The paper examines the education and training of adults in ethics. It applies to courses at universities and colleges as well as in the work place. The paper explores the evidence on our ability to strengthen moral behaviour through courses on ethics, finds it to be weak, so starts with the assumption that we cannot teach people to be ethical. The paper asks therefore what the objectives of a course could be and how best to achieve them. It examines the (...) different theories in the literature, eventually settling on four objectives: increasing moral cognition; teaching a widening and strengthening of ethical practices; adopting teaching approaches that maximise learning impact, and developing the personal skills of individuals in negotiation and persuasion. All four objectives are of value to people who seek an ethical work environment. The paper then explores the theories and differing approaches used for achieving each objective, including among others, public interest disclosures, structuring and using codes of ethics, case problems and other experiential learning techniques, organisational and institutional approaches to ensuring ethical behaviour, classroom interaction, the role of theory, team teaching and tailoring the courses to meet an ethical needs analysis for that discipline, profession or organisation. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception - a canonical text of twentieth-century philosophy - concludes with an appeal to 'heroism' by citing a series of enigmatic sentences drawn from Saint-Exupe;ry's Pilote de guerre. Surprisingly, however, these lines are antithetical to the philosophical thrust of Merleau-Ponty's project. This book aims to explain this situation. Foregrounding liminal themes in Merleau-Ponty's thought that have been largely overlooked - e.g., sacrifice, death, myth, faith - and showing how these themes support Merleau-Ponty's reinterpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, Smyth (...) shows that Merleau-Ponty's appeal to 'heroism' represents an extra-philosophical appeal to a historical purposiveness as a universal feature of human nature, and that Merleau-Ponty makes this appeal in virtue of his recognition of the intrinsic methodological limitations of philosophy as a theoretical endeavor. The book thus recovers the 'militant' dimension of Merleau-Ponty's thought. This sheds considerable new light on his work. It does so in a way that challenges some of the basic parameters of existing Merleau-Ponty scholarship by illuminating the intrinsic normativity of his existential phenomenology, and its epistemic reliance on forms of non-reason such as faith and myth. (shrink)

"Ethical thought has no chance of being everything it seems." Bernard Williams offered this cryptic remark in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, and in this chapter I argue that understanding it is the key to understanding Williams' skepticism about moral theory and about systematization in ethics. The difficulty for moral philosophy, Williams believed, is that ethics looks one way to embodied, active agents, but looks entirely different when considered from the standpoint of theory. This, in turn, means that following (...) a moral theory is a sure route to practical alienation. I argue that once we see it for what it is, we can see that Williams own skepticism undermines his later attempts to vindicate Truthfulness. Moreover, given the pervasiveness of reflective practical alienation in ordinary life, it leaves us with a difficult question: what would a non-alienated ethical existence even look like for us? (shrink)

This paper sketches a new approach to the critical-theoretic problem of reification understood as a normatively problematic form of naturalizing or dehistoricizing entifcation. Entifcation in general is approached phenomenologically in terms of the mythic outer horizonality of the lifeworld, and reification is shown to stem from the dichotomy between nature and history which, along with a corresponding dichotomy between myth and reason, is characteristic of Enlightenment rationality. Dereification necessitates overcoming these dichotomies, and this implies a critical embrace of myth and (...) mythopoesis in the sense of instituting more normatively appropriate lifeworld horizons. While classical Marxism and radical social theory have typically adhered to the standard model of Enlightenment thought, with the result that the critique of naturalization backfires by reinforcing the dichotomy between nature and history, Luxemburgian spontaneism, rethought through a phenomenology of embodied enaction, is shown to ofer a more viable way of understanding reification and its solution. (shrink)

Analytic moral philosophers have generally failed to engage in any substantial way with the cultural history of morality. This is a shame, because a genealogy of morals can help us accomplish two important tasks. First, a genealogy can form the basis of an epistemological project, one that seeks to establish the epistemic status of our beliefs or values. Second, a genealogy can provide us with functional understanding, since a history of our beliefs, values or institutions can reveal some inherent dynamic (...) or pattern which may be problematically obscured from our view. In this paper, I try to make good on these claims by offering a sketchy genealogy of emancipatory values, or values which call for the liberation of persons from systems of dominance and oppression. The real history of these values, I argue, is both epistemologically vindicatory and functionally enlightening. (shrink)

En dépit d’une politique étatique néo-patriarcale et d’une répression accrue contre les féministes, le mouvement féministe s’est profondément développé en Russie ces quinze dernières années et s’est fait de plus en plus entendre dans la sphère publique et les médias. Cet article avance qu’une des raisons essentielles de ces avancées marquantes, bien que sous-estimées, tient à l’importance accordée par le mouvement féministe à la construction et au maintien d’une communauté et d’une identité féministes collectives. S’appuyant sur des entretiens avec des (...) militantes féministes, j’examine la manière dont les communautés se constituent en tant qu’espaces de soutien qui apportent à leurs membres la force nécessaire pour mener des actions collectives tout en les protégeant contre l’hostilité environnante. Mettant ces observations de terrain en parallèle avec la recherche existante sur les mouvements sociaux, cet article suggère que plutôt qu’un trait définitoire de la Russie, l’hostilité envers le féminisme constitue un aspect éphémère de la situation politique ; les initiatives permanentes des féministes ont d’ailleurs déjà commencé à la faire reculer. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Smyth offers a comprehensive overview of Immanuel Kant's conception of intuition in all its species – divine, receptive, sensible, and human. Kant considers sense perception a paradigm of intuition, yet claims that we can represent infinities in intuition, despite the finitude of sense perception. Smyth examines this heterodox combination of commitments and argues that the various features Kant ascribes to intuition are meant to remedy specific cognitive shortcomings that arise from the discursivity of our intellect Intuition (...) acting as the intellect's cognitive partner to make knowledge possible. He reconstructs Kant's conception of intuition and its role in his philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of mathematics, and shows that Kant's conception of sensibility is as innovative and revolutionary as his much-debated theory of the understanding. (shrink)

This article argues that traditional, regulative principles of research ethics offer insufficient guidance for research in the narrative study of lives. These principles presuppose an implicit epistemology that conceives of research participants as data sources, a conception that is argued not tenable for narrative research. The case is made by drawing on recent discussions of research ethics in the qualitative and narrative research literature. This article shows that narrative ethics is inextricably entwined with epistemological issues--namely, issues of narrative ownership and (...) the multiplicity of narrative meaning. Finally, practical recommendations are made for the ethical treatment of research participants in narrative research. The article concludes by situating our approach with respect to the broad range of contemporary perspectives on research ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically analyze the notion that self-interest distorts moral belief-formation. This belief is widely shared among modern moral epistemologists, and in this paper, I seek to undermine this near consensus. I then offer a principle which can help us to sort cases in which self-interest distorts moral belief from cases in which it does not. As it turns out, we cannot determine whether such distortion has occurred from the armchair; rather, we must inquire into mechanisms of social (...) power and advantage before declaring that some moral position is distorted by self-interest. (shrink)

David Benatar has argued both for anti-natalism and for a certain pessimism about life's meaning. In this paper, I propose that these positions are expressions of a deeply impersonal philosophical temperament. This is not a problem on its own; we all have our philosophical instincts. The problem is that this particular temperament, I argue, leads Benatar astray, since it prevents him from answering a question that any moral philosopher must answer. This is the question of rational authority, which requires the (...) moral philosopher to say why existing human agents have strong practical reasons to comply with the philosopher's dictates. A purely impersonal ethical system can never do this, and this is why Benatar has no answer to this question. (shrink)

This paper responds to the concern that many novice Philosophy for Children facilitators have about how to ensure that students’ discussion is philosophical. Two ways of addressing this concern are outlined, and the second of these is identified as the approach my method builds upon. In particular, I focus on those agenda-setting questions students pose that might be called ”psychological speculation” questions and offer a range of moves for proceeding from those into more centrally philosophical discussion. The approach draws on (...) familiarity with traditional areas of philosophy, and shows the practical everyday use for facilitators of such familiarity. Those who offer professional development in Philosophy for Children may find this approach a useful one to introduce in introductory or follow-up workshops, and novice facilitators will find enough guidance here to be able to apply these moves in their practice. A discussion of the distinction and the relationship between philosophical and empirical questions is undertaken, in passing, and a suggestion put forward for assisting novice P4C facilitators to discover their own abilities to find groups of related philosophical questions. Practical examples of the moves in my approach are provided, and a guide for building on them is offered. Finally, a connection is drawn between the questions that flow from traditional academic areas of philosophy and the idea of philosophy as ‘love of wisdom’. (shrink)

Rivers et al. raise two ethical issues in relation to the use of medication event monitoring systems (MEMS). The first issue, identified as an 'economic' concern, centres on the waste of health resources caused by patient failure to adhere to medication programmes. The second is the danger that MEMS may pose to 'the trust that should exist between patient and prescriber'. In what follows I offer an analysis of these issues, and their relationship to each other.

The theme of the 2016 FAPSA Conference, held in Wellington, New Zealand, was ‘Philosophy throughout the school years’.[1] When we at P4CNZ chose this theme, we were hoping to attract, as presenters and participants, educators working with students from the first to the last years of school. Such a range, we hoped, would demonstrate the broad relevance of philosophical inquiry, and provide wonderful professional development opportunities for all of our P4C colleagues in New Zealand, and for our visitors from Australia (...) and further afield. (shrink)

A structural harm results from countless apparently innocuous interactions between a great many individuals in a social system, and not from any agent’s intentionally producing the harm. Iris Young has influentially articulated a model of individual moral responsibility for such harms, and several other philosophers have taken it as their starting point for dealing with the phenomenon of structural injustice. In this paper, I argue that this social connection model is far less realistic and socially effective than it aims to (...) be. This is because the model systematically neglects the key role played by the emotions in human moral life. (shrink)

In this brief note, we respond to Gottlieb and Lasser's (2001/this issue) critical commentary on our work on narrative research ethics. We argue that their concern for privileging voices needs to be balanced against the risk of exploiting some research participants, that conflicts of interest are best resolved through appropriately prioritizing ethical principles and in consultation with others, and that the researcher's ability to protect participants from harm can be enhanced through appropriate clinical training and access to clinical expertise. We (...) welcome Gottlieb and Lasser's specific recommendations for ethical practice in narrative research and encourage further ethical reflection by other researchers in this area. (shrink)

""The Habit of Lying" is a highly original, exceptionally sophisticated, continuously illuminating work of literary and cultural theory, and an intellectual ...

This paper is based on a study of therapists’ experiences of working with suicidal clients. Using a hermeneutic-phenomenological methodology informed by Heidegger, the study provides an understanding of the meaning of therapists’ experiences from their perspective as mental health professionals in New Zealand. In this regard, the findings of the study identified three themes: Therapists’ reaction of shock upon learning of the suicide of their client; Therapists’ experience of assessing suicidal clients as a burden; and finally, Therapists’ professional and personal (...) crises as a result of their experiences and struggling to come to terms with events.The study sheds light on how the experiences of therapists whose clients have committed suicide can be understood. The findings show how mainstream prevention and intervention strategies result from the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of our traditional way of knowing what it means to be human. When therapists discover that phenomena are not necessarily what they appear to be, they feel unsettled and confused about their responsibilities and what it means to live and die as a human being. The study reveals that therapists experience a profound legacy of guilt, doubt and fear when a client commits suicide. Finally, the study proposes that the time has come for the profession to care for its own in order to allow therapist, in turn to care for (and about) the vulnerable other. (shrink)

This article argues that traditional, regulative principles of research ethics offer insufficient guidance for research in the narrative study of lives. These principles presuppose an implicit epistemology that conceives of research participants as data sources, a conception that is argued not tenable for narrative research. The case is made by drawing on recent discussions of research ethics in the qualitative and narrative research literature. This article shows that narrative ethics is inextricably entwined with epistemological issues--namely, issues of narrative ownership and (...) the multiplicity of narrative meaning. Finally, practical recommendations are made for the ethical treatment of research participants in narrative research. The article concludes by situating our approach with respect to the broad range of contemporary perspectives on research ethics. (shrink)

Linking specific nursing actions to outcomes in the healthcare setting is challenging. Patient outcomes are varied and influenced by a myriad of factors, and always involve a wider team than any one nurse. It is difficult to control for a single action or set of actions of a particular nurse. Furthermore, practice is seldom about any ‘one’ action, for one thing leads to another, all within a complex interplay of influencing factors. In this article, we outline a research method which (...) combined Dewey's pragmatism with Gadamer's hermeneutics to explore the consequences of the nurse's use of advanced assessment skills in the acute care setting of medical and surgical wards. This pragmatic hermeneutic methodological approach allowed the complex interplay of influences to be revealed in the unfolding story. Reflection of the nurse brought insights that may otherwise have been passed over. The philosophical notions of Dewey drew attention to the play of ‘means’ and ‘ends’. A hermeneutic approach that calls for ‘thinking’ extends understanding and raises insights that can inform education and practice. (shrink)

This book is a plea for a political philosophy which will reject both the totalitarian State and the Catholic hypothesis of an entirely Christian State which would use its coercive power to repress the propagation of error. The ideal kingdom of free men—a unity of purpose which will transcend all national barriers—should be based, according to the author, on the benevolent neutrality of the State in religious matters, and the predominance of a liberally-minded rather than a dogmatic or absolute form (...) of Christianity. Irish Catholics who read this book may feel that the English form of State and the Anglican form of Church have played too great a part in the formation of the author’s philosophy, and also that the irrelevant shadow of the Inquisition hangs over too much of the discussion. But they will welcome the courteous, fair and distinguished language of the argument, and the present reviewer hopes to make it clear that his fundamental disagreement with the author is not based on any partisan feeling. In the following review, the positions of the author are first summarised, according to the chapter-divisions, without any criticism, because the points raised are too frequently discussed to need comment here. The reviewer prefers to discuss, not questions of method, of administration, of more or less, but a point that seems to be of decisive import for all debate on Chruch and State. (shrink)

Statistical topic models provide a general data - driven framework for automated discovery of high-level knowledge from large collections of text documents. Although topic models can potentially discover a broad range of themes in a data set, the interpretability of the learned topics is not always ideal. Human-defined concepts, however, tend to be semantically richer due to careful selection of words that define the concepts, but they may not span the themes in a data set exhaustively. In this study, we (...) review a new probabilistic framework for combining a hierarchy of human-defined semantic concepts with a statistical topic model to seek the best of both worlds. Results indicate that this combination leads to systematic improvements in generalization performance as well as enabling new techniques for inferring and visualizing the content of a document. (shrink)

Dramatic, profound and far-reaching changes are being visited on schools worldwide that have their genesis a long way from the classroom but which impact heavily on teachers and their work. Most of this reform has been achieved with little or no involvement of teachers themselves. This book sets out to survey the contemporary context of what is happening to the work of teaching, and focuses on Advanced Skills Teachers. It shows how teachers are 'speaking' the changes that are occuring to (...) their work in protracted economically rationalist times. Arguing against the discourses of economy as the major shaping force, the authors present a persuasive case for focusing on the discourses of teaching itself as the only feasible and adequate basis on which to make sense of teaching. And by presenting a range of voices of practising teachers - allowing them to speak for themselves about the difficulty of trying to translate policy-makers' intentions into words and actions - the book graphically illustrates the devastating long-term consequences for the future of schools of poorly-conceptualised reform policies. (shrink)

This book brings together the work of eleven leading international scholars to map the contribution of teaching Sisters, who provided schooling to hundreds of thousands of children, globally, from 1800 to 1950. The volume represents research that draws on several theoretical approaches and methodologies. It engages with feminist discourses, social history, oral history, visual culture, post-colonial studies and the concept of transnationalism, to provide new insights into the work of Sisters in education. Making a unique contribution to the field, chapters (...) offer an interrogation of historical sources as well as fresh interpretations of findings, challenging assumptions. Compelling narratives from the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Africa, Australia, South East Asia, France, the UK, Italy and Ireland contribute to what is a most important exploration of the contribution of the women religious by mapping and contextualizing their work. _Education, Identity and Women Religious, 1800–1950: Convents, classrooms and colleges_ will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of social history, women’s history, the history of education, Catholic education, gender studies and international education. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne has given a defense of arguments for the existence of God (and in particular of teleological arguments) in his book "The Existence of God" (1979/1991). This paper argues that such theistic arguments fail, and poses some general problems for theistic arguments. Swinburne's use of a principle of simplicity is not given adequate justification and, if justified, works against theism. There are adequate rebuttals to Swinburne's arguments that depend upon there being few particles of basic physics, universal laws of (...) nature, cogent cosmological argument, and temporal order in the universe. Theistic arguments falter on malleability, on going well beyond evidence, on anthropomorphism, on treating consistency as if it were evidence or explanation, on selective and inconsistent use of principles, and on a lack of any serious attempt to disprove hypotheses. All of this serves to support the conclusion suggested by Hume's posthumous theological writings that theistic arguments are so malleable, profligate, overreaching, equivocal, anthropomorphic, selective, inconsistent, and uncritical as to be inept. (shrink)

What is the function of morality? On this question, something approaching a consensus has recently emerged. Impressed by developments in evolutionary theory, many philosophers now tell us that the function of morality is to reduce social tensions, and to thereby enable a society to efficiently promote the well-being of its members. In this paper, I subject this consensus to rigorous scrutiny, arguing that the functional hypothesis in question is not well supported. In particular, I attack the supposed evidential relation between (...) an evolutionary genealogy of morals and the functional hypothesis itself. I show that there are a great many functionally relevant discontinuities between our own culture and the culture within which morality allegedly emerged, and I argue that this seriously weakens the inference from morality’s evolutionary history to its present-day function. (shrink)

In this brief note, we respond to Gottlieb and Lasser's critical commentary on our work on narrative research ethics. We argue that their concern for privileging voices needs to be balanced against the risk of exploiting some research participants, that conflicts of interest are best resolved through appropriately prioritizing ethical principles and in consultation with others, and that the researcher's ability to protect participants from harm can be enhanced through appropriate clinical training and access to clinical expertise. We welcome Gottlieb (...) and Lasser's specific recommendations for ethical practice in narrative research and encourage further ethical reflection by other researchers in this area. (shrink)