Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project entitled ‘Beyond Ofsted’ (2023) which aimed to gather a wide (...) range of views on both the current inspection system and potential alternatives. The data discussed in this paper is from part of the data collection which was a large-scale survey of teachers and school leaders. One of the findings of the Beyond Ofsted report was that 76% of our survey respondents thought that Ofsted had a negative effect on retention, with 30% considering leaving as a result of their most recent inspection. We found many reasons for this: the overall experience of inspection, the work in preparing for inspection, and many describing the regime as ‘toxic and brutal’. We argue that this is a compelling argument for urgent reform. (shrink)

Philosophers are intellectual cannibals; they feed on the supposed errors of their colleagues. No harm in that, it might be said. With a sophistical argument like that of the Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass to support the punishment of the innocent, progress in philosophy might be thought dependent on such voracious activities. The Queen thought that in replying to the claim that punishing the innocent was wrong one could say that if the victim really was innocent then (...) that produced a better universe than one which contained both the pain of the punishment and that of the original crime. In a similar way it might be argued that if the supposed errors of a colleague really exist, then their correction is beneficial; while if the errors do not exist then at least there is underlying agreement among philosophers, though perhaps not harmony. The sophistry, however, arises from the fact that in both cases there are other, and better, alternatives. The Queen unaccountably forgets that it would be still better in the case of innocence not to punish at all; and the philosophical apologist for intellectual cannibalism forgets, unaccountably, that it might be still better to advertise agreement rather than to feed on supposed errors which do not exist. For one thing, in that latter case the spurious conflict might positively conceal the real disagreements. Something of that latter kind happens in Timothy Sprigge’s comments on my views about William James ; James and Bradley:American Truth and British Reality, Open Court, 1994 ). I cannot, however, take much credit for stimulating Sprigge to adopt positions similar to mine for two reasons. First the apparent conflicts which conceal real agreement are relatively few, although quite important; second his own considered general view of James is certainly different from mine and marks the real disagreement between us. Accordingly I take two bites at this particular cherry; first to consider my supposed errors and second to identify the real differences between us. Timothy Sprigge claims to find a number of minor errors in my account, but I concentrate on the two major cases. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gerald Prince WORLDS WITH STYLE Whether it is taken to be a laudable characteristic of verbal artifacts (as in, "This essay is really well written"), a distinctive feature of an individual manner of speaking or writing (as in, "Jane definitely has a style of her own"), an ornamental supplement to that which is expressed (style as elocutio), or an appropriate way of using language in different contexts (there is (...) — or was — a style for tragedy, another one for comedy, and still another one for pastoral; there is a style for speaking at business meetings and other styles better suited to everyday conversations, political rallies, or Ph.D. exams), whether it is taken to be any of these four things (or many other things as well), the style of an utterance is traditionally viewed as a secondary phenomenon different from and added to some primary base. It is the mode of expressing a given matter, the way of "saying" some thing, the how of a what. The same is true when the notion style is used in connection with nonverbal artifacts — we talk about musical styles and about pictorial ones — but also in connection with any number of activities or states of affairs: walking down the street, dancing the tango, being pleasant, or playing ping-pong. Ping-pong players use rackets, a net, and a ball, in accordance with certain rules, when they engage in a casual game; but they are thought to be doing somediing more than merely playing: they are performing an activity (the what) in a particular way. They do it stylishly, idiosyncratically, with a lot of showboating, or in a manner appropriate to the informal context.1 It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that, when it comes to verbal (and nonverbal) representations, style is often thought to be irrelevant to the signified (what is represented) as opposed to the signifier (what represents). Graham Hough writes, for example: "In discussing whatever it is we mean by style we assume mat the primary choice, the choice of subject-matter in the large sense, has already been made.... We can talk about the secondary choice, the stylistic one, in various ways.... But whatever point of view we adopt, it will be the verbal ordonnance that we discuss, not the oudines of die mym, the facts of the case, the ideological or biographical substructure."2 Yet, as I have more than suggested, any what has (or can have) a corresponding how. Besides, both 59 60Philosophy and Literature in formal criticism and informal exchanges, we frequently seem to refer to the how of a signified. When we say, for instance, that a given short story is Kafkaesque, we do not, I think, have its verbal style in mind; and when we claim that a novelistic episode or character comes right out of Alice in Wonderland, we are not talking about linguistic matters. Of course, the fact mat we seem to refer to the how of signifieds (or that we do refer to the how of signifiers) does not necessarily mean mat mere are such things (or that we can describe them). But I suspect that there are (and that we can). I would like to discuss in what follows some of the ways in which we might be able to talk of the style of represented "worlds" more or less meaningfully and systematically and some of the problems attending such talk. For the sake of convenience and because of personal affinities, I will restrict myself to verbal narratives. I will not make a distinction between literary and non-literary ones, since such a distinction is formally and even pragmatically quite problematic. IfI concentrate on fictional narratives, it is, again, because of personal affinities and not because I mink that, when it comes to style, (ontological or other) differences between fiction and nonfiction make very much of a difference. As I will argue, style is in the eye ofthe beholder and, from that point of view, whether or not something is compossible with one's knowledge of the "real world" does not necessarily make it function as fictional or nonfictional; indeed, I am constandy surprised by the real world and I could easily recount... (shrink)

This is the second of two parts of an interview with Alice Crary conducted in a single exchange in the first weeks of January 2022, where she discusses ordinary language philosophy and feminism, Wittgenstein’s conception of mind and its relation to feminist ethics, the link between Wittgenstein and Critical Theory, and her own views about efforts to bring about social and political transformations. The first part on “Wittgenstein and Feminism” is published in the NWR Special Issue “Wittgenstein and Feminism”, (...) forthcoming later this year. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Graham Scambler provides an overview of his long academic career. He discusses how he became a medical sociologist, his early work on epilepsy and stigma, his part in the development of sociology textbooks for medical students, the diversity of his work and his many collaborations, his ‘theoretical turn’, his longstanding interest in critical realism and his attitude to ‘bridge building’ between philosophy and empirical work.

Recent proposals for a “critical character epistemology” attend to the ways in which environments, institutions, social practices, and relationships promote the development of epistemic vice whilst acknowledging that the contexts of differently situated agents demand different epistemic character traits. I argue that a tension arises between two features of critical character epistemology: the classification as “epistemically corrupting” of environments, institutions, or structures which promote the development of epistemic vice; and commitment to normative contextualism—the doctrine that the normative status (the status (...) of a trait as a virtue or as a vice) of some or all epistemic character traits is context-dependent. I show how these two features lead to the claim that certain traits both are epistemic virtues and hinder the development of epistemic virtues. To make such an evaluation consistent, I propose a modified form of normative contextualism: dual-level normative contextualism. (shrink)

Este estudio examina la influencia de la tradición neoplatónica en el pensamientode Santo Tomás con respecto a la causalidad de la bondad divina. El axioma “bonum est diffusivum sui,” atribuido en general al Pseudo-Dionisio, será puesto de relieve e interpretado en el sentido de la causalidad final.

While the influence of emotion on individuals'' ethical decisions has been identified by numerous researchers, little is known about how emotions influence individuals'' ethical decision process. Thus, it is not clear whether different emotions promote and/or discourage ethical decision-making in the workplace. To address this gap, this paper develops a model that illustrates how emotion affects the components of individuals'' ethical decision-making process. The model is developed by integrating research findings that consider the two dimensions of emotion, arousal and feeling (...) state, into an applied cognitive-developmental perspective on the process of ethical decision-making. The model demonstrates that certain emotional states influence the individual''s propensity to identify ethical dilemmas, facilitate the formation of the individual''s prescriptive judgments at sophisticated levels of moral development, lead to ethical decision choices that are consistent with the individual''s prescriptive judgements, and promote the individual''s compliance with his or her ethical decision choices. In particular, the model suggests that individuals experiencing arousal and positive affect resolve ethical dilemmas in a manner consistent with more sophisticated cognitive moral structures. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Myisha Cherry's The Case for Rage is a significant addition to the growing body of analytic philosophy that succeeds in not just engaging but shaping and even creating new forms of public discourse. It does so while remaining an exemplar for what good analytic philosophy should look like: filled with systematic and clear distinctions that illuminate rather than obfuscate real and concrete lived phenomena. I offer two challenges to Cherry's typology of rage: first, I rehabilitate two of variations she takes (...) to be morally and politically problematic, and, second, I argue that the freedom to feel, express, and act on Lordean rage proper should be more limited than Cherry allows. I then raise a set of questions about the aesthetics of persuasive anger. Finally, I highlight two striking insights in Cherry's rich argument. (shrink)

How ought we to evaluate and respond to expressions of anger and resentment? Can philosophical analysis of resentment as the emotional expression of a moral claim help us to distinguish which resentments ought to be taken seriously? Philosophers have tended to focus on what I call ‘reasonable’ resentments, presenting a technical, narrow account that limits resentment to the expression of recognizable moral claims. In the following paper, I defend three claims about the ethics and politics of resentment. First, if we (...) care about socially just processes of reconciliation, we have good reason to pay attention to the logic of resentments. Second, the account philosophers offer of resentment – its distinctive features, aims, rationality, and gratification – will affect the conclusions we draw about which actual resentments to take seriously, which aspects of resentful claims need addressing, and what it means to address and repair them. In contesting definitions of resentment, I argue, we do more than simply perform housekeeping in philosophical taxonomies of emotion. Restricting our understanding to essentially ‘moral’ cases may cause us to lose sight of expressly political resentments. Instead, I argue, a plausible account of resentment must acknowledge that we resent violations and threats that are not necessarily self-pertaining, may not be expressible as individual, discrete injuries, and cannot always be construed as moral threats. Second, given the dependence of moral judgments on a broader horizon of moral possibility, philosophical standards of ‘reasonable’ or ‘appropriate’ resentment cannot avoid being politically charged. Thus, the widely accepted account of ‘reasonable’ resentment cannot make philosophical sense of the most interesting and perplexing cases. Ironically, a theoretical measure designed to revalue emotional expressions of moral protest may result in the exclusion and silencing of those with the most reasons to protest. (shrink)

The Graham Harman Reader is the essential compendium of shorter works by one of the most influential philosophers of the twenty-first century. The writings in this volume are split into seven chapters. The first concerns Harman's resistance to both downward and upward reductionism. The second chapter contains works that develop the specific fourfold structure of Object-Oriented Ontology. In the third, we find Harman's novel arguments for why causal relations between two entities can only be indirect. The fourth chapter discusses (...) why aesthetics deserves to be called first philosophy. The fifth chapter contains Harman's underrated contributions to ethics and politics, and the sixth deals with epistemology, mind, and science. A concluding seventh chapter contains several previously unpublished writings not available anywhere else. Written in Harman's typical clear and witty style, the Reader is an essential resource for veteran readers of Harman and newcomers alike."-- Back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to the Symposium on Daniel Groll's Conceiving PeopleAlice MacLachlan (bio)The ethics of donor conception is often framed as a straightforward clash of rights: the right of would-be parents to procreate and parent, the right of donor-conceived children to know and be raised by their genetic parents, and the right of gamete (sperm and egg) donors to privacy. But in this thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion of Daniel Groll's book Conceiving (...) People: Genetic Knowledge and the Ethics of Sperm and Egg Donation (2021), the ethical terrain is revealed to be far richer and more intricate. As contributor Camisha Russell puts it, the book attends to "the types of relationships that foster the emotional health of families" while remaining grounded in "the experiences and desires articulated by donor-conceived people themselves" as well as those who contribute to their creation and to their family. As a result, the pieces in this symposium not only take up crucial questions of genetics, identity, and bionormativity, they also ask what it means to frame family relationships as a philosophical problem—conceptual, ethical, and, ultimately, political.Groll's central claim is that those who intend to create a child using donated gametes should choose a donor whose identity will be available to the resulting child. This is not because, as David Velleman (2005) and others have argued, knowledge of one's genetic parentage is fundamentally important in some objective sense. Rather, Groll argues that whether such knowledge is actually important, donor-conceived children are likely to come to view it as crucial—developing what Groll calls a "significant interest" in knowing their donor's identity. Further, parents ought to help satisfy their children's significant interest assuming it is not morally problematic. This line of argument places Groll squarely in the realm of what feminists and anti-racist philosophers describe as "theorizing the non-ideal" (Tessman 2009); that is, making philosophical arguments that take as their starting point the world as it is, including the realities of social injustice. Following Charlotte Witt, Sally Haslanger, and other feminists, Groll acknowledges the dominance of the "bionormative conception of the family" (Witt 2014). He considers whether interest in knowing one's genetic parentage might express bionormative prejudice but concludes that, even if it does, [End Page 163] "interest in genetic knowledge can—in our world—be rationally grounded apart from the oppressive schema it is embedded in" (Groll 2021, 149). He further concludes that given a prospective child's likely significant interest in their genetic parentage, would-be parents ought to use an open (i.e., non-anonymous) donor. At the same time, he argues that there are good reasons to disrupt the bionormative schema on both a personal and policy level that may lead to a child's significant interest in the first place.If Groll walks the middle ground in this debate, his critics in this symposium are happy to turn his stroll into a balancing act. Both Reuven Brandt and Amanda Roth challenge Groll's significant interest approach. Brandt questions the extent to which parents owe children a truthful, detailed accounting of their origin, making the case for parental privacy. Roth questions whether the interest in genetic knowledge is rationally grounded beyond bionormative prejudice, offering as a counterexample the offspring of same-sex parents, raised in queer communities of largely nontraditional family configurations. Bradford Skow pushes from the opposite direction, challenging both the claim that bionormative prejudice is at work in the interest in genetic knowledge and, more broadly, that the so-called bionormative conception of the family has the prestige that Groll and others attribute to it in the first place.Also, Amanda Roth and Camisha Russell pressure Groll to go further in considering the nonideal circumstances in which families are formed and theorized. They specify that questions of family configuration and validity are not only conceptual and ethical, they are political. Roth challenges Groll to further consider the example of same-sex and other LGBTQ+ families as disruptive exemplars and recognize that there may be reasons to choose anonymous donation that he has not considered. She highlights the value of solidarity across families and resistance to the forces... (shrink)

Legal ethics theory focuses on the moral problem of lawyers pursuing morally suspect (but lawful) ends and using morally suspect (but lawful) means. It considers possible justifications for lawyers' conduct arising from moral or political philosophy, and how those justifications may require shifts in the lawyer's role. This paper argues that legal ethics theory needs to expand its focus to consider other ethical aspects of the lawyer's role and, in particular, the extent to which being a lawyer can complicate, or (...) contribute to, the accomplishment of a meaningful life. Meaning—defined by Susan Wolf as 'loving something (or a number of things) worth of love, and being able to engage with it (or them) in a positive way'—will be affected in positive and negative ways by the moral dimensions of the lawyer's role, but also by broader aspects of legal practice. The paper further argues that legal ethics theory needs to be more sensitive to contextual variations in legal practice. The ethical challenges and opportunities of legal practice, both its meaning and its morality, are contextually specific in ways legal ethics theory has not sufficiently accounted for. The paper discusses how meaning and context can be included in analysis of the ethics of a lawyer's life. (shrink)

[Michael Friedman] This paper considers the extent to which Kant's vision of a distinctively 'transcendental' task for philosophy is essentially tied to his views on the foundations of the mathematical and physical sciences. Contemporary philosophers with broadly Kantian sympathies have attempted to reinterpret his project so as to isolate a more general philosophical core not so closely tied to the details of now outmoded mathematical-physical theories (Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics). I consider two such attempts, those of Strawson and McDowell, (...) and argue that they fundamentally distort the original Kantian impulse. I then consider Buchdahl's attempt to preserve the link between Kantian philosophy and the sciences while simultaneously generalizing Kant's doctrines in light of later scientific developments. I argue that Buchdahl's view, while not adequate as in interpretation of Kant in his own eighteenth century context, is nonetheless suggestive of an historicized and relativized revision of Kantianism that can do justice to both Kant's original philosophical impulse and the radical changes in the sciences that have occurred since Kant's day. /// [Graham Bird] Michael Friedman criticises some recent accounts of Kant which 'detach' his transcendental principles from the sciences, and do so in order to evade naturalism. I argue that Friedman's rejection of that 'detachment' is ambiguous. In its strong form, which I claim Kant rejects, the principles of Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics are represented as transcendental principles. In its weak form, which I believe Kant accepts, it treats those latter principles as higher order conditions of the possibility of both science and ordinary experience. I argue also that the appeal to naturalism is unhelpful because that doctrine is seriously unclear, and because the accounts Friedman criticises are open to objections independent of any appeal to naturalism. (shrink)

This text offers major re-evaluation of Wittgenstein's thinking. It is a collection of essays that presents a significantly different portrait of Wittgenstein. The essays clarify Wittgenstein's modes of philosophical criticism and shed light on the relation between his thought and different philosophical traditions and areas of human concern. With essays by Stanley Cavell, James Conant, Cora Diamond, Peter Winch and Hilary Putnam, we see the emergence of a new way of understanding Wittgenstein's thought. This is a controversial collection, with essays (...) by highly regarded Wittgenstein scholars that may change the way we look at Wittgenstein's body of work. (shrink)

G e moore and ludwig wittgenstein were very different teachers, both because of their differing views on the nature and aims of philosophical investigation, and because of the differences in the way they thought, their educational backgrounds, and the kind of persons they were. this paper records experiences of the two philosophers as teachers and as personalities, and indicates the features of their teaching which stemmed from their views and from their personalities.

The question of forgiveness in politics has attained a certain cachet. Indeed, in the fifty years since Arendt commented on the notable absence of forgiveness in the political tradition, a vast and multidisciplinary literature on the politics of apology, reparation, and reconciliation has emerged. To a novice scouring the relevant literatures, it might appear that the only discordant note in this new veritable symphony of writings on political forgiveness has been sounded by philosophers. There is a more-than-healthy cynicism directed at (...) what many philosophers see as an uncritical promotion of forgiveness, which – they fear – risks distorting and cheapening forgiveness as a moral ideal, on the one hand, and ignoring the moral and political values of justice, accountability and the cessation of harmful relationships, on the other. Are philosophical fears about the dangers of thinking about forgiveness in political terms warranted – or do they perhaps depend in part on conceptual conservatism regarding what exactly political forgiveness might be? I argue that most, if not all, standard objections to political forgiveness emerge from theoretical reliance on a picture of forgiveness I will call the Emotional Model. Once we make conceptual space for descriptions of forgiveness in performative and social terms, the concept is more easily adapted to a political account without at least some of the risks feared by philosophers. (shrink)

Forgiveness is typically regarded as a good thing - even a virtue - but acts of forgiveness can vary widely in value, depending on their context and motivation. Faced with this variation, philosophers have tended to reinforce everyday concepts of forgiveness with strict sets of conditions, creating ideals or paradigms of forgiveness. These are meant to distinguish good or praiseworthy instances of forgiveness from problematic instances and, in particular, to protect the self-respect of would-be forgivers. But paradigmatic forgiveness is problematic (...) for a number of reasons, including its inattention to forgiveness as a gendered trait. We can account for the values and the risks associated with forgiving far better if we treat it as a moral practice and not an ideal. (shrink)

Artificial placentas (APs) are technologies that mimic the human placenta to treat extremely preterm infants. Being an invasive and risky technology, it will raise important ethical questions for human trials. Hence, in this Topic Piece we provide a blueprint of further issues to investigate. First, counselling will have the double role of providing trial information as well as (non) treatment counselling. This requires extra training and the development of ad hoc decision aids to support counselling and parents’ decision-making. Second, more (...) stakeholder involvement is needed. Direct stakeholders, such as parents, clinicians, and researchers, can help develop the decision aids and provide insight on potentially overlooked issues. Society should also be involved to determine whether AP trials and implementation should be subsidized, and the ethical implications of not subsidizing. Third, a proper cost-benefit analysis should be conducted to determine the exact cost of the technology. (shrink)

Chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) represents a highly prevalent and significant clinical problem. Both major and minor surgeries entail risks of developing CPSP, and cancer-related surgery is no exception. As an example, more than 40% of women undergoing breast cancer surgery struggle with CPSP years after surgery. While we do not fully understand the pathophysiology of CPSP, we know it is multifaceted with biological, social, and psychological factors contributing. The aim of this review is to advocate for the role of response (...) outcome expectancies in the development of CPSP following breast cancer surgery. We propose the Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress (CATS) as an applicable theoretical framework detailing the potential role of cortisol regulation, inflammation, and inflammatory-induced sickness behavior in CPSP. Drawing on learning theory and activation theory, CATS offers psychobiological explanations for the relationship between stress and health, where acquired expectancies are crucial in determining the stress response and health outcomes. Based on existing knowledge about risk factors for CPSP, and in line with the CATS position, we propose the SURGEry outcome expectancy (SURGE) model of CPSP. According to SURGE, expectancies impact stress physiology, inflammation, and fear-based learning influencing the development and persistence of CPSP. SURGE further proposes that generalized response outcome expectancies drive adaptive or maladaptive stress responses in the time around surgery, where coping dampens the stress response, while helplessness and hopelessness sustains it. A sustained stress response may contribute to central sensitization, alterations in functional brain networks and excessive fear-based learning. This sets the stage for a prolonged state of inflammatory-induced sickness behavior – potentially driving and maintaining CPSP. Finally, as psychological factors are modifiable, robust and potent predictors of CPSP, we suggest hypnosis as an effective intervention strategy targeting response outcome expectancies. We here argue that presurgical clinical hypnosis has the potential of preventing CPSP in women with breast cancer. (shrink)

This book is a series of original strategies that teacher educators, teacher candidates and practicing teachers can use to think critically about issues of equity, diversity, opportunity, and social justice in urban education.

La co-existence en l’homme de ces deux pensées dont l’une, immanquablement, effectue l’affirmation existentielle et dont l’autre, non moins immanquablement, nie l’existence et lui substitue un monde de structures idéales qui, pour rester absolues, doivent être soustraites à toute atteinte d’une existence caractérisée par son changement perpétuel, par son flux héraclitéen, –la co-existence de ces deux pensées […], pensées antagonistes, irréductibles,également constitutives de l’être humain, c’est là la source primitive denotre dissension intime, de notre déchirement profond, du malheur de notreconscience. (...) Le Réel nous est donné à la fois comme existence et commeréflexion de l’existence, comme pouvoir et comme savoir; l’existence ne peutvaincre le savoir, ni le savoir peut tuer l’existence. […] Il semble donc quela vérité de ce monde soit celle d’un conflit […], que la recherche est donnéedans la contradiction, que le Réel est donné dans l’échec de toute tentative del’appréhender. (shrink)

Hospitals in many countries have had clinical ethics committees for over 20 years. Despite this, there has been little research to evaluate these committees and growing evidence that they are underutilized. To address this gap, we investigated the question ‘What are the barriers and facilitators nurses and physicians perceive in consulting their hospital ethics committee?’ Thirty-four nurses, 10 nurse managers and 31 physicians working at four Canadian hospitals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide as part of a larger investigation. (...) We used content analysis of the interview data related to barriers and facilitators to use of hospital ethics committees to identify nine categories of barriers and nine categories of facilitators. These categories as well as their subcategories are discussed and those specific to nurses or physicians are identified. The need to increase health professionals' use of clinical ethics committees through reducing barriers and maximizing facilitators is discussed. (shrink)

Alice Crary is a moral and social philosopher who has written widely on issues in metaethics, moral psychology and normative ethics, philosophy and feminism, critical animal studies, critical disability studies, critical philosophy of race, philosophy and literature, and Critical Theory. She has written on philosophers such as John L. Austin, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Iris Murdoch and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This is the first of two parts of the interview with Crary conducted in a single exchange in the (...) first weeks of January 2022, where she discusses ordinary language philosophy and feminism, Wittgenstein’s conception of mind and its relation to feminist ethics, the link between Wittgenstein and Critical Theory, and her own views about efforts to bring about social and political transformations. The second part on “Wittgenstein and Critical Theory” is published in the regular volume 11 of NWR. (shrink)