This conversation between two scholars of international law focuses on the contemporary realities of feminist analysis of international law and on current and future spaces of resistance. It notes that feminism has moved from the margin towards the centre, but that this has also come at a cost. As the language of women’s rights and gender equality has travelled into the international policy worlds of crisis management and peace and security, feminist scholars need to become more careful in their analysis (...) and find new ways of resistance. While noting that we live in dangerous times, this is also a hopeful discussion. (shrink)

This book presents an overview of these studies and attempts to clarify apparently disparate results by placing them in a coherent theoretical framework.

Many opponents of BIG programs believe that receiving guaranteed subsistence income would act as a strong disincentive to work. In contrast, various areas of empirical research in psychology suggest that a BIG would not lead to meaningful reductions in work. To test these competing predictions, a comprehensive review of BIG outcome studies reporting data on adult labor responses was conducted. The results indicate that 93 % of reported outcomes support the prediction of no meaningful work reductions when the criterion for (...) support is set at less than a 5 % decrease in either average hours worked per week or the rate of labor participation. Overall, these results indicate that adult labor responses would show no substantial impact following a BIG intervention. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that ethical concerns are central to decision-making about, and governance of, geoengineering. This is especially true of the most prominent and paradigm example of climate engineering, the spraying of sulfate particles into the stratosphere in order to block incoming sunlight and so limit global warming ). Geoengineering ethics, like geoengineering science, is still in its early, exploratory days. This chapter offers an introductory overview of the emerging discussion and some of the challenges moving forward, taking SSI (...) as its key example. It identifies a range of values relevant to geoengineering, exposes some misleading early framings, argues that questions of justification and context are both important, and summarizes the Tollgate principles for geoengineering governance. One theme is that despite the initial agreement on the centrality of ethics, in practice there are profound risks that ethical considerations will be marginalized, both in the short-term as research is developed, and in the longer-run, in any deployment. (shrink)

This study aims to address how and when retailers’ sustainability efforts translate into positive consumer responses. Hypotheses are developed and tested through a scenario-based experiment among 672 consumers. Retailers’ assortment sustainability and distribution sustainability are manipulated. Retailers’ sustainability efforts lead to positive consumer responses via two underlying mechanisms: consumers’ identification with the store and store legitimacy. The effects of sustainability efforts are strengthened if consumers have personal norms favoring shopping at environmentally friendly stores. Remarkably, when controlling for moderation by personal (...) norms, social norms weaken the effects. The findings show that traditional marketing mix elements provide opportunities for retailers to improve their organizations’ bottom line and positively affect consumer well-being. This study helps retailers decide whether or not to invest in and communicate about sustainability. Past research has shown the clear potential for positive consumer responses to firms’ sustainability efforts, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms and the conditions under which such responses take place. This study advances theory by examining personal and social factors as mediators and moderators of the retailers’ sustainability efforts–consumer responses relationship. (shrink)

Gun violence in American and Canadian schools is an ongoing tragedy that goes substantially beyond its roots in the interlocking emotional and behavioral issues of mental health and bullying. In light of the need for effective policy development, Dianne T. Gereluk, J. Kent Donlevy, and Merlin B. Thompson examine gun violence in schools from several relevant perspectives in this article. The authors consider the principle of standard of care as it relates to parents, teachers, and community members in a (...) particular school's context. They posit that normative principles may provide a procedural mechanism appropriate for policymakers and practitioners when contemplating and implementing heightened security measures. Finally, they propose Rawlsian reasonableness as an effective and deliberative democratic process that reduces emotional, reactive responses to school shootings. Through these overlapping concepts, the authors advocate for purposeful discussions regarding gun violence in schools based on the unique pragmatic, educational, social, political, and contextual circumstances of individual schools and their surrounding communities. (shrink)

This article seeks to locate the body and embodiment more centrally among the concerns of actor-network theory by exploring working bodies. Using a newly introduced national system of vocational training as an exemplary case, it explores the tension between representations of skilled human bodies—‘competencies’—as given to trainers and the ways in which these representations are incorporated into their everyday practice. Vocational training has had a long struggle with the apparent separability of subject and object—between what can be felt and experienced (...) as distinct from what can be stated, measured, and expressed in words. The argument is made that paying attention to bodies in vocational training can shed light on this struggle. Paying attention to bodies in networks can also strengthen network analyses. Like texts and other forms of materiality, ‘the body’ is not singular but multiple. Furthermore, body politics constitutes an important actor-network them e. (shrink)

This essay uses the phenomenal advent of women's climbing as a paradigm case for integrating feminism and phenomenology, and for analyzing how women experience and evolve free movement and existence. In contrast to the paradigm set by Iris Marion Young's “Throwing like a Girl,” it stresses the category of the lived body over the category of gender, and it reveals how women, by employing and cultivating the body's motility and spatiality, engage and transcend the limits of crux situations.

Climate change is a global problem that is predominantly an intergenerational conflict, and which takes place in a setting where our ethical impulses are weak. This "perfect moral storm" poses a profound challenge to humanity. This book explains how the "perfect storm" metaphor makes sense of our current malaise, and why a better ethics can help see our way out.

Very few moral philosophers have written on climate change.1 This is puzzling, for several reasons. First, many politicians and policy makers claim that climate change is not only the most serious environmental problem currently facing the world, but also one of the most important international problems per se.2 Second, many of those working in other disciplines describe climate change as fundamentally an ethical issue.3.

Gardiner approaches the idea of a philosophy of history by first giving an outline of the "regularity" interpretation of explanation. "How far it is possible to regard all historical explanations, or even some, as approximating this pattern, how far the objections philosophers have marshalled against such an assimilation are justified, how far the alternative interpretations suggested correspond to the historian's actual procedure in certain cases; these represent the kind of questions that will have to be considered." By keeping the (...) actual practice of historians constantly in view, he believes that the reader will be able to see some of the disputes that have raged concerning the "philosophy of history"in better perspective. (shrink)

According to a common conception of legal proof, satisfying a legal burden requires establishing a claim to a numerical threshold. Beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often glossed as 90% or 95% likelihood given the evidence. Preponderance of evidence is interpreted as meaning at least 50% likelihood given the evidence. In light of problems with the common conception, I propose a new ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for legal standards of proof. Relevant alternative accounts of knowledge state that a person knows a (...) proposition when their evidence rules out all relevant error possibilities. I adapt this framework to model three legal standards of proof—the preponderance of evidence, clear and convincing evidence, and beyond reasonable doubt standards. I describe virtues of this framework. I argue that, by eschewing numerical thresholds, the relevant alternatives framework avoids problems inherent to rival models. I conclude by articulating aspects of legal normativity and practice illuminated by the relevant alternatives framework. (shrink)

BackgroundWith the enactment of Bill C-7 in Canada in March 2021, people who are eligible for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), whose death is reasonably foreseeable and are at risk of losing decision-making capacity, may enter into a written agreement with their healthcare provider to waive the final consent requirement at the time of provision. This study explored healthcare providers’ perspectives on honouring eligible patients’ request for MAiD in the absence of a contemporaneous consent following their loss of decision-making capacity. (...) MethodA critical qualitative methodology, using a feminist ethics theoretical lens with its focus on power and relationality, was used to examine how socio-political and environmental contexts influenced healthcare providers' moral agency and perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 healthcare providers (13 physicians, six nurse practitioners, nine nurses and two social workers) from across Canada who provide MAiD-related care.ResultsThemes identified include; (1) balancing personal values and professional responsibilities, (2) anticipating strengths and limitations of the proposed waiver of final consent amendment, (3) experiencing ethical influences on decisions to enter into written agreements with eligible patients, (4) recognizing barriers to the enactment of MAiD in the absence of a contemporaneous consent and (5) navigating the potential for increased risks and burden.DiscussionTo our knowledge, this is the first study in Canada to explore healthcare providers’ perspectives on waiving the final consent for MAiD using a written agreement. Most participants supported expanding eligible people’s access to MAiD following loss of capacity, as they believed it would improve the patients’ comfort and minimize suffering. However, the lack of patients’ input at the time of provision and related ethical and legal challenges may impact healthcare providers’ moral agency and reduce some patients’ access to MAiD. Providers indicated they would enter into written agreements to waive final consent for MAiD on a case-by-case basis. This study highlights the importance of organizational, legal and professional support, adequate resources, clear policies and guidelines for the safety and wellbeing of healthcare providers and to ensure equitable access to MAiD. (shrink)

The authors of the ELSIcon special issue have advanced the conversation on ethics and genetics. Nevertheless, we have some concerns. Here, we respond specifically to Conley et al. (2023). We choose...

The psychiatrist, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, is the most prominent example to date in a series of disclosures that is shaking the world of academic medicine and seems likely to force broad changes in the relationships between doctors and drug makers.

Sixteen Canadian men and women, part of eight intact couples who had experienced severe and recurrent wife assault, were interviewed individually regarding their worst experience of violence. The self-reports of both spouses of one of these couples is presented and analyzed with a view towards isolating the emerging constituents of their narratives. Additionally, preliminary findings resulting from the analysis of all of the couple's self-reports are presented in the second part of the paper. A gendered reconstruction of their narratives emerges (...) that mirrors the different positions men and women hold in experiences of wife assault. Finally, the main constituents derived from all the participant's selfreports are analyzed and discussed. (shrink)

It is clear now that open education is much more than a binary consideration of open versus closed but also includes "opening." This book maps a range of different theoretical and practice-oriented approaches and proposals to (re)considering open education.

Nazariyat, Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences, issued twice a year in English and Turkish (Nazariyat İslam Felsefe ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi), is a refereed international journal. It publishes original studies, critical editions of classical texts and book reviews on Islamic philosophy, kalām, theoretical aspects of Sufism and the history of sciences. The goal of Nazariyat is to contribute to the discovery, examination and reinterpretation of the theoretical traditions in the history of Islamic thought, by giving (...) special attention to the post-classical period of it. **ISSN: 2148-8088 E-ISBN: 2547-9415**. (shrink)

A paradox seems to exist in educational policy and practice in England and Wales. On the one hand, numerous references to promote community are made in the aims and objectives of the National Curriculum, and throughout the curricula. On the other, trends to increase accountability and standardisation through competition seem antithetical to ideals of community. I consider both the challenges and opportunities that exist for fostering community in contemporary school contexts.

The male muse in the psychic territory Adrienne Rich called in 1971 ‘The Man’ represents sexualized death and phallic mourning, a concept of masculinity marked by the legacy of the 20th century’s two world wars. In the context of representations of ‘The Man’ in North American white women writers coming of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sylvia Plath’s journal account of the Saint Botolph’s Review party, where she met her husband, and its fictional transformation in her 1957 (...) short story, ‘Stone Boy with Dolphin’, demonstrate Plath’s examination of the Bostonian Puritan heritage and the psychic aftermath of the Second World War. Plath’s constructions of heterosexual romance as participating in the history of Fascism and her concept of writing as sexy violence coincide culturally with Lacan’s theory of phallic signification. (shrink)

It is generally recognised that public health problems in the developing world are dire and that the rest of the world has a moral commitment to provide assistance. Yet many of the world’s poor are unable to access essential pharmaceuticals simply because products that are under patent are too expensive and cheaper generics are not available. One of the proposed solutions to this problem is to allow domestic manufacture of generic products in response to public health crises. However, this solution (...) will provide no assistance in countries that lack the capacity to manufacture pharmaceuticals. This article discusses the extensive international negotiations occurring during the last couple of years that seek to provide an appropriate balance between access rights and patent rights. (shrink)

Schools are increasingly being asked to identify and monitor youth who may be susceptible to recruitment toward radical groups. Rather than asking teachers to identify at-risk behaviors, Dianne Gereluk argues here that a whole-school approach may help to foster belonging and connection among youth that is not additive, but a central component of safe and inclusive schools. Whole-school approaches attend to the different power relationships that occur within the school community, focusing on the classroom environment, the school organization, and (...) the broader school environment. Insofar as radicalization is partly a response to the perception of exclusion and oppression, these factors may go some way toward mitigating the appeal of extremism. (shrink)

Issues of sexual orientation elicit ethical debates in schools and society. In jurisdictions where a legal right has not yet been established, one argument commonly rests on whether schools ought to address issues of same-sex relationships and marriage on the basis of civil equality, or whether such controversial issues ought to remain in the private sphere. Drawing upon an antiperfectionist liberal framework, Dianne Gereluk argues that schools have an obligation to educate students in two important ways. First, students must (...) develop an awareness and understanding of the range of acceptable and permissible ways of life that may lead to human flourishing. Second, students must understand the requisite protections and recognition afforded to individuals in a pluralist society. (shrink)

Women face extraordinary difficulty in seeking sterilization as physicians routinely deny them the procedure. Physicians defend such denials by citing the possibility of future regret, a well‐studied phenomenon in women’s sterilization literature. Regret is, however, a problematic emotion upon which to deny reproductive freedom as regret is neither satisfactorily defined and measured, nor is it centered in analogous cases regarding men’s decision to undergo sterilization or the decision of women to undergo fertility treatment. Why then is regret such a concern (...) in the voluntary sterilization of women? I argue that regret is centered in women’s voluntary sterilization due to pronatalism or expectations that womanhood means motherhood. Women seeking voluntary sterilization are regarded as a deviant identity that rejects what is taken to be their essential role of motherhood and they are thus seen as vulnerable to regret. (shrink)

The epistemology of risk examines how risks bear on epistemic properties. A common framework for examining the epistemology of risk holds that strength of evidential support is best modelled as numerical probability given the available evidence. In this essay I develop and motivate a rival ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for theorising about the epistemology of risk. I describe three loci for thinking about the epistemology of risk. The first locus concerns consequences of relying on a belief for action, where those consequences (...) are significant if the belief is false. The second locus concerns whether beliefs themselves—regardless of action—can be risky, costly, or harmful. The third locus concerns epistemic risks we confront as social epistemic agents. I aim to motivate the relevant alternatives framework as a fruitful approach to the epistemology of risk. I first articulate a ‘relevant alternatives’ model of the relationship between stakes, evidence, and action. I then employ the relevant alternatives framework to undermine the motivation for moral encroachment. Finally, I argue the relevant alternatives framework illuminates epistemic phenomena such as gaslighting, conspiracy theories, and crying wolf, and I draw on the framework to diagnose the undue skepticism endemic to rape accusations. (shrink)

Moral encroachment holds that the epistemic justification of a belief can be affected by moral factors. If the belief might wrong a person or group more evidence is required to justify the belief. Moral encroachment thereby opposes evidentialism, and kindred views, which holds that epistemic justification is determined solely by factors pertaining to evidence and truth. In this essay I explain how beliefs such as ‘that woman is probably an administrative assistant’—based on the evidence that most women employees at the (...) firm are administrative assistants—motivate moral encroachment. I then describe weaknesses of moral encroachment. Finally I explain how we can countenance the moral properties of such beliefs without endorsing moral encroachment, and I argue that the moral status of such beliefs cannot be evaluated independently from the understanding in which they are embedded. (shrink)

Implicit learning is said to occur when a person learns about a complex stimulus without necessarily intending to do so, and in such a way that the resulting knowledge is difficult to express. Over the last 30 years, a number of studies have claimed to show evidence of implicit learning. In more recent years, however, considerable debate has arisen over the extent to which cognitive tasks can in fact be learned implicitly. Much of the debate has centred on the questions (...) of how unconscious, and how abstract, is implicitly acquired knowledge? The aim of this book is to provide students and researchers with a self-contained and balanced summary of the various theoretical and empirical positions that are currently shaping this exciting area of research. (shrink)

This collection gathers a set of central papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change.

The peculiar features of the climate change problem pose substantial obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Climate change involves the convergence of a set of global, intergenerational and theoretical problems. This convergence justifies calling it a 'perfect moral storm'. One consequence of this storm is that, even if the other difficult ethical questions surrounding climate change could be answered, we might still find it difficult to act. For the storm makes us extremely vulnerable (...) to moral corruption. (shrink)

The figure of Donna Haraway’s cyborg continues to loom large over contemporary feminist engagements with questions of technology. Across a range of analytical projects ranging from cosmetic surgery to employment practices it has come to be one of the defining figurations through which the social and discursive construction of bodies in a technological age are theorized. Indeed, it has become a widely accepted and largely unquestioned orthodoxy of postmodern feminist thinking. Not only has the cyborg offered a theoretical framework for (...) exploring the feminist possibilities of technologies, it has provided a focus for situating questions of technology and bodies into broader feminist theoretical considerations of the structures of knowledge, particularly those of binary oppositions and the logic of identity. While a productive and influential intervention into feminist theorizing, the cyborg is not without limitations. One of these is pointed out by Kirby (1997) as a failure to break convincingly with the logic ofidentity in the way Haraway theorizes the intersection of bodies and technologies in the fabrication of the cyborg. This article examines that criticism and then explores the possibilities which Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblageoffers as a mean of thinking the meetings of bodies and technologies beyond binary oppositions. (shrink)

Tarot cards are a rich and fascinating art form. They are also an excellent tool for inquiry. I show why tarot has value, regardless of the user’s beliefs about magic. And I explain how novice or skeptical tarot users can appreciate (and create) that value by focusing on the card’s images, rather than consulting texts or expert guides. This is because, on a naturalistic conception, tarot’s zetetic value—that is, its value to inquiry—stems from its artistic properties.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface This special issue of Feminist Studies presents an eclectic view of women ’s friendships from across Western history and from several different cultures. Several of the articles question whether identity or sameness is a prerequisite for friendship and ask what friendships across difference look like, including charting the difficulties of making and sustaining such friendships. The articles in this issue contrast the variety and functions of women’s friendships (...) with the narcissistic masculinist ideals of classical Western thought about friendship in which friends serve as reflections of a person—typically a male and upper-class person. The authors in this issue present women’s friendships that are more pragmatic and more vulnerable and that contend more fully with difference. Some authors reflect on the high expectations placed on friendship within Second Wave feminism in the United States, noting how competition and feelings of betrayal can suffuse friendships; others trace more autonomous, productive, and forgiving contemporary visions of friendship. The issue opens with Susan Van Dyne’s archival study of student friendships in a pioneering US women’s college, revealing how love, flirtation, and desire between women was expressed in Smith College’s class of 1883. In another historical study, sociologist Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen contrasts the narratives of Norwegian girls and young women from the late nineteenth century with those of present-day women and girls, noting differences between rural and urban contexts. Ivy Schweitzer 272Preface surveys classical Western masculinist ideals of friendship from Aristotle to Montaigne and traces the transformation of this tradition into the present quest for equality without hierarchy. Alexandra Verini addresses models of female friendship in the European Middle Ages, arguing that Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe illustrate a “viable female alternative ” to classical models. The vulnerability of women’s close relationships comes to the fore in Nancy K. Miller’s moving elegies for deceased feminist friends, while Judith Taylor explores the more open and autonomous friendships adumbrated in contemporary fictions by Zadie Smith and Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, themes also addressed in Judith Kegan Gardiner’s review essay of advice books on friendships between women and other studies of women’s friendships. Richa Nagar’s interview articulates an ideal of feminist friendships that “enable continuous evolution of our beings and mindsets... without feeling threatened by one another.” If our articles focus on the close bonds between women, our News and Views pieces in this issue point to collective ties formed in response to political and social threats: Dalia Abd El-Hameed and Nadine Naber describe responses by Egyptian feminists to government crackdowns, and our forum “Orlando: Observances” offers a selection of first-person accounts from vigils organized to mark the massacre at the Pulse nightclub this summer. This issue also presents internal negotiations of identity, identification, and body image in Stephanie Han’s short story and in the vivid and bold transgressions of Wangechi Mutu’s collages as described by Sarah Jane Cervenak. In “‘Abracadabra’: Intimate Inventions by Early College Women,” Susan Van Dyne takes us on a fascinating journey into the “the early formation of a homosocial student culture and the bonds between women” at Smith College in the late nineteenth century. Mining an archive of diaries, letters, photos, and other materials from a group of friends from the class of 1883, she focuses on two kinds of written evidence: one, the inchoate expressions of homoerotic desire in one student’s journal at a moment when “lesbian” did not yet exist as an identity, and the other, a love poem to two students, written as a parody by one of their women professors, but which reverberated beyond the college and ignited male opprobrium. In her discussions of these developments, rather than ascribing identity, Van Dyne navigates the “messiness” of the archive, keeping her eye trained on the “only partially intelligible strategies of self-representation that can’t be translated or reduced to the modern Preface 273 language of sexual self-recognition.” What is most surprising in her account is not that young women would feel desire for one another, nor that male peers or authorities might find this threatening, but that the fabric of the students’ homosocial community had such resilience, nurturing... (shrink)

In order to perform certain actions – such as incarcerating a person or revoking parental rights – the state must establish certain facts to a particular standard of proof. These standards – such as preponderance of evidence and beyond reasonable doubt – are often interpreted as likelihoods or epistemic confidences. Many theorists construe them numerically; beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often construed as 90 to 95% confidence in the guilt of the defendant. -/- A family of influential cases suggests (...) standards of proof should not be interpreted numerically. These ‘proof paradoxes’ illustrate that purely statistical evidence can warrant high credence in a disputed fact without satisfying the relevant legal standard. In this essay I evaluate three influential attempts to explain why merely statistical evidence cannot satisfy legal standards. (shrink)