The object of the following paper is to examine in detail the relations between the contents of the poem called the Culex and the acknowledged writings of Virgil. The reader will find that these relations are more numerous and far more intimate than has hitherto been pointed out. They seem to warrant an inference as to the authorship of the poem, which in itself may claim high probability, and which when combined with the external evidence appears to the present writer (...) to reach the level of a practical certainty. In what follows, all statements as to the readings of the manuscripts are based upon Professor A. E. Housman's paper on The Apparatus Criticus of the Culex, unless other authorities are expressly cited. I have followed Professor Ellis's text, except where Professor Housman's evidence makes some other reading more probable. (shrink)

Introducing the work of three French feminists - Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Michele L Doeuff - "Sexual Subversions" provides access to the work of these writers. In doing so this book raises some key issues of relevance to feminist research, addressing debates around the nature of feminist theory; the relationship between feminist thinking theory; the relationship between feminist thinking and male-dominated areas of knowledge; the strategies appropriate for developing non-patriarchal or woman-centered knowledges. No book on French feminists would be (...) complete without including the contributions of Kristeva and Irigaray. The inclusion of Le Doeuff's work, which brings a different perspective to bear on the question of sexual difference, provides a counterbalance to literary appropriations of French feminism by Anglo-American readerships. Kristeva, Irigaray and Le Doeuff are the focal points of this study, precisely because each highlights the differences of the others, revealing the frameworks to which the others are committed. Nevertheless, while these writers do not present a common political or theoretical position or form a school, each does address the question of women's autonomy from male definition, affirms the sexual specificity of women, seeks out a femininity women can use to question the patriarchal norms and ideals of femininity and rejects the preordained positions patriarchy allots to woman. This book is intended for students and researchers in women's studies, philosophy and feminism. (shrink)

In order to strengthen civic education in elementary schools, research is needed to understand preservice teachers’ ideas about civic teaching. The current study examined the degree to which elementary preservice teachers’ civic competencies (i.e., civic awareness, dispositions, and interpersonal skills) and the grades they plan to teach are associated with expected future civic teaching. Survey data were collected from 235 undergraduate students majoring in early childhood or elementary education. Results from hierarchical multiple regression showed that greater civic awareness and lower (...) levels of trust in the American promise were associated with expected future teaching about politics, while greater civic awareness, stronger commitment to social issues, and better interpersonal skills were associated with expected future teaching about community engagement. Additionally, those who plan to teach the upper elementary grades (third–fifth) were more likely to report that they will teach about politics and community engagement in their future classrooms when compared to those who plan to teach younger grades (PreK–second). Practical implications for preservice teacher preparation are discussed. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This is true (...) not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fricker’s focus on individual epistemic virtue is important, we also need to consider what epistemic justice as a virtue of social systems would require. My paper will indicate some directions forward on this front, focusing on the need for integration of diverse institutions and persons engaged in inquiry. (shrink)

Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Pragmatic theistic arguments, by contrast, conclude that you ought to believe in God. The two most famous pragmatic theistic arguments are put forth by Blaise Pascal (1662) and William James (1896). Pragmatic arguments for theism can be summarized as follows: believing in God has significant benefits, and these benefits aren’t available for the unbeliever. Thus, you should believe in, or ‘wager on’, God. This article distinguishes between various kinds of theistic wagers, including finite (...) vs. infinite wagers, premortem vs. postmortem wagers, and doxastic vs. acceptance wagers. Then, we’ll turn to the epistemic-pragmatic distinction, and discusses the nuances of James’ argument, and how views like epistemic permissivism and epistemic consequentialism provide unique “hybrid” wagers. Finally, we’ll cover outstanding objections and responses. (shrink)

Testimony is indispensable in the sciences. To deny the propriety of relying on it engenders an untenable scepticism. But this leaves open the issue of what exactly confers a scientist’s epistemic right to rely upon the word of her colleagues. Some authors have suggested a recipient of testimony enjoys an epistemic entitlement to trust the word of another as such, not requiring evidence of her trustworthiness, so long as there is not evidence of her untrustworthiness. I argue that, whether or (...) not such an on-no-evidence entitlement to believe what one is told exists, it shrinks to irrelevance in the explanation of the basis on which scientists take each other’s word in the scientific community. This is so, since a normally knowledgeable adult hearer is typically awash with relevant evidence, direct and circumstantial, for and against, concerning a teller’s trustworthiness, and this swamps any alleged entitlement to believe in the absence of such evidence. There need not be personal knowledge of the teller, since social role and topic provide evidence regarding trustworthiness. I also discuss the individuation of ‘testimony’ as an epistemic kind. I suggest that we should not attempt to define a category with sharp boundaries, but instead characterise a paradigm case—one person telling another something in face-to-face personal communication—and then notice other cases which both resemble and diverge from this in epistemically relevant features—lectures, media broadcasts, personal letters, personal diaries, etc.Author Keywords: Testimony; Justification; Knowledge; Individualism; Communication. (shrink)

In this commentary, I consider how Giulia Cavaliere’s arguments about the limited reach of the current justifications offered for full ectogenesis in the bioethical literature apply in the context of partial ectogenesis. I suggest that considering the extent to which partial ectogenesis is freedom or equality promoting is more urgent because of the more realistic prospect of artificial womb technology being utilised to facilitate partial gestation extra uterum as opposed to facilitating complete gestation from conception to term. I highlight concerns (...) about potentially harmful social narratives surrounding pregnancy and about the current legal framework surrounding gestation limiting access to technology in the advent of partial ectogenesis. I do not advocate that these concerns mean that we ought not develop artificial wombs, but like Cavaliere I suggest that we must be mindful of these concerns, and I posit that legal reform must accompany technological developments. Ectogenesis as a political perspective, through which we consider the value in social reproduction and the experiences of pregnant people, is useful to prevent political capture of this technology for regressive policies. Using this perspective to examine the law is also a useful tool to expose just how restrictive the law is in relation to gestation and female reproductive health. (shrink)

In the United Kingdom the law and medical guidance is supportive of women making choices in childbirth. NICE guidelines are explicit that a competent woman’s informed request for MRCS should be respected. However, in reality pregnant women are routinely denied MRCS. In this paper I consider whether there is sufficient justification for restricting MRCS. The physical and emotive significance of childbirth as an event in a woman’s life cannot be understated. It is, therefore, concerning that women are having their wishes (...) ignored, and we must ascertain whether the denial of agency is justifiable. To answer this question I first demonstrate that access to MRCS is a lottery in the UK. Second, I argue that there is nothing unique about pregnancy that displaces the ethical norm of respecting patents’ sufficiently autonomous choices. Thus, the starting presumption is that all informed choices regarding MRCS should be respected. To ascertain whether any restriction of MRCS is justifiable the burden of proof must be placed on those who argue that MRCS is ethically impermissible. I argue that the most common justifications in the literature against MRCS are insufficient to displace the presumption in favour of autonomous choice in childbirth. I conclude that MRCS should be available to pregnant women, and we must strive to reduce the lottery in access to choice. (shrink)

In this article, we advance the perspective that distinct emotions amplify different moral judgments, based on the emotion’s core appraisals. This theorizing yields four insights into the way emotions shape moral judgment. We submit that there are two kinds of specificity in the impact of emotion upon moral judgment: domain specificity and emotion specificity. We further contend that the unique embodied aspects of an emotion, such as nonverbal expressions and physiological responses, contribute to an emotion’s impact on moral judgment. Finally, (...) emotions play a key role in determining which issues acquire moral significance in a society over time, in a process known as moralization (Rozin, 1999). The implications of these four observations for future research on emotion and morality are discussed. (shrink)

I define a social norm as a regularity in behavior whose persistence is causally explained by the existence of sanctioning attitudes of participants toward violations—without these sanctions, individuals have motive to violate the norm. I show how a universal precept "When in circumstances S, do action F" can be sustained by the conditional preference of each to conform, given that others do, of a convention, and also reinforced by the sanctions of a norm. I observe that a precept with moral (...) force can be reinforced by a social norm. I then consider constitutive norms and show by means of an example, competitive figure skating, how a type of activity or practice G can have a constitutive norm NG. An ongoing activity in a community is engagement in that practice only if NG is reinforced as a social norm by participants. I apply this to the case of assertion: the speech act type Assertion has a constitutive norm NA, and a practice of making speech acts in a community is one of making assertions only if it is controlled by NA enforced by the sanctions of a social norm. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how viability, meaning the ability of the fetus to survive post-delivery, features in the law regulating abortion provision in England and Wales and the USA. I demonstrate that viability is formalized differently in the criminal law in England and Wales and the USA, such that it is quantified and defined differently. I consider how the law might be applied to the examples of artificial womb technology and anencephalic fetuses. I conclude that there is incoherence in (...) the meaning of viability and argue that it is thus a conceptually illegitimate basis on which to ground abortion regulation. This is both because of the fluidity of the concept and because how it has been thus far understood in the law is unsupported by medical realities. Furthermore, it has the effect of heavily diluting pregnant people’s rights with overly moralistic limitations on access to healthcare. (shrink)

Scientists’ sense of social responsibility is particularly relevant for emerging technologies. Since a regulatory vacuum can sometimes occur in the early stages of these technologies, individual scientists’ social responsibility might be one of the most significant checks on the risks and negative consequences of this scientific research. In this article, we analyze data from a 2011 mail survey of leading U.S. nanoscientists to explore their perceptions the regarding social and ethical responsibilities for their nanotechnology research. Our analyses show that leading (...) U.S. nanoscientists express a moderate level of social responsibility about their research. Yet, they have a strong sense of ethical obligation to protect laboratory workers from unhealthy exposure to nanomaterials. We also find that there are significant differences in scientists’ sense of social and ethical responsibility depending on their demographic characteristics, job affiliation, attention to media content, risk perceptions and benefit perceptions. We conclude with some implications for future research. (shrink)

This collection is the first comprehensive history of Fichte's reception in America, highlighting the existence of a long and strong tradition of Fichtean studies throughout the continent and demonstrating the centrality of Fichtean ideas in contemporary discussions of issues such as feminism, social criticism, and decolonial thought. Read and reinterpreted in the highly diverse circumstances across the American continent, Fichte's ideas are presented in a radically new light, uncovering the Fichtean spirit of self-activity and autonomous thought in an American context.

In the course of developing his arguments against making genetic enhancements to one's children, Habermas assumes that a clear line can be drawn between the natural and the manufactured. But given the current state of medical science, this is precisely what we can no longer take for granted.

The number of cesarean sections performed globally has been consistently rising since the 1980s.1 The number of cesareans performed now greatly exceeds the number that experts predict are necessary.2 In Brazil, the world's "cesarean capital," over half of births are surgical. In the United States, approximately one third of babies are delivered by cesarean, and in the United Kingdom around 26 percent of births are by cesarean.3 Cesarean section can be a life-saving intervention when vaginal birth poses a risk to (...) woman or fetus.4 However, some doctors believe that cesareans performed in the absence of an emergency carry substantial risks for limited or no benefit (Wagner 2000... (shrink)

Some of the greatest writers on moral philosophy have claimed that their theories about morality do not run counter to the moral views of ordinary men, but on the contrary are an elucidation of such views, or provide them with a sound philosophical underpinning. Aristotle, for example, made it quite clear that he could not take seriously a moral view that was at odds with the heritage of moral wisdom deeply imbedded in his society. His doctrine of the mean was (...) based on a philosophical consideration of such wisdom. And Immanuel Kant thought that his moral philosophy articulated the moral views of ordinary men. (shrink)

the issue of liberal neutrality, a topic suggested by the work of Catharine MacKinnon. I discuss two kinds of neutrality: neutrality at the level of justifying liberalism itself, and state neutrality in political decision-making. Both kinds are contentious within liberal theory. Rawls’s argument for justice as fairness has been criticized for non-neutrality at the justificatory level, a problem noted by Rawls himself in Political Liberalism . I will defend a qualified account of neutrality at the justificatory level, taking an epistemic (...) approach to argue for the exclusion of certain doctrines from the justificatory process. I then argue that the justification process I describe offers a justificatory stance supportive of the feminist rejection of state-sponsored gender hierarchy. Further, I argue that liberal neutrality at the level of political decision-making will have surprising implications for gender equality. Once the extent of the state’s involvement in the apparently private spheres of family and civil society is recognized, and the disproportionate influence of a sexist conception of the good on those structures—and concomitant promotion of that ideal—is seen, state neutrality implies substantive change. While—as Susan Moller Okin avowed—Rawls himself may have remained ambiguous on how to address gender inequality, his theory implies that the state must seek to create substantive, not merely formal, equality. I suggest that those substantive changes will not conflict with liberal neutrality but instead be required by it. (shrink)

Block [Block, N. . Two neural correlates of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 46–52] and Snodgrass claim that a signal detection theory analysis of qualitative difference paradigms, in particular the exclusion failure paradigm, reveals cases of phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness. This claim is unwarranted on several grounds. First, partial cognitive access rather than a total lack of cognitive access can account for exclusion failure results. Second, Snodgrass’s Objective Threshold/Strategic model of perception relies on a problematic ‘enable’ approach to (...) perception that denies the possibility of intentional control of unconscious perception and any effect of following different task instructions on the presence/absence of phenomenal consciousness. Many of Block’s purported examples of phenomenal consciousness without cognitive access also rely on this problematic approach. Third, qualitative difference paradigms may index only a subset of access consciousness. Thus, qualitative difference paradigms like exclusion failure cannot be used to isolate phenomenal consciousness, any attempt to do so still faces serious methodological problems. (shrink)

It has recently been reported that some hospitals in the UK have placed a blanket restriction on the provision of maternal request caesarean sections as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pregnancy and birthing services are obviously facing challenges during the current emergency, but we argue that a blanket ban on MRCS is both inappropriate and disproportionate. In this paper, we highlight the importance of MRCS for pregnant people’s health and autonomy in childbirth and argue that this remains crucial during (...) the current emergency. We consider some potential arguments—based on pregnant people’s health and resource allocation—that might be considered justification for the limitation of such services. We demonstrate, however, that these arguments are not as persuasive as they might appear because there is limited evidence to indicate either that provision of MRCS is always dangerous for pregnant people in the circumstances or would be a substantial burden on a hospital’s ability to respond to the pandemic. Furthermore, we argue that even if MRCS was not a service that hospitals are equipped to offer to all pregnant persons who seek it, the current circumstances cannot justify a blanket ban on an important service and due attention must be paid to individual circumstances. (shrink)

According to moral intuitionism, moral properties are objective, but our cognitions of them are not always based on premises. In this paper, I develop a novel version of moral intuitionism and argue that this new intuitionism is worthy of closer attention. The intuitionistic theory I propose, while inspired by the early twentieth-century intuitionism of W. D. Ross, avoids the alleged errors of his view. Furthermore, unlike Robert Audi's contemporary formulation of intuitionism, my theory has the resources to account for the (...) noninferential character of particular, as opposed to merely general, moral beliefs. I achieve this result by avoiding the appeal to self-evidence to explain the possibility of noninferential moral knowledge. (shrink)

Few scholars have investigated the considerations of over-empowered teams from a non-consequential ethics approach. Leveraging a virtue-based ethics lens of team empowerment, we provide a framework of team ethical orientation and over-empowerment using highly influential market research teams as a basis for our analysis. The purpose of this research is to contrast how teams founded on virtue-based ethics can attenuate ethical dilemmas and negative organizational outcomes from team over-empowerment. We provide a framework of four conditions that include Sophisticated, Suppressed, Contagion, (...) and Impeded to discuss alignment between team ethical orientation and team empowerment. Through this framework, we aim to further our understanding of empowered team behavior between action that is virtuous, moral, and ethical and activity that threatens organizational values and goals. (shrink)

I develop a thin account of trust as trust-based reliance on an occasion. I argue that this thin notion describes the trust a recipient of testimony has in a speaker when she forms belief on his say-so. This basis for trusting belief in what one is told is also available to those who overhear and correctly understand the teller’s speech act. I contrast my account of trusting testimonial uptake with an alternative account that invokes a thicker notion: reciprocal trust. This (...) involves mutual awareness of their trusting relation between truster and trustee, and so is not available to mere overhearers of an utterance. Reciprocal trust involves norms to be trusting, and to be trustworthy. I explore how these second-personal norms make visible the possibility of an epistemology of testimony that includes second-personal reasons to trust a speaker’s testimony, ones that hold only for the addressee. Crucially, if the account of trust is a non-doxastic one—that is to say, trust does not analytically entail belief in trustworthiness—then this possibility arises without prior rejection of a core canon of mainstream epistemology: that only evidence can serve as grounds for belief. We find that non-doxastic testimonial trust has the potential to work epistemic magic: to enable one to reach justified beliefs that are not reachable except via second-personal trust in what one is told. But this result obtains only if trust is not only analytically possible without belief in trustworthiness, but can be justified by norms of trust when the latter would not be. My own account rejects this thesis, at least in the case of trusting a speaker as regards her utterance. But my analysis makes sense of the idea of second-personal reasons for testimonial belief, as posited by so-called ‘assurance theorists’ of testimony, and allows that debate to proceed further. (shrink)

"What is sexist oppression?" "What should be done about it?" Organized around these questions, Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader provides an overview of theoretical feminist writing about the quest for gender justice. Incorporating both classic and cutting-edge material, the reader takes into account the full diversity of women, highlighting the effects of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and religion on women's experience. Theorizing Feminisms is organized into four sections and includes fifty-four essays. The first section introduces several basic concepts commonly employed (...) when thinking about sexism--oppression, social construction, essentialism, intersectionality, gender, race, and class--and also raises questions about the perspective and legitimacy of the theorist. The second section surveys three approaches that attempt to characterize in a general way the source of injustice toward women: humanist feminism ("the sameness approach"), gynocentric feminism ("the difference approach"), and dominance feminism. Offering an alternate perspective, the third section introduces two "localizing" approaches, grounded in postmodernism and identity politics, respectively. Skeptical of theories that attempt to analyze social phenomena across history and culture, authors in this section challenge, rather than answer, the text's organizing questions. The final section explores the relationship of feminist theory to three liberatory projects--postcolonialism, neo-materialism, and queer theory--that do not characterize themselves as feminist, yet take gender as a significant category of analysis. Each section opens with an introduction and each essay is followed by helpful study questions. The majority of the essays are presented in their entirety. Theorizing Feminisms underscores the strong connection between feminist theory and practice by including essays that illustrate important political inspirations or applications of each theoretical approach. It also presents versions of the same approach from various points in history, revealing feminist theory to be dynamic and evolving, rather than static. Ideal for interdisciplinary courses in feminist theory, this volume will also serve as an invaluable reference for current and future generations of theorists. (shrink)

This paper concerns the role that reference to subjects of experience can play in individuating streams of consciousness, and the relationship between the subjective and the objective structure of consciousness. A critique of Tim Bayne’s recent book indicates certain crucial choices that works on the unity of consciousness must make. If one identifies the subject of experience with something whose consciousness is necessarily unified, then one cannot offer an account of the objective structure of consciousness. Alternatively, identifying the subject of (...) experience with an animal means forgoing the conceptual connection between being a subject of experience and having a single phenomenal perspective. (shrink)

Aristotle's Rhetoric defines fear as a kind of pain or disturbance and pity as a kind of pain . In his Poetics, however, pity and fear are associated with pleasure: ‘ The poet must provide the pleasure that comes from pity and fear by means of imitation’ . The question of the relationship between pleasure and pain in Aristotle's aesthetics has been studied primarily in connection with catharsis. Catharsis, however, raises more problems than it solves. Aristotle says nothing at all (...) about the tragic catharsis in the Poetics except to state that tragedy accomplishes it. Though he gives a more complete account of catharsis in the Politics, the context of this passage is so different from that of the Poetics that its relevance is questionable. A more promising, but largely neglected, approach to Aristotle's theory of tragic pleasure and pain is through a study of his psychological works. Here, Aristotle describes a number of emotional and cognitive responses to kinds of objects that include works of art. These descriptions support an interpretation of the Poetics according to which a tragedy is pleasurable in one respect and painful in another, and pity and fear, though painful and not in themselves productive of pleasure, are nevertheless essential to the production of the oikeia hēdonē, ‘proper pleasure’, of tragedy. This interpretation has the advantage of not depending on a particular view of catharsis. It also makes much better sense than alternative views, once its seemingly paradoxical aspects are explained with the help of the psychological works. (shrink)

In Philosophy 51, October 1976, 471–472, Professor Tom Regan takes ud to task for our attack on Kant's theory concerning the moral status of animals. The ground of Regan's criticism is that ‘… it is clear that Kant does not suppose, as… Broadie and Pybus erroneously assume that he does, that the concept of maltreating an animal, on the one hand, and, on the other, the concept of using an animal as a means, are the same or logically equivalent concepts’ (...) . Regan argues that Kant does not say that we should avoid treating animals as a means. Rather, he claims, Kant's view is that we have an indirect duty not to maltreat animals, since in maltreating them we treat, or run the risk of treating, as a mere means rationality in ourselves or in others. (shrink)

Women's small share of professional and managerial occupations compared with their share of the total labor force is examined for the 11 largest racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Gender-related characteristics—women's labor force participation rates, marital status, and the sex ratio—influence women's share of the top jobs, as do class and ethnic variables such as place of birth, population size, and class of worker. Labor market gender inequality is greatest among the smaller, more affluent minorities, many of whom (...) are recent immigrants to this country. The larger, frequently indigenous, minority groups exhibit less of this kind of inequality. Minority and gender status intersect, so that men monopolize surplus resources among the more affluent minority groups and use these resources to secure a more advantaged labor market position. (shrink)

Essentially interdisciplinary in nature, this thesis is both historical and speculative. On the one hand, it is an analysis of the Western conception of reason as it formed through the Renaissance and Enlightenment. On the other hand, it offers a conception of reason developed from the Renaissance magi's and nineteenth century Romanticism's emphasis on imagination. Drawing on Leibniz's and Aristotle's definitions of possibility in relation to those of necessity and choice, it delineates the purpose and nature of metaphysics. Modern philosophy's (...) attempt to secure methodological certainty, specifically the Cartesian concept of a mathesis universalis, is interpreted in the light of classical mechanics and its metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of knowledge. Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, as an example of systematic metaphysics, is presented as the work which culminates the Modern quest for certainty. The Phenomenology is analyzed as articulating most clearly the necessary conditions for objective knowledge, and as demonstrating the impossibility of fulfilling those conditions. Most importantly, however, Hegel's conception of knowldge as a process of consciousness articulated by 'speculative thought' is presented as the significant insight which redefines the task of metaphysics and epistemology. Adopting Hegel's concept of the speculative proposition, the author develops a metaphysical schema which takes as its primary axion the definition of thought as self-constitutive. Using the model of a thought experiment, the author suggests that the hypothetical thinking underlying the scientifc method is fundamentally imaginative, and further, that imaginative thought is a basic dimension of all aspects of human life: the universal that Modern philosophy attempted to secure as the certain ground of knowledge. This hypothesis is amplified and developed through an analysis of language and meaning, focusing specifically on the distinction between literal and figurative language. All language is defined as a figurative image of the constitutive activity of thought, including the scientific language of 'fact' and the metaphysical language of concepts. In conclusion, the author demonstrates that objective knowledge cannot be achieved without the expression of self-constitutive thought. (shrink)

This edited collection presents a selection of papers from the 2012 conference of the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies , an international network of scholars and practitioners who seek to understand and influence the relationships between technologies and socio-economic contexts. Like S.NET itself, the collection is heterogeneous: organized under the headings of Engagements, Regulatory Governance, Innovation, and Discourse, its sixteen chapters reflect a broad range of political, epistemological, and methodological standpoints. Thus, unlike many other conference publications, (...) this one speaks to no single disciplinary audience. Researchers interested in emerging technologies will likely find at least one chapter that resonates with their own approach, plus a host of other perspectives, some of which may challenge their views about how and why such research should be undertaken in the first place. This plurality will be familiar to readers of NanoEthi .. (shrink)

An atomistic model of society leads us to address injustices in terms of individual rights, but rights are curious possessions and don't always give the protection that's needed. Examples are patient's rights, children's rights and a fetus's right to life, all of which go wrong because they assume that the subjects are independent and autonomous. This assumption often fails. Rights work where people are in a position to press them; for others they give only a caricature of justice.

Testimony poses a challenge to systematic epistemology. I cite two kinds of testimony situation where the recipient's belief is not safe, yet intuitively counts as knowledge. Can Sosa's more sophisticated virtue reliabilism, which theorises animal knowledge as apt belief, yield the intuitively correct verdict on these cases? Sosa shows that a belief can be apt, though it is not safe, and so it may seem a quick positive answer is forthcoming. However, I explore complications in applying his AAA framework, regarding (...) what we take as the circumstances in which the subject's attempt is made: the AAA framework does not mandate a particular choice, yet this affects whether the attempt comes out as apt or not. I conclude that Sosa's theory is subject to a familiar charge: it does not give a reductive account of knowledge, since we must deploy independent intuitions about whether knowledge is gained in a case, in order to apply it. (shrink)

This review essay focusses on Gelderloos's normative theory of diversity of tactics. The book is worth serious attention by political theorists because of its sustained analysis of violence, nonviolence, tactics and strategy, but the normative theory fails. The essay endorses Gelderloos's nuanced analysis of the violence-nonviolence distinction and aspects of his account of tactics-strategy-goals. But the concepts ‘state' and ‘politics' are both treated by him in an overly simple way. Although aspects of his account show how complex any state-society distinction (...) is, in other contexts he suggests that it is easy for actors to divide state enemies from oppressed society friends. He rejects politics as the capture of state power for dominating and self-interested purposes, and dismisses all other aspects of political power, institutions and relationships. He thereby denies any role for politics in the sustainability of the anarchist activism he wishes to defend and endorse. In particular his disavowal of any political power base to coalitions, means that coalitional action can only be depicted as evanescent and episodic, while anarchist action is premissed on putting fellow actors who are not comrades beyond the realm of care of concern. (shrink)

Argentina recently underwent a period of economic crisis that shook societal foundations. People turned to collective action for social and political change, and women were at the forefront of many protests. This crisis offers an opportunity to study a moment of “quotidian disruption”—when routine practices and ingrained assumptions are threatened—as an impetus for mobilization. The authors draw on ethnographic observations and analyze 44 in-depth interviews with activist women in Argentina to explore their responses to quotidian disruption. The authors show that (...) the Argentine crisis challenged everyday practices and expectations that were often gendered, fostering activism that drew on previous social frameworks while also creating new ones. Activism became a new quotidian for many women and transformed their identities and experiences with politics and gender relations. (shrink)

Driven by recent accreditation mandates, a changing legal environment, and multiple high-visibility corporate ethics scandals, many business schools are responding to the growing movement within higher education to integrate ethics into the curricula. The literature suggests that the amount of attention given to ethics varies widely among institutions, and has not been coherently developed. Moreover, institutions have struggled to tie related projects and instruction to the overall concept of assurance of student learning. The purpose of this paper is to provide (...) a framework for institutions interested in creating an interdisciplinary business ethics program that combines critical success factors, assurance of student learning and continuous quality improvement. Using a nationally recognized business school’s ethics program, we provide an example of how our model can be applied at other institutions based on their own unique vision, mission and goals. (shrink)

At Plato’s Phaedrus 270c, Socrates asks whether one can know souls without knowing ‘the whole.’ Phaedrus answers that ‘according to Hippocrates’ the same demand on knowing the whole applies to bodies. What parallel is intended between soul-knowledge and body-knowledge and which medical passages illustrate the analogy have been much debated. Three dominant interpretations read ‘the whole’ as respectively (1) environment, (2) kosmos, and (3) individual soul or body; and adduce supporting Hippocratic passages. But none of these interpretations accounts for the (...) Phaedrus’ rhetorical method. A better reading sees the whole as the genos ‘soul,’ as the Phaedrus’ taxonomies divide that genus. (shrink)

In his book, Being?in?the?World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I, Hubert Dreyfus argues that Heidegger's concept of authenticity is incomprehensible. He maintains that there are two conflicting accounts of inauthenticity in Being and Time. He elucidates what he calls the ?structural account? of inauthenticity and being?in?the?world in the main body of his work, and then criticizes what he calls the ?motivational account? in an Appendix. Because he overlooks certain textual evidence and underemphasizes fleeing and the role of (...) choice, his interpretation is neither complete nor compelling. I offer an alternative interpretation of authenticity. While Heidegger's notion of authenticity may still be weakened by other flaws, it is not incomprehensible in the sense that Dreyfus contends. (shrink)

Many assume that Plato's Form of the Good is a final cause. This might be true if one assumes an Aristotelian definition of final cause; however, I argue that if one adopts Plato's conception of final causation as evidenced in the Phaedo and Timaeus, the claim that the Form of the Good is a final cause for Plato is untenable.

It is generally supposed that on the publication of the Annales Maximi in the Gracchan period historians, or some historians influential on the tradition, eagerly made use of this new source of material. The yearly lists of publicly expiated prodigies in Livy and related authors are usually considered to form the best evidence for this view. For given the elder Gato’s remark about the famines and eclipses of sun and moon recorded on the tabula dealbata which is said to have (...) formed the basis of the published work, and given the only two fragments of the latter dealing with the republican period, that from Cicero recording an eclipse and that from Aulus Gellius about lightning striking the statue of Horatius Codes , no one can doubt that prodigies were indeed to be found in the Annales Maximi. It is of course agreed that the lists given by Livy and others include only an incomplete selection of each year’s prodigia and that they are deformed by repetition and errors. But in fact certain features of these lists suggest, at least, that rewriting and corruptions go pretty deep; even, perhaps, that it was not the Annales Maximi at all from which they were drawn. It is the purpose of this paper to draw attention to these disquieting peculiarities, and to the even more disquieting consequences that follow. (shrink)

What is the proper role of politics in higher education? Many policies and reforms in the academy, from affirmative action and a multicultural curriculum to racial and sexual harassment codes and movements to change pedagogical styles, seek justice for oppressed groups in society. They understand justice to require a comprehensive equality of membership: individuals belonging to different groups should have equal access to educational opportunities; their interests and cultures should be taken equally seriously as worthy subjects of study, their persons (...) treated with equal respect and concern in communicative interaction. Conservative critics of these egalitarian movements represent them as dangerous political meddling into the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. They cast the pursuit of equality as a threat to freedom of speech and academic standards. In response, some radical advocates of such programs agree that the quest for equality clashes with free speech, but view this as an argument for sacrificing freedom of speech. (shrink)

This review essay focusses on Gelderloos's normative theory of diversity of tactics. The book is worth serious attention by political theorists because of its sustained analysis of violence, nonvio...

Compassionate and Practical Advice Helps Readers Move through Hard Times There are things in life that knock us to the ground. The death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the betrayal of a friend, the turmoil of complex family issues. Sometimes it feels as though life is falling down around us. In those world-rocking times, we can hang on to hurts or we can surrender our pain to the One who promises us abundant life. In this practical (...) and encouraging book, trusted author Elizabeth B. Brown shows weary readers not only how to survive life's difficulties but how to move beyond them to a place of strength and confidence. She shows them that they are not alone and are not destined for a life defined by the chaos of crises. Then she shows readers how to understand and accept their situation, surround themselves with people who can guide and encourage them, and grow through the process. (shrink)

Sunstein represents moral heuristics as rigid rules that lead us to jump to moral conclusions, and contrasts them with reflective moral deliberation, which he represents as independent of heuristics and capable of supplanting them. Following John Dewey's psychology of moral judgment, I argue that successful moral deliberation does not supplant moral heuristics but uses them flexibly as inputs to deliberation. Many of the flaws in moral judgment that Sunstein attributes to heuristics reflect instead the limitations of the deliberative context in (...) which people are asked to render judgments. (shrink)

This article considers 3 claims that cognitive sex differ- ences account for the differential representation of men and women in high-level careers in mathematics and sci- ence: (a) males are more focused on objects from the beginning of life and therefore are predisposed to better learning about mechanical systems; (b) males have a pro- file of spatial and numerical abilities producing greater aptitude for mathematics; and (c) males are more variable in their cognitive abilities and therefore predominate at the upper (...) reaches of mathematical talent. Research on cogni- tive development in human infants, preschool children, and students at all levels fails to support these claims. Instead, it provides evidence that mathematical and scientific rea- soning develop from a set of biologically based cognitive capacities that males and females share. These capacities lead men and women to develop equal talent for mathe- matics and science. (shrink)

The paper opens by recounting the beginnings of Buddhism in Dawei as preserved in local chronicles and sustained in stupas marking the episodes of the chronicle narrative. The chronicles start with a visit of the Buddha whose arrival triggers a series of events bringing together pre-existing tutelary figures, weiza, a hermit and offspring born of a golden fish, culminating in the establishment of the first Buddhist kingdom circa the eighth to tenth century CE. The enshrinement of sacred hairs gifted by (...) the Buddha also includes patronage by a king of the ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ lineage. Associated with the monks Sona and Uttara from Sri Lanka sent by King Asoka's son Mahinda, ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ literally can refer to the archaeology of Thaton, a walled site in the present day Mon State, or, as is the case here, more widely to the missionary tradition associated with Asoka (Sao Saimong Mengrai 1976). The third story in the establishment of the Buddhist king at Thagara is the longest of the chronicle, the tale of a royal hunter who failed to capture a golden peacock for the queen. The hunter became a hermit living by a pond with a golden fish and as he urinated in the pond, two children were born from the fish. The boy becomes the first Buddhist king of Thagara, 11 km north of Dawei, where artefacts from survey and excavation confirm the chronology of the chronicle, with the closest archaeological parallels found not at the ancient sites of the Mon State but to the first millennium CE Buddhist ‘Pyu’ heritage of Upper Myanmar which is notably absent in the chronicle compilation. (shrink)

This paper is an investigation of the condition of ressentiment. It reviews the two most prominent philosophic accounts of ressentiment: Nietzsche's genealogy of ressentiment as the moral perversion resulting from the ancient Roman/Palestinian cultural conflict and giving birth to the ascetic ideal; and Scheler's phenomenology of ressentiment as a complex affective unit generative of its own affects and values. A single sketch of the typical elements of ressentiment is drawn from the review of these two accounts. One element in particular, (...) the exigency of rationality, is highlighted. The rationality of ressentiment is found to be essential to the phenomenon as a whole and to its constitutive parts. Curiously, while their accounts imply and suggest the role of rationality, neither Nietzsche or Scheler make the centrality of rationality to ressentiment implicit. (shrink)

A revisiting and distillation of themes, questions, and results of the book’s chapters, with a description of possible alternative pathways through the volume. Open problems and suggestions for further research are also offered, laying out a vision of the field as a whole, and calling for future research, especially into topics relating to qualitative vs. quantitative uses of big data, the concept of “media”, issues in the history of philosophy and digital humanities, normative questions concerning social justice, race, gender, and (...) disability, religion, human transformation, virtual and non-virtual reality, collective and individual experience, self-consciousness, personal identity, human enhancement through digital means, privacy, speech-act theory, documentality, history, and the intersection of research into psychological and social cognition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ContingenciesElizabeth RottenbergAnalysis does precious little, but the little it does is precious.—Therese BenedekI’d like to begin with an anecdote of a slightly confessional nature. If I mention this anecdote, it’s because it came to me by chance as an association to what French analyst and philosopher Monique David-Ménard, in her introduction to Éloge des hasards dans la vie sexuelle, calls “positive contingency” or the “positive aspect of chance” (David-Ménard (...) 2011, 19–20), what in colloquial English we call a “happy accident.”So here’s the association. For reasons I cannot fully explain, the therapist I was seeing in graduate school encouraged me to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (the MMPI, as it’s called), a widely used and researched psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. The test involved hundreds of simple, inoffensive questions, questions such as, “Do you read all the editorials in the newspaper every day?”1 and it took me hours to complete. A week or so after taking the test, I met with my therapist and we went over the results together. According to the test (which, interestingly, takes into account the performative aspects of test taking), I had answered all the questions in such a way as to appear neither excessively good nor excessively bad, that is, I had answered all the questions honestly and consistently. And as far as psychopathology was concerned, my answers showed few signs of hypochondriasis, hysteria, psychopathy, schizophrenia, or hypomania. On the other hand, when it came to depression, paranoia, psychasthenia, and social introversion, my scores were a little higher, and a shockingly high percentage of my answers [End Page 128] reflected “stereotypical masculine interests/behaviors.” None of this seemed to worry my therapist in the least. The only thing she pointed to were my “odd answers” (the MMPI also has a special category for odd answers—presumably the answers of academics). She wondered about my answer to this question in particular: “Do you see people or animals or things that other people don’t see?” “You answered ‘true’ to that question,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would you answer ‘true’? You’re not psychotic.” I explained that I had read the “or”—do you see people OR animals OR things that other people don’t see—as a disjunctive rather than a conjunctive OR. “So, yes, it’s true, when I read texts, sometimes I see things that other people don’t see.” At the time, of course, I wasn’t thinking of Deleuze’s “contingent reason” or of Monique’s discussion of the inventive power of disjunctive synthesis in her Deleuze et la psychanalyse (2005). And I certainly wasn’t thinking that my figurative reading of seeing, my misreading of seeing, was indicative of the essential and indeterminable contingencies of reading. No, I was only giving what I took to be a perfectly accurate description of the déformation professionnelle that is ours and that belongs to anyone who is a stickler for grammar... a positive déformation, I might add.But this association immediately leads me to another (contingent) association, this time one that is intimately related to Monique’s discussion of Torricelli’s law and to Claude Bernard’s discovery of the exocrine function of the pancreas. My association is to Freud and to Freud’s astonishment before the transformative power of Jean-Martin Charcot’s dazzling, clinical insight. In Freud’s description of his teacher, Charcot is someone who sees things that other people don’t see:[Charcot]... had the nature of an artist—he was, as he himself said, a “visuel,” a seer. Here is what he himself told us about his method of working. He used to look again and again at the things he did not understand, to deepen his impression of them day by day, till suddenly [plötzlich] an understanding of them dawned on him.... He might be heard to say that the greatest satisfaction a [person] could have was to see something new—that is, to recognize it as new; and he remarked again and again on the difficulty and value of this kind of... (shrink)