In recent decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has become a powerful forum for trade liberalization and regulatory harmonization. OECD members have worked to reconcile divergent national regulatory approaches, applying a single framework across sovereign states, in effect determining whose knowledge-making practices would guide regulatory action throughout the industrialized world. Focusing on US regulators, industry associations, and environmental groups, this article explores the participatory politics of OECD chemical regulation harmonization in the late 1970s to early 1980s. These efforts (...) were conditioned by differential institutional access and resources among stakeholders who sought to shape regulatory knowledge rules. Facing competing European and US approaches to chemical data—a minimum “base set” of test data versus case-by-case determinations—OECD members chose the European approach in 1980. However, US regulatory politics shifted with the election of President Reagan, prompting industry associations to lobby the US government to block the agreement. Examining the micropolitics of these standards in the making, I demonstrate that while long-term structures advantaged industrial actors, ideological alignment with the US government precipitated their decisive influence. The case illustrates the importance of attending to the distinctive politics of international harmonization and the effects on transnational knowledge-making and regulatory intervention. (shrink)

Oregon is the only state in the United States where a physician may legally prescribe a lethal dose of barbiturate for a patient intending suicide. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed by voters in 1994 and came into effect after much legal wrangling in October of 1997. At the same time, a cabinetmaker named Pat Matheny was struggling with progressive weakness from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. I met with Pat and his family for a lengthy interview in (...) October 1998 in Coos Bay, Oregon, for a television news report on his decision to get a lethal prescription. Below is an extract from that interview. On the day this introduction was written, 10 March 1999, Pat took the prescribed lethal overdose of barbiturates and died at home. His illness was taking his voice, he could not move his hands or legs, and breathing was becoming very difficult. His mother told me he knew that was for him. (shrink)

Research on moral distress has paid limited attention to nurses’ responses and actions. In a survey of nurses’ perceptions of moral distress and ethical climate, 292 nurses answered three open-ended questions about situations that they considered morally distressing. Participants identified a range of situations as morally distressing, including witnessing unnecessary suffering, being forced to provide care that compromised values, and negative judgments about patients. They linked these situations to contextual constraints such as workload and described responses, including feeling incompetent and (...) distancing themselves from patients. Participants described considerable effort to effect change, calling into question the utility of defining moral distress as an “inability to act due to institutional constraints” or a “failure to pursue a right course of action.” Various understandings of moral distress operated, and action was integral to their responses. The findings suggest further conceptual work on moral distress and effort to support system-level change. (shrink)

Many countries have attempted to transition to democracy following conflict or repression, but the basic meaning of transitional justice remains hotly contested. In this book, Colleen Murphy analyses transitional justice - showing how it is distinguished from retributive, corrective, and distributive justice - and outlines the ethical standards which societies attempting to democratize should follow. She argues that transitional justice involves the just pursuit of societal transformation. Such transformation requires political reconciliation, which in turn has a complex set of (...) institutional and interpersonal requirements including the rule of law. She shows how societal transformation is also influenced by the moral claims of victims and the demands of perpetrators, and how justice processes can fail to be just by failing to foster this transformation or by not treating victims and perpetrators fairly. Her book will be accessible and enlightening for philosophers, political and social scientists, policy analysts, and legal and human rights scholars and activists. (shrink)

R. Lanier Anderson presents a new account of Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, and provides it with a clear basis within traditional logic. He reconstructs compelling claims about the syntheticity of elementary mathematics, and re-animates Kant's arguments against traditional metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Following extended periods of conflict or repression, political reconciliation is indispensable to the establishment or restoration of democratic relationships and critical to the pursuit of peacemaking globally. In this book, Colleen Murphy offers an innovative analysis of the moral problems plaguing political relationships under the strain of civil conflict and repression. Focusing on the unique moral damage that attends the deterioration of political relationships, Murphy identifies the precise kinds of repair and transformation that processes of political reconciliation ought to (...) promote. Building on this analysis, she proposes a normative model of political relationships. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation delivers an original account of the failure and restoration of political relationships, which will be of interest to philosophers, social scientists, legal scholars, policy analysts, and all those who are interested in transitional justice, global politics, and democracy. (shrink)

This case study explored how a teacher, Mr. Smith, and his students experienced a mandated performance assessment while simultaneously preparing for an end of the year high-stakes, multiple-choice assessment. We employed qualitative research methods to examine how the teacher enacted a mandated performance assessment during a unit on Byzantium and how students described their learning and classroom experiences from the unit. Drawing on Grant's idea of ambitious teaching and learning of history and Ball's work on policy realization, analysis of these (...) data indicated that Mr. Smith interpreted and enacted a performance assessment in ways that differed from how district and state policy makers intended. Despite an assessment that the district designed to promote historical thinking skills, students learned primarily factual knowledge. (shrink)

In the previous four papers in this series, individual versus structural or contextual factors have informed various understandings of moral distress. In this final paper, we summarize some of the key tensions raised in previous papers and use these tensions as springboards to identify directions for action among practitioners, educators, researchers, policymakers and others. In particular, we recognize the need to more explicitly politicize the concept of moral distress in order to understand how such distress arises from competing values within (...) power dynamics across multiple interrelated contexts from interpersonal to international. We propose that the same socio-political values that tend to individualize and blame people for poor health without regard for social conditions in which health inequities proliferate, hold responsible, individualize and even blame health care providers for the problem of moral distress. Grounded in a critical theoretical perspective of context, definitions of moral distress are re-examined and refined. Finally, recommendations for action that emerge from a re-conceptualized understanding of moral distress are provided. (shrink)

[opening paragraph}: It turns out that it is possible to distinguish a zombie from a person. A zombie has a different philosophy. That is the only difference. Therefore, zombies can only be detected if they happen to be philosophers. Dennett is obviously a zombie.

In this work, Colleen Clements presents her case for the need to subject the field of bioethics to a critical external analysis apart from the current postmodern assumptions. Clements argues that, since the 1970s, bioethics has refuted human values in favour of political consensus building. This failure to recognize basic human values in the ethical critique of modern medicine has lead to a dehumanization of the medical system by the field. Clements proceeds to advocate a naturalistic theory of bioethics (...) that reinstates primary human values. (shrink)

For the last 20 years, I have found myself on the inside of a revolution, but on the outside of its resplendent dogma. Now that the revolution has not only hit the mainstream, but bludgeoned it into submission by taking over the economy, it's probably time for me to cry out my dissent more loudly than I have before.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 185-187.

While the focus examines multiple levels and perspectives on care, it will go beyond description and analysis to discuss ethical, intersectional, and life-sustaining ways in which care may be enhanced.

It is easy to call for public engagement (or dialogue) around difficult, morally fraught policy topics such as synthetic biology, but it is quite another thing to make sure that the deliberation is meaningful, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray aptly insist it should be. The surveys, focus groups, and public dialogues that have been held about synthetic biology to date show a very low level of public knowledge about it. Focus group findings also suggest that the in­herent uncertainty and complexity (...) surrounding synthetic biology give rise to greater ambivalence moving forward. The Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Hart Research Associates presented respondents with a “balanced description” of synthetic biology in nation­wide phone surveys and eight sessions of focus groups and found that, after respondents received information, the percentage saying that the risks outweighed the ben­efits consistently increased.In my view, the Hart research suggests three very im­portant conclusions about how best to structure public deliberation. First, information about uncertainty may not inform the public in any meaningful way. Second, the purpose of assessing public opinion and conduct­ing public deliberation is crucially important. Third, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray point out, the type and framing of the information given and the timing of the discussion matters a great deal for shaping the content. (shrink)

When zoologist Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene was published 20 years ago, it practically snuffed out many readers' belief in God and in their own importance, for it described in stunning and terrifying detail a world where all life was merely the conveyor belt for the gene. Its mission: to replicate itself. DNA was the fundamental and irreducible unit of life that spun itself endlessly into the incredible diversity of flora and fauna. Everything we hold most dear--acts of love, altruism, (...) the painterly beauty of the peacock's tail, the birth of a newborn--could, according to Dawkins, be explained by the gene's attempt to survive, and to hitch a ride on the fittest organism possible, the one most likely to mate and reproduce. Darwinian natural selection was Dawkins' ruling theme. The gene looked like the most purely selfish entity one could imagine, but it was more like the Terminator--just programmed to survive. (shrink)

How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research suggests that the (...) key to this skill is a declarative mental roadmap aiding musical performance. This hypothesis is neatly and unintentionally summarized by professional pianist Imreh, who states when learning a new piece of music “My fingers were playing the notes just fine. The practice I needed was in my head. I had to learn to keep track of where I was. It was a matter of learning exactly what I needed to be thinking of as I played, and at exactly what point. . .” (Chaffin & Imreh 1997, p.326). (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary project that brings together ideas from aesthetics, philosophy, psychology, and music sociology as an expansion of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory on the aesthetics of play. This way of thinking focuses on an ontology of the process of musicking rather than an ontology of discovering fixed and static musical objects. In line with this idea, the author discusses the importance of participation and involvement in this process of musicking, whether as a listener or as a (...) performer. Christensen then goes on to critique and update Gadamer's theory by presenting incompatibilities between it and recent theories of aesthetic emotions and embodiment. He proposes that emotions are ‘constructed’ rather than ‘caused’, that the mind uses a system of ‘filters’ to respond to sonic stimuli and thus constructs aesthetic feelings and experiences. In turn, this approach provides music with a route into the development of social capital and inter-subjective communication. This work builds on the hermeneutical steps already taken by Gadamer and those before him, continuing his line of thought beyond his work. It will be of great interest to scholars in music aesthetics as well as a variety of other music related fields, including music psychology, philosophy and science and technology studies. (shrink)

Robert Pippin has recently raised what he calls ‘the Montaigne problem’ for Nietzsche's philosophy: although Nietzsche advocates a ‘cheerful’ mode of philosophizing for which Montaigne is an exemplar, he signally fails to write with the obvious cheerfulness attained by Montaigne. We explore the moral psychological structure of the cheerfulness Nietzsche values, revealing unexpected complexity in his conception of the attitude. For him, the right kind of cheerfulness is radically non-naïve; it expresses the overcoming of justified revulsion at calamitous aspects of (...) life through a reflective, higher-order affirmative attitude. This complex notion of cheerfulness turns out to have roots in Montaigne himself, and it must be thought of as a kind of second nature cultivated through practice, as a kind of second nature. Understanding the meaning of cheerfulness thereby sheds light on the conception of philosophy as a way of life in both Nietzsche and Montaigne. (shrink)

Several recent studies indicate that cheating has become both more prevalent and more socially acceptable. In this article I draw parallels between market values and student attitudes about cheating. They include: (1) reduction of a broad range of goods to their economic value, (2) use of non-reciprocity as a guiding principle, (3) valuing the appearance of virtue over real virtue, and (4) reframing dishonesty in a positive light. I posit two ways that market culture influences the willingness to cheat, and (...) discuss the media's role in transmitting this influence. The article concludes with the suggestion that attempts to curtail cheating by further policing students may only exacerbate the problem in the long run. The same contextual factors that help mitigate undesirable market behavior, when cultivated in the classroom, can help to curb student cheating. (shrink)

Hegemonic masculinity, a framework where stereotypically masculine traits are over-emphasized, plays a central role in sport, partly due to an excessive focus on winning. This type of masculinity marginalizes those that do not possess specific traits, including many women and men. I argue sport reform focused on mitigating hypercompetitive attitudes can reduce this harmful and marginalizing hegemonic masculinity in sport. I make this argument first by challenging the dichotomous nature of sport, especially in recognizing that all outcomes are a blend (...) of winning and losing, that ties are relevant and informative outcomes to contests, and that winning and losing do not always tell accurate stories of the outcome. Secondly, I contend that expanding the potential outcomes in sport can help broaden the emphasis of competitive sport to take into account playing well and improving, in terms of both the test and the contest. I conclude that these reforms decrease hegemonic masculinity, making sport better for all. (shrink)

Colleen Glenney Boggs puts animal representation at the center of the making of the liberal American subject. Concentrating on the formative and disruptive presence of animals in the writings of Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson, Boggs argues that animals are critical to the ways in which Americans enact their humanity and regulate subjects in the biopolitical state. Biopower, or a politics that extends its reach to life, thrives on the strategic ambivalence between who is considered human (...) and what is judged as animal. It generates a space of indeterminacy in which animal representations intervene to define and challenge the parameters of subjectivity. The renegotiation of the species line produces a tension that is never fully regulated. Therefore, as both figures of radical alterity and the embodiment of biopolitics, animals are simultaneously exceptional and exemplary to the biopolitical state. An original contribution to animal studies, American studies, critical race theory, and posthumanist inquiry, Boggs thrillingly reinterprets a long and highly contentious human-animal history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 491-533 [Access article in PDF] Worthy Constraints in Albertus Magnus's Theory of Action Colleen McCluskey Many medieval accounts of action focus upon the interaction between intellect and will in order to explain how human action comes about. What moves agents to act are their desires for certain goals, their deliberations about their goals, and what it will take to accomplish (...) those goals and satisfy their desires. Thus, many medieval philosophers explain human action by referring to the operations of intellect or reason, which accounts for the deliberative aspect, and the will, which accounts for the desiderative aspect. This is not to say that medieval accounts ignored other influences on action such as passions or sensory desires, but that they tended to focus on the intellect and the will. The account of action developed by Albert the Great early in his career is a notable variation on this basic model. 1 Albert examined the nature of action in a number of texts written over the course of his long career, including De homine, De anima, and his commentaries on the Sentences and Nicomachean Ethics. In De homine, which is an early work, he agrees that intellect and will play important roles in the execution of action, but he argues that both the performance of an action and its freedom involve a third capacity that he calls "liberum arbitrium." Albert modified his views of action significantly in his later works, but I shall argue that this early view retains something of philosophical interest and importance.In the medieval philosophical tradition of the Latin West, beginning with Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries and continuing well into the thirteenth century, philosophers used the term "liberum arbitrium," often translated [End Page 491] as "free choice" or "free decision," as a technical term for that power or capacity in virtue of which human beings act freely. 2 In the first half of the thirteenth century, many philosophers identified liberum arbitrium either with the will, or with both intellect and will. In De homine, Albert insists that it is a separate capacity. According to his account, liberum arbitrium is the human capacity for choice and also helps to explain the freedom of those choices. Although Albert ultimately characterizes an act of choosing as an inclination in favor of a particular course of action, a certain cognitive ability plays an important role in his account. Part of what makes human freedom possible is the ability to judge secundum rationem honesti. Literally this phrase means "in accordance with the concept of what has worth." I shall argue that this capacity consists of the ability to evaluate choices in light of one's immediate, intermediate, or ultimate objectives and to forgo lesser goods for the sake of a greater good. It would appear that an ability of this sort is a function of the intellect, since judgments about how to accomplish one's goals and which goods are the better ones require the exercise of certain abstract cognitive skills. But Albert holds that the intellect is determined and concludes that while the intellect is a necessary condition for free action, the constraints placed upon it prevent it from contributing substantially to the freedom of an action. Since the ability to judge secundum rationem honesti plays an integral role in bringing about a free action, Albert cannot argue that this ability is a function of the intellect. Although the will has the requisite freedom, it is an appetitive capacity, not a cognitive one. Therefore, it too is unable to fulfill this role. Given these commitments, it would seem natural for Albert to locate this ability in an independent power.As natural as it may appear, this position is bound to strike many philosophers as implausible and unnecessary. One could argue that the constraints placed upon the intellect need not restrict it in any significant way. I do not plan to defend Albert's account against this objection. Rather, first, I shall [End Page 492] examine Albert's view of... (shrink)

PAUL SOLMAN: Let's begin with a look at some estimates of Internet use and how it's been exploding in the past year. Our numbers come from a variety of sources. About 80% of Americans now have personal computers. About 100 million people are online and at last count the Net was adding 38 new users every second. Some 55 million Americans log on to the Internet, in a typical day. About 40% of them check their e-mail every day. About 30% (...) check several times a day. In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service delivered 101 billion pieces of paper or snail mail. The number of e-mail messages transmitted in 1998 is estimated to have been around 4 trillion. 60% of regular Internet users report watching less television; 34% spend less time shopping in stores; 13% attend fewer social events; more than 25% say they now have friends they've never met in person; and-- our favorite-- 48% of regular Internet users, according to a UCLA study, say they now deny their children on-line access as a punishment tool. In short, the Internet is becoming a given of the American and global landscape, whether we like it or not. (shrink)

An essential component of beauty is being undermined and will soon be practically eliminated, and that is scarcity. Botox is to cosmetics what cut-and-paste software is to music production. Whatever was precious five minutes ago becomes overbearingly omnipresent five minutes from now. The quest for beauty coupled with technological proficiency undermines the relative value of each beautiful invention. Find beauty in nature, but when it comes to culture, it's time to forget beauty. It will soon be nothing more than another (...) word for nostalgia. (shrink)