Neglect of the moral promise of disorientation is a persistent gap in even the most sophisticated philosophies of embodiment. In this article, I begin to correct this neglect by expanding our sense of the range and nature of disoriented experience and proposing new visions of disorientation as benefiting moral agency. Disorientations are experienced through complex interactions of corporeal, affective, and cognitive processes, and are characterized by feelings of shock, surprise, unease, and discomfort; felt disorientations almost always make us unsure of (...) how to go on. I argue that experiences of disorientation can strengthen the moral agency of individuals. I begin by clarifying experiences of felt ease and orientation. I then characterize disoriented embodiment by investigating select experiences that often involve or accompany disorientation, focusing throughout on how disorientation prompts changes in motivation and action. I conclude by charting how disoriented embodiments can help individuals become better moral agents overall, in part by challenging norms that restrict embodiment and undermining dualistic conceptions of the self. (shrink)

This chapter argues that some disorientations prompt individuals to gain new awareness in politically and morally important ways, even when they do not prompt capacities for decisive moral judgment or confidence. It investigates disorientations of experiencing racism, white privilege, consciousness-raising, and critical education, drawing on first-person, philosophical, and empirical accounts of double consciousness, white anti-racism, moral shock, double ontological shock, gaslighting, outlaw emotions, and feminist pedagogy. It demonstrates how, in some cases, these disorientations generate awareness of contingent oppressive norms and (...) of political complexity, and it then argues for the moral and political significance of such awareness. Even as it does not help individuals resolve how to act, such awareness can generate epistemic humility, allow individuals to relate differently to their histories and communities of origin, and clarify the necessity of collaborative rather than individual action. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

This paper draws on findings from qualitative interviews with queer and trans patients and with physicians providing care to queer and trans patients in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to explore how routine practices of health care can perpetuate or challenge the marginalization of queers. One of the most common “measures” of improved cultural competence in health care practice is self-reported increases in confidence and comfort, though it seems unlikely that an increase in physician comfort levels with queer and trans patients (...) will necessarily mean better health care for queers. More attention to current felt discomfort in patient–provider encounters is required. Policies and practices that avoid discomfort at all costs are not always helpful for care, and experiences of shared discomfort in queer health contexts are not always harmful. (shrink)

Against the background of the exclusion of many feminist methodologies from mainstream philosophy, and in light of the methodological challenges of providing accounts of experience responsive to the lives of agents, in this paper I return to early feminist philosophers of emotion to highlight how they anticipate and respond to methodological criticisms. Sue Campbell (1956–2011) was one philosopher who used methodological quandaries to strengthen her account of the formation and expression of feelings (Campbell ). By rereading selected texts together intentionally (...) for their structural and methodological strategies, I emphasize the power of formal characteristics to make insightful claims about experience possible. I consider how feminist philosophers of “experienced agency” can put these strategies to use in facing ongoing methodological criticisms, taking as a case study an account of how it can feel to act responsibly against injustice. (shrink)

As a text in use by mental health practitioners, policy makers, and ordinary individuals, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) categorizes a variety of mental, psychological, and emotional experiences on a wide spectrum of disorders. Many common experiences are described there as symptoms, chiefly for the purposes of identifying, diagnosing, and treating disorders. “Disorientations” are not (yet) categorized as a stand-alone disorder in the DSM, but involve a cluster of experiences that border on and overlap with experiences (...) already categorized as symptoms of other disorders. Where experiences of disorientation appear in the DSM, they are, for the most part, still understood as.. (shrink)

A listing is given of the published writings of the logician and philosopher Hao Wang (1921—1995), which includes all items known to the authors, including writings in Chinese and translations into other languages.

RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, je m’intéresse à l’éthique de l’agentivité sexuelle courante. Il s’agit, plus particulièrement, des questions morales concernant quand, comment et pourquoi nous nous identifions à un type donné d’agent sexuel. Comme l’auto-identification met en jeux une combinaison complexe de processus individuels et sociaux, un cadre conceptuel qui rend justice à ces processus permettrait une analyse de l’éthique de l’auto-identification sexuelle. Je présente le concept de l’authenticité sexuelle comme étant utile dans les contextes où elle comporte deux aspects (...) principaux : l’adoption d’une identité sexuelle qui nous est propre et l’explication que nous en donnons à et avec d’autres personnes. (shrink)

Accounts of human beings as essentially social have had a long history in philosophy as reflected in the Ancient Greeks; in African and Asian philosophy; in Modern European thinkers such as Mary Wo...

Many contexts of injustice demand resolute action—action that is purposeful, decisive, confident, and unwavering—but this chapter argues that in some contexts of injustice, irresolute actions can be called for. The chapter begins by identifying what characterizes irresolute action in such contexts. It then introduces three kinds of irresolute action against injustice and defends their effectiveness in some contexts of injustice and activism, taking as examples contexts of heterosexism, mass incarceration, North American colonialism, and post-industrial poverty. It differentiates such contexts from (...) other cases of structural injustice, oppression and moral dilemmas where one can fulfill one’s responsibilities resolutely. Finally, it argues that we need to understand the importance of irresolute action against injustice in order to further understand the position of disorientation in moral life. (shrink)

In the last decade, the organization of pharmaceutical research on neglected tropical diseases has undergone transformative change. In a context of perceived “market failure,” the development of new medicines is increasingly handled by public-private partnerships. This shift toward hybrid organizational models depends on a particular form of exchange: the sharing of proprietary assets in general and of intellectual property rights in particular. This article explores the paradoxical role of private property in this new configuration of global health research and development. (...) Rather than a tool to block potential competitors, proprietary assets function as a lever to attract others into risky collaborative ventures; instead of demarcating public and private domains, the sharing of property rights is used to increase the porosity of that boundary. This reimagination of the value of property is connected to the peculiar timescape of global health drug development, a promissory orientation to the future that takes its clearest form in the centrality of “virtual” business models and the proliferation of strategies of deferral. Drawing on the anthropological literature on inalienable possessions, we reconsider property’s traditional exclusionary role and discuss the possibility that the new pharmaceutical “commons” proclaimed by contemporary global health partnerships might be the precursor of future enclosures. (shrink)

Rationality and Logic J. Kekes i It is a basic assumption of the Western intellectual and moral tradition that rationality is a central value. ...

The Subject of Violence is a critical investigation of violence and its subjectifying capacities. It both relies on and explores the work of Hannah Arendt.

We theorize that social media will reduce the incidence of corporate greenwash. Drawing on the management literature on decoupling and the economic literature on information disclosure, we characterize specifically where this effect is likely to be most pronounced. We identify important differences between social media and traditional media, and present a theoretical framework for understanding greenwash in which corporate environmental communications may backfire if citizens and activists feel a company is engaging in excessive self-promotion. The framework allows us to draw (...) out a series of propositions regarding the impact of social media on corporate decisions whether to greenwash, and what channels to use for environmental communication. We conclude with a number of suggestions for future research. (shrink)

A violation of procedure invariance in preference measurement is that the predominant or prominent attribute looms larger in choice than in a matching task. In Experiment 1, this so-called prominence effect was demonstrated for choices between pairs of options, choices to accept single options, and preference ratings of single options. That is, in all these response modes the prominent attribute loomed larger than in matching. The results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which subjects chose between or rated their preference (...) for pairs of options which were matched to be equally attractive either in the same session or 1 week earlier. On the basis of these and previous results, it is argued that the prominence effect is a reliable phenomenon. However, none of several cognitive explanations which have been offered appears to be completely viable. (shrink)

Rajabʻalī Tabrīzī, -1669 or 1670 -- Philosophical thoughts -- Islamic philosophy - Iran.

When a prominent attribute looms larger in one response procedure than in another, a violation of procedure invariance occurs. A hypothesis based on compatibility between the structure of the input information and the required output was tested as an explanation of this phenomenon. It was also compared with other existing hypotheses in the field. The study had two aims: (1) to illustrate the prominence effect in a selection of preference tasks (choice, acceptance decisions, and preference ratings); (2) to demonstrate the (...) processing differences in a matching procedure versus the selected preference tasks. Hence, verbal protocols were collected in both a matching task and in subsequent preference tasks. Silent control conditions were also employed. The structure compatibility hypothesis was confirmed in that a prominence effect obtained in the preference tasks was accompanied by a lower degree of attention to the attribute levels in these tasks. Furthermore, as predicted from the structure compatibility hypothesis, it was found that fewer comparisons between attribute levels were performed in the preference tasks than in the matching task. It was therefore concluded that both these processing differences may explain the occurrence of the prominence effects. (shrink)

Bioethics can be considered as a topic, an academic discipline, a field of study, an enterprise in persuasion. The historical specificity of the forms bioethics takes is significant, and raises questions about some of these approaches. Bioethics can also be considered as a governance practice, with distinctive institutions and structures. The forms this practice takes are also to a degree country specific, as the paper illustrates by drawing on the author’s UK experience. However, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics can (...) provide a starting point for comparisons provided that this does not exclude sensitivity to the socio-political context. Bioethics governance practices are explained by various legitimating narratives. These include response to scandal, the need to restrain irresponsible science, the accommodation of pluralist views, and the resistance to the relativist idea that all opinions count equally in bioethics. Each approach raises interesting questions and shows that bioethics should be studied as a governance practice as a complement to other approaches. (shrink)

The United Kingdom has many bodies that play their part in carrying out the work of national ethics committees, but its nearest equivalent of a U.S. presidential bioethics commission is the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, established in 1991. The Council is charged with examining ethical questions raised by developments in biological and medical research, publishing reports, and making representations to appropriate bodies in order to respond to or anticipate public concern. It is a nongovernment organization with no defined or guaranteed (...) channels of influence. It has no authority merely by virtue of the position it holds. Rather, it has established relational authority based on its reputation. Unlike the U.S. bioethics commission, it is not part of executive government, nor is it constituted to contribute to the legislative branch, as does the French Comité Consultatif National d'Ethique. Its nongovernmental status notwithstanding, the Nuffield Council's work affects the U.K. government and the British public, and the Council has achieved international recognition for its reports. I was the chairperson from 2012 to 2017 and draw on my experience in this piece to consider three key audiences: governments, publics, and the international community. (shrink)