This article examines the racial politics that reshaped psychoanalytic psychotherapy and ushered in a community mental health paradigm during the U.S. Civil Rights Era. Policymakers in the 1960s adopted the language of social justice to condemn psychoanalysis for its inability to treat psychotics and its unwillingness to treat black patients; yet the community psychiatry model of treatment that replaced it compounded the denial of the black subject’s clinical needs. Challenging the extant historiography that appraises psychoanalysis as a victim of neoliberalism (...) and psychopharmacology, this paper examines how and why Freudian practitioners beat their own retreat from the specter of desegregation. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a philosophical cottage industry producing arguments that our concept of causation is not univocal: that there are in fact two concepts of causation, corresponding to distinct species of causal relation. Papers written in this tradition have borne titles like “Two Concepts of Cause” and “Two Concepts of Causation”. With due apologies to Charles Dickens, I hereby make my own contribution to this genre.

When a normative moral theory collides with our beliefs, we must change either our beliefs or our theory. It is not always clear which we should change; but it is clear that we must change something. I shall consider two collisions between utilitarianism and what we believe, or are supposed to believe. About the first collision, I am going to say that the belief is false and that therefore there is no call to change utilitarianism. About the second, I am (...) going to say that if the belief is true, utilitarianism cannot be changed to accommodate it; I shall leave it open, though, whether the belief is true. The two collisions are related, though different. They both concern the utilitarian thesis about self-sacrifice. (shrink)

Book description: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind showcases the leading contributors to the field, debating the major questions in philosophy of mind today. * Comprises 20 newly commissioned essays on hotly debated issues in the philosophy of mind * Written by a cast of leading experts in their fields, essays take opposing views on 10 central contemporary debates * A thorough introduction provides a comprehensive background to the issues explored * Organized into three sections which explore the ontology of (...) the mental, nature of the mental content, and the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAn essential and yet often neglected motivation of Bernard Suits’ elevation of gameplay to the ideal of human existence is his account of capacities along perfectionist lines and the function of games in eliciting them. In his work Suits treats the expression of these capacities as implicitly good and the purest expression of the human telos. Although it is a possible interpretation to take Suits’ utopian vision to mean that gameplay in his future utopia must consist of the logically inevitable (...) replaying of activities we conduct in the present for instrumental reasons, because gameplay for Suits is identical with the expression of sets of capacities specifically elicited by game rules, it is much more likely that he intends utopian gameplay to be an endless series of carefully crafted opportunities for the elicitation of special capacities, and thus embody his ideal of existence. This article therefore provides a new lens for understanding both... (shrink)

Despite an increase in international business ethics research in recent years, the number of studies focused on Latin America and China has been deficient. As trade among Pacific Rim nations increases, an understanding of the ethical beliefs of the people in this region of the world will become increasingly important. In the current study 208 respondents from Peru and China are queried about their ethical ideologies, firm practices, and commitment to organizational performance. The empirical results reveal that Chinese workers are (...) more relativistic and less idealistic than their Peruvian counterparts. One explanation for the disparity between these two groups is likely the variation in collectivism that can be traced to different levels of importance across ingroups and outgroups. In addition to a summary of the results, future research directions and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Philosophers have met with many problems in discussing the interconnected concepts being, identity, and truth, and have advanced many theories to deal with them. Williams argues that most of these problems and theories result from an inadequate appreciation of the ways in which the words "be," "same," and "true" work. By means of linguistic analysis he shows that being and truth are not properties, and identity is not a relation. He is thus able to demystify a number of metaphysical issues (...) concerning the meaning of the word "I," the relation between the mental and the physical, objects of thought, times and places, and the nature of reality. Williams presents his views clearly, with a minimum of technicality, and with rich and apt examples, so that they will be accessible to readers not versed in symbolic logic. (shrink)

Advertising and other forms of promotional activity have proliferated to such an extent that they may constitute a form of social pollution (Kitchen, 1994). The quantity and tone of communications to which consumers are exposed may have a subtle but pervasive effect on the social ecology of the developed world. Not only are Marketing Communications delivered in unprecedented quantities (Kitchen, 1994); but their tone is increasingly difficult to categorise in the Postmodern Marketing era (Brown, 1994). Notably, there has been very (...) little research conducted on this seeming "Leviathan" (Kitchen, 1994, after Hobbes, 1651) effect. Ethical concerns of professional marketing bodies such as the MRS and CIM are focussed on the conduct of professionals with regard to law and notions of moral decency in human exchange relationships (see MRS code of conduct, ASA and IBA guidelines). There is less emphasis on the ethical implications for society of the totality of Marketing Communication activities. This paper examines the distinctively Postmodern concept of the Communications Leviathan and discusses contemporary ethical issues, drawing perspectives where possible from Postmodern critical theory, Enlightenment philosophy, cognitive psychology and classical ethical works of Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

The chapter examines aspects of Schopenhauer's central concept of will: the role of will in relation to action and to sexual drive, the argument that the individual has no freedom of will, the notion of the will or 'will to life' as the 'inner nature' of the individual, and the notion that the will is the thing in itself.

This paper describes a system for extracting typed dependency parses of English sentences from phrase structure parses. In order to capture inherent relations occurring in corpus texts that can be critical in real-world applications, many NP relations are included in the set of grammatical relations used. We provide a comparison of our system with Minipar and the Link parser. The typed dependency extraction facility described here is integrated in the Stanford Parser, available for download.

Despite the emphasis on moral intuition in the research literature, little attention has been given to the ways in which moral intuition can be educated within management settings. In this paper, I discuss an experiential learning approach that links Robin Hogarth’s work on the learning of intuition with Mary Gentile’s educational program on values-based leadership, Giving Voice To Values. Building on Hogarth’s proposal that intuitions are primarily acquired and thus shaped by our experiences, GVV offers a pedagogical framework for reflective, (...) experiential learning. Specific attention is given to the themes of learning environments, how these structures shape intuitions, and how students can identify these structures using the GVV emphasis on examination of past experiences. (shrink)

In Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that those who seek to defend the moral permissibility of punishment should shift their focus from general justifying aims to moral side constraints. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment.

This paper defends Kant’s ‘Antinomy of Practical Reason’ (APR) against the objection that it fails to meet the standards of a strict Kantian antinomy. Critics claim that the APR cannot be a true antinomy because its thesis and antithesis do not contradict each other logically, unlike the ‘Antinomies of Theoretical Reason’ (ATRs). In response to this objection, it is argued that the theses and antitheses of the ATRs do not contradict each other logically either; they only contradict each other relatively. (...) It is then shown that the thesis and antithesis of the APR, properly understood, also contradict each other relatively, thus satisfying the same standard as the ATRs. This paper offers broader insights into the structure of antinomical conflict within Kant’s Critical philosophy. (shrink)

Homo sapiens have evolved a dual-process cognitive architecture that is adaptive but prone to systematic errors. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that nested or overlapping class-inclusion relations create processing interference, resulting in denominator neglect: behaving as if one ignores marginal denominators in a 2 × 2 table. Ignoring marginal denominators leads to fallacies in base-rate problems and conjunctive and disjunctive probability estimates.

Although business ethics has a long history as a core theme within the realm of strategic management it has not received considerable attention in top strategy journals until recently. In this paper, we assess the state of business ethics research published over a 5-year period (2006–2010) in Strategic Management Journal to ascertain whether there has been an increase in business ethics research published in the top strategy outlet. The results of our content analysis reveal that ethics research in SMJ is (...) indeed on the rise yet this research stream is still underrepresented with only 5.8 % of all articles published over the five-year period having an ethics theme. Moreover, the link between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Performance was identified as the top theme during the review period. (shrink)

'A clear, readable and fair account of the development of judicial review.'-Ashley Montagu.

One of the most noteworthy features of David Gauthier's rational choice, contractarian theory of morality is its appeal to self-interested rationality. This appeal, however, will undoubtedly be the source of much controversy and criticism. For while self-interestedness is characteristic of much human behavior, it is not characteristic of all such behavior, much less of that which is most admirable. Yet contractarian ethics appears to assume that humans are entirely self-interested. It is not usually thought a virtue of a theory that (...) its assumptions are literally false. What may be said on behalf of the contractarian? (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 7, Page 53-55, July 2011.

Lynch et al. propose an extremely useful framework to assess microbiome research. By utilising advances in the causation literature, they argue that many of the claims in microbiome research are ‘weak or misleading’ as these claims lack stability, specificity, or proportionality. In the final paragraph before the conclusion they entertain and rapidly dismiss the ‘ecological version’ of microbiomes, in which microbiome properties are emergent from their constituent populations and can fulfil Koch’s postulates. I assess the possibility of microbiomes having emergent (...) causal efficacy on host health and suggest they can. (shrink)

Helen McCabe’s excellent book builds a patient, detailed, nuanced case for thinking of Mill as a socialist. The depth of her scholarship, and the care with which she constructs the argument, make t...

This essay aims to identify several related themes that regularly appear in posthumanist scholarship but which have not been theorized sufficiently, including the rhetoric of temporal and historical rupture, the logic of dialectical reversal, the effacement of human/animal difference, and above all the critical ascendancy of the term “posthumanism” itself. If one of the aims of posthumanism is to render the face of the human unknowable to itself, then to what extent does the human that re-names itself “posthuman” do so (...) in order to lay claim once again to a dubious self-knowledge? The rhetoric of posthumanism, moreover, implies a progressive narrative that ironically mirrors the Enlightenment principles of perfectibility that it would oppose. Drawing from Derrida’s notion of the “democracy to come,” I argue that the advent of the posthuman must always remain deferred. Just as the promise of democracy remains unfulfilled, the posthuman must infinitely postdate its arrival in any present. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the analysis of Joseph Raz on coercion, trust, and citizenship. The chapter starts with a number of brief comments on some of his observations regarding the doctrine of liberty and the preference for minimum government. The chapter also includes one of Raz's arguments that states that some people favour non-perfectionist forms of government out of a misunderstanding of the implications of perfectionism for liberty.

Advertising presents special difficulties for business ethicists. Ads are trivial entertainments, yet advertising culture has been held up as a metaphor for a general moral degradation in the post‐modern epoch. Ads confuse us since they are a new and unfamiliar form of communicative discourse which we find difficult to place in an ethical category. This, mainly conceptual, paper attempts to explore how ethics in and of advertising may be subject to examination within a broadly social constructionist perspective. The paper sketches (...) out a view of social constructionism which draws significantly on the ‘turn to language’ in psychology. It then attempts to discuss how ads might work, or rather, as the paper suggests, how ads mean. The social constructionist view point entails a rejection of cognitivist schemes of advertising psychology in favour of a mutualist framework within which ads and consumers jointly construct meanings which are essentially indeterminate. This ontological perspective has implications for ethical treatments of the field. The notion of meaning making as a psychological principle leads the discussion into an initial consideration of how normative approaches to advertising ethics might be framed. The self regulatory system obtaining in the UK is offered as an appropriate example. An underlying theme of the paper is that discussions of ethics in relation to advertising cannot rest upon a simplistic cognitivist notion of how ads ‘work’ upon consumers’ minds. The paper tries to show that a broadly social constructionist approach may offer a richer scheme for examining advertising ethics in its local, mediated, indeterminate and socially constructed character. (shrink)

Many draw the distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. The latter notion purportedly allows for propositions to be true relative to worlds even if they do not exist relative to those same worlds. Despite its wide application, the distinction is controversial. Some think that the notion of truth at a world is unintelligible. Here, I outline and discuss the most influential argument for the unintelligibility of truth at a world, The Picture Thinking Argument. I outline and (...) defend a neglected strategy to respond to this, arguing that if we take seriously the idea that possible worlds represent total ways the world could be, the distinction can be drawn intelligibly. (shrink)

Influenser från grekisk filosofi på 1900-talets filosofi.

Formal guarantees of political equality are compatible with inequalities in the value of political liberties, as individuals may convert their socioeconomic advantages into political advantages. Perhaps the predominant strategy for limiting substantive political inequalities recommends limiting inequalities in the means of acquiring political power for private gain – most notably, economic means. I express a worry that measures instituted to restrict economic inequalities may do more to frustrate the cause of political equality than to further it. I argue that attempts (...) to decrease individuals' means to capture political power will systematically increase their motives to capture political power. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a cutting-edge area of research that holds the promise of unprecedented health benefits. However, in tandem with these large prospective benefits, synthetic biology projects entail a risk of catastrophic consequences whose severity may exceed that of most ordinary human undertakings. This is due to the peculiar nature of synthetic biology as a ‘threshold technology’ which opens doors to opportunities and applications that are essentially unpredictable. Fears about these potentially unstoppable consequences have led to declarations from civil society (...) groups calling for the use of a precautionary principle to regulate the field. Moreover, the principle is prevalent in law and international agreements. Despite widespread political recognition of a need for caution, the precautionary principle has been extensively criticized as a guide for regulatory policy. We examine a central objection to the principle: that its application entails crippling inaction and incoherence, since whatever action one takes there is always a chance that some highly improbable cataclysm will occur. In response to this difficulty, which we call the ‘precautionary paradox,’ we outline a deliberative means for arriving at threshold of probability below which potential dangers can be disregarded. In addition, we describe a Bayesian mechanism with which to assign probabilities to harmful outcomes. We argue that these steps resolve the paradox. The rehabilitated PP can thus provide a viable policy option to confront the uncharted waters of synthetic biology research. (shrink)

The human being is an imitative animal. This statement, or description, resonates across time and cultures. Its familiarity derives from its repetition. It has, in terms appropriate to this discussion, a memetic quality. What Aristotle says is that "imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns first by imitation". The proof for this, Aristotle goes on to explain, lies in (...) the pleasure derived from imitation. And if pleasurable, it is natural; we are naturally imitative creatures.Among our imitative practices is the social practice of argumentation with all its rhetorical... (shrink)

Hope is important in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the emotions: it is one of the four primary emotions and the first of the irascible emotions. Yet his account of hope as a movement of the sensory appetite toward a future possible good that is arduous to attain appears to be overly restrictive, for people often hope for things that are not cognized as arduous. This paper examines Aquinas’s reasons for limiting hope to arduous goods.

Christopher Winch launches a vigorous Wittgensteinian attack on both the "romantic" Rousseauian and the "scientific" cognitivist traditions in learning theory. These two schools, he argues, are more closely related than is commonly realized.

For over two millennia, the _Cyropaedia, _an imaginative biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great, was Xenophon's most popular work and considered his masterpiece. This study contributes to the recent rediscovery of the _Cyropaedia _and Xenophon, making intelligible the high esteem in which writers of the stature of Machiavelli held Xenophon's works and the importance of his place among classical authors. The ending of the _Cyropaedia _has presented a notoriously difficult puzzle for scholars. The bulk of the work seems (...) to idealize the career of Cyrus, but the final chapter documents the swift and disastrous degeneration of the empire he founded. This conclusion seems to call his achievements into question. Nadon resolves this long-standing interpretive difficulty and demonstrates for the first time the overall coherence and unity of the _Cyropaedia. _He elucidates the Xenophontic critique of Cyrus contained within the whole of the work and unearths its analysis of the limitations of both republican and imperial politics. This provocative and original treatment of the _Cyropaedia _will be a definitive step in restoring the status of this important work. Nadon's lively, insightful study draws upon his deep knowledge and understanding of classical political theory and reveals in the _Cyropaedia _a subtlety and sophistication overlooked until now. (shrink)