This article studies the eugenic theories of Marathi sexological writer and novelist Narayan Sitaram Phadke, and his attempts to domesticate the modern ideal of the adult romantic couple as a yardstick of ‘emotional democracy’ in late colonial India. Locating Phadke's work against the backdrop of the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929) and its eugenicist concerns, I argue that he conceptualized romantic love as an emotion and a form of sociability central to the state's biopolitical schemes of ensuring modern coupledom but (...) as exceeding the state's capacity to rationally order Indian sex life. Consequently, he crafted literary supplements like the bildungsroman to circulate ‘English’ idioms of emotional and corporeal intimacy in Marathi; his novels domesticated eugenic sexology for its ‘vernacular’ audiences by advocating caste-bound romantic love as the blueprint for Indian marital coupling. As exemplified by Phadke's work, an emerging Marathi discourse of love demarcated a space for the young couple to operate as a vehicle of interpersonal openness within the constraints of the upper-caste joint family. By outlining the parameters of this Brahmanical aesthetic discourse, I show that the couple became the locus of a self-styled ‘democratic’ form of emotional attachment aimed at developing a necessary dynamism within endogamous caste-based marital arrangements without radically transforming them. The science performed through the Marathi novel in the 1920s and 1930s consequently explains the increasing prominence of romantic love as a form of developmental ‘democratic’ discourse at a time when both romantic love and democracy-in-practice were widely experienced as absent from Indian society. (shrink)

Domenico Tubito, La multiforme grazia di Dio: Attualità della sintesi tommasiana nella Summa Theologiae, Napoli, Editrice Domenicana Italiana, 2013, 288 pp.

Study based on Wahrheit und Methode of Hans Georg Gadamer and its criticism Erkenntnis und Interesse by Jürgen Habermas.

Cellular identity and its response to external or internal signalling variations are encoded in a cell's genome as regulatory information. The genomic regions that specify this type of information are highly variable and degenerated in their sequence determinants, as it is becoming increasingly evident through the application of genome‐scale methods to study gene expression. Here, we speculate that the same scenario applies to the regulatory regions controlling where DNA replication starts in the metazoan genome. We propose that replication origins cannot (...) be defined as unique genomic features, but rather that DNA synthesis initiates opportunistically from accessible DNA sites, making cells highly robust and adaptable to environmental or developmental changes. (shrink)

BackgroundWomen survivors of breast cancer treatments face significant challenges around initiation or maintenance of physical activity as they transit to recovery. Embracing their needs and preferences is important to increase adherence. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of Portuguese women survivors of breast cancer regarding regular performance of PA and individual choices and strategies that should be considered in designing effective interventions.MethodsThe individual semi-structured interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis, following an inductive process, seeking to identify the barriers, facilitators, (...) and particular influencing circumstances associated with regular PA.ResultsFour themes and several contextual, emotional, physical, and social factors were identified as determinants of regular PA. Guilt, women’s duties, and altruism to help close relatives were identified as emotional and cultural factors that are less-found in the existing literature. PA showed influence both from health professionals’ counseling and from knowledge and beliefs held by these women.ConclusionWhile confirming the already-known impact of breast cancer diagnosis and treatments on PA, which redefine participants’ availability to be active, the findings highlight beliefs and specific emotional factors that should be considered when planning culturally sensitive interventions. (shrink)

Introduction: Ethical conflict is a phenomenon that has been under study over the last three decades, especially the types moral dilemma and moral distress in the field of nursing care. However, ethical problems and their idiosyncrasies need to be further explored. Aim: The objectives of this study were, first, to obtain a transcultural Portuguese-language adaptation and validation of the Ethical Conflict Nursing Questionnaire–Critical Care Version and, second, to analyse Portuguese critical care nurses’ level of exposure to ethical conflict and its (...) characteristics. Methods: A cross-cultural validation and descriptive, prospective and correlational study. The sample was made for 184 critical care nurses in 2016. Ethical Considerations: The study was authorised by Bioethics Commission of the University of Barcelona, the Associaçâo de Apoio ao Serviço de Cuidados Intensivos do Centro Hospitalar do Porto and the Sociedade Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental. Findings: The Portuguese version of the Ethical Conflict Nursing Questionnaire–Critical Care Version was a valid and reliable instrument to measure exposure to conflict. Moral outrage was the most common type of conflict. The most problematic situations were the ineffectiveness of analgesic treatments, the administration of treatments considered futile and the mismanagement of resources. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the acceptability of downsizing and restructuring measures during a recession. Two hundred and seven participants with various levels of training in economics were presented with a number of realistic scenarios depicting various measures, and were asked to indicate the extent to which they considered them to be acceptable. The scenarios were created by varying three factors likely to have an impact on people’s views: the magnitude of (...) a company’s reduction in net sales, the magnitude of planned downsizing, and the way in which downsizing would be implemented, either through layoffs, job alliances or both. Six qualitatively different personal positions were found. Four of these following positions were expected: never acceptable, mainly depends on the magnitude of downsizing, mainly acceptable and job alliance. Two unexpected positions were also observed: drastic measures and undetermined. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have (...) an impact on people’s views: the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, the global economic context in which the company has performed, the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate or not very legitimate. People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either never legitimate, or legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed. (shrink)

BackgroundThe positive component of Mental Health Literacy refers to a person’s awareness of how to achieve and maintain good mental health. Although explored recently, the term still lacks a clear definition among healthcare practitioners.AimTo identify the attributes and characteristics of PMeHL, as well as its theoretical and practical applications.MethodsLiterature search and review, covering the last 21 years, followed by concept analysis according to the steps described by Walker and Avant approach.ResultsPositive component of Mental Health Literacy is considered one component of (...) MHL, integrating positive mental health. The concept’s attributes include: competence in problem-solving and self-actualization; personal satisfaction; autonomy; relatedness and interpersonal relationship skills; self-control; and prosocial attitude. Four case scenarios were used to clarify the antecedents and consequences of PMeHL.ConclusionPositive component of Mental Health Literacy is considered a component of MHL, which deserves attention throughout the lifespan, in different contexts and intervention levels. Considering PMeHL as a multi-faceted and dynamic construct will help understand the mechanisms that improve mental health and promote healthy behaviors. Priority should be given to robust primary research focused on nursing interventions that enhance and sustain PMeHL in people and families. (shrink)

Constructivism in ethics is the view that insofar as there are normative truths, for example, truths about what we ought to do, they are in some sense determined by an idealized process of rational deliberation, choice, or agreement. As a “first-order moral account”--an account of which moral principles are correct-- constructivism is the view that the moral principles we ought to accept or follow are the ones that agents would agree to or endorse were they to engage in a hypothetical (...) or idealized process of rational deliberation. As a “metaethical account” – an account of whether there are any normative truths and, if so, what they are like – constructivism holds that there are normative truths. These truths are not fixed by facts that are independent of the practical standpoint, however characterized; rather, they are constituted by what agents would agree to under some specified conditions of choice. In working to provide a more precise definition of constructivism in metaethics, the focus of this entry, one faces two main difficulties. The first difficulty is that constructivism comes in several varieties, each of which claims a different niche within metaethics, and some claim no space at all. The second difficulty concerns where to place constructivism on the metaethical map in relation to realism and anti-realism. These are terms of art, and it is highly contested which views count as realist and which as antirealist. These two difficulties will be addressed in what follows by focusing on the distinctive questions that constructivist theories are designed to answer. Section §1 defines the scope of constructivism in ethics, in contrast to constructivism in political theory. Sections §§2-5 illustrate the main varieties of metaethical constructivism, which are designed to account for the nature of normative truths and practical reasons. Section §6 presents the main varieties of constructivist accounts of the justification of moral judgments of right and wrong. Section §7 discusses the metaethical status of constructivism, and its distinctive import. (shrink)

I investigate the reciprocal relationship between social accounts of knowledge production and efforts to increase the representation of women and some minorities in the academy. In particular, I consider the extent to which feminist social epistemologies such as Helen Longino’s critical contextual empiricism can be employed to argue that it is in researchers’ epistemic interests to take active steps to increase gender diversity. As it stands, critical contextual empiricism does not provide enough resources to succeed at this task. However, considering (...) this view through an employment equity lens highlights areas where such theories need to be further developed. I argue that views such as Longino’s ought to attend to nuances of community structure and cultural features that inhibit critical social interactions, if we are to maximize the epistemic as well as the ethical improvements associated with a social approach to knowing. These developments advance these epistemic theories for their own sake. They also help develop these theories into a tool that can be used by those calling for increased diversity in the academy. (shrink)

Neoliberal ideology and exclusionary policies based on racialized identities characterize the current contexts in North America and Western Europe. Nursing knowledge cannot be abstracted from social, political and historical contexts; the task of examining the influence of race and racial ideologies on disciplinary knowledge and inquiry therefore remains an important task. Contemporary analyses of the role and responsibility of the discipline in addressing race‐based health and social inequities as a focus of nursing inquiry remain underdeveloped. In this article, we examine (...) nursing's engagement with ideas about race and racism and explore the ways in which nursing knowledge and inquiry have been influenced by race‐based ideological discourses. Drawing on Henry and Tator's framework ofdemocratic racism, we consider how strategic discursive responses—the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, colour‐blindness, political correctness and denial—have been deployed within nursing knowledge and inquiry to reinforce the belief in an essentially fair and just society while avoiding the need to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies. Greater theoretical, conceptual and methodological clarity regarding race, racialization and related concepts in nursing inquiry is needed to address health and social inequities. (shrink)

It is largely agreed that if constructivism contributes anything to meta-ethics it is by proposing that we understand ethical objectivity “in terms of a suitably constructed point of view that all can accept” (Rawls 1980/1999: 307). Constructivists defend this “practical” conception of objectivity in contrast to the realist or “ontological” conception of objectivity, understood as an accurate representation of an independent metaphysical order. Because of their objectivist but not realist commitments, Kantian constructivists place their theory “somewhere in the space between (...) realist and relativist accounts of ethics” (O’Neill 1988: 1). Furthermore, they argue that their practical conception of objectivity succeeds in making sense of certain features of morality, such as its categorical authority and its relation to rational agency, which escape rival theories (Korsgaard 1996b, Korsgaard 2003b). To this extent, constructivism claims a privileged place in meta-ethics. The legitimacy of this claim is widely challenged. Precisely because of its practical conception of objectivity, many – including some constructivists — regard constructivism as a first-order normative theory, rather than as a meta-ethical position, hence not on a par with realism. Some critics object that constructivism fails to offer a distinct meta-ethics because it is structurally incomplete and thus must be combined with a fully-fledged meta-ethics (Hussain and Shah 2006); others argue that it tacitly relies on realism (Timmons 2003; Shafer-Landau 2003; Larmore 2008). Thus far, the debate about the prospects of constructivism as a meta-ethical theory has been driven by the conviction that the case for or against constructivism depends on its ontological commitments. In this chapter, I propose a change in perspective. My aim is to defend constructivism as an objectivist account of practical knowledge. Its defining feature is the claim that practical knowledge is knowledge by principles. Its task is to establish a constitutive relation between knowledge of oneself as a practical subject and knowledge about what one ought to do. By focusing on the issue of practical knowledge I hope to show that the difficulty in situating Kantian constructivism firmly on the meta-ethical map, along with other meta-ethical theories, reflects ambiguities and oscillations about the practical significance of ethics. Even though the term is ambiguous, I retain the qualification “Kantian” for the constructivist theory I outline, and for two reasons. First, while the theory I outline differs from current agnostic or anti-realist variants, it is closer to its origins, since Kant treats practical reason as a cognitive capacity and takes moral judgments to be objective moral cognitions, which importantly differ from other sorts of rational cognitions because they bind us in the first person. Practical cognitions are common knowledge because they are such that all subjects endowed with rationality can arrive at them by reasoning and find them authoritative. Thus understood, Kantian constructivism carves a distinct logical space in the meta-ethical debate that other sorts of constructivism fail to identify. This is the second reason for keeping the qualification “Kantian”. On this formulation, constructivism is antagonistic to non-cognitivist theories denying that moral judgments have cognitive contents, because they deny that there is something to be known; but it is also a rival to cognitivist theories denying that knowledge can be practical in itself. How constructivism differs over the realist theories of practical reason is the least understood aspect of this debate. This essay aims to make the case that practical reason is both discursive and emotional. In contrast to foundational and anti-realist accounts of practical reasoning, it attempts to show that the moral feeling of respect plays a cognitive but non-evidential role in the account of the cognitive and practical powers of reason. The argument proceeds as follows. In section 1, I consider some prominent constructivist arguments against the model of applied knowledge and show that they are driven by non-cognitivist assumptions about the practicality of ethics and the legitimacy of epistemological claims. In section 2, I argue that these arguments do not succeed in disposing of the idea of practical knowledge as incoherent, because they trade on an ambiguity regarding the proper object of practical knowledge. To solve this ambiguity, I turn to Anscombe’s contrast between “practical” and “speculative” knowledge as models for understanding action. I thus suggest that Anscombe’s account of practical knowledge as knowledge of oneself as an agent is an important resource for Kantian constructivism. This finding prompts us to reset the current dispute about the ontological and epistemological commitments of Kantian constructivism, as illustrated in section 3. While constructivism does not postulate any moral ontology prior to reasoning, it attributes to reasoning the cognitive powers to establish a distinctive relation between the agent and her action. The task of sections 4-7 is to account for the distinctive features of Kantian constructivism understood as an objectivist account of practical knowledge. In section 4, I argue that in order for reasoning to accomplish its normative tasks, it should be conceived as a self-legislating activity. I respond to some objections to the idea of self-legislation as the form of rational willing by offering a dialogical view of practical reason. In section 5, I propose a non-standard interpretation of Kant’s argument of “the fact of reason” to show that the constructivist account of self-legislation does not build on realism about value, as its detractors claim. The “basis of construction” is the subjective experience of respect for the self-legislative capacity itself. This moral feeling conveys our awareness of rational agency and shows our responsiveness to the demands of practical reason. It is an emotional mode of practical knowledge of oneself as an agent (in the sense specified in section 2), but not as a mode of moral discernment. In section 6, I show how practical knowledge of oneself as an agent relates to practical knowledge about what one ought to do. I thus account for the relation between respect as emotional moral consciousness and respect as a deliberative constraint. Finally, in section 7, I reply to the objection of subjectivism. I explain how the complex sort of objectivity that Kantian constructivism affords is at the same time more ambitious and more modest than is generally assumed. (shrink)

In this paper, I characterize a new kind of testimonial injustice, a phenomenon I call ‘testimonial void’, which involves a substantial extension of the limits of the original concept put...

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 646-663, September 2021.

On Kant's view, the feeling of respect is the mark of moral agency, and is peculiar to us, animals endowed with reason. Unlike any other feeling, respect originates in the contemplation of the moral law, that is, the idea of lawful activity. This idea works as a constraint on our deliberation by discounting the pretenses of our natural desires and demoting our selfish maxims. We experience its workings in the guise of respect. Respect shows that from the agent's subjective perspective, (...) morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated, but also of being free and emancipated from inclinations. (shrink)

The concept of testimonial injustice (TI) has been expanded considerably since Fricker's groundbreaking original formulation. Testimonial void (TV), as well as other kinds of TI identified in the last decade, encourage the idea that the virtue of testimonial justice (TJ) is not the appropriate remedy to battle against injustice in our testimonial exchanges. This paper contributes to the existing literature on the limitations of TJ as the remedy for TI by drawing attention to its shortcomings in the context of other (...) kinds of TI. By contrast, I propose further engaging epistemically with the other (EE) as a corrective to injustice in our testimonial exchanges. I understand EE as a practice in which information regarding epistemic injustice, strategies to fight it and skills training play the leading roles. If the problem lies in lack of appropriate epistemic interaction between knowers, we need to train ourselves to do what we fail to do. Given that we are in the domain of testimony, EE essentially amounts to engaging further with the other in conversation. In the process, EE sheds light on the need for second-order change to fight TI, as enacting EE would require the transformation of our concepts of testimony and credibility. (shrink)

People with mental illness are subjected to stigma and discrimination and constantly face restrictions in the exercise of their political, civil and social rights. Considering this scenario, mental health, ethics and human rights are key approaches to advance the well-being of persons with mental illnesses. The study was conducted to review the scope of the empirical literature available to answer the research question: What evidence is available regarding human rights and ethical issues regarding nursing care to persons with mental illnesses? (...) A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O’Malley was used. Studies were identified by conducting electronic searches on CINAHL, PubMed, SCOPUS and Hein databases. Of 312 citations, 26 articles matched the inclusion criteria. The central theme which emerged from the literature was “Ethics and Human Rights Boundaries to Mental Health Nursing practice”. Mental health nurses play a key and valuable role in ensuring that their interventions are based on ethical and human rights principles. Mental health nurses seem to have difficulty engaging with the ethical issues in mental health, and generally are dealing with acts of paternalism and with the common justification for those acts. It is important to open a debate regarding possible solutions for this ethical dilemma, with the purpose to enable nurses to function in a way that is morally acceptable to the profession, patients and members of the public. This review may serve as an instrument for healthcare professionals, especially nurses, to reflect about how to fulfil their ethical responsibilities towards persons with mental illnesses, protecting them from discrimination and safeguarding their human rights, respecting their autonomy, and as a value, keeping the individual at the centre of ethical discourse. (shrink)

In this paper, I ask feminist philosophers and science studies scholars to consider the goals of developing critical analyses of evolutionary psychology. These goals can include development of scholarship in feminist philosophy and science studies, mediation of the uptake of evolutionary psychology by other academic and lay communities, and improvement of the practices and products of evolutionary psychology itself. I evaluate ways that some practices of feminist philosophy and science studies facilitate or hinder meeting these goals, and consider the merits (...) of critical engagement with some of the scientists themselves. Finally, I describe a community of feminist evolutionary psychologists with whom it might be both fruitful and interesting to engage, and identify ways that these interactions may benefit the science and the study of the science. (shrink)

Are there such things as moral truths? How do we know what we should do? And does it matter? Constructivism states that moral truths are neither invented nor discovered, but rather are constructed by rational agents in order to solve practical problems. While constructivism has become the focus of many philosophical debates in normative ethics, meta-ethics and action theory, its importance is still to be fully appreciated. These new essays written by leading scholars define and assess this new approach in (...) ethics, addressing such questions as the nature of constructivism, how constructivism improves our understanding of moral obligations, how it accounts for the development of normative practices, whether moral truths change over time, and many other topics. The volume will be valuable for advanced students and scholars of ethics and all who are interested in questions about the foundation of morality. (shrink)

Introduction to the special issue by editor Carla Fehr.

According to a widely accepted philosophical model, agent-regret is practically significant and appropriate when the agent committed a mistake, or she faced a conflict of obligations. I argue that this account misunderstands moral phenomenology because it does not adequately characterize the object of agent-regret. I suggest that the object of agent-regret should be defined in terms of valuable unchosen alternatives supported by reasons. This model captures the phenomenological varieties of regret and explains its practical significance for the agent. My contention (...) is that agent-regret is a mode of valuing: a way in which the agent expresses and confers value. (shrink)

According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This paper argues that this objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. The case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But for constructivism there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate (...) by defending a robust conception of construction, which names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative. (shrink)

Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how constructivism has substantially modified and expanded the agenda of metaethics by (...) refocusing on rational agency and its constitutive principles. In particular, this volume identifies, compares and discusses the prospects and failures of the main strands of constructivism regarding the powers of reason in responding to the challenges of contingency. While Kantian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Hegelian theories sharply differ in their constructivist strategies, they provide compelling accounts of the rational articulation required for an inclusive and unified ethical community. (shrink)

This chapter aims to situate Kant’s account of practical reason in metaethical debates. First, it explains the reasons why it is legitimate and instructive to discuss Kant’s relevance in contemporary metaethics, hence addressing some issues about the intended scope of metaethics and its relation to practical reason and psychology. Second, it defends an interpretation of Kant’s conception of autonomy, which avoids some paradoxes traditionally associated with self-legislation. Third, it shows that constructivism best captures Kant’s conception of practical reason and of (...) its authority. Kantian constructivism is defended as a self-standing metaethical theory, which is designed to account for the objectivity and unconditional authority of practical knowledge, on the basis of standards congruent with shared subjective experience. This version of constructivism, adopting a “dialogical” interpretation of the autonomy of rational will, explains how finite rational agents are obligated and bound by the moral law. (shrink)

Some philosophers object that Kant's respect cannot express mutual recognition because it is an attitude owed to persons in virtue of an abstract notion of autonomy and invite us to integrate the vocabulary of respect with other persons-concepts or to replace it with a social conception of recognition. This paper argues for a dialogical interpretation of respect as the key-mode of recognition of membership in the moral community. This interpretation highlights the relational and practical nature of respect, and accounts for (...) its governing role over other persons-regarding concepts. (shrink)

This volume provides a much needed, historically accurate narrative of the development of theories of space up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. It studies conceptions of space that were implicitly or explicitly entailed by ancient, medieval and early modern representations of the cosmos. The authors reassess Alexandre Koyré’s groundbreaking work From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe and they trace the permanence of arguments to be found throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. By adopting a long timescale, (...) this book sheds new light on the continuity between various cosmological representations and their impact on the ontology and epistemology of space. Readers may explore the work of a variety of authors including Aristotle, Epicurus, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, John Wyclif, Peter Auriol, Nicholas Bonet, Francisco Suárez, Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, Libert Froidmont, Marin Mersenne, Pierre Gassendi, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke. We see how reflections on space, imagination and the cosmos were the product of a plurality of philosophical traditions that found themselves confronted with, and enriched by, various scientific and theological challenges which induced multiple conceptual adaptations and innovations. This volume is a useful resource for historians of philosophy, those with an interest in the history of science, and particularly those seeking to understand the historical background of the philosophy of space. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen and J. Raz object that Constructivism is incoherent because it crucially deploys unconstructed elements in the structure of justification. This paper offers a response on behalf of constructivism, by reassessing the role of such unconstructed elements. First, it argues that a shared conception of rational agency works as a starting point for the justification, but it does not play a foundational role. Second, it accounts for the unconstructed norms that constrains the activity of construction as constitutive norms. (...) Finally, on this basis, it draws a contrast between constructivist and foundational methods of ethics, such as deontology and teleology. (shrink)

According to a traditional account, moral cognition is an achievement gained over time by sharing a practice under the guidance and the example of the wise, in analogy with craft and apprenticeship. This model captures an important feature of practical reason, that is, its incompleteness, and highlights our dependence on others in obtaining moral knowledge, coherently with the socially extended mind agenda and recent findings in empirical psychology. However, insofar as it accords to exemplars’ decisive authority to determine the standard (...) of correctness for moral cognition, the model does not offer protection against arbitrariness and discrimination. The article argues that to understand the socially distributed nature of practical knowledge, we have to discard the notion of exemplars and reconceive of others as having equal normative standing. This claim allows us to revisit the conception of autonomy as key to distributed practical knowledge. While autonomy does not amount to selfsufficiency and self-reliance, it does demand independence of judgement and stands in contrast to servility, submission, and other sorts of defective ways of relying on others. The requirement of equal standing provides the basis for distinguishing between proper and improper reliance on others. Keywords: autonomy, Aristotle, exemplarism, extended mind, constructivism, practical knowledge, equal standing. (shrink)

A lack of diversity remains a significant problem in many STEM communities. According to the epistemic approach to addressing these diversity problems, it is in a community’s interest to improve diversity because doing so can enhance the rigor and creativity of its work. However, we draw on empirical and theoretical evidence illustrating that this approach can trade on the epistemic exploitation of diverse community members. Our concept of epistemic exploitation holds when there is a relationship between two parties in which (...) one party accrues epistemic benefits from another party’s knowledge and epistemic location and, in doing so, harms the second party or sets back their interests. We demonstrate that the ironic outcome of this nominal application of the epistemic approach is that it undermines the epistemic benefits which it promises. Indeed, we show that epistemic exploitation undermines the relationships and interactions among community members that produce rigor and creativity. Our central argument is that for communities to reap the benefits of an epistemic approach to diversity, to implement a genuine epistemic approach, they need to develop cultures that ameliorate the harms faced by, and protect the interests of, their diverse community members. (shrink)

Emotions shape our mental and social lives, but their relation to morality is problematic: are they sources of moral knowledge, or obstacles to morality? Fourteen original articles by leading scholars in moral psychology and philosophy of mind explore the relation between emotions and practical rationality, value, autonomy, and moral identity.

Background Ethical decision making in intensive care is a demanding task. The need to proceed to ethical decision is considered to be a stress factor that may lead to burnout. The aim of this study is to explore the ethical problems that may increase burnout levels among physicians and nurses working in Portuguese intensive care units . A quantitative, multicentre, correlational study was conducted among 300 professionals.Results The most crucial ethical decisions made by professionals working in ICU were related to (...) communication, withholding or withdrawing treatments and terminal sedation. A positive relation was found between ethical decision making and burnout in nurses, namely, between burnout and the need to withdraw treatments , to withhold treatments and to proceed to terminal sedation . This did not apply to physicians. Emotional exhaustion was the burnout subdimension most affected by the ethical decision. The nurses' lack of involvement in ethical decision making was identified as a risk factor. Nevertheless, in comparison with nurses , it was the physicians who more keenly felt the need to proceed to ethical decisions in ICU.Conclusions Ethical problems were reported at different levels by physicians and nurses. The type of ethical decisions made by nurses working in Portuguese ICUs had an impact on burnout levels. This did not apply to physicians. This study highlights the need for education in the field of ethics in ICUs and the need to foster inter-disciplinary discussion so as to encourage ethical team deliberation in order to prevent burnout. (shrink)