This paper argues for a new understanding of Strawson’s distinction between personal, impersonal, and self-reactive attitudes. Many Strawsonians take these basic reactive attitude types to be distinguished by two factors. Is it the self or another who is treated with good- or ill-will? And is it the self or another who displays good- or ill-will? On this picture, when someone else wrongs me, my reactive attitude is personal; when someone else wrongs someone else, my reactive attitude is impersonal; and when (...) I wrong someone else, my attitude is self-reactive. Against this account, I argue that the basic reactive attitude types are better distinguished according to whether they express partial or impartial concern. This fits Strawson’s discussion in “Freedom and Resentment”, and it allows us to see an important point that the alternative approach obscures. Namely, while attitudes like resentment, gratitude, shame, and pride can arise as responses to our own treatment and behavior, they can also arise as third-party responses to the treatment and behavior of our family members, romantic partners, and close friends. Similarly, attitudes like moral indignation and disapprobation also have a wider scope than is often acknowledged; they can arise as responses to others’ treatment, but they can also arise as responses to our own treatment when we react impartially to circumstances involving ourselves. (shrink)

From a clinical ethics perspective, I explore several traditional arguments that deem deception as morally unacceptable. For example, it is often argued that deception robs people of their autonomy. Deception also unfairly manipulates others and is a breach of important trust-relations. In these kinds of cases, I argue that the same reasons commonly used against deception can provide strong reasons why deception can be extremely beneficial for patients who lack mental capacity. For example, deception can enhance, rather than impair, autonomy (...) in certain cases. I argue that deception ought to only be used after considering several key morally relevant factors and provide a practical and morally justifiable framework for exploring these issues. (shrink)

Emergent scholarship on the most radical technological invention of our time confirms what most of us know from first-hand experience - that the internet has fundamentally altered our perceptions and our knowledge, as well as our sense of subjectivity, community and agency (see for example Vries, 2002: 19). The American scholar of religion and communications, Stephen O'Leary, one of the first scholars to analyze the role of the new media for religious communities, claims that the advent of the internet has (...) been as revolutionary for religious growth and dissemination as was the invention of the printing press (O'Leary, 1996). (shrink)

This paper challenges a common dogma of the literature on forgiveness: that only victims have the standing to forgive. Attacks on third-party forgiveness generally come in two forms. One form of attack suggests that it follows from the nature of forgiveness that third-party forgiveness is impossible. Another form of attack suggests that although third-party forgiveness is possible, it is always improper or morally inappropriate for third parties to forgive. I argue against both of these claims; third-party forgiveness is possible, and (...) in some cases it is morally appropriate for third parties to forgive (or refuse to forgive) wrongdoers for wrongs done to victims. I also propose an explanation of third parties’ standing to forgive: third parties have the standing to forgive when it is appropriate for them to take wrongs done to victims ‘personally’. While appropriately ‘taking a wrong personally’ does not require seeing oneself as a victim, it typically does require being in some form of personal relationship with victims. Thus, while the standing to forgive is not grounded exclusively in having been wronged, the prerogative to forgive is normally limited to victims and their loved ones. And once we recognize the importance of third-party forgiveness in our moral lives and the norms that govern it, we can more easily adjudicate between competing accounts of the nature of forgiveness.​. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is perhaps the most important development within late twentieth-century moral philosophy. Rosalind Hursthouse, who has made notable contributions to this development, here presents a full exposition and defense of her neo-Aristotelian version of virtue ethics. She shows how virtue ethics can provide guidance for action, illuminate moral dilemmas, and bring out the moral significance of the emotions.

Most interpreters hold that Kant rejects actually infinite tota synthetica as conceptually impossible. This view is attributed to Kant to relieve him of the charge that the first antinomy’s thesis argument presupposes transcendental idealism. I argue that important textual evidence speaks against this view, and Kant in fact affirms the conceptual possibility of actually infinite tota synthetica. While this means the first antinomy may not be decisive as an indirect argument for idealism, it gives us a better account of how (...) our ideas of the unconditioned generate the antinomies, and it allows us to see important and often overlooked elements in Kant’s account of the infinite. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing (...) so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (shrink)

Philippa Foot is one of the most original and widely respected philosophers of our time; her work has exerted a lasting influence on the development of moral philosophy. In tribute to her, twelve leading philosophers from both sides of the Atlantic have contributed essays exploring the various topics in moral philosophy to which she has made a distinctive contribution--virtue ethics, naturalism, non-cognitivism, relativism, categorical requirements, and the role of rationality in morality.

Background:In Ontario, Canada, patients who lack decision-making capacity and have no family or friends to act as substitute decision-makers currently rely on the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee to consent to long-term care (nursing home) placement, but they have no legal representative for other placement decisions.Objectives:We highlight the current gap in legislation for difficult transition cases involving unrepresented patients and provide a novel framework for who ought to assist with making these decisions and how these decisions ought to (...) be made.Research design:This paper considers models advanced by Volpe and Steinman with regard to who ought to make placement decisions for unrepresented patients, as well as current ethical models for analyzing how these decisions should be made.Participants and research context:We describe an anonymized healthcare transition case to illustrate the fact that there is no legally recognized decision-maker for placement destinations other than long-term care facilities and to show how this impacts all stakeholders.Ethical considerations:The case provided is an anonymized vignette representing a typical transition case involving an unrepresented patient.Findings:As a result of a gap in provincial legislation, healthcare providers usually determine the appropriate placement destination without a clear framework to guide the process and this can cause significant moral distress.Discussion:We argue for a team decision-making approach in the short term, and a legislative change in the long-term, to respect the patient voice, evaluate benefit and risk, enhance collaboration between healthcare providers and patients, and promote social justice. We believe that our approach, which draws upon the strengths of interprofessional teams, will be of interest to all who are concerned with the welfare and ethical treatment of the patients for whom they care.Conclusions:One of the main strengths of our recommendation is that it provides all members of the healthcare team (including nurses, social workers, therapists, and others) an increased opportunity to advocate on behalf of unrepresented patients. (shrink)

Since the publication of Spivak's essay, the work has been revered, reviled, misread, and misappropriated. It has been cited, invoked, imitated, and critiqued. In these phenomenal essays, eight scholars take stock of this response.

This paper contributes to inquiries into the genealogy of governmentality and the nature of secularization by arguing that pastoralism continues to operate in the algorithmic register. Drawing on Agamben’s notion of signature, I elucidate a pair of historically distant yet archaeologically proximate affinities: the first between the pastorate and algorithmic control, and the second between the absconded God of late medieval nominalism and the authority of algorithms in the cybernetic age. I support my hypothesis by attending to the signaturial kinships (...) between, on the one hand, temporality and authority in our contemporary conjuncture, and, on the other, obedience and submission in Christian thought from late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. I thereby illustrate the hidden genealogical continuities between theological-pastoral technologies of power and technocratic-algorithmic modalities of governance. I conclude by suggesting that medieval counter-conducts may be redeployed in our present circumstances for emancipatory ends. (shrink)

As a relatively young profession, public relations seeks a realistic ethics foundation. A continuing debate in public relations has pitted journalistic/objectivity ethics against the advocacy ethics that may be more appropriate in an adversarial society. As the journalistic/objectivity influence has waned, the debate has evolved, pitting the advocacy/adversarial foundation against the two-way symmetrical model of public relations, which seeks to build consensus and holds that an organization itself, not an opposing public, sometimes may need to change to build a productive (...) relationship. A similar battle between adversarial advocacy and symmetry occurred during the emergence of rhetoric in the Athens of the 4th century B.C. Plato and Aristotle favored adversarial/advocacy rhetoric, whereas Isocrates favored a symmetrical rhetoric. Four criteria of comparison of those rhetorics are examined: success of the respective schools, success of the respective graduates, the evaluation of later Roman rhetoricians, and the impact on the future of education. History shows that Isocrates's symmetrical rhetoric clearly was more effective than its adversarial/advocacy rivals. Recent studies of the two-way symmetrical model concur, indicating that it may well be the most effective foundation for public relations ethics. (shrink)

This volume brings together twenty original essays on the changes and continuities in gender relations and intersecting politics of sexuality, race, class and location. The book is located in debates about contemporary culture at a moment of rapid technological change, global interconnectedness and the growing cultural dominance of neoliberalism and postfeminism. The collection traverses disciplines, spaces and approaches. It is marked by an extraordinarily wide focus, ranging from analyses of celebrity magazines and makeover shows to examinations of the experiences of (...) young female migrants, 'mail order brides' and young women who repudiate feminism. The contributions are united by their attempts to think through the ways in which experiences and representations of femininity are changing in the twenty-first century. Are we seeing new femininities? Are neoliberalism and postfeminism constructing new identities and subjectivities? What kinds of analytic tools and cultural politics are needed to critically engage with the current moment? This book will be of interest to everyone studying gender, media or cultural studies. (shrink)

In his 1918 lectures, _The Philosophy of Logical Atomism_, Russell discusses the impossibility of drawing a diagram or "map-in-space" of the form of belief (judgment). In this paper, I argue that an examination of diagrams appended to Russell's _Theory of Knowledge_ shows him already anticipating this symbolizing difficulty in 1913 and—in the midst of attempting to adopt Wittgenstein's doctrine of propositional bipolarity—jettisoning attempts to diagram the form of belief.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Original Title -- Original Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 The philosophical context -- 2 Structuralism -- 3 Semiology as a science of signs -- 4 S/Z -- 5 Marxism, language, and ideology -- 6 On the subject of Lacan -- 7 The critique of the sign -- 8 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

Using “big data” from sensors worn continuously outside the lab, researchers have observed patterns of objective physiology that challenge some of the long-standing theoretical concepts of emotion and its measurement. One challenge is that emotional arousal, when measured as sympathetic nervous system activation through electrodermal activity, can sometimes differ significantly across the two halves of the upper body. We show that traditional measures on only one side may lead to misjudgment of arousal. This article presents daily life and controlled study (...) data, as well as existing evidence from neuroscience, supporting the influence of multiple emotional substrates in the brain causing innervation on different sides of the body. We describe how a theory of multiple arousals explains the asymmetric EDA findings. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being developed for use in medicine, including for diagnosis and in treatment decision making. The use of AI in medical treatment raises many ethical issues that are yet to be explored in depth by bioethicists. In this paper, I focus specifically on the relationship between the ethical ideal of shared decision making and AI systems that generate treatment recommendations, using the example of IBM’s Watson for Oncology. I argue that use of this type of system creates (...) both important risks and significant opportunities for promoting shared decision making. If value judgements are fixed and covert in AI systems, then we risk a shift back to more paternalistic medical care. However, if designed and used in an ethically informed way, AI could offer a potentially powerful way of supporting shared decision making. It could be used to incorporate explicit value reflection, promoting patient autonomy. In the context of medical treatment, we need value-flexible AI that can both respond to the values and treatment goals of individual patients and support clinicians to engage in shared decision making. (shrink)

(2001). Autonomous Learners and the Learning Society: systematic perspectives on the practice of teaching in Higher Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 33, No. 3-4, pp. 381-395.

The target articles in this volume address the three major questions about dreaming that have been most responsible for the delay in progress in this field over the past 25 years. These are: (1) Where in the brain is dreaming produced, given that dream reports can be elicited from sleep stages other than REM? (2) Do dream plots have any intrinsic meaning? (3) Does dreaming serve some specialized function? The answers offered here when added together support a new model of (...) dreaming that is testable, and should revitalize this area of study. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)

Background: There is general consensus internationally that unfair distribution of the benefits of research is exploitative and should be avoided or reduced. However, what constitutes fair benefits, and the exact nature of the benefits and their mode of provision can be strongly contested. Empirical studies have the potential to contribute viewpoints and experiences to debates and guidelines, but few have been conducted. We conducted a study to support the development of guidelines on benefits and payments for studies conducted by the (...) KEMRI-Wellcome Trust programme in Kilifi, Kenya. Methods: Following an initial broad based survey of cash, health services and other items being offered during research by all programme studies (n = 38 studies), interviews were held with research managers (n = 9), and with research staff involved in 8 purposively selected case studies (n = 30 interviewees). Interviews explored how these ‘benefits’ were selected and communicated, experiences with their administration, and recommendations for future guidelines. Data fed into a consultative workshop attended by 48 research staff and health managers, which was facilitated by an external ethicist.FindingsThe most commonly provided benefits were medical care (for example free care, and strengthened quality of care), and lunch or snacks. Most cash given to participants was reimbursement of transport costs (for example to meet appointments or facilitate use of services when unexpectedly sick), but these payments were often described by research participants as benefits. Challenges included: tensions within households and communities resulting from lack of clarity and agreement on who is eligible for benefits; suspicion regarding motivation for their provision; and confusion caused by differences between studies in types and levels of benefits. Conclusions: Research staff differed in their views on how benefits should be approached. Echoing elements of international benefit sharing and ancillary care debates, some research staff saw research as based on goodwill and partnership, and aimed to avoid costs to participants and a commercial relationship; while others sought to maximise participant benefits given the relative wealth of the institution and the multiple community needs. An emerging middle position was to strengthen collateral or indirect medical benefits to communities through collaborations with the Ministry of Health to support sustainability. (shrink)

Scholars have long debated whether Shiphrah and Puah, the feisty midwives of Exodus 2, were Hebrew or Egyptian. This article takes on the linguistic issue of their ethnicity and the etymology of their names anew, and, as a result, repositions them within Egyptian archaeological space. Situating them as Hebrew overseers of midwives within the central royal harem solves many of the problems of the biblical text while fully preserving its original ambiguity. A secondary objective is to recover yet more of (...) their agency as midwives and their voice as tricksters within the context of both the Exodus account and Near Eastern culture in general. As a result, Shiphrah and Puah are redefined as powerful Israelite prophetesses, rather than lowly uneducated women, who boldly trick mighty Pharaoh with a double entendre retort. We finally propose a new linguistic reading of the denouement: their reward from God. (shrink)

This paper discusses some aspects of foreign language learning within the divided school system of Northern Ireland. It is argued that an improvement of foreign language learning must be seen in a socio‐cultural context whereby a change in attitudes to languages in general, including Irish, may lead not only to a balanced interest among girls and boys in the language classroom, but also to a more tolerant approach to the cultural differences among the Catholic and Protestant communities.

Written in a readable, accessible style, with plenty of up-to-date examples Psychoanalysis and Culture provides a brilliant introduction to key issues in the area of application of psychoanalytic theories to culture. The author argues that we cannot grasp the complexity of contemporary global issues without understanding some of the unconscious processes which underlie them. After introducing some major modern and postmodern psychoanalytic approaches, Minsky offers a broad-ranging critique of Lacan's theory of culture and the unconscious. She explores a range of (...) crucial and topical questions: how should we explain women's historical subordination and what is now often seen as a crisis in male identity? What constitutes 'masculinity' apart from power and control? How important is the father, actually and symbolically in children's development in the context of lone-parent families? Why is contemporary culture often still so violent and destructive? Why is consumer culture so attractive to so many and why is it so difficult to put limits on economic growth in the interests of preventing environmental disaster? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, women's studies, cultural studies, psychology and history as well as psychoanalytic studies. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in the psychology of cultural change. (shrink)

This article introduces a special section concerned with precariousness and cultural work. Its aim is to bring into dialogue three bodies of ideas — the work of the autonomous Marxist `Italian laboratory'; activist writings about precariousness and precarity; and the emerging empirical scholarship concerned with the distinctive features of cultural work, at a moment when artists, designers and (new) media workers have taken centre stage as a supposed `creative class' of model entrepreneurs. The article is divided into three sections. It (...) starts by introducing the ideas of the autonomous Marxist tradition, highlighting arguments about the autonomy of labour, informational capitalism and the `factory without walls', as well as key concepts such as multitude and immaterial labour. The impact of these ideas and of Operaismo politics more generally on the precarity movement is then considered in the second section, discussing some of the issues that have animated debate both within and outside this movement, which has often treated cultural workers as exemplifying the experiences of a new `precariat'. In the third and final section we turn to the empirical literature about cultural work, pointing to its main features before bringing it into debate with the ideas already discussed. Several points of overlap and critique are elaborated — focusing in particular on issues of affect, temporality, subjectivity and solidarity. (shrink)

The sort of ethical theory derived from Aristotle, variously described as virtue ethics, virtue-based ethics, or neo-Aristotelianism, is becoming better known, and is now quite widely recognized as at least a possible rival to deontological and utilitarian theories. With recognition has come criticism, of varying quality. In this article I shall discuss nine separate criticisms that I have frequently encountered, most of which seem to me to betray an inadequate grasp either of the structure of virtue theory or of what (...) would be involved in thinking about a real moral issue in its terms. In the first half I aim particularly to secure an understanding that will reveal that many of these criticisms are simply misplaced, and to articulate what I take to be the major criticism of virtue theory. I reject this criticism, but do not claim that it is necessarily misplaced. In the second half I aim to deepen that understanding and highlight the issues raised by the criticisms by illustrating what the theory looks like when it is applied to a particular issue, in this case, abortion. (shrink)

According to the standard account of actions and their explanations, intentional actions are actions done because the agent has a certain desire/belief pair that explains the action by rationalizing it. Any explanation of intentional action in terms of an appetite or occurrent emotion is hence assumed to be elliptical, implicitly appealing to some appropriate belief. In this paper, I challenge this assumption with respect to the " arational " actions of my title---a significant subset of the set of intentional actions (...) explained by occurrent emotion. These actions threaten the standard account, not only by forming a recalcitrant set of counterexamples to it, but also, as we shall see, by undercutting the false semantic theory that holds that account in place. (shrink)

The Historical Dictionary of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy is the only dictionary to date of Bertrand Russell's ideas. It is a guide to the many elements of Russell's philosophy. A glimpse at Russell's work shows instantly why such a text is needed. Taking his books alone, Russell is author of almost 100. Many are classics, several require technical expertise, and together they address dozens of separate disciplines and domains.

The A to Z of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy offers a comprehensive, current guide to the many facets of Russell's work. Through its chronology, introductory essay, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on concepts, people, works, and technical terms, Russell's impact on philosophy and related fields is made accessible to the reader in this must-have reference.

By giving legislatures broad power to override constitutional rights provisions, recent Commonwealth rights charters are said to create a new ‘weaker’ model of constitutional rights protection than the traditional US model of strong-form judicial review. The article, however, argues that to date such powers have rarely if ever been used by Commonwealth legislatures, and thus have had little direct effect on the strength of judicial review in Commonwealth countries. At most, such powers may have had some indirect effect on the (...) strength of review in the Commonwealth, compared to the United States, by encouraging greater deference by courts such as the Supreme Court of Canada to attempts by parliament to engage in ‘dialogue’ via ordinary legislative means. This more limited—and contingent—view of Commonwealth–US constitutional difference also has clear practical implications, the article suggests, for ongoing attempts to ‘borrow’ or adopt the new Commonwealth constitutional model elsewhere. (shrink)

This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ discussions (...) of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered. (shrink)

This paper presents a poststructuralist, postcolonial and feminist interrogation of the ‘Girl Effect’. First coined by Nike inc, the ‘Girl Effect’ has become a key development discourse taken up by a wide range of governmental organisations, charities and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). At its heart is the idea that ‘girl power’ is the best way to lift the developing world out of poverty. As well as a policy discourse, the Girl Effect entails an address to Western girls. Through a range of (...) online and offline publicity campaigns, Western girls are invited to take up the cause of girls in the developing world and to lend their support through their use of social media, through fundraising and consumption. Drawing on a wide range of policy documents, media outputs and offline events, this paper explores the way in which the Girl Effect discourse articulates notions of girlhood, empowerment, development and the Global North/south divide. (shrink)

Emotion research will leap forward when its focus changes from comparing averaged statistics of self-report data across people experiencing emotion in laboratories to characterizing patterns of data from individuals and clusters of similar individuals experiencing emotion in real life. Such an advance will come about through engineers and psychologists collaborating to create new ways for people to measure, share, analyze, and learn from objective emotional responses in situations that truly matter to people. This approach has the power to greatly advance (...) the science of emotion while also providing personalized help to participants in the research. (shrink)