The Cognitive Reflection Test is purported to test our inclination to overcome impulsive, intuitive thought with effortful, rational reflection. Research suggests that philosophers tend to perform better on this test than non-philosophers, and that men tend to perform better than women. Taken together, these findings could be interpreted as partially explaining the gender gap that exists in Philosophy: there are fewer women in Philosophy because women are less likely to possess the ideal ‘philosophical personality’. If this explanation for the gender (...) gap in Philosophy is accepted, it might be seen to exonerate Philosophy departments of the need to put in place much-needed strategies for promoting gender diversity. This paper discusses a number of reasons for thinking that this would be the wrong conclusion to draw from the research. Firstly, the CRT may not track what it is claimed it tracks. Secondly, the trait tracked by the CRT may not be something that we should value in philosophers. Thirdly, even if we accept that the CRT tracks a trait that has value, this trait might be of limited importance to good philosophising. Lastly, the causal story linking the gender gap in CRT score and the gender gap in Philosophy is likely to be far more complex than this explanation implies. (shrink)

We all want to find a way to live fulfilling lives together in spite of our differences. What beliefs must be held in common if we are to do so? What beliefs must be excluded? And what are the implications for religion’s place in society? Philip Kitcher recognises that our answers to these questions have important implications for education, and he devotes a chapter of 'The Main Enterprise of the World' to the role of religion in education and wider society. (...) This paper is a critical response to that chapter. I argue that Kitcher is right to recognise that religious beliefs cannot be confined to the private sphere and thus they are a matter of educational concern. However, I question whether Kitcher makes an adequate case for the distinctive harmfulness of the beliefs that he wishes to exclude. I also question Kitcher’s suggestion that students be taught that all religions are ‘on a par’, epistemically speaking. I finish by shining a light on Kitcher’s proposal that education should aim for students to develop specific beliefs about religion, clarifying the proposal and highlighting some implications for education in practice. (shrink)

I analyse the 2014 policy to promote 'British values' in schools from the perspective of the two main positions in contemporary liberal theory, comprehensive liberalism and political liberalism. I highlight in what ways comprehensive and political liberal defences of the policy are unsatisfactory, before briefly sketching a possible alternative position – ‘thin comprehensive liberalism’ – and discussing its potential for justifying a substantive education in liberal values. In light of this theoretical perspective, I suggest some ways that the existing British (...) values policy might be amended in practice so as to bring it more in line with the liberal ideal. (shrink)

This article discusses how difficult it is to be morally consistent when choosing what to eat. Applying a moral justification in a consistent manner may result in some unorthodox diets. I distinguish two ways in which we might be inconsistent in our approach to food. We might fail to apply our morals in a consistent way, or we might fail to put our morals into practice at all. I argue that the latter represents a greater failing. Given the complexity of (...) making food choices, the former is more excusable.Export citation. (shrink)

Using focus groups, this small-scale, qualitative study investigated the way that students tend to think about religious truth-claims as compared to other types of truth-claim. All the student participants conceived of religious truth-claims as ‘opinions’, to be contrasted with the certain, indisputable ‘facts’ of science. For many students, it was the lack of empirical verification, as well as the existence of disagreement, which meant religious beliefs were relegated to this position. If these findings are generalisable, then there are implications for (...) the ongoing theoretical dispute over the extent to which truth should be a focus in religious education. The tendency for students to see religious claims as subjective lends support for a critical pedagogy that places evaluation of truth centre-stage. The findings also suggest a need for religious education and science teachers to include more reflection on the nature of the scientific method in their schemes of work in order to dispel the myths of unanimity and certainty in science. (shrink)

Since 2014, British schools have been required to ‘actively promote’ the value of ‘mutual respect’ to the children in their care. This is relatively unproblematic: liberals are agreed that good citizenship education will involve teaching mutual respect. However, there is disagreement over how ‘respect’ should be understood and what it should imply for norms of respectful classroom discussion. Some political liberals have indicated that when engaging in discussion in the classroom, students should provide only neutral reasons to defend their views. (...) This paper provides a number of arguments against this claim. For example, I argue that this norm relies on a distorted understanding of what it is to respect others and that it stifles the development of civic and epistemic virtue in the next generation of citizens. Even from within the perspective of political liberalism, there are good reasons to favour critical discussion of non-neutral reasons. Education policy should therefore accord greater priority to discussion of students’ actual motivating reasons than to discussion constrained by a norm of neutral discourse. (shrink)

What should be the aim of LGBT-inclusive, state-mandated curricula in liberal, pluralist societies? In this article, I identify two distinct aims that such curricula might have. The first, LGBT Respect, aims to teach that LGBT individuals have equal political status and rights. The second, LGBT Approval, aims to teach a positive attitude towards LGBT relationships, including that there is nothing wrongful about these forms of relationship. I examine what arguments in favour of these different aims are available to the liberal (...) concerned with accommodating pluralism. To capture this concern, I adopt political liberalism's strict standard for legitimate political interventions that these must have justifications that all reasonable citizens can accept. This initially seems to recommend curricula that aim at LGBT Respect but stop short of LGBT Approval. Can the political liberal go any further? I propose and critically discuss the most promising arguments in favour of LGBT Approval, including the need to prevent harm to children, ensure political equality, and secure the social conditions needed for the development of the primary good of self-respect. I tentatively conclude that there exists a cumulative case for state-mandated curricula aiming at LGBT Approval, at least in the contingent, nonideal circumstances that currently obtain. (shrink)

What sorts of reasons should citizens have in mind when they cast votes? Arguments from both sides of the EU referendum debate are used here to raise questions about what our motivations should be when voting. The article introduces John Rawls's requirement to give public reasons that are acceptable to all reasonable people.

Women are currently under-represented in academic philosophy. This paper first considers ways in which the competitive atmosphere of philosophy might help explain this lack of diversity. For example, women are stereotyped as less competitive and as less capable of exhibiting what are considered ‘winning behaviours’ in philosophy, leading to a more stressful, less rewarding experience; lower assessments of merit by themselves and others; and potential under-performance. Second, this paper draws out the implications of this discussion for high school philosophy competitions. (...) Are these competitions likely to further exacerbate existing trends of representation, by associating philosophy with competition and winning? I argue that the way that these philosophy competitions are set up, as friendly, low-stakes team events, rewarding attributes that are ‘stereotypically female’, mean that these events are likely to support, rather than damage, diversity in the discipline. Indeed, there are reasons to think that these events form an important part of an image-change that is required for philosophy if it is to become a more diverse discipline at university-level and beyond. I finish by offering a series of practical recommendations for high school philosophy competitions, in light of the aim of increasing diversity in academic philosophy, but also with the more immediate aim of making these competitions inclusive, enjoyable events for everyone. (shrink)

If states are permitted to create and maintain a military force, by what means are they permitted to do so? This paper argues that a theory of just recruitment should incorporate a concern for moral risk. Since the military is a morally risky profession for its members, recruitment policies should be evaluated in terms of how they distribute moral risk within a community. We show how common military recruitment practices exacerbate and concentrate moral risk exposure, using the UK as a (...) case study. We argue that the British state wrongs its citizens by subjecting them to excessively morally risky recruitment practices. Since, we argue, this risk exposure cannot be justified by appealing to the benefits of a military career for recruits, our argument calls for reform of existing practices. Our method of evaluation is generalizable and thus can be used to assess other states’ practices. (shrink)

Ethical perspectives on regional, rural, and remote healthcare often, understandably and importantly, focus on inequities in access to services. In this commentary, we take the opportunity to examine the implications of normalizing metrocentric views, values, knowledge, and orientations, evidenced by the recent (2022) New South Wales inquiry into health outcomes and access to hospital and health services in regional, rural and remote New South Wales, for contemporary rural governance and justice debates. To do this, we draw on the feminist inspired (...) approach to rural health ethics involving analysis of power relationships developed by Simpson and McDonald and related ideas from critical health sociology. In presenting this analysis, we extend contemporary thought about spatial health inequities and structural violence. (shrink)

"Time Will Tell” is a series of professional interviews with scholars, both within and outside of philosophy and all with a social justice conscience, all academics who work on some aspect of time and/or temporality and human consciousness. Having worked on the concept for my Master’s thesis in 2004, I’m very interested in everything related to time. We all think about time. The four scholars who graciously agreed to the interviews are doing important and often utterly fascinating work on these (...) topics. (shrink)

High-level cognitions can enter consciousness through the activation of certain action sets and the presentation of external stimuli (“set-based entry,” for short). Set-based entry arises in a manner that is involuntary and systematic. In the Reflexive Imagery Task, for example, subjects are presented with visual objects and instructed to not think of the names of the objects. Involuntary subvocalizations arise on roughly 80% of the trials. We examined whether or not set-based entry can also occur in the case of involuntary (...) counting. Subjects in Experiment 1A were instructed to not count the number of objects presented in an array. Involuntary counting arose on a high proportion of the trials (a mean proportion of ∼0.90) for stimulus arrays having 2–5 objects, and such counting arose less frequently across trials when the array consisted of 6–10 objects (a mean proportion of ∼0.21). The data from Experiment 1B revealed that, when people choose to perform Set X, they also experience thoughts about an unselected Set (Set Y ). Subjects were trained on one set (e.g., to “color name”) and then, when presented with stimuli, were given the choice to perform the trained set or a novel set. Consistent with theories proposing that the conscious contents represent several potential action plans, subjects were equally likely to experience set-related imagery or set-unrelated imagery. Our findings regarding set-based entry are relevant to many subfields of psychology and neuroscience (e.g., the study of high-level mental processes, attention, imagery, and action control). (shrink)

The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters takes the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise of the (...) universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volumes illuminate a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike. (shrink)

: This paper reviews current and suggested policies designed to increase organ donation in the United States and indicates the problems inherent to these approaches for increasing organ donation by African Americans. Data from a population-based study assessing attitudes and beliefs about organ donation among white and African-American respondents are presented and discussed. We pose the question of whether it is reasonable to maintain the existing system or whether we should institute a system that uses policies based on the attitudes (...) and beliefs of a minority group that is in greater need than the majority. In light of the discussion, we suggest that the current policies guiding the organ procurement system are not adequate to address existing concerns within the African-American community and that a different set of assumptions may be needed to drive organ procurement policy. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the concept of policy malaise, which refers to citizens’ dissatisfaction with the way political institutions and processes handle specific problems such as the refugee issue in Germany. Based on a representative online panel survey with two waves conducted in 2016 and 2017 (N = 836), we explore the occurrence of policy malaise among the German population and its relation to issue-specific media use, trust in news media, and issue fatigue. First, the results indicate that policy (...) malaise toward the refugee issue is widespread in Germany. Second, we found that media use relates differentially to policy malaise: While high exposure to public broadcasting was negatively associated with policy malaise, we found the opposite for private broadcasting. Third, policy malaise is higher for people who experience issue fatigue and lower for people who trust the news media. Finally, trust in media reinforces the negative and positive relations between media use and policy malaise. Implications concerning the associations between policy malaise and political alienation in its broader sense are discussed. (shrink)

A well-worn trope used by phenomenologists is that things that remain invisible or unnoticed in the course of our everyday being in the world reveal themselves in instances of breakdown. This paper borrows this trope to explicate one instance of breakdown, that of traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI). We use the phenomenology of Heidegger, especially his formulation of ecstatic temporality presented in Being and Time, to illuminate the temporal issues surrounding this radical rupture in Dasein’s being in the world through (...) data collected from field observations of inpatient rehabilitation, interviews with persons with TSCI, and with their rehabilitation providers. Specifically, we explore the breakdown in temporality (the rupture on thrown projection) that occurs in persons who experience TSCI across three interconnected existential dimensions – understanding, attunement (mood), and falling. We conclude by discussing the value this approach to human temporality might have for both social scientists interested in human temporality and to practitioners interested in research related to the rehabilitation process. (shrink)

Certain strands of contemporary media theory are concerned with the ways in which computational environments exploit the ‘missing half-second’ of human perception and thereby influence, control or exploit humans at an affective level. The ‘technological unconscious’ of our times is often understood to work at this affective level, and high-frequency trading is regularly provided as a primary illustrative example of the contagious dynamics it produces. We challenge and complicate this account of the relation between consciousness, affect and media technologies by (...) drawing on the recent work of N. Katherine Hayles and by focusing in detail on the ways in which the ‘costs of consciousness’ are accounted for and negotiated in high-frequency trading. We suggest that traders actively develop modes of awareness accounting for the costs of consciousness, and that the necessary ‘stupidity’ of high-frequency trading algorithms as well as competition pose limits to the full automation of financial markets. (shrink)

The catalogue contains lists of questions found in Latin commentaries on Aristotle’s De sensu, De memoria and De somno et vigilia composed between 1260 and 1320, approximately, plus a selection of commentaries by notable later medieval authors. Most of the texts included are inedita. The catalogue provides information about the title of each question and its location in the relevant manuscript.

This article links to the Special Issue on Collective Agents and Global Structural Injustice.

Countless conceptual metaphors related to human experience have been identified and discussed in the literature. In most conceptual metaphors, a concrete, experiential sou...

Classic publishing of Eastern philosophy, religion, and poetry. This is a facsimile edition of the work originally published in London by John Murray in 1940.

This study explored how women with a diagnosis of cancer (lymphoma) deal with moral concerns related to their responsibility as parents. Ten women with cancer and who had children living at home were interviewed. The interviews were analysed according to the constant comparative method used in grounded theory. In order to provide a focus for the analysis, the ethics of care and the concept of mothering were used as sensitizing concepts. The core concept ‘experience of dealing with moral responsibility of (...) being a parent with cancer by redefining oneself as a mother’ was identified. The processes involved were: interrupted mothering; facing the life-threatening illness and children’s reactions; striving to be a good mother; attempting to deal with moral responsibility; and coming to terms with being a mother. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:220 THEATRE AND RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESIS* We are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the true springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us.... David Hume La collection des idées s'appelle imagination, dans la mesure où celleci désigne, non pas une faculté, mais un ensemble des choses, au sens le plus vague du mot, qui sont ce qu'elles paraissent: collection sans album, pièce (...) sans théâtre, ou flux des perceptions.. Gilles Deleuze In Part III of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion the character Demea contests the analogy drawn by Cleanthes between an orderly world and a coherent, articulate speech, stating that, When I read a volume, I enter into the mind and intention of the author: I become him, in a manner, for the instant; and have an immediate feeling and conception of those ideas, which revolved in his imagination, while employed in that composition. To begin reading Hume's Dialogues with such false and naive premises would inevitably result in a failure to pick up on all the different voices in this text. In fact, no written text can really enable a reader "to enter into the mind and intention of the author." Moreover, such a predisposition on behalf of a naive reader will become further complicated by the processes of 'distanciation' and avoidance of a central point of view, which are brought into play by Hume in this text, where religion is being considered from a purely speculative point of view. Hume has in fact given the reader a clue in the introduction as to how 221 to approach reading the Dialogues. when Pamphilus, the narrator, expounds to his friend Hermippus the advantages of presenting a discussion in the form of a dialogue rather than as a direct statement. He argues that by using a dialogue it is possible to avoid any overtones of an author addressing his reader, or a pedagogue his pupil (D 127). Confronted with a text that is paradoxically both lucid and unclear, any reader whose attitude is still limited by certain metaphysical categories might very well want to know who is actually Hume's spokesman and who he is really addressing in this discussion on the nature and existence of God. These questions are in fact related to traditional oppositions, such as that between a central and subsidiary point of view in a dialogue; between the essential and non-essential of a discussion. In his Dialogues, Hume creates a second degree of separation between himself and the characters involved in the discussion by using the literary process of 'distanciation', when he introduces the fictitious character Pamphilus, who tells Hermippus of the discussions he has heard. From this point of view the style of the text is immediately more disconcerting than Cicero's De Natura Deorum, (which inspired Hume's text), as Cicero does identify himself with his narrator, such that any effect of distanciation is far smaller. Cicero's narrator does, however, emphasize that the multiplicity of points of view in this text results in a certain degree of scepticism and suspension of judgement: "Though it is possible that they are all of them false, it is impossible that more than one of them is true" (p. 71). As Hume does in his Dialogues, Cicero here tries to avoid imposing a 222 central point of view or a single authoritative angle to his discussions, as if given by a teacher; in fact, "in a discussion of this kind our interest should be centred not on the weight of the authority but on the weight of the argument" (p. 73). Thus, wearing the mask of Pamphilus, Hume can play an ironic role, without having to give a central point of view, by having his character present the idea that "reasonable men may be allowed to differ, where no one can reasonably be positive" (D 128). These two texts therefore use the same process of disassociation from a central truth by using a supposedly neutral narrator. When reading the Dialogues one can rely neither on the authority of the author, as he has hidden himself away in the shadows backstage, nor on that... (shrink)

IntroductionSpatial navigation is a complex cognitive function that declines in older age. Finding one’s way around in familiar and new environments is crucial to live and function independently. However, the current literature illustrates the efficacy of spatial navigation interventions in rehabilitative contexts such as pathological aging and traumatic injury, but an overview of existing training studies for healthy older adults is missing. This scoping review aims to identify current evidence on existing spatial navigation interventions in healthy older adults and analyze (...) their efficacy.MethodsTo identify spatial navigation interventions and assessments and investigate their effectiveness, four electronic databases were searched. Two independent reviewers conducted a screening of title, abstract and full-texts and performed a quality assessment. Studies were eligible if published in English, the full text was accessible, at least one group of healthy older adults was included with mean age of 65 years or older, three or more spatial navigation-related training sessions were conducted and at least one spatial ability outcome was reported.ResultsTen studies were included, only healthy older adults were assessed further. Studies differed in sample size, type of training, total intervention duration, and intervention period.ConclusionThe spatial navigation abilities addressed and the measures applied to elicit intervention effects varied in quantity and methodology. Significant improvements were found for at least one spatial ability-related outcome in six of 10 interventions. Two interventions achieved a non-significant positive trend, another revealed no measurable post-training improvement, and one study did not report pre-post-differences. The results indicate that different types of spatial navigation interventions improve components of spatial abilities in healthy older adults. The existing body of research does not allow conclusions on transferability of the trained components on everyday life spatial navigation performance. Future research should focus on reproducing and extending the promising approaches of available evidence. From this, valuable insights on healthy aging could emerge.Trial RegistrationThis scoping review was preregistered at Open Science Framework. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 2 Seiten: 259-266.

Unter Off-Label-Use versteht man den zulassungsüberschreitenden Einsatz eines Arzneimittels außerhalb der von Zulassungsbehörden genehmigten Anwendungsgebiete. Er ist in der medizinischen Praxis weit verbreitet und fächerübergreifend zu beobachten. Der Beitrag gibt eine Einschätzung der Off-Label-Anwendung aus ethischer Sicht. Dazu wird die Off- Label-Anwendung zunächst von anderen, sachlich verwandten Anwendungsweisen abgegrenzt. Danach wird über die aktuelle Verbreitung des Off-Label- Use informiert. Sodann wird gezeigt, dass sich bekannte Problemlagen aus der Medizinethik bei der Off-Label-Anwendung in spezifischer Weise verschärfen. Schließlich wird diskutiert, wie eine (...) ethisch akzeptable Off-Label-Anwendung von Arzneimitteln ausgestaltet werden könnte und auf welchen Ebenen sie ansetzen müsste. (shrink)