Through the criminal justice system so-called dangerous offenders are, besides the offence that they are being convicted of and sentenced to, also punished for acts that they have not done but that they are believe to be likely to commit in the future. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss whether some adherents of retributivism give a plausible rationale for punishing offenders more harshly if they, all else being equal, by means of predictions are believed to be more (...) dangerous than other offenders. While consequentialism has no problem, at least in principle, with this use of predictions most retributivists have been opponents of punishing offenders on the basis of predictions. How can an offender deserve to be punished for something that he has not done? But some retributivists like Anthony Duff and Stephen Morse have argued in favor of punishing offenders who are considered to be dangerous in the future more harshly than non-dangerous offenders. After having reconstructed their arguments in detail, it will be argued that both Duff’s and Morse’s attempts to give a retributivistic justification have several shortcomings. (shrink)

This article discusses obstacles to overcoming dangerous climate change. It employs an account of dangerous climate change that takes climate change and climate change policy as dangerous if it imposes avoidable costs of poverty prolongation. It then examines plausible accounts of the collective action problems that seem to explain the lack of ambition to mitigate. After criticizing the merits of two proposals to overcome these problems, it discusses the pledge and review process. It argues that pledge and review possesses the (...) virtues of encouraging broad participation and of providing a procedural safeguard for the right of sustainable development. However, given the perceptions of the marginal short term costs of mitigation, pledge and review is unlikely, at least initially, to issue in an agreement to make deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Because there is no rival approach that seems likely to better instantiate the two virtues, pledge and review may be the best available policy for mitigation. Moreover, recent economic research suggests that the co-benefits of mitigation may be greater than previously assumed and that the costs of renewable energy may be less than previously calculated. This would radically undermine claims that the short term mitigation costs necessarily render mitigation irrational and produce collective action problems. Given the circumstances, pledge and review might be our best hope to avoid dangerous climate change. (shrink)

Next SectionThe dominant conception of medical ethics being taught in British and American medical schools is at best pointless and at worst dangerous, or so it will be argued. Although it is laudable that medical schools have now given medical ethics a secure place in the curriculum, they go wrong in treating it like a scientific body of knowledge. Ethics is a unique subject matter precisely because of its widespread familiarity in all areas of life, and any teaching has to (...) start from this shared ethical understanding and from the familiar ethical concepts of ordinary language. Otherwise there is a real risk that spurious technocratic jargon will be deployed by teacher and student alike in the futile search for intellectual respectability, culminating in a misplaced sense of having “done” the ethics module. There are no better examples of such jargon than “consequentialism”, “deontology”, and the “Four Principles”. At best, they cannot do the work they were designed to do and, at worst, they can lead student and practitioner into ignoring their own healthy ethical intuitions and vocabulary. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the presence and value of danger in outdoor and adventurous activities and sports in safety-conscious societies, especially in relation to the education of children and youth. Based on an original analysis of the relation between the concepts of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’, we offer an account of the relation between challenge, adventure, risk and danger, and emphasise the importance of teaching risk recognition, risk assessment, risk management and risk avoidance to children and youth, without the (...) necessity of exposing them to jeopardy in dangerous situations. Our conclusion is that ‘Safe Danger’ describes what educators should seek, namely: the educational benefits of the challenges set by risk-taking and the demands of risk-facing, including those in adventurous situations, which are obtainable in the absence of significant danger, and which contribute to risk education. The educational value of adventurous and outdoor pursuits lies elsewhere than in the opportunities that they present for danger-facing, for example in their promotion of self-reliance, confidence, ability to team-work, and especially in their promotion of risk education, as an integral aspect of everyday life planning, as preparation for the day’s adventurous challenges, and as an instrument of task completion. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs offering hazard pay ethically permissible when the pay premium is the only reason that a dangerous job is accepted? Robert C. Hughes argues that it is not. Central to his argument is the claim that in such cases, workers intend the foreseeable risks of harm as a means to the pay premium. Herein I question the plausibility of this claim and then develop a conception of the concept of means sufficient to make it plausible. By so doing, I provide (...) support for Hughes’s stringent position. (shrink)

Most clinicians and mental health practitioners are reluctant to work with people with dangerous and severe personality disorders because they believe there is nothing that mental health services can offer. Dangerous and severe personality disorder also signals a diagnosis which is problematic morally. Moral philosophy has not found an adequate way of dealing with personality disorders. This paper explores the question: What makes a person morally responsible for his actions and what is a legitimate mitigating factor? How do psychiatric nurses (...) working with this client group understand the awful things some clients do? What concepts do they need, if they are to know how to explain and how to react? It is suggested that dangerous and severe personality disorder is best regarded as a moral category, framed in terms of goodness, badness, obligation and other ethical concepts. It seems plausible that in important ways the dangerous and severe personality disordered client does not understand morality or understands it differently. The peculiar position of the dangerous and severe personality disordered individual in our system of moral responsibility stems from his apparent inability to see the importance of the interests of others. It might be more helpful to regard personality disordered clients as we do children: partially but not fully reasonable for their actions. We might regard the dangerous and severe personality disordered client responsible for those actions which he most clearly understands, such as causing others physical pain, but not for those with which he is only superficially engaged, such as causing emotional pain. The paper concludes by suggesting that the dangerous and severe personality disordered individual does not fit easily into any conventional moral category, be it criminal, patient, animal or child, and thus an assessment of his moral accountability must take into consideration his special circumstances. (shrink)

The danger of being a gentleman: reflections on the ruling class in England (1932).--On the study of politics (1926).--Law and justice in Soviet Russia (1935).--The judicial function (1936).--The English constitution and French public opinion,1789-1794 (1938).--The committee system in English local government (1936).--Nationalism and the future of civilization (1932).--Mr. Justice Holmes: for his eighty-ninth birthday (1930).

Some collective irrationalities, like epistemically and pragmatically reckless Covid skepticism, are especially dangerous. While we normally have incentives to avoid dangerous beliefs, there are cases in which the danger of a belief is valuable. This is not captured by most accounts of motivated reasoning. I argue that Covid skepticism can function as a costly signal (handicap) so as to more effectively communicate social identity and commitment.

In Dangerous Minds, Ronald Beiner traces the deeper philosophical roots of such far-right ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon, to the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger—and specifically to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for the liberal-democratic view of life.

"Dangerous Emotions is a sustained philosophical, phenomenological, and personal series of reflections on the role of passions and emotions, visceral responses, and human reactions which bypass and surpass the role of reason. Lingis has a unique perspective, a position already well fortified in many texts he has published, whereby he blends elements of philosophical texts (most notably Heidegger, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, Lévinas, and Neitzsche) with strange and intense experiences from everyday life across different geographies and cultures. He is clearly one of (...) the most brilliant philosophers of his generation. His book explores those moments and events usually unnoticed by philosophy, which philosophy needs to address if it is to provide us with a way of understanding life and living it well."—Elizabeth Grosz, author of Fluid Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. (shrink)

Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian interrogation of care. In so doing I demonstrate the usefulness of Foucault's pastoral power lens and its capacity to provide insight into the moral and ethical work conducted by caring teachers (...) on behalf of the state (Acker, 1995). Following a brief overview of the advocacy, challenges and debates surrounding the issue of caring teaching within education, I draw on the work of Hunter (1994) and three case studies from a genealogical interrogation of HPE that employed Foucualt's ethical fourfold as a heuristic device to reveal the ethical practices and objectives of the good HPE teacher. Drawing on this genealogical work, I argue that HPE teachers and their colleagues have been purposefully incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power. From this Foucauldian perspective, I conclude with an exploration of the unintended and possibly ‘dangerous’ practices of caring teaching that may emerge within the complex and messy nexus of contemporary self‐constitution. (shrink)

I defend a form of preventive detention through the creation of an offence of ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’. This differs from alternative proposals and actual habitual offender laws that impose extra periods of incarceration on offenders after they have completed the sentence for their most recent crime or as a result of a certain number of prior convictions. I, instead, would make ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’ an offence itself. Persons to be preventively detained would be tried (...) and convicted of this offence. My approach would then have one significant advantage: provided the elements of being a PVDO could be rendered sufficiently determinate, punishing persons under such an offence would comport with central rule of law values, most importantly legality and fair notice, as well as principles of proportionality in sentencing. (shrink)

Newman’s Anglican sermon—“The Danger of Accomplishments”— warned his Oxford audience of the dangers both of higher education and of a life of luxury. Yet how can this sermon’s rejection of flowery literature that entertains and arouses pleasant feelings in its readers be reconciled with Newman’s later advocacy in his The Idea of a University that classical literature is an important aspect of a liberal education?

We often talk loosely of the “tyranny of the majority” as a threat to the workings of democracy. But, in ancient Greece, the analogy of demos and tyrant was no mere metaphor, nor a simple reflection of elite prejudice. Instead, it highlighted an important structural feature of Athenian democracy. Like the tyrant, the Athenian demos was an unaccountable political actor with the power to hold its subordinates to account. And like the tyrant, the demos could be dangerous to counsel since (...) the orator speaking before the assembled demos was accountable for the advice he gave. With Dangerous Counsel, Matthew Landauer analyzes the sometimes ferocious and unpredictable politics of accountability in ancient Greece and offers novel readings of ancient history, philosophy, rhetoric, and drama. In comparing the demos to a tyrant, thinkers such as Herodotus, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristophanes were attempting to work out a theory of the badness of unaccountable power; to understand the basic logic of accountability and why it is difficult to get right; and to explore the ways in which political discourse is profoundly shaped by institutions and power relationships. In the process they created strikingly portable theories of counsel and accountability that traveled across political regime types and remain relevant to our contemporary political dilemmas. (shrink)

Confusing clinical standoffs, loyalty to self-destruction and abrupt terminations are challenging and under-examined problems for the modern psychoanalytic practitioner. _The Danger of Change_ is a timely book that addresses the so-called resistant patient so many clinicians are familiar with. Robert Waska blends theory based on Melanie Klein’s classical stance with the more contemporary Freudian/Kleinian school, to demonstrate how to understand patients that are resistant to progress. Divided into four sections, this book covers: reluctant patients and the fight against change: (...) caught between the paranoid and depressive world greed and the dangers of change interruptions to the process of change: loss, envy, and the death instinct working toward change in the face of overwhelming odds Extensive and detailed clinical material is used to bring clarity to subjects including symbolism, conflict resolution, projective identification, the depressive and paranoid positions, change and trust. _The Danger of Change_ brings hope and clarity to cases involving patients who experience progress as a threat to their emotional wellbeing. It will be of great interest to all practising psychoanalysts, as well as those studying psychoanalytic theory and practice. (shrink)

The semantic paradoxes are often associated with self-reference or referential circularity. Yablo (Analysis 53(4):251–252, 1993), however, has shown that there are infinitary versions of the paradoxes that do not involve this form of circularity. It remains an open question what relations of reference between collections of sentences afford the structure necessary for paradoxicality. In this essay, we lay the groundwork for a general investigation into the nature of reference structures that support the semantic paradoxes and the semantic hypodoxes. We develop (...) a functionally complete infinitary propositional language endowed with a denotation assignment and extract the reference structural information in terms of graph-theoretic properties. We introduce the new concepts of dangerous and precarious reference graphs, which allows us to rigorously define the task: classify the dangerous and precarious directed graphs purely in terms of their graph-theoretic properties. Ungroundedness will be shown to fully characterize the precarious reference graphs and fully characterize the dangerous finite graphs. We prove that an undirected graph has a dangerous orientation if and only if it contains a cycle, providing some support for the traditional idea that cyclic structure is required for paradoxicality. This leaves the task of classifying danger for infinite acyclic reference graphs. We provide some compactness results, which give further necessary conditions on danger in infinite graphs, which in conjunction with a notion of self-containment allows us to prove that dangerous acyclic graphs must have infinitely many vertices with infinite out-degree. But a full characterization of danger remains an open question. In the appendices we relate our results to the results given in Cook (J Symb Log 69(3):767–774, 2004) and Yablo (2006) with respect to more restricted sentences systems, which we call $\mathcal{F}$ -systems. (shrink)

This study investigated subjective experiences of nine men who had been psychiatrically hospitalized upon being assessed as "dangerous-to-others-due-to-a-mental-illness." Using a phenomenological interviewing approach, researchers helped subjects construct narratives of their pre-hospitalization experiences. The research illuminated aspects of life-contexts that were shared among all or nearly all subjects: feeling ostracized and alone; struggling with longstanding and pervasive feelings of inadequacy; experiencing a sense or a fear of having little or no control or options in life; and feeling emotionally depressed, misunderstood, and (...) uncared for. Situations immediately preceding hospitalization were characterized by subjects experiencing threats to their sense of self-esteem that were of heightened intensity. In five cases, subjects reported anxiety related to self-fragmentation or becoming "nothing." Perceived threats to self-worth and self-structure were accompanied by anger and aggressive acts or impulses. In all cases, aggressive impulses and threats, and violence appeared to be in the service of self-validation and self-empowerment. In cases of violent behavior, an apparent function of the subjects' behaviors was toward self-consolidation. Based on findings, the researchers discuss implications consistent with humanistic psychology and existential psychotherapy principles and practices. (shrink)

Background: Fear and aggression are often reported among professionals working in locked psychiatric wards and also among the patients in the same wards. Such situations often lead to coercive intervention. In order to prevent coercion, we need to understand what happens in dangerous situations and how patients and professionals interpret them. Research questions: What happens when dangerous situations occur in a ward? How do professionals and patients interpret these situations and what is ethically at stake? Research design: Participant observation and (...) interviews. Participants: A total of 12 patients and 22 professionals participated. Ethical considerations: This study has been accepted by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Norway. Findings: (a) Both atmosphere and material surroundings were interweaved within dangerous situations, (b) the professionals applied stereotypes when interpreting dangerous situations and (c) the professionals and the patients had different interpretations of what triggered dangerous situations. Discussion: The discussion centres on how care ethics and a dialogical practice might contribute towards combating difficult situations and the ways in which change is an ongoing ethical process of becoming. Conclusion: The ethics of care and a dialogical approach are suggested as ethical frameworks for preventing fear, danger and aggression in psychiatric wards. Both frameworks can be understood as patient-driven, including the relational and contextual perspectives. It means a shift from professionally driven processes to patient-driven dialogue. (shrink)

Some sociological theories yield self-subverting or 'dangerous' knowledge. The functionalist theory of social deviance provides a case in point. The theory, first formulated by Durkheim, maintains that ostensibly anti-social deviants perform a number of socially indispensable functions. But what would happen if everyone knew this? They would cease to regard deviants as malefactors and would indeed come to esteem them as public benefactors. In that case, however, deviants could no longer perform their proper function. If they are to play the (...) part assigned to them by the theory, most people must remain unaware of their 'true' role in the drama of social life. This gives rise to the paradox of dangerous knowledge: The theory can be true only if its truths are not widely known; widespread ignorance is the precondition of its truth. But then, if its truths must not be publicly known, the theory is a piece of esoterica, not of science. I conclude by considering, and rejecting, several possible solutions to the 'dangerous knowledge' paradox. (shrink)

From the perspective of at least some of our valuing practices, the advance of the sciences can seem to constitute a threat. The question I take up in this dissertation is whether or not naturalism--understood as the picture of the world and of ourselves bequeathed to us by the sciences--should be understood as a threat to our moral practices, to moral living. On the account I defend, the knowledge we gain from empirical inquiry need not undermine moral living in toto, (...) although a naturalistic mindset does raise some possibly dangerous questions for particular inherited moral norms and ideals. In defense of my claim that the examined life need not destroy the moral life, I develop a social view of morality. On this view, both moral authority and moral justification are viewed as fundamentally social phenomena, and morality itself as a tool for social living. With a case study on the development of the ethics of care, I illustrate ways in which a concern for empirically truthful representations of humanity can also dovetail with liberatory political concerns. That is, I defend not only the claim that moral living can survive critical scrutiny, but also the claim that it can be enriched by this scrutiny--that the truth can be transformative. Expansive moral ideals, such as those humanist views that see progress in the expansion of our moral vocabularies and institutions, are compatible with a naturalistic outlook, I argue. However, a strong defense of humanist views, according to which such ideals flow unproblematically from the nature of reason or from the history of ethical practice, does not seem possible. A weak defense of humanism, which connects the ideals of humanists to more widely held values, seems more promising. In working socially and politically for their cause, I contend that humanists in some sense have the truth on their side: sexist, racist, classist, or otherwise inegalitarian views regularly trade in falsehoods and obfuscation. Empirically truthful accounts of particular inherited norms and ideals thus continue to be dangerous, at least for those invested in the continued existence of the corresponding institutions. (shrink)

The critical analysis of habit is regularly complemented by scenarios of how to defy it. Heidegger’s conceptual pairing for taking on this twofold task is “everydayness” and “authenticity.” In this paper, his account is put to test. By choosing an unusual line-up of authors – Heidegger, Hegel, and Diderot –, it identifies three different strategies for overcoming the danger of being ridden by a type. They appeal to authenticity, universality, or individuality. After discussing Hegel’s and Diderot’s accounts, the paper (...) turns to Heidegger’s confrontation between everydayness and authenticity and shows that it remains inconclusive. In order to create a bulwark against habit Heidegger establishes a link between authenticity and the anticipation of death which makes Dasein turn away from the “multiplicity of possibilities” and secures the “simplicity” of resoluteness. This total demolition of particularities and differences paves the way to a totalitarian conception of overcoming customs: The individual is prone to affirm a destiny marked by total homogeneity and equalization. The paper comes to the conclusion that, among the different readings of habit and its discontents, Diderot’s account is the most plausible. (shrink)

Many epistemologists hold that the Zebra Deduction fails to transmit knowledge to its conclusion, but there is little agreement concerning why it has this defect. A natural idea is, roughly, that it fails to transmit because it fails to improve the safety of its conclusion. In his ‘Transmission Failure Explained’, Martin Smith defends a transmission principle which is supposed to underwrite this natural idea. There are two problems with Smith's account. First, Smith's argument for his transmission principle relies on a (...) dubious premise. Second, even if his transmission principle is true, Smith shows neither that it prevents the Zebra Deduction from transmitting knowledge to its conclusion, nor that it secures the natural idea. I suspect that the failures of Smith's account will be instructive for anyone who wants to connect transmission failure with a failure to enhance the safety, reliability or probability of one's conclusion.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.THE DANGERS OF USING SAFETY TO EXPLAIN TRANSMISSION FAILURE: A REPLY TO MARTIN SMITHVolume 9, Issue 4Chris TuckerDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.24Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. THE DANGERS OF USING SAFETY TO EXPLAIN TRANSMISSION FAILURE: A REPLY TO MARTIN SMITHVolume 9, Issue 4Chris TuckerDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.24Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. THE DANGERS OF USING SAFETY TO EXPLAIN TRANSMISSION FAILURE: A REPLY TO MARTIN SMITHVolume 9, Issue 4Chris TuckerDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.24Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

The dangerous memory of the crucified and risen Jesus confronts the “lie” of racism, past and present. The cross and resurrection disrupt our forgetfulness about the lie and awaken memory of our complicity in the reality of racism and its ongoing diminishment of the lives of racially-minoritized people. Indeed, the dangerous memory embodied in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus creates tension that evokes a relational and agitational community of resistance to racist ideas and policies.

Some imaginary cases lead us to surprising conclusions. Unfortunately, there exists the danger of being so distracted by these conclusions that the imaginary cases themselves escape critical examination. Using the now famous ticking time-bomb scenario as an example, I propose a simple methodology to help us better understand what role a given imaginary case should be playing in ethical discourse. In particular, I hope to show why the ticking time-bomb scenario fails to have any probative value as a counter-example (...) to anti-torture policies. Despite this, I argue that there is still an important role for cases like the ticking time-bomb scenario, as they can motivate study about some of our intuitive moral commitments. This in turn may lead us to a better understanding of what moves us to surprising ethical evaluations in the first place. (shrink)

This article investigates the political nature and involvement of millennialism as a religious phenomenon. It, firstly, offers a brief analysis of how millennialism shifted from a significant, but marginal role player in the history of Christianity to become part of the mainstream religious discourse in recent times. It then seeks to explain how this came about by analysing the way this development continues and resonates with the political language and thought of the 19th-century religious discourse in the United States and (...) in early modern England since the 16th century. It finally investigates the dangerous consequences of politicising eschatology by specifically analysing the role of Israel in millennial expectations. (shrink)

Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its links to patriarchal systems and masculinity. The disproportionate focus on science and technology emerges from and reinforces “climate isolationism,” a term (...) that I use to refer to the common framing of climate change as an isolated discrete, scientific problem in need of technological solutions. This framing stems from assumptions of patriarchal white-male conceptions of privilege and power that evolve from a colonizing and controlling mindset. Masculine technological optimism is dangerous because it is exclusive, it minimizes the need for social change and social innovation, and it is ineffective in catalyzing inclusive societal transformation. This paper argues that embracing feminist, antiracist values is necessary for transformative climate policies, economic justice, and climate justice. (shrink)

Non-financial interests, and the conflicts of interest that may result from them, are frequently overlooked in biomedicine. This is partly due to the complex and varied nature of these interests, and the limited evidence available regarding their prevalence and impact on biomedical research and clinical practice. We suggest that there are no meaningful conceptual distinctions, and few practical differences, between financial and non-financial conflicts of interest, and accordingly, that both require careful consideration. Further, a better understanding of the complexities of (...) non-financial conflicts of interest, and their entanglement with financial conflicts of interest, may assist in the development of a more sophisticated approach to all forms of conflicts of interest. (shrink)

(2013). DANGEROUS IDENTIFICATIONS: an exchange between jacques derrida and philippe lacoue-labarthe. Angelaki: Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 91-104.

Ruby Meager; The Dangers of Aestheticism in Schooling, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 23–30, https://doi.org/10.1111.

While the UK Home Office’s proposals to preventively detain people with what it has called dangerous severe personality disorder have been subjected to debate and criticism the deeply troubling jurisprudential issues in these proposals have not yet entered into public debate in a way that their seriousness deserves.1 It is good that a commentator as well known as Professor Szasz is speaking out on this issue.Professor Szasz focuses upon a crucial question by calling into question the medicalisation of terms like (...) dangerousness and mental illness.2 There is a great temptation for legislators and the public to treat these terms as if they are purely scientific terms and to think of risk assessment as a precise science. I don’t share Professor’s Szasz’s worry about how psychiatry is using these terms but I think there are some important questions about how these concepts function in the public sphere.This issue is important enough to justify the use of some rhetorical claims because such claims can serve to bring out what are neglected and important issues. In raising the following objections I am not attempting to refute the message that is in Szasz’s article or to say that he is not making an important point but rather to attempt to sharpen the issues and to suggest ways that we can respond to Professor Szasz’s challenge.Psychiatry has progressed in a number of ways since Professor Szasz wrote The Myth of Mental Illness.3 The science is much better, we have much better medications, and psychiatrists are acutely aware of the tension between treating their patient and their obligations to the public interest.So when Professor Szasz says: “Psychiatrists offer to relieve the disturbed person of the burden of coping …. (shrink)

This article is a transcript of a conversation between Michel Foucault and Jonathan Simon in San Francisco in October 1983. It has never previously been published and is transcribed on the basis of a tape recording made at the time. Foucault and Simon begin with a discussion of Foucault’s 1977 lecture ‘About the Concept of the “Dangerous Individual” in 19th-Century Legal Psychiatry’, and move to a discussion of notions of danger, psychiatric expertise in the prosecution cases, crime, responsibility and (...) rights in the US and French legal systems. The transcription is accompanied by a brief contextualizing introduction and a retrospective comment by Simon. (shrink)

This article concerns the dangers of demagogues in democracies described in the Politics and the edifying purposes of Aristotle’s ethical works in relation to the politically ambitious student. The translation of σπουδαῖος as serious is key to understanding the connection between these works. Although similar arguments appear elsewhere in his Corpus, Aristotle’s arguments in the Great Ethics are unique because the audience is warned about the dangers of political rule and is ultimately led away from the pursuit of it. Aristotle (...) appears to specifically lead this class of politically ambitious students toward a serious pursuit of virtue, justice, and prudence with a final view to both friendship and citizenship. This emphasis is significant because an ‘individual who is serious-about-rule’ (σπουδάρχης) is excessively eager for office. Furthermore, ‘those serious-about-rule’ are dangerous when they act as demagogues, and this is one cause of revolutions in democracies. (shrink)

Using longitudinal, ethnographic data, the authors examine how the pursuit of self-sufficiency in the context of welfare reform may unintentionally encourage some women to develop alternative dangerous dependencies on abusive or potentially abusive men. In this article, the authors document how women ended up relying on men who have been abusive to them either for instrumental assistance or for more direct financial assistance as they struggled to move from welfare to work. The authors also document how some extremely disadvantaged and (...) vulnerable women became enmeshed in even more dangerous dependencies as they hit time limits and fell through public and private safety nets into drug addiction and sex work. The authors frame this discussion of dangerous dependencies with the recognition that dependency relations are necessary and inevitable components of carework. They argue that the discourse of self-sufficiency should acknowledge the fact that careworkers are productive citizens to the same extent as paid laborers and grapple with the question of the means through which they can support that productivity when personal resources are limited and paid labor is temporarily or permanently impossible. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Kant’s real reason for rejecting a world state in practice is that a world state would be in greater danger of despotism than individual states. Kant hopes that public participation and self-enlightenment of the people in the public sphere could counter the despotic danger in individual states. However, in a world state, state affairs are too distant from the lives of individuals, making it difficult for individuals to maintain enthusiasm for public discourse (...) and political enlightenment. Moreover, the absence of external competition and the risk of war would eliminate the incentive of the ruler to preserve freedom for the development of industry and commerce and, consequently, for the enlightenment of the people. These defects make it more difficult for a world state to resist despotic danger. (shrink)

What grounds a judgment that a work of art is immoral? This book argues that we cannot judge artworks morally in the same way that we judge people. What>'s more, there is no direct influence from moral judgments to aesthetic judgments: it is possible for artworks to be both immoral and beautiful.

Journalism is viewed here as being in danger of becoming a profession, thereby changing the field into a narrow, monolithic, self?centered fellowship of true believers devoid of outward?looking and service orientations.

The discussion will begin with a narrative introduction, which will fo¬cus on the first occurrence in literature of testimony of a cyber-rape. From this introduction, the main philosophical issues involved in these phenom¬ena will emerge. This introduction will be followed by a brief discussion of the different forms of cyber-rape, which will refer, in particular, to feminist literature on the subject. Subsequently, the chapter will enter the heart of the philosophical dis¬cussion, addressing the first of the topics to which it (...) is dedicated: the nature of acts of sexual and gender-based online violence. Three sections will be devoted to dismantling those arguments that, even accepting that The Dangerous Liaison cyber-rape is a moral wrong, it cannot be considered on the same level as rape. Then, having established that the seriousness of a “virtual” rape is com¬parable to that of a physical rape, it will show how the former occurs more frequently (but is not conceptualised as “real”) than the latter. This will be attributed to an asymmetry between the seriousness of the act and its common perception. Finally, the chapter will go on to question the reasons for this asymme¬try, first exploring the hypothesis—long held by many scholars—of ano¬nymity as a catalyst for violence, only to partially discard it in the face of more recent evidence and replace it with a more convincing explanatory hypothesis. In general, the aim of this chapter is to make a feminist contribution from the perspective of philosophy of technology to the issue of cyber-rape. Tools provided by philosophy of technology will be tested in order to, on the one hand, dismantle the idea that there can be such a thing as a virtual agency that is “less serious” than the real one, and, on the other hand, explore the ways in which digital technologies affect the perception of personal responsibility. (shrink)

The thesis of incommensurability concerns the interrelation between subjective culture and objective culture through which the constitutive agency of chaos (incommensurability) emerges. The objectivations/products, the constituents of objective culture, carry their own Being, and this Being transcends the original subjective expressivities/intentions. The constitutive agency of this incommensurable interrelation becomes apparent in an age of globalization where its effects become global, bringing about dangerous socio-political volatilities. To illustrate, global warming has been neither the expressive intention of subjective culture nor a constituent (...) of energy per se as an objectivated product in the context of objective culture. It emerges in the interrelation, an unforeseen incommensurability, a chaos in the culture of energy that threatens the globe/world in various ways. Incommensurability, the cultural form of chaos, is recognized as dramatically foiling human instrumental rationality, spoiling its hubris or belief in its own progress. The doctrine of incommensurability shows that we can not know what we are doing while we are doing it, for the empirical manifestations of chaos are only knowable after the fact and its effects are unpredictable. This book of essays is divided into two parts: the first dealing with contemporary themes in subjective culture and the second with those in objective culture. A few of the pressing topics treated in this volume are: abstracted information of a computer-based society versus locally-based, grounded knowledge, abstracted neo-liberal economics versus place-grounded economics, the geo-politics of peak oil, and the intensification of natural disasters as a consequence of global warming reveal the tenuous character of the contemporary world. (shrink)

Preventing future crime has become an increasingly dominant function of the criminal law of many liberal democracies. This “preventive turn” has led to a profound debate on the legal and ethical boundaries of the “preventive state.” However, the concept at the core of preventive justice—the dangerousness of the offender—has attracted relatively little attention in the current debate. This is remarkable, as the legal establishment of dangerousness permits intrusive preventive measures, such as preventive detention for an indeterminate period of time. In (...) the past, various concepts of dangerousness have been developed by criminal law scholars. We discuss these concepts in a chronological order to demonstrate how the meaning of dangerousness has evolved over time, and how it has been shaped by concurrent developments in forensic psychiatry and penology. Our description of the state of the art of legal scholarship on the concept of dangerousness also shows the lack of a fully developed theory of dangerousness, and therefore the necessity of further research. We identify five “aspects” of the concept of dangerousness on which scholars have widely diverging views. These five aspects are intended to guide further research on the concept of dangerousness in preventive criminal law. (shrink)

The authoranalyzes the types of metaphors that are used to describe the Internetin issues of Wired magazine from before and after the dot-com collapse to understand the perceptions and expectations of some of the actors involved in the shaping of the Internet. In addition, the metaphors deployed in economics and geophysiology are used to demonstrate how metaphors can influence public debate, policy, and theory. The author argues that metaphors do not simply have a descriptive function but that they also carry (...) normative connotations. Language, alongside social practices and material objects, is an important tool in attempts to construct the future. Six overlapping metaphorical themes are identified: revolution, evolution, salvation, progress, universalism, and the “American dream.” A critical analysis of these metaphors, informed by a critique of the metaphors used in economics and geophysiology, leads the author to challenge the universalist claims made by some Internet enthusiasts for the inclusive potential of the Internet. (shrink)

For years, attempts at ensuring the social sustainability of digital solutions have focused on ensuring that they are perceived as helpful and easy to use. A smooth and seamless work experience has been the goal to strive for. Based on document analysis and interviews with 15 stakeholders, we trace the setting up of a data infrastructure in Danish General Practice that had achieved just this goal – only to end in a scandal and subsequent loss of public support. The ease (...) of data access made it possible for data to be extracted, exchanged and used by new actors and for new purposes – without those producing the data fully realizing the expansion of the infrastructure. We suggest that the case has wider relevance for a still more data-intensive healthcare sector and a growing data economy: when those who produce the data are not made aware of new uses of data, it makes it more difficult to resolve potential conflicts along the way. In the Danish case, conflicting views on legitimate data use led to the collapse of the infrastructure. Therefore, while seamlessness may be a solution to the old problem of a poor fit between user and technology, this celebrated virtue may also involve new problems relating to social instability. As digital solutions tend to be integrated still more seamlessly in still more of our activities, we need to develop political mechanisms to define and protect the rights and obligations of both data suppliers and users in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of digital infrastructures. (shrink)

Jim Garrison’s recent criticisms of what he refers to as ‘dangerous dualisms’ in my theory of critical thinking are unsuccessful. They fail, in large part, because of misinterpretations of my view, but also because of Garrison’s systematic reliance on problematic aspects of Dewey’s terminology and philosophy.

The Ambivalence of Denial: Danger and Appeal of Rituals. Edited by Ute Hüsken and Udo Simon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016. Pp. 315. €38.