This article models a critical method of engaging with not-knowing as it relates to discourses around sexual agency and sexual violation through an analysis of Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘The Husband Stitch’. I argue that sexual and gender-based violation not only enforces harmful forms of uncertainty among the women of the story. It also forecloses the potentially productive capacities of modes of not-knowing. In doing so, I respond to assertions from feminist scholars as varied Linda Martín Alcoff, Mary Gaitskill, (...) Laura Kipnis and Joseph Fischel that we need to better account for the full ‘complexity’ of narratives of sexual encounter – including violent encounters. Broadly, in a #MeToo era in which stories of sexual and gender-based violence have received unprecedented mainstream public exposure, I contend that we can both treat the testimonies of survivors as credible and authoritative, and open up discursive space for the experience and expression of not-knowing. (shrink)

Seventy-five years before Niander Wallace brutally kills a newborn replicant in Blade Runner 2049, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was formed. Its formation led to the creation of the Belmont Report, which established guidelines for the treatment of human subjects. Wallace uses a scalpel as the instrument of disposal, of the newborn replicant, stabbing her in the womb, thereby ending her life moments after wishing her a happy birthday. The (...) conjunction of 2049 and the Belmont Report leads us to important questions concerning biomedical research, given that replicants are “bioengineered humans.” For example, is the “defective” replicant a human subject, and thus protected by research guidelines, or is she a product or consumer good that did not meet expectations? (shrink)

While we are currently experiencing a renaissance in philosophical work on agriculture and food ( Barnhill, Budolfson, & Doggett 2016 ; Thompson 2015 ; Kaplan 2012 ), these topics were common sources of discussion throughout the three-thousand-year history of Western thought. For example, the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (2014 ) explored connections between fulfi lling human promise and systems of agriculture ( Thompson & Noll 2015 ) and Hippocrates (1923 ) stressed the importance of cultivating agricultural products provided by nature (...) ( Zwart 2000 ). In order to live a truly human life, Hippocrates argued, one must not passively consume crude food products, as such brutish living leads to terrible suffering. Later, both the Hebrew Bible and Christian Gospels provided clear ethical mandates concerning agricultural practices and the consumption of food. These mandates or ethics needed to be observed regardless of context ( Zwart 2000 ). More recently, Thomas Jefferson added to this literature, as he engaged in agricultural production at his Monticello plantation and wrote extensively on how farming is intimately connected to the political system of democracy ( Thompson & Noll 2015 ). This refl ection on food and agriculture continued into the 20th century, albeit not in the discipline of philosophy. Scientists and agricultural leaders, such as Henry Wallace and Liberty Hyde Bailey, provided important critiques of agricultural practices contemporary to their time. (shrink)

Promising is clearly a social practice or convention. By uttering the formula, “I hereby promise to do X,” we can raise in others the expectation that we will in fact do X. But this succeeds only because there is a social practice that consists (inter alia) in a disposition on the part of promisers to do what they promise, and an expectation on the part of promisees that promisers will so behave. It is equally clear that, barring special circumstances of (...) some kind, it is morally wrong for promisers to fail to do what they have promised to do. What is perhaps less clear is how the moral wrongness that is involved when promises are broken is related to the social practice that makes promising possible in the first place. (shrink)

In large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising, and resenting—we communicate a desire (...) to maintain good will to those in the community we are imbedded in. Participating in such practices alone will not get the job done, though, for expressions of our reactive attitudes are often what economists call cheap talk. But when we praise and blame in cases of moral diversity, expressions of our reactive attitudes act as costly signals capable of solving our social dilemma. (shrink)

When people must either save a greater number of people from a smaller harm or a smaller number from a greater harm, do their choices reflect a reasonable moral outlook? We pursue this question with the help of an experiment. In our experiment, two-fifths of subjects employ a similarity heuristic. When alternatives appear dissimilar in terms of the number saved but similar in terms of the magnitude of harm prevented, this heuristic mandates saving the greater number. In our experiment, this (...) leads to choices that are inconsistent with all standard theories of justice. We argue that this demonstrates the untrustworthiness of distributive judgments in cases that elicit similarity-based choice. (shrink)

This paper reports part of a longitudinal research project, which sought to capture students’ conceptualization of caring practice as they progressed to different levels of study in a nursing diploma programme in Hong Kong. Model emulation was found to be an effective means of focusing students’ learning processes on the moral aspects of nursing practice. The theory of model emulation from a Chinese perspective and how it is applied to create a learning context to allow students to acquire a moral (...) sense of nursing are discussed. The participating students are invited to be sincere enquirers in the pursuit of the good embedded in practice through introspective self-examination and dialogue. They are asked to describe and share their experience of positive and negative examples of nursing in written accounts. Van Kaam’s phenomenological method was adopted to explicate the good and bad constituents of nursing from these examples, with the students assuming an active role in the explication process. The explication reveals that the students were able to articulate the good and bad practices in a variety of patient care situations. (shrink)

Drawing on political, legal, national, post-national, as well as American and European perspectives, this collection of essays offers a diverse and balanced discussion of the current arguments concerning deliberative democracy. The essays consider the thr.

ABSTRACTTo extend our understanding of the proximal etiology of personality pathology, this study examined the dynamic, in-the-moment relations between mindfulness and negative affectivity (NA; emo...

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision not only upended constitutional protections for abortion in the United States but also bolstered legislative and cultural int...

Humanity needs a way to pool scientific community opinion quickly and efficiently on a given statement of interest. This should be on a very large scale, such that one can have confidence that the result reflects international scientific opinion. For this pilot project (2022-23), we developed tailored architecture in the form of a novel polling platform, to survey a network of scientists at 30 academic institutions around the world. Personal, one-to-one emails were sent to all relevant scientists at those institutions, (...) asking them for their position on our pilot statement, "Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus." Scientists answered by clicking a URL embedded in the email, and confirming their response on a 5-point Likert scale. Voting was anonymous, with the token linking the scientist to their vote being destroyed upon voting, and their response logged against the demographics of scientific field of expertise (broadly construed) and institution for subsequent data analysis. (shrink)

This article supplements the article by Fubin Yang in vol. 39 (2010) of this journal. The goal is to account for the recent surge of interest in process thought in China.

It is argued that future research capacity building for the social sciences needs to incorporate methods to accelerate the acquisition by researchers of holistic expertise relevant to their roles as researchers and as developers of others. An agenda is presented, based on a model of learning that highlights missing elements of current provision, and two approaches currently under development are described.

Life-science art is a generic term which describes a new kind of collaboration between artists and scientists which adds a new dimension to the polemics of the ‘philosophy of art.’ Utilising the techniques and materials made available by developments in biotechnology, artists, and scientists produce objects not for scientific benefit but aesthetic objects designed to enchant, shock, or familiarize the audience with the fanciful applications to which this technology can be put: the creation of pig wings, fish that can draw, (...) rabbits that glow in the dark and dead men that appear to play chess.This paper investigates the moral implications of the incorporation of living and non-living plant, animal, and human tissue as part of the artistic palette. It is argued that the rupture between the beautiful and the good that characterises much of contemporary thinking directly leads to the morally dubious practices of life-science art and that there are very good reasons drawn from utilitarian and natural law traditions against such “artistic” endeavours. (shrink)

What mysteries lie at the heart of fiction's power to enchant and engage the mind? Empty Revelations considers a number of philosophical problems that fiction raises, including the primary issue of how we can think and talk about things that do not exist. Peter Alward covers thought-provoking terrain, exploring fictional truth, the experience of being "caught up" in a story, and the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. At the centre of Alward's argument is a figure known as the "narrative informant" (...) who mediates the reader's encounter with fictional events through - sometimes unreliable - reporting. Developing a theory in which the author is a sculptor who constructs works of fiction out of words, Alward demonstrates that much of the confusion about fiction stems from a failure to properly distinguish between writing fiction and telling stories. Combining clarity, philosophical sophistication, ingenuity, and originality, Empty Revelations is a rewarding read for both scholars of philosophy and anyone interested in the complex ways that fiction works. (shrink)

One fundamental barrier to eliminating health disparities, particularly with regard to the determinants of health, is the persistence of discrimination. Civil rights law is the primary legal mechanism used to address discrimination. Federal civil rights laws have been the subject of wider analyses as a determinant of health as well as a tool to address health disparities. The research on state civil rights laws, while more limited, is growing. This article will highlight a few examples of how some states are (...) using civil rights laws to combat discrimination, particularly in more expansive ways and in the interest of new populations, presenting tools that can target determinants and address the goal of reducing health disparities. (shrink)

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. First, there are (...) questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume — both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in — to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? Second, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections 1-3 of the present article, while sections 4-5 cover the second set of issues. (shrink)

The essays in this book clarify the technical, legal, ethical, and social aspects of the interaction between eHealth technologies and surveillance practices. The book starts out by presenting a theoretical framework on eHealth and surveillance, followed by an introduction to the various ideas on eHealth and surveillance explored in the subsequent chapters. Issues addressed in the chapters include privacy and data protection, social acceptance of eHealth, cost-effective and innovative healthcare, as well as the privacy aspects of employee wellness programs using (...) eHealth, the use of mobile health app data by insurance companies, advertising industry and law enforcement, and the ethics of Big Data use in healthcare. A closing chapter draws on the previous content to explore the notion that people are 'under observation', bringing together two hitherto unrelated streams of scholarship interested in observation: eHealth and surveillance studies. In short, the book represents a first essential step towards cross-fertilization and offers new insights into the legal, ethical and social significance of being 'under observation'. (shrink)

Challenging the paradigm in ethics -- The spirit of the enterprise -- Social artifacts and ethical criticism -- General and particular in practical knowledge -- Virtues of benevolence and justice.

In _Biocultural Creatures_, Samantha Frost brings feminist and political theory together with findings in the life sciences to recuperate the category of the human for politics. Challenging the idea of human exceptionalism as well as other theories of subjectivity that rest on a distinction between biology and culture, Frost proposes that humans are biocultural creatures who quite literally are cultured within the material, social, and symbolic worlds they inhabit. Through discussions about carbon, the functions of cell membranes, the activity (...) of genes and proteins, the work of oxygen, and the passage of time, Frost recasts questions about the nature of matter, identity, and embodiment. In doing so, she elucidates the imbrication of the biological and cultural within the corporeal self. In remapping the relation of humans to their habitats and arriving at the idea that humans are biocultural creatures, Frost provides new theoretical resources for responding to political and environmental crises and for thinking about how to transform the ways we live. (shrink)

There are two main approaches to how statistical patterns are extracted from sequences: The transitional probability approach proposes that statistical learning occurs through the computation of probabilities between items in a sequence. The chunking approach, including models such as PARSER and TRACX, proposes that units are extracted as chunks. Importantly, the chunking approach suggests that the extraction of full units weakens the processing of subunits while the transitional probability approach suggests that both units and subunits should strengthen. Previous findings using (...) sequentially organized, auditory stimuli or spatially organized, visual stimuli support the chunking approach. However, one limitation of prior studies is that most assessed learning with the two-alternative forced-choice task. In contrast, this pre-registered experiment examined the two theoretical approaches in sequentially organized, visual stimuli using an online self-paced task—arguably providing a more sensitive index of learning as it occurs—and a secondary offline familiarity judgment task. During the self-paced task, abstract shapes were covertly organized into eight triplets (ABC) where one in every eight was altered (BCA) from the canonical structure in a way that disrupted the full unit while preserving a subunit (BC). Results from the offline familiarity judgment task revealed that the altered triplets were perceived as highly familiar, suggesting the learned representations were relatively flexible. More importantly, results from the online self-paced task demonstrated that processing for subunits, but not unit-initial stimuli, was impeded in the altered triplet. The pattern of results is in line with the chunking approach to statistical learning and, more specifically, the TRACX model. (shrink)

Foucault contra Habermas is an incisive examination of, and a comprehensive introduction to, the debate between Foucault and Habermas over the meaning of enlightenment and modernity. It reprises the key issues in the argument between critical theory and genealogy and is organised around three complementary themes: defining the context of the debate; examining the theoretical and conceptual tools used; and discussing the implications for politics and criticism. In a detailed reply to Habermas' Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, this volume explains the (...) difference between Habermas' philosophical practice and Foucault's between the analytics of truth and the politics of truth. Many of the most difficult arguments in the exchange are subject to a detailed critical analysis. This examination also includes discussion of the ethics of dialogue; the practice of criticism; the politics of recognition, and the function of civil society and democracy. (shrink)

The concept of medical necessity is often used to explain or justify certain decisions—for example, which treatments should be allowed under certain conditions—as though it had an obvious, agreed-upon meaning as well as an inherent normative force. In introducing this special issue of Clinical Ethics on medical necessity, we argue that the term, as used in various discourses, generally lacks a definition that is clear, non-circular, conceptually plausible, and fit for purpose. We propose that future work on this concept should (...) address three main questions: what medical necessity is (i.e., what makes something medically necessary, as opposed to something else); what the concept does (what ‘work’ is it doing when invoked in different settings); and what should follow, normatively, from the fact that something is indeed medically necessary (on some plausible conception). (shrink)

Has Alexander Pope's prediction, made a quarter of a millennium ago , come true in our own day? No one who has lived through the last thirty years is unaware of the spectacular alterations of behavior norms that have occurred in most Western societies. It is not merely that everywhere incivility and crime are on the increase, that there are more and more violations of moral standards which nevertheless continue to be acknowledged. Rather, we witness the relaxation or disappearance of (...) the standards themselves. What was bad becomes permissible or even a positive good. (shrink)

Pure mathematics can play an indispensable role explaining empirical phenomena if recent accounts of insect evolution are correct. In particular, the prime life cycles of cicadas and the geometric structure of honeycombs are taken to undergird an inference to the best explanation about mathematical entities. Neither example supports this inference or the mathematical realism it is intended to establish. Both incorrectly assume that facts about mathematical optimality drove selection for the respective traits and explain why they exist. We show how (...) this problem can be avoided, identify limitations of explanatory indispensability arguments, and attempt to clarify the nature of mathematical explanation. (shrink)

Bridging the gap between the world of science and the realm of the spiritual, B. Alan Wallace introduces a natural theory of human consciousness that has its roots in contemporary physics and Buddhism. Wallace's "special theory of ontological relativity" suggests that mental phenomena are _conditioned_ by the brain, but do not _emerge_ from it. Rather, the entire natural world of mind and matter, subjects and objects, arises from a unitary dimension of reality that is more fundamental than these (...) dualities, as proposed by Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung. To test his hypothesis, Wallace employs the Buddhist meditative practice of _samatha_, refining one's attention and metacognition, to create a kind of telescope to examine the space of the mind. Drawing on the work of the physicist John Wheeler, he then proposes a more general theory in which the participatory nature of reality is envisioned as a self-excited circuit. In comparing these ideas to the Buddhist theory known as the Middle Way philosophy, Wallace explores further aspects of his "general theory of ontological relativity," which can be investigated by means of _vipasyana_, or insight, meditation. Wallace then focuses on the theme of symmetry in reference to quantum cosmology and the "problem of frozen time," relating these issues to the theory and practices of the Great Perfection school of Tibetan Buddhism. He concludes with a discussion of the general theme of complementarity as it relates to science and religion. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics were major achievements in the physical sciences, and the theory of evolution has had an equally deep impact on the life sciences. However, rigorous scientific methods do not yet exist to observe mental phenomena, and naturalism has its limits for shedding light on the workings of the mind. A pioneer of modern consciousness research, Wallace offers a practical and revolutionary method for exploring the mind that combines the keenest insights of contemporary physicists and philosophers with the time-honored meditative traditions of Buddhism. (shrink)

Lloyd analyzes every proposed evolutionary explanation of female orgasm and argues that all but one suffers from serious evidential errors. Lloyd attributes these errors to two main biases: androcentrism and adaptationism. This paper begins by arguing that the explanation Lloyd favors—the by-product account—is guilty of the androcentrism which supposedly implicates the other explanations of female orgasm with numerous evidential discrepancies. This suggests that there is another error afflicting orgasm research in addition to the biases Lloyd identities. I attempt to diagnose (...) and characterize this additional error. In short, I think the error is using an imprecise definition of the trait in question. Further, Lloyd takes her analysis to support Longino’s contextual empiricist model of scientific objectivity. I consider what implications this analysis has for contextual empiricism. Finally, I argue that theorizing about female orgasm should be done from a conceptual engineering approach. (shrink)

This paper argues for two conclusions: (1) evaluating the success of engineered concepts necessarily involves empirical work; and (2) the Carnapian Explication criterion precision ought to be a methodological standard in conceptual engineering. These two conclusions provide a new analysis of the race and gender debate between Sally Haslanger and Jennifer Saul. Specifically, the argument identifies the resources Haslanger needs to respond to Saul’s main objections. Lastly, I contrast the methodology advocated here with the so-called “method of cases” and draw (...) out some general implications for how we should think about concepts. (shrink)

This paper argues for two conclusions: (1) evaluating the success of engineered concepts necessarily involves empirical work; and (2) the Carnapian Explication criterion precision ought to be a methodological standard in conceptual engineering. These two conclusions provide a new analysis of the race and gender debate between Sally Haslanger and Jennifer Saul. Specifically, the argument identifies the resources Haslanger needs to respond to Saul’s main objections. Lastly, I contrast the methodology advocated here with the so-called “method of cases” and draw (...) out some general implications for how we should think about concepts. (shrink)

Paternalism is widely viewed as presumptively justifiable for children but morally problematic for adults. The standard explanation for this distinction is that children lack capacities relevant to the justifiability of paternalism. I argue that this explanation is more difficult to defend than typically assumed. If paternalism is often justified when needed to keep children safe from the negative consequences of their poor choices, then when adults make choices leading to the same negative consequences, what makes paternalism less justified? It seems (...) true that ordinary adults have capacities enabling them to promote their interests in ways most children lack. This can explain why paternalism is more often justified towards children than adults. What is not explained, however, is why paternalism would be justifiable for children, but not adults, when neither possess the relevant interest-promoting capacities—exactly the cases when paternalism towards adults might be considered. I argue that this dilemma undercuts capacities-based explanations for the belief that childhood is distinctively relevant for the permissibility of paternalism. I then address defenses of both consequentialist and deontological versions of the capacities-based explanation. Absent this capacities-based explanation, I argue that the intuition that less demanding justificatory standards apply to paternalism when directed at children than when directed towards adults presents unresolved problems for egalitarians. (shrink)

In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. _Fate, Time, and Language_ presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, (...) Wallace's thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. (shrink)

The niche is allegedly the conceptual bedrock underpinning the most prominent, and some would say most important, theorizing in ecology. We argue this point of view is more aspirational than veridical. Rather than critically dissect existing definitions of the concept, the supposedly significant work it is thought to have done in ecology is our evaluative target. There is no denying the impressive mathematical sophistication and theoretical ingenuity of the ecological modeling that invokes ‘niche’ terminology. But despite the pervasive labeling, we (...) demonstrate that niche talk is nothing more than a gloss on theory developed without it, that doesn’t need it, and that doesn’t benefit from it. (shrink)

This article reports a survey of nurses in different cultural settings to reveal their perceptions of ethical role responsibilities relevant to nursing practice. Drawing on the Confucian theory of ethics, the first section attempts to understand nursing ethics in the context of multiple role relationships. The second section reports the administration of the Role Responsibilities Questionnaire (RRQ) to a sample of nurses in China (n = 413), the USA (n = 163), and Japan (n = 667). Multidimensional preference analysis revealed (...) the patterns of rankings given by the nurses to the statements they considered as important ethical responsibilities. The Chinese nurses were more virtue based in their perception of ethical responsibilities, the American nurses were more principle based, and the Japanese nurses were more care based. The findings indicate that the RRQ is a sensitive instrument for outlining the embedded sociocultural factors that influence nurses’ perceptions of ethical responsibilities in the realities of nursing practice. This study could be important in the fostering of partnerships in international nursing ethics. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects 15 new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the work of Joseph Raz. Raz has made major contributions in a wide range of areas, including jurisprudence, political philosophy, and the theory of practical reason; but all of his work displays a deep engagement with central themes in moral philosophy. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. Especially significant are his (...) explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value, which constitute a sustained and penetrating treatment of a set of issues at the very center of moral philosophy as it is practiced today. The contributors to the volume acknowledge the importance of Raz's contributions by engaging critically with his positions and offering independent perspectives on the topics that he has addressed. The volume aims both to honour Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and to contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject. (shrink)

Déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are differentiated by a number of factors including metacognition. In contrast to IAMs, déjà vu activates regions associated with self-awareness including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Friedrich Schiller draws a striking connection between aesthetic value and individual and political freedom, claiming that, ‘it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom’. However, contemporary ways of thinking about freedom and aesthetic value make it difficult to see what the connection could be. Through a careful reconstruction of the Letters, we argue that Schiller’s theory of aesthetic value serves as the key to understanding not only his (...) view of aesthetic engagement, but also his distinctive account of individual and political freedom. In Part I, we develop a reconstruction of Schiller's view that aesthetic value is the only path to individual freedom and in Part II we analyze how Schiller connects aesthetic value to political freedom. In the end, we show that Schiller defends a non-hedonic, action-oriented, communitarian theory of aesthetic value and a theory of freedom that makes the aesthetic not just supererogatory but fundamental for any fully autonomous life. Although we have lost touch with this way of thinking about aesthetic value and freedom, we submit that it is illuminating for contemporary thinking about both. (shrink)

This work offers a comprehensive picture of the dynamic natures of language and consciousness that will interest linguists, psychologists, literary scholars,...