In this extraordinary introduction to the study of the philosophy of technology, Andrew Feenberg argues that techonological design is central to the social and political structure of modern societies. Environmentalism, information technology, and medical advances testify to technology's crucial importance. In his lucid and engaging style, Feenberg shows that technology is the medium of daily life. Every major technical changes reverberates at countless levels: economic, political, and cultural. If we continue to see the social and technical domains as being seperate, (...) then we are essentially denying an integral part of our existence, and our place in a democratic society. Questioning Tecchnology convinces us that it is vital that we learn more about technology the better to live with it and to manage it. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the domain of the business ethics curriculum and, drawing on recent shifts in the business environment, maps out some suggestions for extending the core ground of the discipline. It starts by assessing the key elements of the dominant English-language business ethics textbooks and identifying the domain as reflected by those publications as 'where the law ends' and 'beyond the legal minimum'. Based on this, the paper identifies potential gaps and new areas for the discipline by drawing on (...) four main aspects. First, it argues that the domain of business ethics requires extensions dependent on the particular geographic region where the subject is taught. A second factor for broadening the scope is the impact of recent scandals, which arguably direct the focus of ethical inquiry towards the nature of the business systems in which individuals and corporations operate. Third, the impact of globalization and its result on growing corporate involvement in regulatory processes is discussed. Fourth and finally, business ethics reaches beyond the traditional constituencies of 'economic stakeholders' as new actors from civil society enter the stage of ethical decision making in business. We conclude by suggesting that a reconsideration of the domain of business ethics, especially in Europe, is timely, but that to do so represents a major challenge to business ethics educators. (shrink)

What happens now is that we (by which I mean the West) eradicate state sponsored terrorism. And we can achieve that only by replacing all political systems that perpetrate or collaborate with terrorism, by systems that respect human rights both domestically and internationally.

I defend a proposition-directed, sui generis account of agnosticism, according to which being agnostic about some proposition, P, involves a sceptical or questioning mental stance towards both the truth and falsity of P. Call this the questioning-attitude account. The questioning-attitude account contrasts with the question-directed attitude account of Jane Friedman, which holds that the object of agnosticism is a question rather than a proposition. I argue that the questioning-attitude account not only avoids a major weakness of (...) Friedman’s question-directed attitude account, but it also displays the following three attractive features: (1) it offers an explanation of why ascriptions of agnosticism often take an interrogative compliment, (2) it offers a univocal account of the content of all three doxastic attitudes, and (3) it fleshes out the claim that agnosticism is sui generis by describing what makes agnosticism distinct from both belief and disbelief. (shrink)

Questioning Ethics is a major discussion by some of world's leading thinkers of some of the most important ethical issues confronting us today. New essays including Habermas, MacIntyre, Ricoeur and Kristeva discuss issues such as the nature of politics, women's rights, lying, repressed memory, historical debt and forgiveness, the self and responsibility, revisionism, bioethics and multiculturalism. The contributors organize their discussions along the topics of hermeneutics, deconstruction, critical theory, psychoanalysi and the applications of ethics. Also included in this collection (...) is an interview with Jacques Derrida which provides the most accessible insight into his thinking. Contributors: Karl-Otto Apel, Geoffrey Barash, John Caputo, Maeve Cooke, Simon Critchley, Jacques Derrida, Simon Glendinning, Jean Greish, Jurgen Habermas, Richard Kearney, Peter Kemp, Julia Kristeva, Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas McCarthy, David Rasmussen, William J. Richardson, Paul Ricoeur, David Wood. (shrink)

A critical analysis of contemporary strategic management theory and practice suggests that modernist, linear thinking has facilitated the development of an abstracted reality which is misleading to managers and fundamentally flawed. It is argued that formulaic strategic tools such as those propounded by Porter fail to capture the reality of the complex environments that confront firms and falsely suggest that an answer can be derived from a predetermined toolbox. As an alternative to this dominant paradigm, the complexity of markets is (...) presented not as something to be feared and ignored, but rather as a truth to be embraced. As a basis of taking this step, current knowledge on how complex environments work, perspectives on how they can be better understood and how people and organizations can engage within them, is presented. Ultimately it is recognised that both theoretical and practical foundations need significant, further development. (shrink)

In 15 insightful essays, Jacques Derrida and an international group of scholars of religion explore postmodern thinking about God and consider the nature of forgiveness in relation to the paradoxes of the gift. Among the themes addressed by contributors are the possibilities of imagining God as unthinkable, imagining God as non-patriarchal, imagining a return to Augustine, and imagining an age in which praise is far more important than narrative. Questioning God moves readers beyond the parameters of metaphysical reason and (...) modernist rationality as it attempts to think the questions of God and forgiveness in a postmodernist context. Contributors include John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida, Mark Dooley, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Robert Gibbs, Jean Greisch, Kevin Hart, Richard Kearney, Cleo McNelly Kearns, John Milbank, Regina M. Schwartz, Michael J. Scanlon, and Graham Ward. Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion—Merold Westphal, general editor. (shrink)

Explores interpretations of Plato by Heidegger, Derrida, Irigaray, Cavarero, and Gadamer.

Following international humanitarian law, soldiers who are authorized by their states to fight wars of aggression have a legal right to kill enemy soldiers, and even enemy civilians, as long as they respect such jus in bello norms as discrimination and proportionality. I criticize a variety of arguments in support of this “combatant’s privilege” of aggressor soldiers that maintain that these soldiers have a moral right to kill or are not culpable for their wrongful killing. I also contest some arguments (...) in support of the view that even though soldiers executing wars of aggression may be morally liable for their wrongful killing, it is impractical or dangerous to seek to change international law so that they would also be held legally liable. In conclusion, I cautiously articulate some conditions under which combatant’s privilege should not be legally granted and those who fight unjust wars should be prosecuted. (shrink)

Background: Nurses are often faced with complex situations that made them to make ethical decisions; and to make such decisions, they need to possess the power of moral reasoning. Studies in Iran show that the majority of nursing students lack proper ethical development. Socratic teaching is a student-centered method which is strongly opposed to the lecturing method. Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of Socratic questioning on the moral reasoning of the nursing students. Research design: In (...) a quasi-experimental study, Crisham’s Nursing Dilemma Test was used to evaluate the results of three groups before, immediately after, and 2 months after intervention. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 15). Participants and research context: Through random allocation, 103 nursing students were divided into three groups. In experiment group 1 (37 students), intervention consisted of Socratic questioning-based sessions on ethics and how to deal with moral dilemmas; experiment group 2 (33 students) attended a 4-h workshop; and the control group (33 students) was not subject to any interventions. Signed informed consent forms: This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University. All the participants signed written informed consents. Findings: There were significant differences between experiment group 1 and experiment group 2’s pre-test and post-test scores on moral reasoning (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), nursing principled thinking (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), and practical considerations (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.031). Discussion: Both the teaching approaches improved the subjects’ moral reasoning; however, Socratic questioning proved more effective than lecturing. Compared to other similar studies in Iran and other countries, the students had inadequate moral reasoning competence. Conclusion: This study confirms the need for the development of an efficient course on ethics in the nursing curriculum. Also, it appears that Socratic questioning is an effective method to teach nursing ethics and develop nursing students’ competence of moral reasoning. (shrink)

Most literature about vaccine hesitancy has been focused on parental attitudes. Less attention has been devoted to both scientists and experts who raise criticism about immunization policies and intervene in the public debate. This consideration aims to balance the current emphasis in the literature on parents’ attitudes about vaccination, offering a complementary angle to reframe and widen the controversy. Focusing on scientists and experts, an unattended complex picture of multiple attitudes towards vaccines and vaccinations has been discovered through a qualitative (...) content analysis of texts related to the harsh public debate, held between March 2017 and November 2018, triggered by the legislative proposal of making ten vaccinations mandatory for children. Unlike oversemplications that misleading dichotomies reproduce, the analysis reveals nine different positions along the continuum of immunisation attitudes, ranging from radical acceptance of vaccinations to radical rejection, which constitute a fuzzy set. Consequently, a twofold reality emerges: on the surface, the conflict seems between pro-vaxxers versus hesitant, pro-choice and anti-vaxxers; beneath it is amid standardized versus a varieties of contextual and personalised approaches to health. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big Data making’ that occurred by way of crowdsourcing through open data platforms, in the context of two specific humanitarian crises, namely the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and (...) the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. We show that the process of creating Big Data from local and global sources of knowledge entails the transformation of information as it moves from one distinct group of contributors to the next. The implication of this transformation is that locally based, affected people and often the original ‘crowd’ are excluded from the information flow, and from the interpretation process of crowdsourced crisis knowledge, as used by formal responding organizations, and are marginalized in their ability to benefit from Big Data in support of their own means. Our paper contributes a critical perspective to the debate on participatory Big Data, by explaining the process of in and exclusion during data making, towards more responsive humanitarian relief. (shrink)

The suspicion of this article is that we don't really understand why questions matter. It addresses this topic by examining the connection Hans-Georg Gadamer draws in Truth and Method between questioning and the possibility of experience. It outlines what Gadamer means by "experience " and shows why he is convinced that we cannot have experiences without asking questions.

By analyzing session exchanges and questionnaires administered to family therapy clients, this article examines questioning as conversational practice grounded in institutional goals that are therapist-directed and therapist-conceived. In their manifestation in talk and text, therapeutic questions function to replace client accounts with the nosological accounts of institutional psychiatry. The analysis illuminates three ways in which questioning works in the session and then locates these in therapy's professional and institutional logic. A critical reflection on psychotherapy's questioning practices in (...) a social context concludes the article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War by Caron E. GentryAndrew C. WrightOffering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War Caron E. Gentry notre dame, in: university of notre dame press, 2013. 200 pp. $20.00Caron E. Gentry provides a constructive proposal for transforming jus ad bellum’s last-resort criterion through the reconceptualization of hospitality as “an essential practice” (2) in international relations, one that helps jus ad bellum (...) “operate proactively instead of coercively and reactively” (35) by seeking to protect “without interest the good and the bad of humanity and humans” (3). Gentry is particularly concerned with marginalized peoples who inhabit failed states, whose realities are willfully ignored through the “abstraction” and “hegemonic masculinity” in international relations, as well as in the dominant voices in political theology (Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jean Bethke Elshtain) that support an “uncritical complicity with power … unable to deal with vulnerable populations outside of the West” (27). Understood in Christian terms as a practice of “agape,” or “self-giving love,” Gentry demonstrates how hospitality may be a plausible alternative to the paradigmatic approach to power in international relations, suggesting that acting without self-interest is a path to greater and more sustainable security (62).Gentry engages an impressive array of sources to structure her argument. For her critique of international relations discourse, she turns to feminist analyses of state sovereignty to demonstrate how a masculinized understanding of power abstracts the realities of war experienced by human populations (18). Drawing on a “human security” perspective (35), Gentry suggests that the prevention of violent conflict requires a proactive practice—using tools such as the Failed State Index—that attends to the realities of vulnerable populations within states before they erupt into violent conflict (34). Her emphasis on vulnerability and the mutual need for the other reveals Emmanuel Levinas as the primary influence on Gentry’s approach. Refracted through this vision, she opts for a practice of hospitality that moves beyond the realist, pacifist, and just war traditions to cultivate a “proactive last resort” that would extend care to the needs of the vulnerable beyond one’s own borders (136).Strengthening jus ad bellum’s last-resort criterion through a reconceived, proactive practice of hospitality is Gentry’s most compelling contribution, one that is particularly insightful for practitioners and theorists of the just war tradition. Yet readers may get the sense that Gentry wants to push her [End Page 204] contribution beyond the limits of political theology to shape the normative practices of international affairs; this is where Gentry’s persuasive force begins to wane. Specifically, Gentry obscures the genuine differences between an ecclesial practice of agape, embedded in a particular understanding of the nature of God, and the international affairs of a state, embedded in a game of realpolitik, where invulnerability is the rule. In order for Gentry to stake a claim in such a context, she needs to develop a more grounded account of how states could accept vulnerability as a normative practice in order to act without self-interest.Certainly, interdependence and mutual vulnerability are the right place to start. However, this kind of change does not simply concern the dominant patterns of international relations but also involves a change in shared conceptions about basic human nature. As such, her wider contribution may be less about a comprehensive framework and more about a potentially transformational question for theorists in international relations, political philosophy, and Christian ethics alike: What will it require for populations within states to recognize their own vulnerability and dependency, to see the well-being of “the other,” including the enemy, as essential to their own security? After Gentry, any answer to this question must move beyond patterns of hegemony and abstraction, toward proactive engagement with the realities of vulnerable populations.Andrew C. WrightFuller Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 279-283, October 2011.

This commentary considers the role of Socratic questioning in Alien Landscapes? I discuss the three roles that Glover sees Socratic questioning playing in psychiatry: 1. Questioning to clarify problems, 2. Questioning to treat symptoms, 3. Questioning to reconstruct lives. Although I am broadly sympathetic to the idea that philosophical conversations can help us conceptualise, and deal with, mental distress, I raise two concerns. First, is there any way of providing courses of transformative Socratic questioning (...) cheaply? Second, how close is the connection between helping individuals to develop systems of belief and value that fit epistemic norms and helping them to live flourishing lives? (shrink)