Advances in medicine in the latter half of the twentieth century have dramatically altered human bodies, expanding choices around what we do with them and how they connect to other bodies. Nowhere is this more so than in the area of reproductive technologies. Reproductive medicine and the laws surrounding it in the UK have reconfigured traditional boundaries surrounding parenthood and the family. Yet culture and regulation surrounding RTs have combined to try to ensure that while traditional boundaries may be pushed, (...) they are reconstructed in similar ways. This paper looks at the most recent RT to be permitted in the UK, mitochondria replacement therapy. Despite controversial media headlines surrounding the technique, MRT is in fact an example of how science and regulation seek to expand models of traditional relatedness in a way that doesn’t challenge the existing order. Yet, like other RTs, while attempts are made to ensure it doesn’t push traditional boundaries too far, fissures and inconsistencies appear in law and culture, which give interesting insights into how genetics, parentage and identity are being mediated in new but familiar ways. (shrink)

Throughout its long history, mathematics has involved the use ofsystems of written signs, most notably, diagrams in Euclidean geometry and formulae in the symbolic language of arithmetic and algebra in the mathematics of Descartes, Euler, and others. Such systems of signs, I argue, enable one to embody chains of mathematical reasoning. I then show that, properly understood, Frege’s Begriffsschrift or concept-script similarly enables one to write mathematical reasoning. Much as a demonstration in Euclid or in early modern algebra does, a (...) proof in Frege’s concept-script shows how it goes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:While tone at the top is widely regarded as an important predictor of ethical behavior in organizations, we argue that recent research overlooks the various conflicting ethical tones present in many multi-organizational work settings. Further, we propose that the resolution processes promulgated in many firms and professional associations to reconcile this conflict reinforce the tone at the bottom or a tone at the top of the employee’s organization, and that both of these approaches can conflict with the tone at the (...) top of other important organizations such as professional and regulatory organizations. Here we adapt Integrative Social Contract Theory’s priority rules to propose a multi-tone reconciliation process which prioritizes conflicting ethical tones based upon features of the organization and the effects on society. Using three contextualizations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the multi-tone reconciliation process over current processes. We conclude with recommendations for future research and implications for practice. (shrink)

The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth provides a comprehensive study of the work of Axel Honneth, offering a critical reconstruction of his project in relation the themes of power, critique, and the intersubjective paradigm.

My starting point is two themes from Peirce: his familiar pragmatist conception of meaning focused on what follows from an application of a term rather than on what is the case if it is correctly applied, and his less familiar and rather startling claim that even purely deductive, logical reasoning is not merely formal but instead constructive or diagrammatic — and hence experimental, and fallible. My aim is to show, using Frege’s two-dimensional logical language as a paradigm of a “constructive” (...) logic in Peirce’s sense, that taking this second theme into account in one’s interpretation of the first yield a very different, and arguably more fruitful, conception of meaning than is usually ascribed to Peirce, not only a different conception of the role of inference in meaning than is found in, say, Brandom following Sellars, but also a very different understanding of the role of pragmatics in semantics than is standard in social practice theories. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Seventh Letter on Writing The Seventh Letter on Ways of Life.

Danielle Davis : Firstly, I wonder if you could briefly outline your position on mixed race identities. Are they desirable? My concern about these categories/identities is they present US with a double-edged sword. That is, on the one hand they perhaps enable difference, yet they also have the capacity to erase it. Lewis Gordon : The first part of the question is loaded, Danielle. When you say "desirable", what follows are other questions. "To whom?" "In what sense?" "For (...) what purpose?" Already embedded in notions of desire are subjects whose wishes and wants already structure a certain relation to the objects of their desire. Of course, there is the other sense, for example, in which John Stuart Mill referred to its being desirable to be Socrates. In that sense, we are asking about a normative ideal. My position on that issue is not unique to mixed-race people but also to any people. The notion of its being desirable to be a certain type of people already has within it the notion of there being people whom it is less desirable to be. Of course, being bad people is not desirable. But here, the comparison is not between good and bad, ethical or unethical, or even good and evil, but between modes of existing over which an ontological configuration may intervene regardless of what one may think or prefer. Much of that is at the heart of mixture. (shrink)

It has long been taken for granted that clinical research involving human subjects is ethical only if it holds out the prospect of producing socially valuable knowledge. Recently, this social value requirement has come under scrutiny, with prominent ethicists arguing that the social value requirement cannot be substantiated as an ethical limit on clinical research, and others attempting to offer new support. In this paper, I argue that both criticisms and existing defenses of the social value requirement are predicated on (...) what I call the “transactional model of stakeholder obligations”. I go on to problematize this framework, and to introduce an alternative framework for conceptualizing ethical obligations within clinical research. In defending this framework, which I call the “basic structure model of stakeholder obligations”, I also demonstrate how it provides a stronger grounding for the social value requirement that is not vulnerable to critiques grounded in the transactional model. (shrink)

Curren and Metzger develop a normative account of sustainability without prejudging the relationships between sustainability and global justice. This commentary propounds an alternative methodology...

ABSTRACTThis paper brings together a phenomenological and vulnerability-theoretic approach to dementia. The paper challenges the view that subjects with dementia can simply be understood in terms of diminished cognitive capacities or that they have lost all vestiges of personhood or the capacity for meaningful interaction. Instead, drawing on vulnerability theory and the phenomenological work of Kristin Zeiler and Lisa Käll, an alternative view of persons with dementia is offered that is based on intersubjective and intercorporeal relations and accomplishments. A vulnerability (...) approach to dementia is developed that not only provides the basis for empathetic responses to illnesses such as dementia but also points to the intersubjective constitution of subjects more generally. The argument developed is that the notion of vulnerability designates a form of openness to others and that such openness is a precondition for empathy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the present generation should preserve non-human living things for future generations, even if in the future all the contributions these organisms currently make to human survival in decent conditions were performed by adequate technology and future people's preferences were satisfied by this state of affairs. The paper argues it would be wrong to leave a world without non-human living plants, animals and other organisms to future generations, because such a world would (...) fail to secure one of the conditions of future people’s autonomy, that is, availability of adequate options. Building upon Joseph Raz’s account of autonomy, the paper shows that the presence of non-human living organisms is part of an adequate range of options insofar as, to be adequate, options must meet a test of variety. According to Raz, options pass this test if they enable human agents to exercise a set of physical, affective, imaginative and cognitive capacities humans normally have an innate drive to exercise. The paper discusses empirical findings as well as psychological theories that provide support to the hypothesis that interactions with non-human living organisms enable human beings to develop and exercise these capacities by shaping these capacities in a special way, different from the way interactions with other environments do. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide autonomy-based reasons in favour of limitarianism. Limitarianism affirms it is of primary moral importance that no one gets too much. The paper challenges the standard assumption that having more material resources always increases autonomy. It expounds five mechanisms through which having too much material wealth might undermine autonomy. If these hypotheses are true, a theory of justice guided by a concern for autonomy will support a limitarian distribution of wealth. Finally, the paper discusses two issues (...) autonomy-based limitarianism would raise. First, insofar as coercion invades autonomy, do autonomy-based reasons legitimate coercive measures to secure a limitarian distribution of wealth? Second, is a limitarian ethos consistent with the incentive to produce enough wealth to secure distributive justice? (shrink)

Within bioethics as well as in broader clinical practice, support for transgender and gender‐questioning adolescent access to pubertal suppression has often relied heavily on the desire to prevent risky, self‐destructive, and suicidal behavior. We argue that framing justifications for access to puberty suppression in this way can actually be harmful to both individual patients as well as to the broader trans population. This justification for access to care makes such access precarious, limits its scope, and introduces perverse incentives to the (...) patient population that is being served. We go on to offer an alternative, positive defense of access to puberty‐blocking treatment for transgender youth grounded in the child's right to an open future. We argue that decisions related to pubertal suppression are both importantly weighty and potentially irreversible, and show why this justification is preferable to so‐called “informed consent” approaches. (shrink)

We present two studies that examine the effects of guanxi on multiple social groups from the perspective of Chinese business people. Study 1 (N = 203) tests the difference in perceived effects of six guanxi contextualizations. Study 2 (N = 195) examines the duality of guanxi as either helpful or harmful to social groups, depending on the contextualization. Findings suggest guanxi may result in positive as well as negative outcomes for focal actors and the aggregate.

Danielle Macbeth offers a new account of mathematical practice as a mode of inquiry into objective truth, and argues that understanding the nature of mathematical practice provides us with the resources to develop a radically new conception of ourselves and our capacity for knowledge of objective truth.

Recent corporate social initiatives (CSIs) have garnered criticisms from a wide range of audiences due to perceived inconsistencies. Some critics use the label “woke” when CSIs are perceived as inconsistent with the firm’s purpose. Other critics use the label “woke washing” when CSIs are perceived as inconsistent with the firm’s practices or values. I will argue that this derogatory use of woke is stigmatizing, leads to claims of hypocrisy, and can cause stakeholder backlash. I connect this process to our own (...) field by considering inconsistencies in our organizations and in our teaching that could garner similar criticisms. After describing the stigmatization process, I consider the moral implications of inconsistencies for CSIs and draw parallels to our field. I end by suggesting next steps for our field in response to the stigmatization of CSIs and to guard against the stigmatization of our own work. (shrink)

Cost‐effectiveness analysis (CEA) raises questions that are too important to be left to policy analysts and economists. Those who utilize CEA should acknowledge its inherent value system and adapt it to a more ethical usage.

We suggest that people privilege explanations relying on inherent rather than contingent factors not only because of an innate cognitive tendency to monitor reality, but because doing so satisfies the desire to perceive the societal status quo as legitimate. In support, we describe experimental studies linking the activation of system justification motivation to the endorsement of inherence-based explanations.

Notion essentielle au croisement de la psychologie, de l'ethique et de l'esthetique de la tradition occidentale, la phantasia des Grecs, devenue imaginatio dans le monde latin avant d'etre traduite dans les differentes langues europeennes, a connu un echo considerable tout au long de l'histoire de la pensee philosophique. Les etudes rassemblees dans le present volume sont issues d'un seminaire et d'une journee d'etudes qui se sont tenus en 2001 a l'Universite catholique de Louvain et aux Facultes Notre-Dame de la Paix (...) de Namur. Elles visent a eclairer l'evolution du sens et du role de la notion au travers d'etapes historiques particulieres, surtout anciennes, s'echelonnant du VIe siecle avant Jesus-Christ au XVIIe siecle de notre ere. (shrink)

In Part III of his 1879 logic Frege proves a theorem in the theory of sequences on the basis of four definitions. He claims in Grundlagen that this proof, despite being strictly deductive, constitutes a real extension of our knowledge, that it is ampliative rather than merely explicative. Frege furthermore connects this idea of ampliative deductive proof to what he thinks of as a fruitful definition, one that draws new lines. My aim is to show that we can make good (...) sense of these claims if we read Frege’s notation diagrammatically, in particular, if we take that notation to have been designed to enable one to exhibit the (inferentially articulated) contents of concepts in a way that allows one to reason deductively on the basis of those contents. (shrink)

Catholicism is the most restrictive world religion in its position on assisted reproductive technologies. The opposition of the Church, combined with the widespread acceptability of ARTs in the United States, creates a profound moral dilemma for those who adhere to Church doctrine. Drawing on interviews from 33 Catholic women, this study shows that devout women have different understandings of these technologies than women from treatment-based studies. These differences are rooted in devout women’s position of navigating two contradictory cultural schemas—“religious” and (...) “secular”—regarding the meaning of reproductive technologies. Religious schemas provide devout women with different cultural resources that help them to avoid using ARTs while still reckoning with the ideal of biological parenthood. I show how devout women draw on religion to find value and meaning in their suffering, move beyond biological motherhood, and achieve a moral femininity. While religion increases the burden of reproduction for devout women, it also provides the cultural resources to resist the financial, emotional, and physical difficulties experienced by women who use ARTs. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a specific challenge for welfarist theories of intergenerational justice. Subjective welfarism permits and even requires that a generation, G1, inculcates cheap preferences in the next generation, G2. This would allow G1 to deplete resources instead of saving them, which seems to contradict the ideal of sustainability. The aim of the paper is to show that, even if subjective welfarism requires the cultivation of cheap preferences among future generations, it can accommodate two major objections to cheap preferences (...) engineering, the Autonomy Objection and the Fairness Objection. The paper argues that teaching autonomy-related abilities is compatible with cheap preferences engineering insofar as autonomy is understood as an end-state and not as a precondition. Furthermore, teaching autonomy-related abilities could even be required in order to improve G2’s prospects for well-being. However, since being autonomous renders G2 able to revise their initially cheap preferences, G1 should also save enough resources to enable members of G2 to do so. Therefore, cultivating cheap preferences among G2 does not allow G1 to deplete the available resources. (shrink)

Relational autonomy theorists attempt to accommodate social embeddedness within a conception of autonomy. These attempts are conceptually messy, at best, and category errors, at worst. Rejecting the liberal conception of autonomy due to feminist concerns is more helpfully answered by the neorepublican notion of freedom as nondomination. The conception of freedom as nondomination captures the values that motivate the relational turn in moral and political theory and does so in a conceptually neater way than attempting to accommodate those concerns in (...) our accounts of autonomy. (shrink)

To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride oneself on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation.melioration of most social problems today—problems like health care and environmental justice—requires a feminist pragmatist methodology1 because many of these problems are not only dynamically complex, but inherently wicked. That is, many of our social problems today are characterized by intense disagreement between fragmented stakeholders, multiple and often conflicting (...) objectives, as well as high levels of uncertainty, variability, and risk. While the burgeoning field of wicked problems implicitly relies on a .. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Politics of the 330s Who Was Fighting Whom? What Were Lycurgus and Demosthenes Fighting About? Why Fight over Plato? The End of the Culture War Conclusion.

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Wiley Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations.

In Anthropos Today Paul Rabinow's purpose was to "assemble a toolkit of concepts in order to advance inquiry" (2). A good portion of his subsequent work shares this same goal of advancing an experimental mode, especially within the human sciences. In his Coss lecture, "How to Submit to Inquiry: Dewey and Foucault," Rabinow says, "my experiments and inquiries suport the claim that scientifically and ethically, relations among and between the life sciences, human sciences, and ethics require sustained re-thinking and re-working." (...) Science, as it is structured and practiced, is insufficient to our complex endeavors. When asked to consider what science gives to society, Rabinow's answer is tools for thought (Anthropos .. (shrink)

The Uddevalla Volvo plant represents a different paradigm for automotive assembly. In parallel-flow work, self-managed work groups assemble entire automobiles with comparable productivity as conventional series-flow assembly lines. From the perspective of the demand-control model, operators at the Uddevalla plant have low physical and timing demands, high psychological demands because of increased duties and high-decision latitude due to varied and complex skills utilized, the two latter characterizing active work. Operators at standard assembly lines have higher levels of physical and timing (...) demands, lower levels of psychological demand, and lower control, characterizing high-strain work. Active work is related to lower incidence of heart disease than high-strain work. (shrink)

If bioethics should care about the environment, this could be, among other ways, by reflecting on certain radical solutions, such as biomedical human engineering. In a recent article, Liao, Sandberg and Roache consider reducing human size through biomedical treatments in order to mitigate climate change. In this viewpoint, we point out that the various methods used to reduce human height, be they sophisticated tech­ nologies or mere undernutrition, seem all subject to highly undesirable consequences. This is to show that one (...) of the problems with Liao et al.’s account is that it does not provide us with an ethical framework com­ prehensive enough to balance these consequences with the problematic effects of climate change. In sum, we wish to draw from the discussion of this specific example a more general claim. This claim is that, even if we accept that human engineering per se is not problematic, we nevertheless need a more comprehensive ethical theory than the mere claim that climate change should be mitigated in order to assess the desirability of human engineering. (shrink)