Small businesses in developing countries, as part of global supply chains, are sometimes assumed to respond in a straightforward manner to institutional demands for improved working conditions. This article problematizes this perspective. Drawing upon extensive qualitative data from Tirupur’s knitwear export industry in India, we highlight owner-managers’ agency in avoiding or circumventing these demands. The small businesses here actively engage in irresponsible business practices and “evasion” institutional work to disrupt institutional demands in three ways: undermining assumptions and values, dissociating consequences, (...) and accumulating autonomy and political strength. This “evasion” work is supported by three conditions: void, distance, and contradictions. Through detailed empirical findings, the article contributes to research on both small business social responsibility and institutional work. (shrink)

The Mòzǐ is among the founding texts of the Chinese philosophical tradition, presenting China's earliest ethical, political, and logical theories. The collected works introduce concepts, assumptions, and issues that had a profound, lasting influence throughout the classical and early imperial eras. Mòzǐ and his followers developed the world's first ethical theory, and presented China's first account of the origin of political authority from a state of nature. They were prominent social activists whose moral and political reform movement sought to improve (...) the welfare of the common people and eliminate elite extravagance and misuse of power. -/- In this new translation, Chris Fraser focuses on the philosophical aspects of the writing and allows readers to truly enter the Mohists' world of thought. This abridged edition includes the essential political and social topics of concern to this vital movement. Informed by traditional and recent scholarship, the translation presents the Mohists' ideas and arguments clearly, precisely, and coherently, while accurately reflecting the meaning, terminology, and style of the original. (shrink)

This paper proposes that the meanings of some natural language expressions should be thought of as functions on their own continuations. Continuations are a well-established analytic tool in the theory of programming language semantics; in brief, a continuation is the entire default future of a computation. I show how a continuation-based grammar can unify several aspects of natural language quantification in a new way: merely stating the truth conditions for quantificational expressions in terms of continuations automatically accounts for scope displacement (...) and scope ambiguity. To prove this claim, I exhibit a simple finite context-free grammar with a strictly compositional semantics in which quantificational NPs are interpreted in situ but take semantic scope over larger constituents. There is no Quantifier Raising (nor any use of a level of Logical Form distinct from overt syntax), no Cooper Storage (or similar mechanisms used in many recent HPSG, Categorial, or Type-logical treatments), and no need for type-shifting (as in Hendriks' Flexible Types account). Continuations also provide a natural account of generalized coordination that does not require either type-shifting or type polymorphism. Compositionality issues are discussed in some detail. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore a fundamental ethical approach to nursing and to suggest some proposals, based on this approach, for nursing ethics education. The major point is that the kind of nursing ethics education that is given reflects the theory that is held of nursing. Three components of a fundamental ethical view on nursing are analysed more deeply: (1) nursing considered as moral practice; (2) the intersubjective character of nursing; and (3) moral perception. It is argued (...) that the fundamental ethical view on nursing goes together with a virtue ethics approach. Suggestions are made for the ethics education of nurses. In particular, three implications are considered: (1) an attitude versus action-orientated ethics education; (2) an integral versus rationalistic ethics education; and (3) a contextual model of ethics education. It will also be shown that the European philosophical background offers some original ideas for this endeavour. (shrink)

An important and widely-endorsed argument for moral realism is based on alleged parallels between that doctrine and epistemic realism -- roughly the view that there are genuine epistemic facts, facts such as that it is reasonable to believe that astrology is false. I argue for an important disanalogy between moral and epistemic facts. Epistemic facts, but not moral facts, are plausibly identifiable with mere descriptive facts about the world. This is because, whereas the much-discussed moral open-question argument is compelling, the (...) little-discussed epistemic open-question argument is not. This paper is a critical notice of Terence Cuneo's The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (Oxford University Press, 2007). (shrink)

Any attempt to construct a realist interpretation of quantum theory founders on the Kochen-Specker theorem, which asserts the impossibility of assigning values to quantum quantities in a way that preserves functional relations between them. We construct a new type of valuation which is defined on all operators, and which respects an appropriate version of the functional composition principle. The truth-values assigned to propositions are (i) contextual; and (ii) multi-valued, where the space of contexts and the multi-valued logic for each context (...) come naturally from the topos theory of presheaves. The first step in our theory is to demonstrate that the Kochen-Specker theorem is equivalent to the statement that a certain presheaf defined on the category of self-adjoint operators has no global elements. We then show how the use of ideas drawn from the theory of presheaves leads to the definition of a generalised valuation in quantum theory whose values are sieves of operators. In particular, we show how each quantum state leads to such a generalised valuation. A key ingredient throughout is the idea that, in a situation where no normal truth-value can be given to a proposition asserting that the value of a physical quantity A lies in a set D of real numbers , it is nevertheless possible to ascribe a partial truth-value which is determined by the set of all coarse-grained propositions that assert that some function f(A) lies in f(D), and that are true in a normal sense. The set of all such coarse-grainings forms a sieve on the category of self-adjoint operators, and is hence fundamentally related to the theory of presheave. (shrink)

What is the communicative value of negative polarity? That is, why do so many languages maintain a stock of special indefinites that occur only in a proper subset of the contexts in which ordinary indefinites can appear? Previous answers include: marking the validity of downward inferences; marking the invalidity of veridical inferences; or triggering strengthening implications. My starting point for exploring a new answer is the fact that an NPI must always take narrow scope with respect to its licensing context. (...) In contrast, ordinary indefinites are notorious for taking wide scope. So whatever other functions NPIs may have, they at least serve as an utterly reliable signal that an indefinite is taking narrow scope. As also proposed in recent work of Kusumoto and Tancredi, I will show that NPIs are only licensed in contexts in which the wide scope construal of an indefinite fails to entail the narrow scope. In other words, weak NPIs occur only in contexts in which taking narrow scope matters for interpretation. Thus one part of the explanation for the ubiquity and robust stability of negative polarity is that it signals scope relations. (shrink)

Why ever assert clarity? If It is clear that p is true, then saying so should be at best superfluous. Barker and Taranto (2003) and Taranto (2006) suggest that asserting clarity reveals information about the beliefs of the discourse participants, specifically, that they both believe that p . However, mutual belief is not sufficient to guarantee clarity ( It is clear that God exists ). I propose instead that It is clear that p means instead (roughly) 'the publicly available evidence (...) justifies concluding that p '. Then what asserting clarity reveals is information concerning the prevailing epistemic standard that determines whether a body of evidence is sufficient to justify a claim. If so, the semantics of clarity constitutes a grammatical window into the discourse dynamics of inference and skepticism. (shrink)

: This essay critiques Chad Hansen’s "mass noun hypothesis," arguing that though most Classical Chinese nouns do function as mass nouns, this fact does not support the claim that pre-Qin thinkers treat the extensions of common nouns as mereological wholes, nor does it explain why they adopt nominalist semantic theories. The essay shows that early texts explain the use of common nouns by appeal to similarity relations, not mereological relations. However, it further argues that some early texts do characterize the (...) relation between individuals and collections as a mereological relation. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Supreme Court of Canada removed the prohibition on physicians assisting in patients dying on 6 February 2015. Bill C-14, legalising medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada, was subsequently passed by the House of Commons and the Senate on 17 June 2016. As this remains a divisive issue for physicians, the Canadian Neurosurgical Society (CNSS) has recently published a position statement on MAID.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey to understand the views and perceptions among CNSS members regarding MAID to inform (...) its position statement on the issue. Data was collected from May to June 2016.ResultsOf the 300 active membes of the CNSS who recevied the survey, 89 respondents completed the survey, 71% of whom were attending neurosurgeons and 29% were neurosurgery residents. Most respondents,74.2%, supported the right of physicians to participate in MAID with 7.8% opposing. 37% had current patients in their practice fitting the criteria for MAID. 23.6% had been asked by patients to assist with MAID, but only 11% would consider personally providing it. 84% of neurosurgeons surveyed supported the physicians’ right to conscientious objection to MAID while 21% thought attending surgeons should be removed from the inquiry and decision-making process. 43.8% agreed that the requirment to refer a patient to a MAID service should be mandatory. Glioblastoma multiforme (65%), quadriplegia/quadriparesis secondary to spinal tumour/trauma (54%) and Parkinson’s disease (24%) were the most common suggested potential indications for MAID among the neurosurgical population.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that most neurosurgeons in Canada are generally supportive of MAID in select patients. However, they also strongly support the physicians’ right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a new way of thinking about natural necessity and a new way of thinking about biological laws. I suggest that much of the lack of progress in making a positive case for distinctively biological laws is that we’ve been looking for necessity in the wrong place. The trend has been to look for exceptionlessness at the level of the outcomes of biological processes and to build one’s claims about necessity off of that. However, as Beatty (...) (1995) observed, even when we are lucky enough to find a biological ‘rule’ of some sort, that rule is apt to be a victim of ‘the rule-breaking capabilities of evolutionary change’. If indeed no distinctively biological generalization—even an exceptionless one—is safe, we need to locate necessity elsewhere. A good place to start is, I think, precisely the point at which Beatty sees the possibility of lawhood as breaking down—namely, at the level of chances. 1 The ‘Necessity’ Objection to Biological Laws2 Necessary Chances2.1 Necessary chances: random drift2.2 Necessary chances: fitness3 But is it Biological?4 Conclusion. (shrink)

In "The Insignificance of Personal Identity to Bioethics," David Shoemaker argues that, contrary to common opinion, considerations of personal identity have no relevance to certain important debates in bioethics. My aim is to show that Shoemaker is mistaken concerning the relevance of personal identity to the abortion debate -– in particular, to Don Marquis’ well-known anti-abortion argument.

Down syndrome (Trisomy 21) is a mild to moderate intellectual disability. Historically, this condition has been a primary target for prenatal testing. However, Down syndrome has not been targeted for prenatal testing because it is an especially severe illness. The condition was just one that could be easily identified prenatally using the techniques first available decades ago. We are moving into an era in which we can prenatally test for a vast range of human traits. I argue that when we (...) can test for anything, there is no longer any reason to continue targeting Down syndrome. I present an argument based on the value of nondiscrimination. It is justified to set limits on access to prenatal information if the information is going to be used for discriminatory purposes. I use the examples of (1) prenatal testing for misogynistic fetal sex selection, and (2) homophobia-motivated prenatal testing for potential homosexuality, as compelling analogies. (shrink)

Tracking the career development of a Nursery Nurse into a managerial role, this book: Clearly identifies and explains the managerial roles of team leader, senior supervisor, deputy and manager Focuses on the sudden change that takes place as you transcend from colleague to boss Offers advice on what is expected from you as you move into a managerial role Chris Ashman is Senior Manager at Bridgewater college, Somerset and has ten years experience teaching childcare and managing. He also writes (...) course content for the FE sector. Sandy Green is an Early Years Consultant and Trainer in south-west England. (shrink)

Cochrane has developed a linked data infrastructure to make the evidence and data from its rich repositories more discoverable to facilitate evidence-based health decision-making. These annotated resources can enhance the study and understanding of biomarkers and surrogate endpoints.

John Searle’s “thesis of the Background” is an attempt to articulate the role of nonintentional capacities---know-how, skills, and abilities---in constituting intentional phenomena. This essay applies Searle’s notion of the Background to shed light on the Daoist notion of w’u-w’ei---“non-action” or non-intentional action---and to help clarify the sort of activity that might originally have inspired the w’u-w’ei ideal. I draw on Searle’s work and the original Chinese sources to develop a defensible conception of a w’u-w’ei-like state that may play an intrinsically (...) and instrumentally valuable role in the exercise of agency. At the same time, however, I argue that Searle’s view that “Intentionality rises to the level of the Background abilities” convincingly explains why the conception of w’u-w’ei presented in ancient texts is untenable. W’u-w’ei-like states can generally occur only as components of an intentional flow of activity, and thus they are not fundamentally nonintentional. (shrink)

Law and the Formation of Modern Europe explores processes of legal construction in both the national and supranational domains, and it provides an overview of the modern European legal order. In its supranational focus, it examines the sociological pressures which have given rise to European public law, the national origins of key transnational legal institutions and the elite motivations driving the formation of European law. In its national focus, it addresses legal questions and problems which have assumed importance in parallel (...) fashion in different national societies, and which have shaped European law more indirectly. Examples of this are the post-1914 transformation of classical private law, the rise of corporatism, the legal response to the post-1945 legacy of authoritarianism, the emergence of human rights law and the growth of judicial review. This two-level sociological approach to European law results in unique insights into the dynamics of national and supranational legal formation. (shrink)

Creating a space for recovery‐focused psychiatric nursing care Within contemporary mental health‐care, power relationships are regularly played out between psychiatric nurses and service users. These power relationships are often imperceptible to the practicing nurse. For instance, in times of distress, service users often turn to or/and ‘construct’ discourses, beliefs and knowledge that are at odds with those which psychiatric nurses rely on to inform them of the mental status of the service user. The psychiatric nurse is in the position to (...) impose knowledge onto service users, usually in concurrence with ‘traditional or bio‐psychiatry’, without realizing or failing to acknowledge that the service user may have an alternative explanation of his/her mental health problems/experiences. In this paper, practice examples, based on the experiences of the four authors (from within and outside of services), are used to illustrate this ‘hidden’ power relationship. The authors use Foucault's ideas about: (i) government; (ii) the knowledge/power nexus and resistance; (iii) and his analytic tool of genealogy to help unravel this paradox within psychiatric nursing practice. The authors also use the emerging discourse of recovery as an alternative (and challenge) to ‘traditional bio‐psychiatry’ and consider the implications for psychiatric nursing practice. (shrink)

PurposeDigital and social inclusion are becoming more talked about as approaches to what has been discussed as the digital divide. But what is digital or social inclusion? The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of social exclusion as a variety of, sometimes conflicting, social programmes which embody ideas of what society should be. Becoming more aware of this variety of approach can give insights into programmes addressing the digital divide and the political, cultural and social aspects of (...) policies of social inclusion.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyses the notion of social inclusion as a variety of social policies to address social exclusion and develop the nation state. It uses an example of a telecentre in Jordan's knowledge station programme to illustrate and extend this analysis.FindingsThe analysis and discussion of the KS initiative shows how different notions of social and digital inclusion are important features of strengthening the Jordanian state and are useful in analysing the relative success of this programme.Originality/valueThe paper argues that analyses of digital divides and digital exclusion could be strengthened by a closer understanding of policies of social inclusion. In this way it is possible to move from technological connection as a measure of a digital divide to a more thorough understanding using social inclusion policy which illuminates social, political and cultural aspects of technological change. (shrink)

This paper examines eight publicly available critical care triage protocols intended for use during an influenza pandemic. These protocols place an emphasis on objective measures of survivability as the primary criterion for assigning priority for lifesaving critical care during a pandemic. Triage would then be undertaken without consideration of the relational or social characteristics of patients who need critical care. We argue that enacting these protocols could result in the denial of lifesaving care to oppressed and disadvantaged groups. The lens (...) of relational theory reveals this ethical flaw in the triage protocols we examine, and suggests ways of improving these protocols. (shrink)

Over the past few years, a number of authors in the new field of neuroethics have claimed that there is an ethical challenge presented by the likelihood that the findings of neuroscience will undermine many common assumptions about human agency and selfhood. These authors claim that neuroscience shows that human agents have no free will, and that our sense of being a “self” is an illusory construction of our brains. Furthermore, some commentators predict that our ethical practices of assigning moral (...) blame, or of recognizing others as persons rather than as objects, will change as a result of neuroscientific discoveries that debunk free will and the concept of the self. I contest suggestions that neuroscience’s conclusions about the illusory nature of free will and the self will cause significant change in our practices. I argue that we have self-interested reasons to resist allowing neuroscience to determine core beliefs about ourselves. (shrink)

"This book develops and defends a novel social epistemological account of indoctrination. It answers important epistemological, ethical, and political questions about what indoctrination is, why it is epistemically harmful, how it can be practiced, and how we should talk about indoctrination. The author presents three views related to the epistemology of indoctrination. First, he argues that indoctrination is most fundamentally a structural epistemic phenomenon which results in closed-minded beliefs. The sources of indoctrination are diverse: institutional structures, technological systems, ideological frames, (...) and individual actions. What unites them is that they lead to the systematic failure to consider seriously the relevant alternatives to what we are taught, whether by accident or by design. Second, he makes the case that indoctrination is always harmful because it disrespects agents in their capacity as epistemic agents, even when it results in true belief. Third and finally, he contends that public indoctrination-ascriptions are political propaganda; they function to promote a political agenda which can, ironically, breed the conditions for indoctrination rather than forestall it. The Philosophy of Indoctrination is an essential resource for researchers and advanced students working in social and political epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of education, and terrorism and radicalization studies"--. (shrink)

Seventeenth century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to metaphysics, mathematics, and logic are well known. Lesser known is his ‘invention’ of deontic logic, and that his invention derives from the alethic logic of the Aristotelian square of opposition. In this paper, I show how Leibniz developed this ‘logic of duties’, which designates actions as ‘possible, necessary, impossible, and omissible’ for a ‘vir bonus’ . I show that for Leibniz, deontic logic can determine whether a given action, e.g. as permitted, is therefore (...) obligatory or prohibited . Secondly, since the deontic modes are derived from what is possible, necessary, etc., for a good person to do, and that ‘right and obligation’ are the ‘moral qualities’ of a good person, we can see how Leibniz derives deontic logic from these moral qualities. Finally, I show how Leibniz grounds a central deontic concept, namely obligation, in the human capacity for freedom. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and research on artificial intelligence (AI) has been difficult since its beginning, with mutual misunderstanding and sometimes even hostility. By contrast, we show how an approach informed by both philosophy and AI can be productive. After reviewing some popular frameworks for computation and learning, we apply the AI methodology of “build it and see” to tackle the philosophical and psychological problem of characterizing perception as distinct from sensation. Our model comprises a network of very simple, but (...) interacting agents which have binary experiences of the “yes/no”-type and communicate their experiences with each other. When does such a network refer to a single agent instead of a distributed network of entities? We apply machine learning techniques to address the following related questions: i) how can the model explain stability of compound entities, and ii) how could the model implement a single task such as perceptual inference? We thereby find consistency with previous work on “interface” strategies from perception research. While this reflects some necessary conditions for the ascription of agency, we suggest that it is not sufficient. Here, AI research, if it is intended to contribute to conceptual understanding, would benefit from issues previously raised by philosophy. We thus conclude the article with a discussion of action-selection, the role of embodiment, and consciousness to make this more explicit. We conjecture that a combination of AI research and philosophy allows general principles of mind and being to emerge from a “quasi-empirical” investigation. (shrink)

Heterocyst spacing in blue -green bacteria is widely assumed to be due to a diffusible inhibitor. The inhibitor, a nitrogen-rich compound, probably glutamine, is produced via the N2-fixing enzymes of the heterocyst and in turn serves to suppress the induction of these enzymes and of the differentiation of vegetative cells to heterocysts. This simple morphogenetic mechanism operating in growing cellular filaments ofAnabaena species is investigated on the basis of a continuous and a discrete cellular model, as well as by cell-by-cell (...) simulation of the inhibitor transport. The resulting distances between heterocysts and kinetics of their production are compared with observations, and the values of physical parameters are estimated from the models. (shrink)

Introduction to the translation of “De beteekenis van de wijsbegeerte der wetsidee voor de theorie der menschelijke samenleving” by Herman Dooyeweerd, Philosophia Reformata 2, pp. 99–116.

While fidelity is a crucial aspect of Jacques Derrida’s thinking as it pertains to issues of faith, ethics, and responsibility, this key position in deconstructionist discourse has hardly yet been brought to light. Less still have the biopolitical resonances of Derrida’s work, with its careful attention to the terms and stakes of life particularly in his later writing, been considered as a deconstructionist practice of fidelity and infidelity in its own right. In pursuing these threads, this essay argues that thinking (...) a deconstructionist ethics through fidelity and biopolitics makes possible the crafting of a new philosophical weave for catching our responsibilities to others – to the very otherness of life itself – that Derridean hospitality opens up. Taken together in this way, a deconstructionist fidelity to life otherwise, to a biopolitics to come, makes possible an infidelity to political order as we know it that explodes the limitations of biopolitical theory. In squinting, blinking, tearing up, and listening, the borders of life are blurred in an ambivalent ethics of a transness within which life itself is made to waver and arrive anew. (shrink)

Selinger provides a new take on what is being referred to in the computational literature as ‘structured argumentation’. In this commentary the differences and similarities with existing work are highlighted as a way of demonstrating how philosophical and computational approaches to argumentation are increasingly coming together and complementing one another.

Jean-Francois Lyotard is often considered to be the father of postmodernism. Here leading experts in the field of cultural and philosophical studies, including Barry Smart, John O' Neill and Victor J. Seidler, tackle many of the questions still being asked about this controversial figure.

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Lambek elegantly characterized part of natural language. As is well-known, his substructural logic L, and its non-associative version NL, handle basic function/argument composition well, but not scope taking and syntactic displacement—at least, not in their full generality. In previous work, I propose $$\text {NL}_\lambda $$, which is NL supplemented with a single structural inference rule (“abstraction”). Abstraction closely resembles the traditional linguistic rule of quantifier raising, and characterizes both semantic scope taking and syntactic displacement. Due to the unconventional form of (...) the abstraction inference, there has been some doubt that $$\text {NL}_\lambda $$ should count at a legitimate substructural logic. This paper argues that $$\text {NL}_\lambda $$ is perfectly well-behaved. In particular, it enjoys cut elimination and an interpolation result. In addition, perhaps surprisingly, it is decidable. Finally, I prove that it is sound and complete with respect to the usual class of relational frames. (shrink)