The debate over the benefits of female representation in top management is ongoing, with some arguing it enhances decision-making quality by bringing diverse perspectives, while others seeing it as symbolic or even detrimental. To make progress on the debate, this study takes an institutional perspective to develop a theoretical account examining the gender norms that constraining the effect of female representation in top management teams (TMTs) on corporate financial fraud. We offer two main insights: (a) female TMT representation is associated (...) with lower incidence of corporate fraud, and (b) the relationship becomes weaker for firms domiciled in regions with gender inegalitarian norms or gender stereotypical norms that are more gender stratified. Results based on archival data about Chinese public firms, and simultaneous estimation of fraud commitment and detection probabilities, support our predictions. Several alternative econometric specifications, including (but not limited to), instrumental variable analysis and matched sample analysis, enhance confidence in the robustness of our findings. The findings of this study make important contributions to the literatures of managerial diversity, corporate fraud, and institutional norms. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Existential Analytic: Terminable or Interminable? Death's Representatives: Some Dead Ends The Existential Approach: Death in/from/as Life The Modalities of Mortal Existence Getting Ahead of Ourselves: Heidegger's Analysis between Angst and Conscience.

Morality, Mortality as a whole deals with certain aspects of ethical theory and with moral problems that arise primarily in contexts involving life‐and‐death decisions. The importance of the theoretical issues is not limited to their relevance to these decisions; however, they are, rather, issues at the heart of basic moral and political theory. This first volume comprises three parts. Part I, Death: From Bad to Worse, has with four chapters, and an appendix, discussing death and why it is bad for (...) the person who dies. Part II, Saving Lives: General Issues, has six chapters, and explores a cluster of moral problems that arise in saving lives. The general question raised is whether we should always, in aiding life, act so as to save the greater number of lives or to produce the greatest amount of good. Part III, Scarce Resources: Theoretical Issues, Specific Recommendations, and Organ Transplants, has five chapters, and deals with the problem of the acquisition and distribution of organs for transplantation. It allows us to apply the theoretical discussion of saving lives and relevant/irrelevant utilities presented in the previous parts. However, the discussion can be understood independently of the first two parts, and the conceptual issues and procedures on which it focuses are relevant to dealing with any scarce resource, including money and time, which are needed to use other plentiful resources. Although the book contains much theoretical and methodological argument, it is firmly grounded in practical ethical issues, and is illustrated throughout by examples. (shrink)

This book demonstrates that we need not choose between seeing so-called Presocratic thinkers as rational philosophers or as religious sages. In particular, it rethinks fundamentally the emergence of systematic epistemology and reflection on speculative inquiry in Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides. Shaul Tor argues that different forms of reasoning, and different models of divine disclosure, play equally integral, harmonious and mutually illuminating roles in early Greek epistemology. Throughout, the book relates these thinkers to their religious, literary and historical surroundings. It is (...) thus also, and inseparably, a study of poetic inspiration, divination, mystery initiation, metempsychosis and other early Greek attitudes to the relations and interactions between mortal and divine. The engagements of early philosophers with such religious attitudes present us with complex combinations of criticisms and creative appropriations. Indeed, the early milestones of philosophical epistemology studied here themselves reflect an essentially theological enterprise and, as such, one aspect of Greek religion. (shrink)

Extrinsic mortality is a key influence on organisms’ life history strategies, especially on age at maturity. This historical longitudinal study of 125 women in rural Domenica examines effects of extrinsic mortality on human age at maturity and pace of reproduction. Extrinsic mortality is indicated by local population infant mortality rates during infancy and at maturity between the years 1925 and 2000. Extrinsic mortality shows effects on age at first birth and pace of reproduction among these women. Parish death records show (...) huge historical variation in age-specific mortality rates. The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the early 1920s was low, increased dramatically beginning in 1929, and reached a maximum in the 1950s, at which point IMR declined steadily to its present low rate. The mortality rate early in life showed a quadratic association with age at first birth. Women who experienced conditions of low IMR early in life reproduced relatively late in life. Those born into moderately high levels of infant mortality tended to reproduce earlier than those born at low levels. At very high infant mortality levels early in life, women went on to delay reproduction until relatively late, possibly as a result of somatic depletion and energetic stress associated with the conditions that lead to high IMR. Population mortality rates at age of maturity also showed a quadratic association with age at first birth. The pace of reproduction, estimated as number of surviving offspring controlled for maternal age, showed a similar quadratic effect. There were complex interactions between population mortality rates in infancy and at maturity. When extrinsic mortality was high during infancy, extrinsic mortality later in life had little effect on timing of first birth. When extrinsic mortality was low to moderate in infancy, extrinsic mortality later in life had significant effects on adult reproduction. I speculate that these effects are mediated through development of personality facets associated with reproduction. (shrink)

Successive UK governments have adopted failure as a strategy in the reform of public education in England: first, to construct crises in order to blame professionals/parents/children for a failing system; and second, to provide rescue solutions that are designed to fail in order to sustain the change imperative. We describe this as policy mortality, or the integration of systemic and organisational ‘death’ within reform design. Our research demonstrates the interplay between the blame for the ‘wrong’ type of school, leader, teacher, (...) pupil, parent, and the claimed ‘solutions’ in the form of new schools (e.g., between 70 and 90 different types in England), organisations (e.g., MATs), professionals (e.g., CEOs), pupils (e.g., branded access to a school place), and parents (e.g., consumer choice). Our research contribution is conceptual through the development of new thinking about policy mortality, whereby the claim is for ‘success’ but the reality is that some professionals, schools, children and parents are required to fail. (shrink)

This volume continues the examination of issues of life and death which F.M. Kamm began in Morality, Mortality, Volume I. Kamm continues her development of a non-consequentialist ethical theory and its application to practical ethical problems. She looks at the distinction between killing and letting die, and between intending and foreseeing, and also at the concepts of rights, prerogatives, and supererogation. She shows that a sophisticated non-consequentialist theory can be modelled which copes convincingly with practical ethical issues, and throws considerable (...) light on some of the key distinctions and concepts of ethical discourse. (shrink)

Why is death bad for us, even on the assumption that it involves the absence of experience? Is it worse for us than prenatal nonexistence? In this first volume of the two-volume Morality, Mortality, Kamm begins by considering these questions, critically examining some answers other philosophers have given. The book examines specifically what differences between persons are relevant to the distribution of any scarce resource, discussing for example, the distribution of bodily organs for transplantation.

Preface -- How brave a new world? : God, technology, and medicine -- A theological reflection on reproductive medicine -- Are our genes our fate? : genomics and Christian theology -- Persons, neighbors, and embryos : some ethical reflections on human cloning and stem cell research -- Extending human life : to what end? -- What is Christian about Christian bioethics? -- Revitalizing medicine : empowering natality vs. fearing mortality -- The future of the human species -- Creation, creatures, and (...) creativity : the Word and the final Word. (shrink)

This article addresses the embodied nature of laboratory human—animal practices in order to understand the notions of care that take place within an institution of domination — the apparatus of animal experimentation. How is it possible to both love and harm in this context? Building on animal studies and feminist ethics, the theme of emotionality is explored in the section ‘loving animals’. Here it is demonstrated that empathy and affection for individual animals, as well as species, are strong components of (...) an experimental ethos expressed by the informants. The second empirical section deals with the issue of ‘killing well’. The good kill is supposed to be done with care: quickly and compassionately. This is performed by way of bodily measures of care, technological refinement and personal skills and, sometimes, with the help of a division of labour. In the concluding section, the empirical findings are read through the framework, where the feminist theoretical analysis of love, dependency and care from an embodiment perspective understands the dialectics of instrumentalisation and exploitation of — and care for — animals, not as something that goes on above or outside of relations, but rather as something that can be understood from within. ‘Mortal love’ is the attempt to capture and theorise this dialectic, arguing that emotions of love and friendship are not mere justifications for the harm and killing performed, but rather intrinsic dimensions of the embodied animaling of experimental human—animal relations. (shrink)

The goddess’s speech in Parmenides’s fragments is framed by the opinions of mortals in at least two ways. First, the journey of the proem starts in the world described by mortals’ opinions, and the second part of the goddess’s speech explores those opinions. Second, throughout her speech, the goddess invokes features of the world according to mortals’ opinions—negation, coming-to-be, destruction—even when she is arguing for a road of inquiry that excludes those features. Further, we study the fragments (...) by means of the definitions and claims regarding what-is that we use to function and communicate in our mortal lives. This paper proposes to approach the fragments with an awareness of this framing. A result is that the logical conclusion of accepting mortals’ opinions is that mortals’ opinions are flawed; and that result is based on flawed opinions. The goddess’s account thus presents something like a Liar Paradox. (shrink)

This collection of essays and journalism cover a wide range of topics, from balancing prosperity and public expenditure or the mental differences between boys and girls to 'who may use lipstick'. Mortal and Others shows the serious and non-serious side of Russell's personality and work. It provides a lively and revealing introduction to Russell's thought for all readers. First published in 1975, Mortals and Others is at last available in paperback with a new introduction by John Slater.

Making the inevitability of mortality salient makes people more defensive about their self-esteem and worldviews. Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence point to a mediating role of arousal in this defensive process, but evidence from physiological measurement studies is scarce and inconclusive. The present study seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of how physiological arousal develops over time in the mortality salience paradigm, and whether contemplating one’s mortality actually elicits more physiological arousal than reflecting on a death-unrelated aversive control topic. In (...) a between-subjects design, participants were asked two open questions about their mortality or about dental pain. Cardiac, respiratory, and electrodermal indicators of arousal were measured both as participants provided written answers to the questions, and during a series of resting intervals surrounding the questions. A Bayes factor analysis indicated support for the hypothesis that the mortality salience paradigm increases physiological arousal, both while answering the two open-ended questions and afterwards. Regarding the mortality salience versus dental pain comparison, the null hypothesis of no difference was supported for most analysis segments and signals. The results indicate that the arousal elicited by mortality salience is not different from that elicited by dental pain salience. This speaks against the idea that worldview defense following mortality salience occurs because mortality salience produces higher physiological arousal. Of course, this finding does not rule the importance of other forms of arousal (i.e., subjective arousal) for mortality salience effects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking Mortal ThoughtsDebra SanThere is something quite odd about the ancient Greek advice to “think mortal thoughts” (or “think of mortal things”), for what human being past the flush of youth has not trembled at the thought of mortality? Consciousness of our mortal condition is considered a hall-mark of the human species, and is no doubt the reason we alone among the species on the planet entertain notions of (...) divinity. Why then are we counseled to think about what we cannot help thinking about anyway? And what purpose does the advice serve: are those who tender it eager to promote their own fearful frame of mind? Or, on the contrary, are they urging us to be courageous in the face of death? Perhaps the advice intended is to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Or perhaps “mortal thoughts” are suicidal thoughts, and the object is to shuffle off this mortal coil in a manner, time, and place of our own choosing.Clearly, taken out of context, the injunction “think mortal thoughts” can mean any number of things. But in the context of ancient Greek culture, “think mortal thoughts” means roughly this:“Since you are not one of the immortal gods, be mindful of your limits as a human being. Consciousness of the inevitability of your death should inform the way you live your life, for just as your lifespan is limited by your mortality, so too are your capacities for understanding, for action, and for achievement. This is the truth of your condition; if you don’t accept it, you’ll be frustrated at best, and at worst you’ll incur divine wrath and retribution for attempting to push past your proper human boundaries into sacred turf where you don’t belong and aren’t wanted. Don’t trespass. Don’t even think about it. Don’t assume, in a futile exercise of hubris, that you’re a special case whose transgression [End Page 16] (huperbasia) will be exempt from dire consequences. Gnothi sauton, know yourself as a mortal being, and meden agan, do nothing to excess, or you will suffer the fate of Icarus, who aimed too high and died for it, or the fate of Phaethon, who was destroyed by forces which he thought he could control.”The advice presented here echoes throughout classical Greek drama, whose tragic protagonists are the theatrical descendants of Icarus and Phaethon. When Antigone compares herself to Niobe, the Chorus must remind her that “she was a god, born of gods, and we are only mortals born to die” (925–26). 1 In her failure to think mortal thoughts, Antigone resembles her father, whose refusal to acknowledge his limits is so profound that even after mutilating himself in horror at the discovery of his own transgressions, he must still be reminded that he is no longer “the master of all things” (1675). 2 Pentheus in the Bacchae lacks the stature of either Oedipus or Antigone, but like them he has pretensions beyond the limits befitting a mortal; he fails to exercise the “simple wisdom [that] shuns the thoughts of proud, uncommon men and all their god-encroaching dreams” (427–29). 3 In his arrogant and unrealistic attempt to pit his own puny powers against the incomparable force of the immortal Dionysus, Pentheus suffers the fate of those whose hubris overcomes the temperate virtue of sōphrosunē, “the wisdom that accepts” (390). Even the bloodthirsty, pre-Eumenides Furies of the Eumenides accept the limits which moderation entails: they understand that Zeus “appointeth the mean as the master in all things” (531). 4One might expect that this cautionary, temperate strain in Greek thinking would appeal to Aristotle, whose doctrine of the mean in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics might have come straight out of the Oresteia. And yet, when the caution is expressed in the maxim “think mortal thoughts,” Aristotle rejects it, claiming that human beings should try to aim their thoughts at a level so high it cannot really be reached by mortals, which is to say a level as high as that of the immortal gods, whose contemplative, intellectual activity (theōria) soars far above... (shrink)

Across two studies, a wide age range of participants was interviewed about the nature of death. All participants were living in rural Madagascar in a community where ancestral beliefs and practices are widespread. In Study 1, children (8–17 years) and adults (19–71 years) were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. The death in question was presented in the context of a narrative that focused either on the corpse or on the ancestral practices associated with the afterlife. Participants (...) aged 8 years and older claimed that death brings an end to most bodily and mental processes. Nevertheless, particularly in the context of the religious narrative, they claimed that certain mental processes continue even after death. This assertion of an afterlife was more evident among adults than children, especially with respect to cognitive processes, such as knowing and remembering. In Study 2, 5‐ and 7‐year‐olds were asked similar questions in connection with the death of a bird and a person. Seven‐year‐olds consistently claimed that bodily and mental processes cease at death, whereas 5‐year‐olds were unsystematic in their replies. Together, the two studies replicate and extend findings obtained with Western children showing that, in the course of development, different conceptions of death are elaborated—a biological conception in which death terminates living processes and a religious conception in which death marks the beginning of a new form of spiritual existence. (shrink)

:High-fidelity simulation is a relatively new teaching modality, which is gaining widespread acceptance in medical education. To date, dozens of studies have proven the usefulness of HFS in improving student, resident, and attending physician performance, with similar results in the allied health fields. Although many studies have analyzed the utility of simulation, few have investigated why it works. A recent study illustrated that permissive failure, leading to simulated mortality, is one HFS method that can improve long-term performance. Critics maintain, however, (...) that the use of simulated death is troubling and excessive. Given the controversy regarding simulated death, we consider the data about the educational value and the emotional harms associated with them, expecting that evidence could be useful in resolving the question. The goal of this narrative review is to explore the argument against simulated mortality and provide educators with an imperative as to why it can be safely utilized. (shrink)

Kierkegaard verwendet den Salto mortale als Metapher für den Glauben. Aber was für eine Bewegung ist der Salto mortale genau? Diese Frage wird im ersten Teil anhand der Beschreibungen, die Arcangelo Tuccaro – selbst ein Akrobat, aber auch erster Akrobattheoretiker Europas – von dieser Bewegung gibt, beantwortet. Im zweiten und dritten Teil wird aufgezeigt, inwiefern die Metapher des Salto mortale und die konkurrierende Metapher des Augenblicks in den Texten Kierkegaards Sprachbilder für den Glauben sind, also: Welche Auffassung des Glaubens kann (...) diesen Bildern entnommen werden? Und wie verhalten sich die beiden Metaphern zueinander? Im vierten Teil wird der jacobischen Provenienz der Metapher des Salto mortale nachgegangen: Bereits Jacobi verwendet in einer sehr ähnlichen Weise wie Kierkegaard diese akrobatische Bewegung als Bild für den Glauben. Trotz dieser Nähe verspottet Kierkegaard Jacobi in seiner Nachschrift, indem er die jacobische Vorlage wiederverwendet und ironisch verzerrt. Der letzte Teil ist der Auseinandersetzung mit der Sekundärliteratur gewidmet und bettet diese Arbeit in die philosophische und theologische Kierkegaard-Forschung ein. (shrink)

The model of atonement presented in Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo has aroused a host of worries from theologians. The gist of their criticism is that Anselm inscribes redemptive violence into theology and thus encourages passive acquiescence to abusive power structures or even licenses the violence of abusers. Some suggest that the way forward would be to jettison Anselm's account and develop alternatives that are not liable to the same abuses. This paper argues that while alternatives may be desirable, (...) Cur Deus Homo looms so large in theological imaginations as to defy jettisoning. We should instead try to perform better readings. This paper presents a close reading of this text as a monastic meditation on mortality oriented less toward resolving a problem of systematic theology than drawing readers into a renewed experience of devotion to God. To do that, Anselm works to rewrite the meaning of human mortality, making it less about the necessity of losing one's life and more about the possibility of a gift of death. The ethical paradigm that emerges is far from a complete moral vision, but is still more alluring than the one about which Anselm's contemporary critics worry. (shrink)

Over thirty years ago, Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature declared the demise of epistemology and the arrival of a new post-Philosophical era. Rorty envisaged the intellectual activity of this predominantly literary culture as an unconstrained large-scale conversation that would flourish in an “ecstasy of spiritual freedom.” Having abandoned all systematic pretensions, edifying philosophers would add their voice to the conversation of mankind, fully aware of the radical incommensurability of the mortal vocabularies they employ. In an attempt to (...) evaluate this radical proposal, the first part of this essay argues that some of Rorty’s most memorable utopian statements are far-fetched, rhetorical and often exaggerated to the point that they damage his broad humanistic vision. Building on this, the second part discusses the “missed potential” of Rorty’s excessively broad notion of a conversation of mankind and of the uncompromisingly anti-essentialist and anti-foundationalist reorientation that he proposes. (shrink)

In Mortal Imitations of Divine Life, Diamond offers an interpretation of De Anima, which explains how and why Aristotle places souls in a hierarchy of value. Aristotle’s central intention in De Anima is to discover the nature and essence of soul—the prin­ciple of living beings. He does so by identifying the common structures underlying every living activity, whether it be eating, perceiving, thinking, or moving through space. As Diamond demonstrates through close readings of De Anima, the nature of the soul (...) is most clearly seen in its divine life, while the embodied soul’s other activi­ties are progressively clearer approximations of this principle. This interpretation shows how Aristotle’s psychology and biology cannot be properly understood apart from his theological conception of God as life, and offers a new explanation of De Anima’s unity of purpose and structure. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the concept of radical reflection in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, arguing that, in its decentring of the subject who engages in reflection, radical reflection intimates a distinct theory of this very subject – one which will be developed in the final section of the Phenomenology and elsewhere. This reading diverges from those which consider radical reflection strictly in terms of a deflation of the reflective subject, and which position the concept in relation to a philosophy of nature (...) as a process into which this subject would effectively be subsumed. My reading instead proposes that the critical insight of radical reflection into the worldly, situated, and finite character of philosophical reflection articulates three essential dimensions of subjectivity: self-consciousness, sociality, and (consciousness of) mortality. In developing this account of the subject of radical reflection, the article shows such a conception of subjectivity to be at stake at once in Merleau-Ponty’s approach to phenomenology and in his work on history and politics. (shrink)

Prior to the productive encounters that can be staged between Emmanuel Levinas’sthought and cinema at the level of reception, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne introducehis philosophy to their filmmaking at its moment of inception.1Luc Dardenne’s diary Audos de nos images documents their filmmaking from 1991 to 2005, and isinterspersed with brief but erudite references to Levinas’s work. While Levinasianthinking is one among many cited influences in this text, which also features quotationsfrom the writings of novelists, poets, and other philosophers, along with (...) detailedreferences to other filmmakers, his work is a signal point of inspiration and ethicalaspiration for their filmmaking. The Dardenne brothers seek permanently to unsettlereceived ideas of what cinema is. In this, their approach is bound up explicitly, but notexclusively, with the ethical underpinnings of Levinas’s thought. Levinas’s reformulationof ethics as first philosophy creates a fissure at the root of the philosophy of being. TheDardennes’ films, in turn, perform a Levinasian-inspired challenge to the being ofcinema. At its most extreme moments, to kill or not to kill is the key question that theircinema raises. This tacit rewriting of the interrogative opening to Hamlet’s infamous soliloquy, shifts attention away from a self-centered concern with being or non-being,and towards the survival of the other. The passage from being to non-being, whichwould involve the death of the subject, is displaced here by a preoccupation with killing,or failing to kill, someone else. This particular move from dying to killing lies at the heartof the Dardennes’ mortal ethics. (shrink)

Mortality as a Philosophical-Anthropological Issue: Thanatology, Normativity, and "Human Nature" This paper examines mortality—the fact that we humans are all going to die—as an issue in philosophical anthropology, by applying a fourfold typology of some key forms of philosophical anthropology to the topic of death and mortality. First, this typology, originally suggested by Heikki Kannisto, is outlined; the mortality issue is, then, viewed from the perspective it opens. Finally, the challenges to our understanding of death and mortality that this perspective (...) may help us meet are discussed. The treatment of mortality from the perspective of philosophical anthropology may make it more understandable in a manner that will highlight the importance of the concept of normativity in the philosophical examination of any such humanly relevant issue. (shrink)

_'Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.'_ - _Bertrand Russell_ From 1931-1935 Bertrand Russell was one of the regular contributors to the literary pages of the _New York American_, together with other distinguished authors, such as Aldous Huxley and Vita Sackville-West. _Mortals and Others Volume II_ presents a further selection of his essays, ranging from the politically correct, to the perfectly obscure: from _The Prospects of Democracy_ to (...) _Men Versus Insects_. Even though written in the politically heated climate of the 1930s, these essays are surprisingly topical and engaging for the present day reader. Volume II of _Mortals and Others_ serves as a splendid, fresh introduction to the compassionate eclecticism of Bertrand Russell's mind. (shrink)

This wide ranging and challenging book explores the relationship between subjectivity and mortality as it is understood by a number of twentieth-century French philosophers including Sartre, Lacan, Levinas and Derrida. Making intricate and sometimes unexpected connections, Christina Howells draws together the work of prominent thinkers from the fields of phenomenology and existentialism, religious thought, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction, focussing in particular on the relations between body and soul, love and death, desire and passion. From Aristotle through to contemporary analytic philosophy and (...) neuroscience the relationship between mind and body has been persistently recalcitrant to analysis, and emotion is the locus where the explanatory gap is most keenly identified. This problematic forms the broad backdrop to the work’s primary focus on contemporary French philosophy and its attempts to understand the intimate relationship between subjectivity and mortality, in the light not only of the ‘death’ of the classical subject but also of the very real frailty of the subject as it lives on, finite, desiring, embodied, open to alterity and always incomplete. Ultimately Howells identifies this vulnerability and finitude as the paradoxical strength of the mortal subject and as what permits its transcendence. Subtle, beautifully written, and cogently argued, this book will be invaluable for students and scholars interested in contemporary theories of subjectivity, as well as for readers intrigued by the perennial connections between love and death. (shrink)

Death.--The absurd.--Moral luck.--Sexual perversion.--War and massacre.--Ruthlessness in public life.--The policy of preference.--Equality.--The fragmentation of value.--Ethics without biology.--Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness.--What is it like to be a bat?--Panpsychism.--Subjective and objective.

"Fascinating....An imaginative, deeply engaging philosophical adventure."--Ethics. "Will quickly become, in debates concerning the sorts of distribution problems Kamm is concerned with, what Rawls's Theory of Justice is for more general debates about distributive justice."--Journal of Medical Ethics.

Voice connects our embodied existence with the theoretical worlds we construct. This book argues that the voice is a crucial element of mortal identity in the tragedies of Aeschylus. It first presents conceptions of the voice in ancient Greek poetry and philosophy, understanding it in its most literal and physical form, as well as through the many metaphorical connotations that spring from it. Close readings then show how the tragedies and fragments of Aeschylus gain meaning from the rubric and performance (...) of voice, concentrating particularly on the Oresteia. Sarah Nooter demonstrates how voice - as both a bottomless metaphor and performative agent of action - stands as the prevailing configuration through which Aeschylus' dramas should be heard. This highly original book will interest all those interested in classical literature as well as those concerned with material approaches to the interpretation of texts. (shrink)

If we take Charles Peirce's "Immortality in the Light of Synechism" at face value, synechism has implications for "religious questions" or, one might say, for questions regarding the destiny of human life. In that same essay, Peirce begins to work out some of these enigmatic yet insightful consequences concerning the problem of immortality. The aim of this paper is to apply the principles of Peirce's philosophy, chiefly synechism and related doctrines, in order to investigate the nature of one of the (...) most enigmatic problems concerning the destiny of human life, namely, the nature of human death. If immortality can be clarified in the light of synechism, as Peirce maintains, what about mortality? Is it possible to... (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End, draws upon both anecdotal stories and literary sources to highlight the importance of honest discussions as the end of life approaches. These discussions are particularly significant for older persons and terminally ill patients. Gawande believes that these discussions could be facilitated by more in-depth and focussed communication between the healthcare professional and the patient. Respecting the patient's values and priorities, and promoting a sense (...) of wellbeing and dignity are critical for quality care. (shrink)

Moral philosophy has been increasingly concerned with the nature of emotion and its ethical significance. Almost no attention, however, has been paid to disgust, in spite of its evident connections to taboos, exclusionary policies, and severe forms of moral, political, and aesthetic condemnation. This dissertation offers a theory of revulsion. On the basis of this account, it also gives us a way of thinking about intimate or tactile features of moral agency, which play a vital role in maintaining those various (...) practices. ;The analysis begins with a detailed portrait of the expansive and curious realm of disgust and derives from the portrait a set of desiderata by which to build a theory of revulsion. The views of the three primary theorists of disgust are evaluated: the anomaly thesis of the anthropologist Mary Douglas, the animal reminder theory of the empirical psychologist Paul Rozin, and the generative lowliness account of the social historian William Ian Miller. None of these satisfies the desiderata, and they also fail for reasons internal to their own viewpoints. The works of Julia Kristeva on abjection and Noel Carroll on art-horror are also considered. ;Both the portrait and the set of desiderata direct attention upon not just objects commonly deemed to be impure, but pollution processes and the wider emotional dynamics with which they are integrated. Due consideration of these various factors reveals that disgust is generally about carnal disvalue, or somatic unwholesomeness, and paradigmatically about filthiness and its smear. Disgust is so concerned because its phenomenology functions as a foretaste of unhealthiness. And it is aided in its task by a physiognomic structure calibrated to various organic signs taken to indicate deeper somatic defilement. One of the special features of such carnal disvalue is the facility with which it extends to larger and more abstract realms of disvalue, like the morally or aesthetically repulsive. These reflections on revulsion suggest that our mortality is as much about the organic or carnal character of living and dying, as it is cessation of life. (shrink)

There is a fear of death that persistently eludes adequate explanation by contemporary philosophers of death. The reason for this is their focus on mortal harm issues, such as why death is bad for the person who dies. Claims regarding the fear of death are assumed to be contingent on the resolution of questions about the badness of death. In practice, however, consensus on some mortal harm issues has not resulted in comparable clarity on mortal fear. I contend we cannot (...) do justice to fear of death unless we detach it from theories about the badness of death, including the overwhelmingly-popular deprivation theory. The case for this involves disambiguation of certain aspects of mortal harm, a broad conception of what is involved in accounting for an emotion, and close attention to the nature of the fear in question. The source of fear of death is our departure from a context in which self-directed emotions have coherent application; our attitudes become ‘unmoored,’ in Samuel Scheffler’s phrase. While this does not result in a fear that is sui generis, it does demand that we remove the object of fear from the realm of well-being in order to make sense of it. (shrink)

The conviction that death means everlasting extinction, with no possibility of an afterlife, is described by Heinegg as "mortalism." In this unique anthology, he has collected more than 50 selections of poetry and prose that reflect this view.

Standing at the edge of life's abyss, we seek meaningful order. We commonly find this 'symbolic immortality' in religion, civilization, state and nation. What happens, however, when the nation itself appears mortal? The Mortality and Morality of Nations seeks to answer this question, theoretically and empirically. It argues that mortality makes morality, and right makes might; the nation's sense of a looming abyss informs its quest for a higher moral ground, which, if reached, can bolster its vitality. The book investigates (...) nationalism's promise of moral immortality and its limitations via three case studies: French Canadians, Israeli Jews, and Afrikaners. All three have been insecure about the validity of their identity or the viability of their polity, or both. They have sought partial redress in existential self-legitimation: by the nation, of the nation and for the nation's very existence. (shrink)

Discusses ethical issues in medicine, including informed consent, the right to die, incompetency, parental decisions, resource allocation, and experiments with human subjects.

A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality.

Why does world hunger hold an inferior place on the contemporary moral agenda? Proposed answer: because it is a political, not a moral problem. It is not a moral problem, because morality needs two conditions fulfilled: that those be in some way close to the agent unto whom that agent is doing something that is to be morally assessed; and that the relevant good or bad states or events can be clearly credited to some particular agent or agents. Neither condition (...) is fulfilled in the case of world hunger. This explains morality's failure to come to grips with it. Yet, while lacking morality's endorsement, the abolition of world hunger may still be a political goal. (shrink)

Mortal and immortal DNA : Craig Venter and the lure of "lamia" -- Homeopathy : Holmes, hogwarts, and the Prince of Wales -- Citizen Pinel and the madman at Bellevue -- The experimental pathology of stress : Hans Selye to Paris Hilton -- Gore's fever and Dante's Inferno : Chikungunya reaches Ravenna -- Giving things their proper names : Carl Linnaeus and W.H. Auden -- Spinal irritation and fibromyalgia : Lincoln's surgeon general and the three graces -- Tithonus and the (...) fruit fly : new science and old myths -- Swiftboating "America the beautiful" : Katharine Lee Bates and a Boston marriage -- Nothing makes sense in medicine except in the light of biology -- Apply directly to the forehead : Holmes, Zola, and Hennapecia -- Elizabeth Blackwell breaks the bonds -- Chronic lyme disease and medically unexplained syndromes -- Eugenics and the immigrant : Rosalyn Yalow and Rita Levi-Montalcini -- Science in the Middle East : Robert Koch and the cholera war -- How to win a Nobel prize : thinking inside and outside the box -- Homer Smith and the lungfish : the last gasp of intelligent design -- DDT is back : let us spray! -- Academic boycotts and the Royal Society -- Teach evolution, learn science : John William Draper and the "bone bill" -- Diderot and the yeti crab : the encyclopedias of life -- Dengue fever in Rio : Macumba versus Voltaire. (shrink)

The Apology is often read as showing a conflict between democracy and philosophy. I argue here that Socrates’s defense critically engages deeply political Athenian conventions of death, showing a mutual entanglement between Socratic philosophy and democratic practice. I suggest that Socrates’s aporetic insistence within the Apology that we “do not know if death is a good or a bad thing” structures a critical space of inquiry that I term “mortal ignorance;” a space from which Socrates reapproaches settled questions of death’s (...) appropriate place in political life, ultimately prompting a partial transformation of Athenian democracy. I argue here that Socratic mortal ignorance supports a self-reflective politics of death, one which produces many potential responses and accepts the impossibility of closing off death’s meaning in any final sense—an aporia suitable for the unending, precarious work of democratic politics. (shrink)

Historical demographic research shows that the factors influencing mortality risk are labile across time and space. This is particularly true for datasets that span societal transitions. Here, we seek to understand how marriage, migration, and the local economy influenced mortality dynamics in a rapidly changing environment characterized by high in-migration and male-biased sex ratios. Mortality records were extracted from a compendium of historical vital records for the Baja California peninsula (Mexico). Our sample consists of 1,201 mortality records spanning AD 1835–1900. (...) Findings from Cox proportional hazard models indicate that (1) marriage was associated with a protective effect for both sexes; (2) residing in a mining town was associated with higher mortality for men, but not women; (3) migration was associated with decreased mortality risk for women, but not men; and (4) the risk of mortality increased in the face of infectious disease, but decreased over time. Despite the early initiation of reproduction for women, marriage had a protective effect, likely because marriage linked women to resources. Although mining boomtowns were associated with elevated risk factors generally, only men experienced greater mortality risk, likely due to dangerous working conditions that women did not experience. Last, female, but not male, migrants experienced greater longevity, possibly because exposure to harsh labor conditions eroded the protective effect of selection bias for men. Together, these results shed light on an understudied historical population and broaden our understanding of demographic dynamics in preindustrial settings. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Morality, Mortality: Death and Whom to Save from It. By Frances Kamm.