A discussion of the connection between activism and academia in bioethics, highlighting the author’s own trajectory, exploring the extent to which academics have an obliation to be ‘judges’ rather than ‘barristers’ (as explored by Jonathan Haidt) and asking questions about the relationship of disability to positions in bioethics.

This article explores the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ recent report about non-invasive prenatal testing. Given that such testing is likely to become the norm, it is important to question whether there should be some ethical parameters regarding its use. The article engages with the viewpoints of Jeff McMahan, Julian Savulescu, Stephen Wilkinson and other commentators on prenatal ethics. The authors argue that there are a variety of moral considerations that legitimately play a significant role with regard to (prospective) parental decision-making (...) in the context of NIPT, for example, views on the morality of abortion and understandings of the impact of disability on quality of life. The variable nature of such considerations, both singularly and combined, suggests that any approach to NIPT should be sensitive to and understanding of similarly variable parental assessments and decisions. The implications of the approach developed for current and future policies in this area are explored, along with the impact of such arguments on ideas about procreative beneficence. (shrink)

A response to Kavita Shah's article Selecting Barrenness.

In the helpful article “Why Bioethics Needs a Disability Moral Psychology,” Joseph Stramondo adds to the critique of actually existing bioethics and explains why disability activists and scholars so often find fault with the arguments of bioethicists. He is careful not to stereotype either community—rightly, given that bioethicists endorse positions as disparate as utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and feminist ethics, among others. Although Stramondo never explicitly mentions utilitarians or liberals, it seems probable that these are the main targets of his (...) discontent. The disability community, as he concedes, is also a broad church. Yet for this reason, I do not believe that you can read off positions on bioethics questions from either disability embodiment or disability organization affiliation. (shrink)

This article discusses the different contexts in which disabled people encounter and deploy humour, both as victims and as agents, and provides examples. It raises questions about identity and audience and interpretation and about embodiment itself.

This paper responds to the reviews by Edwards, Holm, Koch, Thomas and Vehmas of Disability Rights and Wrongs . After summarising the recent history of disability studies as a discipline, it explores: the political nature of disability research, questions of ontology and definition, and the uses and abuses of the expressivist argument. Disability is an emerging field of enquiry and constructive debate is to be welcomed.

The advent of prenatal screening technologies has neatly paralleled the evolution of disability rightsDisability rights. During the 1970s and 1980s, the disability movement in many countries campaigned for barrier removal, better provision and recognition.

Exploring the rich range of meanings that Shakespeare finds in the natural world, this book fuses ecocritical approaches to Renaissance literature with recent thinking about the significance of religion in Shakespeare's plays. MacFaul offers a clear introduction to some of the key problems in Renaissance natural philosophy and their relationship to Reformation theology, with individual chapters focusing on the role of animals in Shakespeare's universe, the representation of rural life, and the way in which humans' consumption of (...) natural materials transforms their destinies. These discussions enable powerful new readings of Shakespeare's plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, and the history plays. Proposing that Shakespeare's representation of the relationship between man and nature anticipated that of the Romantics, this volume will interest scholars of Shakespeare studies, Renaissance drama and literature, and ecocritical studies of Shakespeare. (shrink)

What could be the point of teaching such works of bygone cultural and literary inheritance as Cervantes' _Don Quixote_ and Shakespeare’s _The Merchant of Venic_e in schools today? This book argues that the narratives and stories of such works are of neglected significance and value for contemporary understanding of human moral association and character. However, in addition to offering detailed analysis of the moral educational potential of these and other texts, the present work reports on a pioneering project, recently (...) pursued by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, concerned precisely with the use of these and other stories for moral and character education in schools. The success of the 'Knightly Virtues’ project is an inspiring story in its own right and should therefore be of enormous interest to all schools, teachers and parents rightly concerned with this all-important aspect of their children’s educational development. (shrink)

This collection of essays is eclectic, covering certain political, ethical, cultural and philosophical topics. But running through all the material is the evolutionary-naturalistic perspective stated in the opening essay, which gives the book its title. Another emphatic feature is a focus on the Western cultural outlook, as the context in which the large number of topics is viewed. This focus is important as a way of re-affirming the distinctive character of Western intellectual and cultural history, at a time when that (...) character is, arguably, not sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Authors referred to include Aristotle, Shakespeare, Voltaire and Sartre. (shrink)

A progressive secular society is one committed to the widening of scientific knowledge and humane feeling. It regards humanity as part of physical nature and opposes any appeal to supernatural agencies or explanations. In particular, human moral perspectives are human creations and the only basis for ethics. Secular values need re-affirming in the face of the resurgence of aggressive supernatural religious doctrines and practices. This book gives a set of 'secular thoughts for the day' – many only a page or (...) two long – on topics as varied as Shakespeare and Comte, economics, science and social action. (shrink)

Is Tom Shakespeare disabled, or simply distinct in stature? And if the latter, what makes that distinction important?For more than a decade, the British sociologist has been a critical voice in the sociology of difference. The son of a physician with achondroplasia “widely admired as a doctor and as a disabled role model” ,1 Shakespeare fils also has achondroplasia, is the father of children with the condition and, like his father, is professionally successful. As his book’s back cover (...) announces, Shakespeare has “taught and researched sociology at the Universities of Cambridge, Sunderland, Leeds, and Newcastle. He has written and broadcast extensively about disability and genetics, and his co-authored books include The Sexual Politics of Disability, Exploring Disability, and Genetic Politics.”This volume brings together a decade of papers that, Shakespeare says, “draws on my experience of being a disabled person, and the son, father, husband and friend of disabled people”1 to argue the following thesis: “Disability results from the interplay of individual and contextual factors. In other words, people are disabled by society and by their bodies.”1 That argument, he suggests, has resulted in the “breakdown of my relationship with the mainstream of the UK disabled people’s movement”, whose members advance a model of disability based wholly on social construction. Shakespeare sees that as simplistic and no longer viable despite of the extraordinary gains made by those seeking parity through advancement of the social construction thesis.1According to Shakespeare, his former confrères in the British disability movement see as a betrayal his rejection of their argument, one he formerly endorsed, and thus perhaps a repudiation of a generation of admittedly successful activism. To them, in other words, Shakespeare is no longer disabled but disabling, and that judgment must …. (shrink)

Tom Shakepeare is an eminent, and somewhat controversial, contributor to disability studies. As he outlines, part of the explanation for his controversial status within that field stems from his engagement with disciplines outside it, including genetics and bioethics. For many in the field of disability studies, no genuine engagement should be sought with scholars in genetics or bioethics because—so the party line goes—these areas of study are inherently opposed to disability rights and otherwise pose genuine threats to the status of (...) disabled people. The present volume is unlikely to do much to reduce his controversial status.The book is divided into three parts. The first presents a detailed criticism of the social model with some, more positive, proposals concerning how disability is best conceived. The second part—perhaps the one that will be of most interest to JME readers—concerns bioethical issues in disability . The final part focuses on themes such as care, charity, intimacy and the role of the non-disabled in “the world of disability”.The main reason why this book is unlikely to reduce Shakespeare’s controversial status is that its central theme is a sustained attack on the so-called and widely held “social model” of disability. According to this model, the causes of disability lie in the social environment, not within the individual. So, change the social environment in appropriate ways, and disability disappears. Shakespeare illustrates the various ways in which this model is analytically flawed and has had a negative effect upon disability studies, research and the lives of disabled people. …. (shrink)

The character of Tom has the proportions of a mythic figure. His story has little of the melodrama of the secondary plot for his heroism in meeting the trials of slavery is manifested not in outward risks and adventures but in inner strength. In Simon Legree, Tom's final adversary, Stowe provides a perfect antithesis, an ultimate image of what slavery must do to the master who takes advantage of his position and uses his power without restraint; for Legree is an (...) ambitious Vermonter, not a Southern, an owner, not an overseer, and a product of the raw, final phase of slavery in the cotton plantations of the deep South. Legree bends every effort to brutalize Tom as though of necessity to prove that he and the South are right about Negroes and slavery, and Tom remains firm in his humanity and so disproves the sordid myth of his oppressor. It is Legree who is dehumanized by the institution of slavery. Tom emerges from the struggle as an example not simply of a black Christian slave, but of a heroic man in the face of intimidating and humiliating power. Moody E. Prior, emeritus professor of English and former dean of the graduate school of Northwestern University, is the author of The Language of Tragedy, Science and the Humanities, and The Drama of Power-Studies in Shakespeare's History Plays. See also: "The Ethics of Uncle Tom's Children" by Tommie Shelby in Vol. 38, No. 3. (shrink)

More than twenty years after its original publication, The Case for Animal Rights is an acknowledged classic of moral philosophy, and its author is recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement. In a new and fully considered preface, Regan responds to his critics and defends the book's revolutionary position.

It is an important feature of creatures like us that our various motivations compete for control over our behaviour, including mental behaviour such as imagining and attending. In large part, this competition is adjudicated by the stimulation of affect — the intrinsically pleasant or unpleasant aspects of experience. In this paper I argue that the motivation-affect system controls a sub-type of attention called 'alerting attention' to bring various goals and stimuli to consciousness and thereby prioritize those contents for action. This (...) view allows me to flesh out the global workspace theory of consciousness, as well as some of the phenomenal characteristics of conscious experience. (shrink)

To understand Self-Representationalism you need to understand its family. Self-Representationalism is a branch of the Meta-Representationalist family, and according to theories in this family what distinguishes conscious mental representations from unconscious mental representations is that conscious ones are themselves the target of a mental meta¬-representational state. A mental state M1 is thus phenomenally conscious in virtue of being suitably represented by some mental state M2. What distinguishes the Self-Representationalist branch of the family is the claim that M1 and M2 must (...) be the same token mental state, so a mental state is phenomenally conscious in virtue of suitably representing itself. This Self-Representationalist branch of the family divides into further branches, giving us specific implementations of the Self-Representationalist approach. But before asking whether we should adopt Self-Representationalism, and in what form, we should reflect on why Meta-Representationalism is an attractive family in the first place. After all, Self-Representationalist theories trade on their family name, claiming to deliver on the promises that drive the Meta-Representationalist approach. The two most important promises of Meta-Representationalism are: a) the promise of capturing the transitivity of consciousness and; b) the promise of rendering consciousness naturalisable. I discuss each in turn. (shrink)

Tom Shakespeare’s important new book includes, among other topics, a persuasive critique of the social model of disability. A key component in his case against that model consists in an argument against the impairment/disability distinction as this is understood within the social model. The present paper focuses on the case Shakespeare makes against that distinction. Three arguments mounted by Shakespeare are summarised and responded to. It is argued that the responses adequately rebut Shakespeare’s case on this (...) specific issue. Moreover, as the engagement with Shakespeare’s argument illustrates, his claim to employ a critical realist perspective appears to be in considerable tension with the case he offers against the impairment/disability distinction. (shrink)

Abstract Temporal Externalism is the view that future events can contribute to determining the present content of our thoughts and utterances. Two objections to Temporal Externalism are discussed and rejected. The first is that Temporal Externalism has implausible consequences for the epistemology of biology and other taxonomic sciences (Brown, 2000). The second is that it is committed to implausible claims about dispositions.

If we were to connect two individuals’ brains together, how would this affect the individuals’ conscious experiences? In particular, it is possible for two people to share any of their conscious experiences; to simultaneously enjoy some token experiences while remaining distinct subjects? The case of the Hogan twins—craniopagus conjoined twins whose brains are connected at the thalamus—seems to show that this can happen. I argue that while practical empirical methods cannot tell us directly whether or not the twins share conscious (...) experiences, considerations about the locality of content processing in the brain entails that they most likely do so. (shrink)

How wrong is it to deceive someone into sex by lying, say, about one's profession? The answer is seriously wrong when the liar's actual profession would be a deal breaker for the victim of the deception: this deception vitiates the victim's sexual consent, and it is seriously wrong to have sex with someone while lacking his or her consent.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Being a Moral Agent in Shakespeare's ViennaRobert B. PierceIn one sense we are all moral agents because we make decisions that in some degree take account of what we think we should do and what sorts of selves we want to be. But the problem of moral agency as more than just a theoretical set of philosophical issues, as the lived experience of acting morally in a contingent (...) world, is especially acute for those who set out deliberately to try to uphold some moral ideal, for the idealist in that popular sense of the term. In describing moral agency, philosophers may tend to exaggerate the importance of reflective rationality in the human task of being moral, elevating their own habits of mind into the apex of human striving, but at least the experience of the intellectual idealist is of a special kind, and as such it is an endlessly fascinating subject for artistic contemplation in fiction and drama. That interest raises the issue of what kind of text a philosophical play or novel is. Does it constitute a kind of argument for some set of ideas? Does it show how those ideas play out in lived experience? Or are there other possible ways for a text to count as philosophical?One may also ask why Shakespeare is a good subject for such an enquiry. He is not first and foremost a dramatist of ideas. Bernard Shaw and Tom Stoppard, for example, are far more likely to dramatize the encounter of ideas than he; but for a few years after 1599 or so, beginning with the creation of Brutus, Shakespeare seems to have devoted considerable attention to portraying how ideas impinge on the human experience, and especially to studying moral idealists. Leonato may doubt the importance of philosophical moralizing when he protests that "there was never yet philosopher / That could endure the toothache patiently" (Much Ado 5.1.35–36),1 but in Julius Caesar Brutus is determined to cure the toothaches of the Roman political world by the power [End Page 267] of thought and to govern his own life by the precepts of Stoicism. A group of Shakespeare's plays over the next few years are unusually idea-centered for him and are especially concerned with characters who try to apply moral ideas in the world. Hamlet with its intellectual protagonist comes to mind of course, but perhaps the most systematic exploration of idealists trying to live by their ideas is Measure for Measure. Angelo, Isabella, and the Duke set out on that project in a world that the play analytically divides into four environments for their moral testing: the court, the convent, the tavern-brothel, and the prison.The dramatic richness of this topic of practical ethics lies in how terribly difficult it is to live by a morality worthy of respect. Most of us share the admiration for Brutus's idealism in Antony's tribute, "This was the noblest Roman of them all" (5.5.68), but we may also share the irony, even contempt, in the sarcastic catchphrase of his oration, "Brutus is an honorable man" (3.2.84 and following). The tragedy of Brutus's fate emerges from the difficulties of living out any idealism in our tangled and terribly imperfect world. First, moral principles like the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule, admired character traits like constancy and benevolence, even intuitions (or, as it may be, divine inspirations) about duty do not apply themselves automatically and unambiguously to a decision how to act in a specific situation.2 What does treating human beings as ends, not means entail in your quotidian dealings with your wife, your boss, the dealer who sells you a newspaper? Second, rival values may conflict with a good you are trying to uphold. How can you devote yourself to your work and also give your family the love and attention they need? Third, the demands of the ideal may extend past the limits of your will power or even attention. How many teachers are as patient and understanding of the eightieth student paper as of the first? And, finally, living up to an ideal can be painful... (shrink)

In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of (...) failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches. (shrink)

This chapter examines Soren Kierkegaard's relation to postmodernism, evaluating whether he was a relativising postmodernist rather than the father of existentialism. It discuses Gilles Deleuze's treatment of Kierkegaard in his Difference and Repetition and Jean-Paul Sartre's assertion in his Kierkegaard: The Singular Universal that Kierkegaard's impact should not be reduced to general truths described in his thought and that his importance lies in his withdrawal from such structures of comprehension.

To understand Self-Representationalism you need to understand its family. Self-Representationalism is a branch of the Meta-Representationalist family, and according to theories in this family what distinguishes conscious mental representations from unconscious mental representations is that conscious ones are themselves the target of a mental meta¬-representational state. A mental state M1 is thus phenomenally conscious in virtue of being suitably represented by some mental state M2. What distinguishes the Self-Representationalist branch of the family is the claim that M1 and M2 must (...) be the same token mental state, so a mental state is phenomenally conscious in virtue of suitably representing itself. This Self-Representationalist branch of the family divides into further branches, giving us specific implementations of the Self-Representationalist approach. But before asking whether we should adopt Self-Representationalism, and in what form, we should reflect on why Meta-Representationalism is an attractive family in the first place. After all, Self-Representationalist theories trade on their family name, claiming to deliver on the promises that drive the Meta-Representationalist approach. The two most important promises of Meta-Representationalism are: a) the promise of capturing the transitivity of consciousness and; b) the promise of rendering consciousness naturalisable. I discuss each in turn. (shrink)

Deflationists believe that the question “What is truth?” should be answered not by means of a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but by figuring out what use we make of the concept of truth, and the word ‘true’, in practice. This article accepts this methodology, and it thereby rejects pluralism about truth that is driven by ontological considerations. However, it shows that there are practical considerations for a pluralism about truth, formulated at the level of use. The theory (...) expounded by this article states that truth is a dual-purpose tool; it can be used as a device for transferring justificatory burdens and, for select areas of discourse, it can also be used as a standard, a norm. This contrast in how truth is used introduces a bifurcation in our discourse that is reminiscent of metaphysical divides traced by more traditional versions of alethic pluralism. However, my pluralism “at the level of use” states that truth is plural solely at the level of use. It is unified at both the conceptual as well as the metaphysical level. At those levels, the theory takes its cue from deflationism. As such, this theory is offered as a midway point and as a potential way forward in the debate between deflationism and pluralism. (shrink)

Abstract -- Background, context, overview, and guiding philosophy -- Emotional intelligence meets virtue ethics : implications for educators -- Emotional intelligence as a component of business ethics pedagogy -- Nourishing life, the daoist concept of virtue -- Cultivation of virtue (dé) 1 according to the neiye -- Cultivation of virtuous leaders according to the huainanzi -- Is there a place for contemplation and inner work in business ethics education? -- Incorporating the inner work of ei and contemplation in ethics education (...) -- Glossary -- About the author. (shrink)

Intro -- Title -- Contents -- Publisher's Acknowledgment -- Introduction -- Madhyamaka's Promise as Philosophy -- 1. Trying to Be Fair -- 2. How Far Can a Mādhyamika Reform Customary Truth? Dismal Relativism, Fictionalism, Easy-Easy Truth, and the Alternatives -- Logic and Semantics -- 3. How Do Mādhyamikas Think? Notes on Jay Garfield, Graham Priest, and Paraconsistency -- 4. "How Do Mādhyamikas Think?" Revisited -- 5. Prasaṅga and Proof by Contradiction in Bhāviveka, Candrakīrti, and Dharmakīrti -- 6. Apoha Semantics: What (...) Did Bhāviveka Have to Do with It? -- 7. What Happened to the Third and Fourth Lemmas in the Tibetan Madhyamaka? -- Ethics and the Spiritual Path -- 8. Madhyamaka Buddhist Ethics -- 9. Reason, Irrationality, and Akrasia (Weakness of the Will) in Buddhism: Reflections upon Śāntideva's Arguments with Himself -- 10. Yogic Perception, Meditation, and Enlightenment: The Epistemological Issues in a Key Debate between Madhyamaka and Chan -- Madhyamaka in Contemporary Debates -- 11. On Minds, Dharmakīrti, and Madhyamaka -- 12. Serious, Lightweight, or Neither: Should Madhyamaka Go to Canberra? -- Notes on the Articles -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author -- Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism Titles Previously Published -- About Wisdom Publications -- Copyright. (shrink)

Kierkegaard and the limit of analogy -- Distinctions : marks of the paradox -- The paradox is not one: transfiguring transcendence -- Monstrance : articulating the paradox -- Silhouettes : figuring the immanent paradox -- Satan's angel : the interruption of the demonic -- Kierkegaard, Spinoza and the intellectual love of God -- Conclusion : theology for creatures.

Now that she is old enough to be taken to boring, so-called “cultural” events by her aging, academic relatives, we have just taken Anya to see a performance of Julius Caesar. When it’s over, we discuss the acting, the poetry, the famous lines. At some point, Anya asks: “I wonder if it happened like that?” Anya has not radically misunderstood what we just watched; she did not, for example, rush down and yell at Caesar that he’d better read that scroll. (...) Her question is not uncommon as a response to a history play, from audience members both young and old. It is perfectly intelligible; I would like to give her an answer. Before I sketch some possible answers, it is worth saying something more about Anya’s. (shrink)

Alphonso Lingis is the author of many books and renowned for his translations of Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Klossowski. By combining a rich philosophical training with an extensive travel itinerary, Lingis has developed a distinctive brand of phenomenology that is only now beginning to gain critical attention. Lingis inhabits a ready-made language and conceptuality, but cultivates a style of thinking which disrupts and transforms the work of his predecessors, setting him apart from the rest of his field. This essay sketches Lingis’ (...) phenomenology of sensation in order to give expression to some dimensions of Lingisian travel. As we see, Lingis deploys a theory of the subject which features the plasticity of the body, the materiality of affect, and the alimentary nature of sensation. (shrink)

_A proactive, inclusive plan for the cross-disciplinary teaching of climate change from preschool to high school._ In _Teach for Climate Justice_, accomplished educator and social and emotional learning expert Tom Roderick proposes a visionary interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to PreK–12 climate education. He argues that meaningful instruction on this urgent issue of our time must focus on climate justice—the convergence of climate change and social justice—in a way that is emotionally safe, developmentally appropriate, and ultimately empowering. Drawing on examples of (...) real-life educators teaching climate change, Roderick identifies eight key dimensions of climate education that will prepare students to face the challenges of the climate crisis and give them the means to take action. These dimensions include not only educating for a deep understanding of the scientific, geopolitical, and socioeconomic equity issues that surround global warming, but also cultivating appreciation for the environment, building a supportive community, and fostering active hope for the future. Roderick's intentional layering of skills will help students develop the knowledge and sense of agency necessary to engage in civil resistance and nonviolent activism. In support of this crucial endeavor, Roderick suggests evidence-based teaching strategies, practices that promote inclusivity, and tools for social and emotional learning. This timely and uplifting book lays out a powerful vision for teaching, learning, and curriculum development to nurture a generation of courageous, informed advocates for climate justice. (shrink)

A philosophical memoir about becoming a father in an increasingly terrible world – can I hope the child growing in my partner's womb will have a good-enough life? For Kant, philosophy boiled down to three key questions: “What can I know?”, “What ought I do?”, and “What can I hope for?” In philosophy departments, that third question has largely been neglected at the expense of the first two – even though it is crucial for understanding why anyone might ask them (...) in the first place. In Infinitely Full of Hope, as he prepares to become a father for the first time, the philosopher Tom Whyman attempts to answer Kant’s third question, trying to make sense of it in the context of a world that increasingly seems like it is on the verge of collapse. Part memoir, part theory, and part reflection on fatherhood, Infinitely Full of Hope asks how we can cling to hope in a world marked by crisis and disaster. (shrink)