This article explores the position of women in the sport of surfing. I contend that within surfing there remain many forms of oppression that have not been given appropriate attention in feminist studies. In this article I apply Iris Marion Young's analysis from “Throwing Like a Girl” to the sport of surfing. Young's article offers many insights into forms of domination and oppression that pervade the sport, and that are demonstrated through the restricted movement of female surfers. I conclude by (...) making suggestions for how to address these issues in surfing through a greater promotion of big-wave surfing. (shrink)

This book explores the influences on the thought of Václav Havel and how Havel develops a unique political philosophy from these. This is informed from the phenomenological tradition. The book situates this philosophy among current debates in liberalism and agonism.

Volume 20, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 54-70.

This article makes a case for considering Václav Havel’s political theory of the nature of dissent as more politically grounded than that of his mentor Jan Patočka. Against the criticism of Havel, which describes him as a less rigorous repeater of Patočka's ideas, this paper demonstrates how Havel appropriated Patočka's idea that the dissident is, similarly to a World War I trench soldier, fighting in a contemporary front in a demobilized war. However I argue that in Havel's thought, the understanding (...) of dissent takes on a more practical and useful complexion than that of Patočka. This paper will explain and explore Havel’s concept of the power of the powerless, which is his key concept for defining the importance of dissidence, arguing that it is an idea that shares many similarities to Patočka's depiction of the power of dissent; however, the power of the powerless is a move past Patočka's thought in its attempt to make a practical liveable dissent. (shrink)

The paper explores the philosophical treatment of sacrifice in four of Jiří Menzel’s films of the 1960’s, Closely observed trains (Ostře sledované vlaky), Capricious summer (Rozmarné léto), Mr Balthazar’s death (Smrt pana Baltazara), his short film contribution to the anthology film of the New Wave, Pearls of the deep (Perličky na dně), and Larks on a string (Skřivánci na niti). The paper argues that Menzel problematizes romanticized versions of messianic sacrifice as they all too easily disregard the moral significance of (...) mundane relations. By analysing the treatment of sacrifice in each of these films, the paper makes a case for the significance of Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice for current philosophical debates. (shrink)

This paper explores the resurgence of anti-scientism in contemporary debates surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Data, and Generative AI, drawing parallels with 20th-century Czech philosophical critiques of scientism. The work of Czech intellectuals such as Tomáš G. Masaryk, Karel Čapek, Josef Šafařík, Jan Patočka, and Václav Havel is revisited to understand how their concerns about the dominance of scientific rationalism remain relevant today. The paper critiques both the blind faith in science as a comprehensive solution to complex human problems and (...) the reductive dismissal of science as a tool of control. It argues for a nuanced middle ground that recognizes the value of scientific inquiry while also emphasizing ethical, spiritual, and humanistic considerations. By engaging with these Czech perspectives, the paper proposes a framework for critically navigating the interplay between ethics, technology, and human values in the face of contemporary challenges such as pandemics, AI, and climate change. This approach challenges both scientific and anti-scientific extremism and advocates for a balanced discourse that integrates wonder, ethics, and critical inquiry. (shrink)

The article focuses on surfing to consider the attractiveness of using the sublime to describe experiences and emotions in nature sports. The sublime is shown to be a red herring in scholarship as it fails to account for many of the valuable experiences available to nature sports enthusiasts. The article draws on the work of Genevieve Lloyd to propose that wonder is a more suitable concept that gets to the heart not only of the terror and awe that nature can (...) inspire, but also to the orientation towards our finitude, difference, and the stimulation of growth and practical knowledge that nature sports also inspire (and that are not accounted for in the sublime). (shrink)

This book considers the unique perspective found in the sport of surfing for reconsidering questions in the philosophy of sport. Through the lens of surfing Brennan explores questions of ethics, aesthetics, gender equality, the nature of sport, Olympism, technology, and the good life.

The paper unpacks the nuanced ethical potential in the metaphor of gardening that is depicted in Karel Čapek’s The Gardener’s Year, and the relevance of Čapek’s metaphor for understanding Voltaire’s famously ambiguous ending to Candide. Against more pessimistic or passive accounts of what Candide could have meant, the paper agrees with scholars who consider Candide’s maxim as meaning to engage in active, and communal practise of character development. By using Čapek’s much fuller account of the gardener in the practice of (...) cultivation to fill in the gaps in Voltaire’s account, the paper shows that gardening is a rich metaphor of the virtuous person engaged in lifelong character cultivation. (shrink)

This paper examines the political significance of discursive activity in the private sphere in the thought of Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel, and Victor Klemperer. Against criticisms of Arendt which claim that she pays too much attention to the public sphere and consequently misses the importance of the private sphere in her analysis of political action, this paper highlights important insights in Arendt’s writing on family and friendship and the ability of these relationships to act as havens where discourse can thrive. (...) What emerges from the analysis is a rich agonistic discourse ethics. The paper employs the respective thought of Havel and Klemperer to highlight Arendt’s work on the political significance of private virtues for promoting an awareness of responsibility. This position is then defended against the criticisms of discourse ethics offered by Chantal Mouffe. (shrink)

The paper considers the legacy of Václav Havel in regard to civil disobedience and dissident action. The paper frames its analysis on the long-standing debate Havel undertook with the Czech author Milan Kundera. Ultimately the paper argues that the nuance to Havel’s optimism, as it emerges against Kundera’s more pessimistic position, regarding dissident action is a timely and important response with great value for contemporary global challenges.

This edited collection enriches scholarship on Arendt by considering her contributions to and reflections on the history of thought. The chapters bring Arendt into new conversations with her contemporaries, as well as examining the themes of Arendt's writing in light of her engagement with philosophical and literary history.

Book reviewed in this article: Just Doctoring: Medical Ethics in the Liberal State. By Troyen A. Brennan. The Ends of Human Life: Medical Ethics in a Liberal Polity. By Ezekiel J. Emanuel.

Pro-poor value chains intend to integrate smallholding farmers into high value markets to contribute to poverty alleviation and food security. Although income benefits of pro-poor value chains have been found, scant evidence exists regarding the potential for these markets to enhance food security. This study focuses on components of food access—dietary diversity, physical and financial access, and social acceptability—among households that participate in pro-poor value chains and non-participating households in the central highlands of Peru where development interventions have created high (...) value market niches for the native potato varieties that smallholding farmers have conserved for thousands of years. Using a mixed methods approach, this study assessed dietary diversity among households that participate and do not participate in pro-poor value chains, as well as their perceptions of their food access. Findings indicated that households that participate in value chains have higher dietary diversity than non-participating households but that these differences are likely due to pre-existing differences in socioeconomic status rather than any causal effect provided by value chains. The study also concluded that while participation in pro-poor value chains sometimes enhance the purchasing power of participating households, they may also weaken financial access, important for both purchasing food and travel to make those purchases. Community perspectives also indicated concerns with the acceptability of diets, which cannot likely be comprehensively addressed by pro-poor value chains. Collectively, the findings from this study cast doubt on the assumption that a linear flow exists between pro-poor value chains and enhanced food access. (shrink)

In this unique volume, some of today's most eminent political philosophers examine the thought of John Rawls, focusing in particular on his most recent work. These original essays explore diverse issues, including the problem of pluralism, the relationship between constitutive commitment and liberal institutions, just treatment of dissident minorities, the constitutional implications of liberalism, international relations, and the structure of international law. The first comprehensive study of Rawls's recent work, The Idea of Political Liberalism will be indispensable for political philosophers (...) and theorists interested in contemporary political thought. (shrink)

We identify three points of intersection between economics and ethics: the ethics of economics, ethics in economics and ethics out of economics. These points of intersection reveal three types of conversation between economists and moral philosophers that have produced, and may continue to produce, fruitful exchange between the disciplines.

The era of AI-based decision-making fast approaches, and anxiety is mounting about when, and why, we should keep “humans in the loop” (“HITL”). Thus far, commentary has focused primarily on two questions: whether, and when, keeping humans involved will improve the results of decision-making (making them safer or more accurate), and whether, and when, non-accuracy-related values—legitimacy, dignity, and so forth—are vindicated by the inclusion of humans in decision-making. Here, we take up a related but distinct question, which has eluded the (...) scholarship thus far: does it matter if humans appear to be in the loop of decision-making, independent from whether they actually are? In other words, what is stake in the disjunction between whether humans in fact have ultimate authority over decision-making versus whether humans merely seem, from the outside, to have such authority? Our argument proceeds in four parts. First, we build our formal model, enriching the HITL question to include not only whether humans are actually in the loop of decision-making, but also whether they appear to be so. Second, we describe situations in which the actuality and appearance of HITL align: those that seem to involve human judgment and actually do, and those that seem automated and actually are. Third, we explore instances of misalignment: situations in which systems that seem to involve human judgment actually do not, and situations in which systems that hold themselves out as automated actually rely on humans operating “behind the curtain.” Fourth, we examine the normative issues that result from HITL misalignment, arguing that it challenges individual decision-making about automated systems and complicates collective governance of automation. (shrink)

Throughout the 20th century, market capitalism was defended on parallel grounds. First, it promotes freedom by enabling individuals to exploit their own property and labor-power; second, it facilitates an efficient allocation and use of resources. Recently, however, both defenses have begun to unravel—as capitalism has moved into its “platform” phase. Today, the pursuit of allocative efficiency, bolstered by pervasive data surveillance, often undermines individual freedom rather than promoting it. And more fundamentally, the very idea that markets are necessary to achieve (...) allocative efficiency has come under strain. Even supposing, for argument’s sake, that the claim was true in the early 20th century when von Mises and Hayek pioneered it, advances in computing have rekindled the old “socialist calculation” debate. And this time around, markets—as information technology—are unlikely to have the upper hand. -/- All of this, we argue, raises an important set of governance questions regarding the political economy of the future. We focus on two: How much should our economic system prioritize freedom, and to what extent should it rely on markets? The arc of platform capitalism bends, increasingly, toward a system that neither prioritizes freedom nor relies on markets. And the dominant critical response, exemplified by Shoshana Zuboff’s work, has been to call for a restoration of market capitalism. Longer term, however, we believe it would be more productive to think about how “postmarket” economic arrangements might promote freedom—or better yet, autonomy—even more effectively than markets, and to determine the practical steps necessary to realize that possibility. (shrink)

In this study, we used a word search puzzle paradigm to investigate age differences in the rate of information gain and the cues used to make patch-departure decisions in information foraging. The likelihood of patch departure increased as the profitability of the patch decreased generally. Both younger and older adults persisted past the point of optimality as defined by the marginal value theorem, which assumes perfect knowledge of the foraging ecology. Nevertheless, there was evidence that adults were rational in terms (...) of being sensitive to the change in RG for making the patch-departure decisions. However, given the limitations in cognitive resources and knowledge about the ecology, the estimation of RG may not be accurate. Younger adults were more likely to leave the puzzle as the long-term RG incrementally decreased, whereas older adults were more likely to leave the puzzle as the local RG decreased. However, older adults with better executive control were more likely to adjust their likelihood of patch-departure decisions to the long-term change in RG. Thus, age-dependent reliance on the long-term or local change in RG to make patch-departure decisions might be due to individual differences in executive control. (shrink)

In this article I examine recent debates surrounding the publication of Daniel J. Goldhagen's controversial book Hitler's Willing Executioners. I do so against the `backdrop' of contention regarding the (historical) centrality of the Nazi Holocaust and the role played by Holocaust Studies - a burgeoning area of academic special interest, involving mainly historians, but also sociologists, theologians and philosophers. In particular I consider the charged disputation(s) which have flowed from Norman G. Finkelstein's critique of Hitler's Willing Executioners and ponder (...) what this tells us about the way in which (political) identity is configured in the post-Holocaust era. In so doing I examine the political investments at stake in these debates and challenge the degree to which academics working within this field have been able to transcend the ideological subject-positions in which they are embedded. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski reject expressive objections to markets on the grounds that market symbolism is culturally contingent, and contingent cultural symbols are less important than the benefits markets offer. I grant and, but I deny that these points suffice as grounds to dismiss expressive critiques of markets. For many plausible expressive critiques of markets are not symbolic critiques at all. Rather, they are critiques grounded in the idea that some market transactions embody morally inappropriate normative stances toward (...) the goods or services on offer. (shrink)

Ecology is composed of a remarkably diverse set of scientific disciplines. There are many different sub-fields in ecology—physiological, behavioral, evolutionary, population, community, ecosystem, and landscape ecology. Clearly, no summary will do them all justice. However, for the present context, ecology as a science can be divided into three basic areas—population, community, and ecosystem ecology. This entry will introduce some of the fundamental philosophical issues raised by these three disciplines. The first order of business is to ask what is the science (...) of ecology, and more importantly, what is it not (see Brennan 1988). Sometimes the term ‘ecology’ is treated as synonymous or coextensive with three different concepts or sets of concepts: • The science of ecology: the study of organisms and groups of them and their relation to their environment. (shrink)

Daniel Brennan brings his research in political philosophy and his surfing experience together in this excellent and engaging contribution to philosophy of surfing and surf studies. In the course o...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants Edited by David Hollenbach, SJ, and: Kinship across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration by Kristen HeyerRené M. Micallef SJDriven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants EDITED BY DAVID HOLLENBACH, SJ Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010. 296 pp. $20.46Kinship across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration KRISTEN HEYER Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 210 pp. (...) $29.23Although based on a conference held at Boston College in November 2008, Driven from Home is no less timely today, given the context of current debates on immigration in the United States, the European Union, Australia, and the Middle East. David Hollenbach’s introduction explains how the book brings together Christian (mostly Catholic) theologians, human rights activists, humanitarian practitioners, and legal scholars to help us focus on a class of persons referred to as “forced migrants” or “persons needing protection.” These individuals are neither classical “convention refugees” (according to international law definitions) nor are they simply “migrant workers” (in the classical sense) since their basic human rights to security and subsistence cannot [End Page 230] be adequately guaranteed in their home country or region. They do not emigrate merely in search of a higher standard of living; rather, forced migrants enter and settle in foreign lands seeking some sort of “protection” similar to that afforded to “conventional” refugees. More concretely, the book focuses on persons on the move—individuals fleeing violence and the extreme poverty rampant in regions devastated by ecological degradation and natural disasters.Extending the logic of the 1952 Refugee Convention and adapting it to the realities of today, one can argue convincingly that the international community has a duty to protect such persons when their states of origin are structurally unable or unwilling to afford protection (as argued in Susan Martin’s essay). However, paternalistic approaches that diminish rather than augment the agency of local governments and migrants are to be avoided (as maintained in M. Brinton Lykes’ essay). The book helps us reflect on what can be done to guarantee the basic rights of forced migrants not only at the level of international law and institutions but also through domestic and regional policymaking spurred and inspired by both Christian and secular global-humanitarian values. Such values are eminently compatible when applied to this particular issue (see Silvano Tomasi’s contribution). Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator’s essay—which offers insightful reflections (albeit rather general ones) from Christian ethics, ecclesiology, and biblical theology—likewise points to the need for a truly interdisciplinary approach to the issue. The other authors help the book achieve precisely this. Theological ethics finds its own distinctive place and voice in dialogue with a range of perspectives: legal and political sciences and case studies (Frank Brennan, Daniel Kanstroom); philosophical approaches (Arash Abizadeh); and sociological research on particular migrant populations (M. Brinton Lykes, Maryanne Loughry). The book includes essays that integrate case studies, technical reflections, useful summaries of theological principles and doctrines (J. Bryan Hehir, Mary M. DeLorey, and Tomasi), and philosophical stances (Abizadeh, Thomas G. Weiss), and present practical and legal proposals (see Martin’s essay). A stimulating read for scholars and for the general public, the volume provides good training material for faith-based activists and practitioners.The argumentation strategy in many of the essays in Driven from Home is to appeal to the reader’s sense of solidarity with the needy or suffering neighbor. It promotes the virtues of hospitable citizenship and hospitable disciple-ship while carefully trying to convince national and international policymakers to reinforce and expand the international protection regime. Emboldened by the 2005 “Responsibility to Protect” breakthrough at the United Nations, the authors seek to remain acceptable to a wide audience in an atmosphere of resurgent nationalism, nativism, and protectionism. The authors generally avoid harsh critiques of Westphalian models of sovereignty and do not dwell [End Page 231] on the Catholic doctrines of the universal destination of created goods and the (circumscribed) right to immigrate (and not only to emigrate). Rather, they seek to introduce a new protection niche without fundamentally challenging the prevailing ideology of sovereignty, gently proposing new legal instruments as though they... (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...) present in MSIs—procedural, inclusiveness, epistemic, and ultimate-goal—and argue that embracing contestation and engaging in ongoing revision of provisional agreements, criteria, and goals can enhance the democratic quality of MSIs. Finally, we explore the implications of this perspective for theorizing about the democratic quality in MSIs and about the role of corporations in transnational governance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A trivalent theory of indicative conditionals automatically enforces Stalnaker's thesis – the equation between probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities. This result holds because the trivalent semantics requires, for principled reasons, a modification of the ratio definition of conditional probability in order to accommodate the possibility of undefinedness. I explain how this modification is motivated and how it allows the trivalent semantics to avoid a number of well-known triviality results, in the process clarifying why these results hold for many (...) bivalent theories. In short, the slew of triviality results published in the last 40-odd years need not be viewed as an argument against Stalnaker's thesis: it can be construed instead as an argument for abandoning the bivalent requirement that indicative conditionals somehow be assigned a truth-value in worlds in which their antecedents are false. (shrink)

The notion of ‘revealed preference’ is unclear and should be abandoned. Defenders of the theory of revealed preference have misinterpreted legitimate concerns about the testability of economics as the demand that economists eschew reference to (unobservable) subjective states. As attempts to apply revealed-preference theory to game theory illustrate with particular vividness, this demand is mistaken.

On a Dreyfusian account performers choke when they reflect upon and interfere with established routines of purely embodied expertise. This basic explanation of choking remains popular even today and apparently enjoys empirical support. Its driving insight can be understood through the lens of diverse philosophical visions of the embodied basis of expertise. These range from accounts of embodied cognition that are ultra conservative with respect to representational theories of cognition to those that are more radically embodied. This paper provides an (...) account of the acquisition of embodied expertise, and explanation of the choking effect, from the most radically enactive, embodied perspective, spelling out some of its practical implications and addressing some possible philosophical challenges. Specifically, we propose: an explanation of how skills can be acquired on the basis of ecological dynamics; and a non-linear pedagogy that takes into account how contentful representations might scaffold skill acquisition from a radically enactive perspective. (shrink)

This book is a study of the role of intellect in human action as described by Thomas Aquinas. One of its primary aims is to compare the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas with the lines of interpretation offered in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. The book seeks to clarify the problems involved in the appropriation of Aristotle's theory by a Christian theologian, including such topics as the practical syllogism and the problems of akrasia. Westberg argues that Aquinas was much closer to Aristotle (...) than is often recognized, and he puts forward important new interpretations of the relation of intellect and will in the stages of intention, deliberation, decision, and execution. In the concluding section of the book, he shows how this new interpretation yields fruitful insights on a range of theological topics, including sin, law, love, and the moral virtues. (shrink)

Jeffrey (1983) proposed a generalization of conditioning as a means of updating probability distributions when new evidence drives no event to certainty. His rule requires the stability of certain conditional probabilities through time. We tested this assumption (“invariance”) from the psychological point of view. In Experiment 1 participants offered probability estimates for events in Jeffrey’s candlelight example. Two further scenarios were investigated in Experiment 2, one in which invariance seems justified, the other in which it does not. Results were in (...) rough conformity to Jeffrey (1983)’s principle. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill regards economics as an inexact and separate science which employs a deductive method. This paper analyzes and restates Mill's views and considers whether they help one to understand philosophical peculiarities of contemporary microeconomic theory. The author concludes that it is philosophically enlightening to interpret microeconomics as an inexact and separate science, but that Mill's notion of a deductive method has only a little to contribute.

commentary on Fodor, “Against Darwinism.”.

During the early nineteenth century the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, significantly increased the number of individuals it employed. One of the new roles created was the position of First Assistant, who oversaw the management of astronomical labor at the observatory. This article examines the contribution of Robert Main, who was the first person employed in this role. It shows that, through Robert Main’s duties and tasks, the observatory appears as a hybrid site embodying aspects of the other institutions that formed part (...) of its operational network. Moreover, it demonstrates that the transformation of the observatory during the nineteenth century was driven by his rigorous maintenance of discipline in relation to the daily operations of the site. (shrink)

This article examines methodological individualism in terms of the theory that invariance under intervention is the signal feature of generalizations that serve as a basis for causal explanation. This theory supports the holist contention that macro-level generalizations can explain, but it also suggests a defense of methodological individualism on the grounds that greater range of invariance under intervention entails deeper explanation. Although this individualist position is not threatened by multiple-realizability, an argument for it based on rational choice theory is called (...) into question by experimental results concerning preference reversals. Key Words: methodological individualism • mechanisms • explanation • invariance • preference reversal. (shrink)

In their development of causal decision theory, Allan Gibbard and William Harper advocate a particular method for calculating the expected utility of an action, a method based upon the probabilities of certain counterfactuals. Gibbard and Harper then employ their method to support a two-box solution to Newcomb’s paradox. This paper argues against some of Gibbard and Harper’s key claims concerning the truth-values and probabilities of counterfactuals involved in expected utility calculations, thereby disputing their analysis of Newcomb’s Paradox. If we are (...) right, then Gibbard and Harper’s method of calculating expected utility does not adequately represent rational choice. (shrink)