Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S39-S41, March‐April 2022.

Martin Paleček and Mark Risjord have recently put forward a critical evaluation of the ontological turn in anthropological theory. According to this philosophically informed theory of ethnographic practice, certain insights of twentieth-century analytic philosophy should play a part in the methodological debates concerning anthropological fieldwork: most importantly, the denial of representationalism and the acceptance of the extended mind thesis. In this paper, I will attempt to evaluate the advantages and potential drawbacks of ontological anthropology—arguing that to become a true alternative (...) to current social scientific thinking about methodology, it has to meet certain philosophical objections. (shrink)

The ontological turn in anthropological methodology, at least in its conceptualization-oriented formulation, aims to turn away from the concepts and objects found within one’s own social setting in order to turn to indigenous conceptualization processes and take a look at “the things (and persons) themselves.” This article aims to unpack what such constant reconceptualization amounts to, arguing that when modified to meet certain objections, the ontological turn could provide important ingredients for an alternative version of interpretive social science—one that wishes (...) to understand social phenomena as human kinds in the vein of Ian Hacking, Sally Haslanger and Ron Mallon. (shrink)

Firms face mounting pressure to appoint ethical leaders who will avoid unnecessary risk, scandal and crisis. Alongside mounting evidence that narcissistic leaders place organizations at risk, there is a growing consensus that women are more ethical, transparent and risk-averse than men. We seek to interrogate these claims by analyzing whether narcissism is as prevalent among women CEOs as it is among men CEOs. We further analyze whether narcissistic women CEOs take the same types of risk as narcissistic men CEOs. Drawing (...) on social role and token theories, we test hypotheses related to gender differences in the prevalence and impact of CEO narcissism on firm-level practices. Using a unique dataset that includes a large sample of CEOs of S&P 1500 companies from 1992 through 2014, we create a narcissism composite score for each CEO based on their photograph size in the annual report, and their cash earnings and non-cash earnings relative to the next highest paid executive. We find that women CEOs are less likely to exhibit narcissistic personality traits compared to men CEOs. Furthermore, we find that gender moderates the relationship between narcissistic CEOs and our outcome variables of risk-taking and questionable behaviors. (shrink)

Elite level sport lends itself to a highly competitive environment that encourages players to seek a competitive advantage in order to win. Since competition is an inherent condition that is also considered desirable in this setting, it may at first glance seem as if cooperation does not have any room in elite level sports. Sustainable cooperation can be mutually advantageous for players, but it only has a chance of coming into fruition if it is also in line with individual players' (...) self-interests. In order for morality and self-interests to align with one another, investment in the conditions is required. Alicia Bockel analyzes ways that players can invest in the conditions of sustainable cooperation for a mutual advantage despite a highly competitive sports environment. Contents Cooperation for Mutual Advantage Conditions of Cooperation Investment in the Conditions Target Groups Researchers, students, and teachers of sports ethics, economics, and business ethics. Practitioners and governing bodies in sports, athletes, and sport fans. The Author Dr. Alicia Bockel is a PhD graduate of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, holds an MBA in Strategic Management from Sacred Heart University, and a B.A. in Religion and Psychology from Saint Leo University. (shrink)

Histories of liberalism often begin with the observation that, prior to the French Revolution, the term ‘liberal’ originally referred to a state of mind. In England, it had been used ‘to denote ass...

El presente artículo pretende proponer una reflexión sobre la vida buena desde la filosofía de la enfermedad. Asume que para entender los desafíos que la enfermedad suscita a nivel social y político vale la pena concebir el cuerpo como frontera. Esta idea de frontera, presentada por Anzaldúa, permite comprender tres relaciones esenciales: la particular comprensión de identidad del sujeto enfermo que en suma complejiza toda forma de identidad personal; la relación entre tecnología y cuerpo en la condición de una vida (...) buena desde la perspectiva posthumanista, y, finalmente, la comprensión de una biopolítica que, al asumir la radicalidad de la relación entre enfermedad y salud, reconduzca a nuevas prácticas sociales de la vida buena. (shrink)

Synaesthesia has an emotional side. Many synaesthetes have a sense of certainty about the reality and accuracy of their experiences. Consequently, when their synaesthesia is mimicked in real life these synaeshtetes report a positive emotion whereas when the opposite is true, they experience discomfort. Synaesthesia can also be induced by emotions, and emotions can also be the synaesthetic experience. Here we review the research on these types of synaesthesia and study the current evidence for the true nature of these emotions (...) associated to synesthetic perceptions as studied in grapheme-colour synaesthesia. We begin by presenting evidence of how they can be measured in a laboratory setting and proceed to report studies showing that emotions are automatically activated and can vary in degree as a function of certain factors. We lastly review a study showing that these emerging emotions can be so strong and vivid that they can influence attitudes towards otherwise neutral stimuli. We conclude by presenting a model that could account for the findings reported here. (shrink)

A sequel to a successful 1999 book from an author well known for her cutting edge work on dynamic systems theory.

La educación ambiental es considerada un factor clave para la formación de una ciudadanía consciente de la necesidad de avanzar hacia una sociedad sustentable. Sin pretensiones omniexplicativas, este trabajo busca subrayar, desde la perspectiva de género, la persistencia de ciertos dualismos opresivos vinculados al par Cultura-Naturaleza. A partir de su análisis, propone que ciertos valores y actitudes históricamente devaluados y marginalizados como femeninos sean integrados en la elaboración de una educación ambiental a la altura de los retos del siglo XXI.

It is hypothesised that threatening stimuli are detected better due to their salience or physical properties. However, these stimuli are typically embedded in a rich context, motivating the question whether threat detection is facilitated via learning of contexts in which threat stimuli appear. To address this question, we presented threatening face targets in new or old spatial configurations consisting of schematic faces and found that detection of threatening targets was faster in old configurations. This indicates that individuals are able to (...) learn regularities within visual contexts and use this contextual information to guide detection of threatening targets. Next, we presented threatening and non-threatening face targets embedded in new or old spatial configurations. Detection of threatening targets was facilitated in old configurations, and this effect was reversed for non-threatening targets. Present findings show that detection of threatening targets is driven not only by stimulus properties as theorised traditionally but also by learning of contexts in which threatening stimuli appear. Further, results show that context learning for threatening targets obstructs context learning for non-threatening targets. Overall, in addition to typically emphasised bottom-up factors, our findings highlight the importance of top-down factors such as context and learning in detection of salient, threatening stimuli. (shrink)

The principle of beneficence directs healthcare practitioners to promote patients’ well-being, ensuring that the patients’ best interests guide treatment decisions. Because there are a number of distinct theories of well-being that could lead to different conclusions about the patient’s good, a careful consideration of which account is best suited for use in the medical context is needed. While there has been some discussion of the differences between subjective and objective theories of well-being within the bioethics literature, less attention has been (...) given to the questions of what work a theory of well-being needs to do in bioethics and which standards of success ought to be used in selecting a theory of well-being for use in medicine. In this article, I argue that traditional theories of well-being developed in philosophy are not well suited to meet the needs of the medical context. For the principle of beneficence to be most useful, the underlying account of well-being should satisfy two conditions: first, it needs to lead to a concrete, action-guiding determination of the patient’s good; and, second, any recommendations it offers need to be justifiable to patients. Standard accounts of well-being have difficulty satisfying both conditions. Exploring the limitations of these theories when applied to treatment dilemmas helps point the way toward the development of an account of well-being better suited to healthcare. (shrink)

The paper concentrates on the Chinese philosophical strand of Daoism and analyses in how far this philosophy can contribute to new directions in management theory. Daoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy, which can only be traced back roughly to about 200 or 100 BC when during Han dynasty the writers Laozi and Zhuangzi were identified as “Daoists”. However, during Han dynasty Daoism and prevalent Confucianism intermingled. Generally, it is rather difficult today to clearly discern Daoist thought from other philosophical strands (...) as in the same period also Buddhism, Mohism and Legalism shaped contemporary thinking. Furthermore, there is a difference between the religious practice of Daoism in the sense of popular religion and the theoretical basis of Daoist thought presented in Laozi and Zhuangzi. The religious practice in contrast can have very mystical elements, which are linked to superstition. Moreover, there is also the question of in how far Daoist thought and practice is still prevalent at all in Chinese society today. Hence, the picture of Daoism is heterogeneous, first, regarding the question of what can be defined as the “original core” of Daoism, second, the difference between thought and religious practice, and third, the question of the prevalence of Daoist thought in China today. This paper offers a broader discussion regarding the potential ways of application of Daoist thought today over five parts. First, it illuminates the most important values taught under the name of Daoism. Thereby, it focuses on the Daoist thought and leaves out the actual religious practice together with its mystical elements. Second, these values are then put into the management context to analyse in how far Daoism can broaden our contemporary understanding of management in general and different management styles in particular. Third, Daoism in a management context is then contrasted with the comparably rigid Confucian doctrine also applied in a business context. Here, the application of Daoist and Confucian thought in the fields of leadership, management and corporate ethics is presented and compared. Fourth, insights into the real business practice in China regarding Chinese philosophies like Daoism and Confucianism in fields like management, strategy or corporate ethics are provided. Fifth, an outlook is presented where Daoism is discussed in the context of contemporary debates on sustainability and CSR. Here, the proposed paper illuminates in how far the philosophy of Daoism can also contribute to a more holistic understanding of sustainability and CSR today, thereby contributing to more innovative solutions in management. (shrink)

Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) have been widely acclaimed for promoting health equity and achieving meaningful outcomes. Yet, little to no research has analyzed if this critical work has been done with communities — through meaningful engagement and building power — or if it has been done for communities without their involvement.

During the winter of 1968–69, members of the so-called Budapest School formulated a scathing “review” of Georg Lukács’ late work, Ontology of Social Being. In the wake of the objections (but not in accordance with them), Lukács began to revise the text, but was unable to complete it: he died in June 1971. The disciples’ critique, published in English and German in 1976, played a major role in the reception history of Ontology—or rather in the fact that the 1500-page “philosophical (...) fiasco” still has no remarkable reception history. The main criticism of the disciples is that Lukács’ work mixes two incompatible ontologies and recalls the worst traditions of Soviet Marxism. In this paper, I will argue that the disciples’ “review” is misleading (nevertheless, the historical circumstances may provide a sufficient explanation for this) because there are no “two ontologies” in Lukács’ unfinished book. I will concentrate on the source of the misunderstanding, the Lukácsian thesis of the “post festum-rationality” of history, and in the light of this I will analyse how Lukács describes the open determination of individual and collective action in the process of the social reproduction of life. (shrink)

Blood libels are narratives about Jews and Christians, featuring an accusation that a child or a woman had been kidnapped and assaulted due to religious or economic goals. Blood libel-like narratives, however, are not only found in Judeo-Christian history; they appear in many cultures. Using the framework of Cultural Attraction Theory, the paper considers their evolution, and identifies testable factors of attraction. The paper makes two claims regarding the morphology and the function of these ancient tales. Firstly, narratives about outgroups (...) tend to evolve towards the shape of a blood libel, as it taps into an optimum number of universal cognitive preferences. The correspondence with the evolved features of the mind contributes to the success of the narrative in different cultures and time periods. Secondly, these narratives function as coalition signals. Upon calling ingroup members into action against an outgroup, the blood libel unifies audiences before engaging in exclusionary action. (shrink)

The U.S. health care system is ostensibly market based and therefore at least partially reliant on competition and consumer demand to regulate costs. Yet information about an essential feature of market transactions—costs—is typically obscure to patients until long after treatment. When discussing what must be disclosed for informed consent, the same list of required information is often mentioned regardless of the health care system in question, and information about costs rarely merits a place within this list. However, our assumptions about (...) what a moral principle requires need to be responsive to the realities of the health care system in which the principle is applied.This paper explores the moral foundations of disclosure and informed consent to argue that, in a market‐based system of the sort found in the United States, these same considerations support a requirement to disclose out‐of‐pocket costs before patients receive care. Next, I consider two objections to this view: first, that health care practitioners should focus solely on medical considerations in their encounters with patients and, second, that disclosing out‐of‐pocket costs would be too difficult to be mandated. I argue that medical and financial interests are inseparable within the U.S. health care system. If the difficulties in disclosing costs are deemed insurmountable, then the current system may prove unsustainable, both morally and financially, since we face the same practical impediments to implementing any meaningful consumer‐driven, market‐based health care reform. Finally, I explore some of the consequences of failing to disclose costs. The requirements of disclosing costs can be supported by the principle of respect for autonomy, regardless of the consequences, but in light of the consequences of the decision of whether to disclose, a concern about justice provides further support. (shrink)

While those who sought solidarity between Asians and Europeans in the colonial era often ended up replicating the colonial divisions they had hoped to overcome, the interstitial position of working class and beachcomber Buddhist monks allowed for more substantive modes of solidarity and critique. U Dhammaloka offered a sophisticated critique of British colonialism in its religious, cultural and material modes, but opted to focus his efforts on Buddhism as an avenue of resistance because it offered him a means of connection, (...) like that which Leela Gandhi has identified as a ?politics of friendship.? (shrink)

In the last part of Confessions of the Flesh, Michel Foucault offers a careful analysis of the libido theory as “the stigma of the involuntary in after-fault sex” according to Saint Augustine. This subject is closely linked to the patristic and Augustinian exegesis of the book of Genesis 1:28 (“Increase and multiply”), more specifically on the question of the possible or hypothetical existence of sexual intercourse in paradise. This article intends to study the texts of Saint Augustine and their analysis (...) by Foucault alongside the subsequent philosophical and theological interpretations that arose concerning the thoughts of the Bishop of Hippo and the French philosopher. Did Augustine (and Foucault as the reader of Saint Augustine) declare that our ancestors made love in the Garden of Eden? Is Augustinian theology of marriage and sexuality, as Foucault put it, the foundation of “the morals of the Christian West”? Can we, indeed, speak of Augustinian theology or even Christianity as a “foundation” while respecting the “genealogical” method, as Foucault developed it? (shrink)

Why were luminaries of European philosophy like Bergson, Cassirer, Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre, even Marx systematically excluded from the North Atlantic canon of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Why did Anglo-American university philosophy departments for the most part lump together the philosophical schools to which many of these thinkers belonged --Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism, Constructivism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism -- as Continental Philosophy. All were then dismissed as belonging more in literature and psychology departments than philosophy proper. That same (...) worldview categorized Americans Emerson and Thoreau as well as Spaniards Ortega y Gassett and Unamuno (along with Montaigne and Isaiah Berlin) as essayists, not philosophers. French Existentialists Sartre and Camus? They clearly belonged in the literature departments (just ask the Nobel committee!). Freud’s theory of the superego? Excluded from epistemology and relegated to the psychology department to keep company with Koehler’s Gestalt Psychology and Husserl’s Phenomenology. Most likely because his reductionism bottomed out at the scale of transactions on material production, Karl Marx too was shunted into the political science and economics departments, where Marcuse, Lacan, Gramsci, and Althusser would keep him company a few years later. Comte’s ideas were safely ensconced in a new discipline, sociology, with an even newer subdiscipline, sociology of science, carved out a few years later for Robert Merton and Bruno Latour. More recently, the rest of the philosophical lot (Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, and Foucault, to name the most prominent) were likewise dismissed along with Whitehead’s Process philosophy, and for the same reason: they were thought to belong more to psychology or sociology than philosophy proper Why? The monograph argues that the dismissals can be explained in terms of a generalized rejection of relations of interdependence and the context-dependent constraints that generate such mutualism. (shrink)

Mathematician. Philosopher. World traveler. Pythagoras was an intelligent and curious scholar and teacher. While he¿s best-known for the Pythagorean theorem, he shared ideas about numbers, animals, and many other areas of knowledge with his students. Since none of his writings were left behind, it¿s not always easy for historians to know what¿s true about Pythagoras and what may be legendary. What does seem apparent is that he was a vegetarian but not a trendy dresser. Some people saw him as godlike. (...) Others felt he made false claims about things. No matter what, Pythagoras¿s curiosity and willingness to grapple with complex issues have helped further the knowledge of mathematics and philosophy for thousands of years. (shrink)

La lectura de todo libro, de entrada, crea expectativas en el lector. Hay libros que consiguen despertar el interés a sabiendas de que han sido publicados gracias a la confluencia de diversos factores que prometen algo novedoso y de calidad. Este es el caso de la obra que nos ocupa, publicada por un Instituto que trabaja incansablemente por los Derechos Humanos, y que ha tenido a bien reconocer la obra y el compromiso humano de Raphael Lemkin, la persona que dio (...) su vida por dar nombre y luchar contra el infame delito del genocidio. A su vez, la edición corre a cargo de Donna–Lee Frieze, una profesora de la Universidad de Deakin, editora de la edición original en lengua inglesa de Totally Unoficial. The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin y del profesor de Derecho Internacional Público y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio de Madrid, impecable traductor y editor de esta obra en español Por su parte, el prólogo de esta Autobiografía ha salido de la pluma de un Académico de la RAE, Antonio Muñoz Molina y lleva por título: «El dueño de una sola palabra». (shrink)

In his highly influential book (The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, first published in 1958), Peter Winch introduces an alternative concept of interpretive social science, in which the focus is shifted from the actors’ subjective motives to the common elements found in every understandable action: language-games and rule-following. This Wittgensteinian, linguistic version of interpretive social science has had its vast array of critics throughout the years: according to some of them, it neglects the practical side (...) of sociology; while others claim that it fails properly to answer the questions raised by the translation from one language-game to another, or that it renders critical social theory impossible. In my article, I try to reflect critically upon these critiques themselves, showing that the Winchian theory does not overlook the practice in understanding the different forms of life; that with slight modifications it is able to cope with the problem of translation, and that it does not aspire to be the critical theory that many of its critics would like it to be. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn earlier work we showed that individuals learn the spatial regularities within contexts and use this knowledge to guide detection of threatening targets embedded in these contexts. While it is highly adaptive for humans to use contextual learning to detect threats, it is equally adaptive for individuals to flexibly readjust behaviour when contexts once associated with threatening stimuli begin to be associated with benign stimuli, and vice versa. Here, we presented face targets varying in salience in new or old spatial (...) configurations and changed the target salience halfway through the experiment to examine if contextual learning changes with the change in target salience. Detection of threatening targets was faster in old than new configurations and this learning persisted even after the target changed to non-threatening. However, the same pattern was not seen when the targets changed from non-threatening... (shrink)

La relación entre el inconsciente y la revolución ha sido ampliamente estudiada por Skott-Myhre (2014). Este autor defiende la idea del inconsciente como el espacio potencial para la revolución, ergo, la subjetividad neoliberal ha de ser desafiada al nivel del deseo inconsciente. La presente conferencia tiene como objetivo seguir la línea de argumentación esgrimida por Bethany Morris (2017) en la que se define al sujeto mujer como un sujeto que posee un surplus de inconsciente, elemento que determina a la mujer (...) como sujeto revolucionario. Partiendo de esta capacidad revolucionaria del sujeto mujer, esta conferencia defiende la idea de que la mujer no existe, sino que ex-siste desde fuera de la realidad, habitando así un espacio de vulnerabilidad y resistencia que le permite actuar como un sujeto revolucionario mediante la puesta en marcha del discurso de la histérica. A través de la traducción político-feminista de las ideas lacanianas de la posición sexual y del discurso de la histérica proponemos la introducción de una lectura heterodoxa del Real lacaniano como un espacio de habitancia política disruptiva. (shrink)

En este artículo, se analizan las desiguales condiciones de habitabilidad que ofrecen las viviendas en la gran región metropolitana de Ciudad de México, las cuales inciden en la forma como la población enfrenta el distanciamiento social impuesto por el Covid-19. En particular, se consideran tres procesos que caracterizan a estas zonas metropolitanas: una nueva arquitectura espacial, la amplificación de las desigualdades urbanas y los dos patrones de gobernanza local que coexisten conflictivamente. Estos procesos llevan a que amplios sectores populares vivan (...) en condiciones de precariedad habitacional y tengan muchas dificultades para cumplir con las principales medidas de protección frente al contagio del virus. (shrink)

The field of bioethics is calling for a new generation of scholars equipped with the normative, empirical, and practical knowledge and expertise to prioritize equity concerns largely underrepresent...