (chairs, diploma, laboratories, scientific network etc.), they obviously vacillated between the dream of becoming a unified science (as pedology testifies), and the claim of a rewarding pluridisciplinarity that could synergise all disciplines concerned with the child and with education. This paper asserts that the (...) issue of pluridisciplinarity is constitutive for the development of sciences of education whose object is ever coveted by other disciplines. The first section adopts the point of view of a social history and, on the basis of voluminous archives, it describes the main lines of the shaping of this pluridisciplinary field in Geneva, representative of that which also occurs elsewhere. In the second part, it presents a more theoretical reflection on the tensions and pitfalls of what we call the 'process of disciplinarisation' of educational sciences, outlining the characteristics of this constitutively pluridisciplinary field. (shrink)

Donald Lee has claimed that of three ethical values, freedom, justice, and security-survival, involved in the effects of population growth on the future and the survival of all human beings, security-survival is the most fundamental. As such, it should have priority over freedom and justice. Based on this hierarchy, Lee draws the conclusion that one does not have the right to unlimited procreation, and that ultimately it is the duty of government to impose limits on population growth. I accept Lee’s (...) argument that personal rights must be balanced by personal responsibility, but I argue that justice is the fundamental ethical principle in this discussion. This is not a trivial distinction, for it leads to two significant conclusions. First, by focusing proper attention on justice, the threat to survival of the race from overpopulation is reduced to reasonable and realistic proportions. Second, and particulady important with regard to Lee’s position, the recognition of the need for justice brings to light the fact that the primary responsibility of government is to address itself to redressing injustice in society, injustice which does pose a very real threat to the survival of mankind. In this context, I argue that under no circumstances should government have the right or the responsibility to enforce limits on procreation. (shrink)

Transition economies have inherited of a lot of outdated or blackwarded facilities in many industries from the socialist period. Restructuring such enterprises or industries need massive inputs of investment and technology. Privatisation and foreign direct investment provide answers to this problem, but at the price of important lost of control over the concerned bodies. Here we consider the situation of Hungarian telecoms which have been successfully privatised to Deutsch Telecom and try to assess the results of the operation and the (...) effects on the potential growth of the industry and more generally on the Hungarian economy.Les économies en transition ont hérité de la période socialiste un certain nombre d’entreprises et de secteurs aux installations largement obsolètes. Leur mise à niveau constitue un préalable à l’amélioration qualitative des productions, des processus de production, et par conséquent à une élévation progressive des salaires réels et des niveaux de vie. Cette opération nécessite des injections massives de capitaux et de technologie. La privatisation des entreprises concernées, en particulier au bénéfice d’investisseurs étrangers, peut apporter une solution, mais au prix d’une perte importante de contrôle.Ici, nous examinons la situation des télécoms en Hongrie, qui ont été privatisées au profit de l’entreprise elle-même, du point de vue de l’industrie des télécommunications, et plus généraleme- nt in s’interroge sur les effets qu’elle peut avoir sur l’ensemble de l’industrie hongroise. (shrink)

Anthropology combines two quite different enterprises: the ethnographic study of particular people in particular places and the theorizing about the human species. As such, anthropology is part of cognitive science in that it contributes to the unitary theoretical aim of understanding and explaining the behavior of the animal species Homo sapiens. This article draws on our own research experience to illustrate that cooperation between anthropology and the other sub-disciplines of cognitive science is possible and fruitful, but it must proceed from (...) the recognition of anthropology’s unique epistemology and methodology. (shrink)

If our sense of the past is inevitably shaped by the explanatory logic of narrative, then the stories that we create in turn reveal the inescapable presence and ...

O artigo traz uma discussão acerca da utilização do conceito de identificação por Adorno. A partir disso procuramos dar ênfase para o tema da crítica e da negação da cultura possibilitadas pela apropriação da psicanálise realizada pelo autor. A aplicação do conceito permite analisar o processo de assimilação do indivíduo no capitalismo tardio. Uma vez que a cultura é transformada em mercadoria, e assim absorve o ritmo idêntico e repetitivo da produção mecanizada, que transmite aos indivíduos através dos produtos que (...) consomem e das celebridades com as quais se identificam. Nesse contexto, cresce o sentimento de impotência individual gerado por um modelo de organização social que dissimula suas contradições a partir da identidade do indivíduo com a cultura. E revela a união entre progresso e barbárie que promove o declínio do indivíduo como foi exposto na Dialética do Esclarecimento. Como sugere Adorno, diante da irracionalidade da cultura moderna, cabe à educação a tarefa de autorreflexão crítica e de esclarecimento dos indivíduos. De maneira a convidá-los a pensar na falsa realidade em que estão inseridos e de contrapor impotência com autonomia. (shrink)

As third wave feminist philosophers attending graduate schools in different parts of the country, we decided to use our e-mail discussion as the format for presenting our thinking on the subject of third wave feminism. Our dialogue takes us through the subjects of postmodernism, the relationship between theory and practice, the generation gap, and the power relations associated with feminist philosophy as an established part of the academy.

Our businesses, policies, and lifestyles cause unexamined consequences for other people and other living beings, and exact sweeping destruction on the very ecosystems which support all life, including our own. A major factor contributing to this destructive behavior is the anthropocentric character of the dominant Western world view, which conceives of the nonhuman living world as apart from and less important than the human world, and which conceptualizes nonhuman nature—including animals, plants, ecological systems, the land, and the atmosphere—as inert, silent, (...) passive, and valuable only for its worth as a resource for human consumption. This anthropocentric conceptual framework is constructed, transmitted, and reproduced in the realm of discourse, in all of the modes and avenues through which we make and express cultural meaning. We need to make explicit the ways that mainstream Western and American discourse promotes anthropocentrism and masks, denies, or denigrates interdependence, and we need to find ways to reformulate and reframe our discouse if we are to produce the sort of ecological consciousness that will be essential for creating a sustainable future. (shrink)

The interaction of humans, cholera bacteria, the zooplankton host of the bacterium , and the environment in the case of cholera can be employed to make reasonable predictions about this climate-driven disease. The issues are truly international and represent those that comprise a global scientific enterprise and encompass many other infectious diseases.

In this timely and highly original merging of theory and practice, conflict photographer and critical theorist Rita Leistner applies Marshall McLuhan's semiotic theories of language, media, and technology to iPhone photographs taken during a military embed in Afghanistan. In a series of what Leistner calls iProbes—a portmanteau of iPhone and probe—Leistner reveals the face of war through the extensions of man. As digital photography becomes more ubiquitous, and as the phones we carry with us become more advanced, the process (...) of capturing images becomes more democratic and more spontaneous. Leistner's photos result from both access and impulse. Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan will appeal anyone with an interest in the conflicts in the Middle East, the seminal communications theorist, or iPhone apps and photography. (shrink)