Wellek is surely right in arguing that the New Critics did not intend to behave as formalists, but I think he needs to explain why they came so close to doing so in spite of themselves. One explanation may lie in a sphere Wellek mentions but might have probed even more fully, the long-standing Romantic and modernist revolt against the culture of science, positivism, and utilitarianism. In Culture and Society, 1780-1950 , Raymond Williams argues that the Romantic reaction against (...) industrial-utilitarian society led to a specialization of literature that attenuated literature's claims in a self-defeating way. Instead of contesting the realm of objective knowledge, the defenders of literature conceded this territory to science and commerce, either celebrating literature for its very freedom from such knowledge or claiming for it some alternate form of knowledge that could not be made rationally respectable. One could argue that the same pattern of misplaced reaction is seen in the New Criticism, that its revolt against the utilitarian, "Platonic" drives of science and positivism took the form of an attempt to divest literature of objective "truth of correspondence." Having equated this kind of truth with the most reductive forms of scientism, moralism, and propagandizing, the New Critics made it difficult to justify their own ambitious claims for the humanistic knowledge embodied in literature. Their way of reacting against the depravities of technological culture continues to be a common one today and can even be found in such adversaries of the New Critics as the cultural revolutionaries, the phenomenologists, and the deconstructionists—all of whom express the paradigms of our modern "adversary culture." It is an understandable and even perhaps an admirable reaction, but it has led to distortions in our conception of the humanities—one of which is the aggravation of that very dissociation of sensibility into scientific and poetic components that we all say we want to have done with. Gerald Graff, chairman of the English department at Northwestern University, is the author of Poetic Statement and Critical Dogma and, most recently, Literature against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society. He responds in this article to René Wellek's "The New Criticism: Pro and Contra," published in Summer 1978 in Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

If you’ve read the first five hundred pages of this book, you’ve read most of it (we assume that ‘most’ requires more than ‘more than half’). The set of natural numbers n such that the first n pages are most of this book is nonempty. Therefore, by the least number principle, it has a least member k. What is k? We do not know. We have no idea how to find out. The obstacle is something about the term (...) ‘most’. It is recognisably the same feature as the feature of ‘heap’ that prevents us from finding an answer to the question ‘How many grains make a heap?’ and the feature of many other expressions that prevents us from finding answers to similar questions involving them. Call this feature, whatever its underlying nature, vagueness. (shrink)

Gerald Graff argues that our schools and colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque, narrowly specialized, and beyond normal learning capacities than it is or needs to be. Left clueless in the academic world, many students view the life of the mind as a secret society for which only an elite few qualify. In a refreshing departure from standard diatribes against academia, Graff shows how academic unintelligibility is unwittingly reinforced not only by academic jargon and obscure (...) writing, but by the disconnection of the curriculum and the failure to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture. Finally, Graff offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more accessible to students, showing how students can enter the public debates that permeate their lives. (shrink)

Face perception, perhaps the most highly developed visual skill in humans, is mediated by a distributed neural system in humans that is comprised of multiple, bilateral regions. We propose a model for the organization of this system that emphasizes a distinction between the representation of invariant and changeable aspects of faces. The representation of invariant aspects of faces underlies the recognition of individuals, whereas the representation of changeable aspects of faces, such as eye gaze, expression, and lip movement, underlies the (...) perception of information that facilitates social communication. The model is also hierarchical insofar as it is divided into a core system and an extended system. The core system is comprised of occipitotemporal regions in extrastriate visual cortex that mediate the visual analysis of faces. In the core system, the representation of invariant aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the fusiform gyrus, whereas the representation of changeable aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the superior temporal sulcus. The extended system is comprised of regions from neural systems for other cognitive functions that can be recruited to act in concert with the regions in the core system to extract meaning from faces. (shrink)

I begin by examining the answer to a traditional puzzle concerning supererogatory acts: if they are good to do, why are they not required? The answer often given is that they are optional acts because they cost the agent too much. This view has parallels with the traditional view of religious sacrifice, which involves offering up something or someone valuable as a gift or victim and experiencing a ‘cost’ as part of the ritual. There are problems with the idea that (...) costs justify the optional nature of supererogatory acts, however, and I suggest that these problems mirror the tensions that are found in Christian theology when a traditional view of sacrifice is adopted. (shrink)

We present two challenges to the fearful ape hypothesis: (1) biobehavioral synchrony precedes and moderates the effects of fear on cooperative care, and (2) cooperative care emerges in a more bidirectional manner than Grossmann acknowledges. We present evidence demonstrating how dyadic differences in co-regulation and individual differences in infants' reactivity shape caregivers' responses to infant affect.

THE TITLE OF THIS ESSAY, "READING MORE THAN LOLITA IN TEHRAN," IS meant to invoke Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir documenting how Western literary classics have the ability to change and improve the lives of people living under theocratic rule. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran, Nafisi invited seven of her best women students to attend a weekly study of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and (...) other authors she believed would provide the women with examples of how to successfully assert their autonomy despite great odds. (shrink)

In recent decades, deliberation about public issues has become a central theme in citizenship education. In line with an increasing philosophical and political appreciation of the importance of deliberation within democracy, schools, as training grounds for democratic citizenship, should foster high-level deliberative skills. However, when this insight is translated into practical formats, these formats suffer from a number of shortcomings. Specifically, they can be criticised on philosophical grounds for advantaging select societal groups, and on empirical grounds for facilitating groupthink mechanisms. (...) This paper aims to address these shortcomings by suggesting a role for debating techniques within deliberative education. Because debating stimulates the contestation of diverse opinions, it may counteract the silencing of minority viewpoints and the proliferation of groupthink. At the same time, debating-based formats must be closely regulated in order to not imperil compromise formation. A concrete format is presented that balances these considerations and may therefore contribute to more effective deliberation in the classroom. (shrink)

W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium. Introduction to HTML: A Self Paced Course on Web Authoring : This is now my favorite online HTML tutorial (which is not to say that I've searched exhaustively, or even extensively). I especially like its Table of HTML (4.01) Character Entities , which gives names and ascii codes for special characters, such as the em-dash, section sign, greek letters, etc. Publishing a Personal Web Page using CU People : Basic information for Cornell people who (...) want to create a personal Web Page. Creating Course Web sites : Cornell faculty wanting to create course websites should look here if they need more space than the 5MB allotted by CU People. Wade's HTML Tutorial : This tutorial makes it easy to get started creating web pages by writing html. Beginner's Guide to HTML : Another good introduction; from the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications). W3C HTML Validator : Check your web pages for errors and compliance with HTML standards. HTML With Style : Biweekly tutorials on making web-pages. Each tutorial contains lots of interesting, opinionated details about the right and wrong way to produce web pages. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 45-71 [Access article in PDF] Presencing "Communion" in Chaïm Perelman's New Rhetoric Richard Graff Wendy Winn Department of RhetoricUniversity of MinnesotaOver the second half of his long and distinguished career, Chaïm Perelman reiterated the central themes of his theory of rhetoric many times. As the audience for his work expanded, Perelman was repeatedly invited to summarize the principles presented in La nouvelle rhétorique, (...) his magnum opus authored in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which appeared in 1958. On these occasions, he would often attempt to clarify or refine the major concepts presented in that treatise. Nevertheless, even today many aspects of Perelman's work remain enigmatic. In outline, The New Rhetoric itself conveys a sense of structural and theoretical clarity, but for many readers this first impression evaporates when they confront the complexity and detail of the work's exposition. In the preface to their new study of Perelman, Alan Gross and Ray Dearin observe:The New Rhetoric is difficult to read, a task made even more difficult for American audiences because virtually all its examples and illustrations are from a literature in a foreign language.... Moreover, Perelman's later attempts to achieve clarity, in The Realm of Rhetoric, and numerous shorter articles, are equally puzzling. Consequently, some of Perelman's best ideas are virtually buried in a very long work, and therefore largely lost even to the most careful readers. In addition, on such central issues as the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy Perelman remains maddeningly obscure. (2003, ix) While Perelman's status as a pioneering figure in the rejuvenation of rhetorical study in Continental Europe is secure, as is his placement among the canonical twentieth-century theorists by American scholars, such difficulties constitute an impediment to contemporary understanding and future appreciation of his achievement; and the sprawling character of The New Rhetoric certainly has not helped to counteract the less [End Page 45] sympathetic reception his work has received in some corners of rhetorical and argumentation studies.1Gross and Dearin's volume joins several other recent studies that have contributed to the untangling of Perelman's thought and to the profitable application of his ideas.2 Still, some of Perelman's "best ideas" remain buried and sorely in need of excavation. Chief among these are considerations prompted by Perelman's use of the evocative yet mysterious term "communion." Although communion appears repeatedly among the panoply of concepts and argumentative techniques described in The New Rhetoric, explicit discussion of it there is brief and scattered, and the subject receives only glancing mention in Perelman's subsequent publications. In turn, communion has been all but ignored in the scholarship responding to or extending Perelman's work.3 This is even the case in studies where one would expect to see more serious engagement with Perelman's ideas on the subject—notably, in those that consider the status of values in argumentation and the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance of community.4In this essay, we offer a detailed analysis of Perelman's conception of communion and, in the course of endowing the concept with greater "presence," aim to show its rich implications for these areas of inquiry. We argue that the idea of communion is a vital, if understated, component of Perelman's proposed "new rhetoric." Like other aspects of Perelman's theory, however, it is an expansive and somewhat slippery notion. In The New Rhetoric, communion is used in a very general sense as the term denoting a community's agreement on questions of value, but also, more narrowly, as an objective sought in certain forms of discourse and as an effect of specific linguistic-stylistic devices. The exegesis needed to indicate the subtle links between these senses will enable us to describe the manner in which Perelman endeavored to integrate the technical lore inherited from the classical tradition of rhetoric with a broadly social and determinedly pluralisticconception of argumentation.We begin by examining communion in relation to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas... (shrink)

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings together some of her best work over the last thirty years. A specially written introduction gives an overview of (...) her career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. The first section on 'Philosophy' covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology, introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. The second section, 'From Philosophy to History', includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout and James Sully, among others. The third section on 'History' covers Valentine's more recent historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional and biographical – and includes accounts of both Bedford College and University College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists. The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to anyone with interests in these areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in conceptual and historical issues. (shrink)

Critics, then, who label theories such as objectivism or deconstructionism as “authoritarian” or “subversive” are committing a fallacy of overspecificity. To call Hirsch’s theory authoritarian is to assume that such a theory lends itself to one and only one kind of political use and that that use can be determined a priori. To refute such an assumption, one need only stand back from the present in order to recall that today’s authoritarian ideology is often yesterday’s progressive one, and vice versa. (...) Indeed, there’s considerable historical irony in the fact that objectivism has now acquired the status of a right-wing idea, while Nietzsche and Heidegger have emerged as heroes of literary leftism. As recently as a few decades ago, these alignments were different. George Orwell, for instance, thought that the tendency to deny the possibility of objective truth reflected a totalitarian mentality. “Totalitarianism,” he wrote, “in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the existence of objective truth.” He added that “the friends of totalitarianism in this country tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than a little lie. It is pointed out that all historical records are biased and inaccurate, or, on the other hand, that modern physics has proved that what seems to us the real world is an illusion, so that to believe in the evidence of the senses is simply vulgar philistinism.”10It’s not that it hadn’t occurred to Orwell that the notion of objective truth could easily be used to justify the actions of tyrants and oppressors. But Orwell’s experience of Fascist and Communist falsification of history showed how the denial of the possibility of objectivity could also justify oppressive actions, perhaps in a more disarming way. For various historical reasons, Orwell’s insight is easily lost today. His is one of those Enlightenment concepts of truth which have been compromised in usage. As the Enlightenment has come to be associated not with progress, democracy, and equality but with the ideological exploitation of those concepts in the interests of social control, a great moral and political transvaluation of the epistemological vocabulary has occurred. Enlightenment thinking is frequently associated with the bourgeois complacency or the menacing technology of Western democracies or is identified with the totalitarian regimentation of the Soviet Union. Thus the concepts of objective truth, nature, essence, identity, and teleology have come to be viewed as conservative or reactionary ideas, as if these ideas had never operated, and never could operate, in quite other ways.11 10. George orwell, “The Prevention of Literature,” The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, 4 vols. , 4: 63-64.11. As Frederic Jameson has noted, “it is certainly the case that a belief in the natural is ideological and that much of bourgeois art has worked to perpetuate such a belief…. Yet in different historical circumstances the idea of nature was once a subversive concept with a genuinely revolutionary function, and only the analysis of the concrete historical and cultural conjuncture can tell us whether, in the post-natural world of late capitalism, the categories of nature may not have acquired such a critical charge again”. (shrink)

If you’ve read the first five hundred pages of this book, you’ve read most of it (we assume that ‘most’ requires more than ‘more than half’). The set of natural numbers n such that the first n pages are most of this book is nonempty. Therefore, by the least number principle, it has a least member k. What is k? We do not know. We have no idea how to find out. The obstacle is something about the term (...) ‘most’. It is recognisably the same feature as the feature of ‘heap’ that prevents us from finding an answer to the question ‘How many grains make a heap?’ and the feature of many other expressions that prevents us from finding answers to similar questions involving them. Call this feature, whatever its underlying nature, vagueness. (shrink)

For much of his career, British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott was identified with Margaret Thatcher’s conservative policies. He has been called by some a guru to the Tories, while others have considered him one of the last proponents of British Idealism. Best known for such books as _Experience and Its Modes_ and _Rationalism in Politics_, Oakeshott has been the subject of numerous studies, but always with an emphasis on his political thought. Elizabeth Campbell Corey now makes the case that (...) Oakeshott’s moral and political philosophies are more informed by religious and aesthetic considerations than has previously been supposed. Hers is the first book-length study of this premise, arguing that Oakeshott’s views on aesthetics, religion, and morality are intimately linked in a creative moral personality that underlies his political theorizing. Corey focuses on a wealth of early material from Oakeshott’s career that has only recently been published, as well as his acclaimed “Tower of Babel” essays, to show that these works illuminate his thinking in ways that could not have been realized prior to their publication. She places Oakeshott squarely in the Augustinian tradition, citing his 1929 essay “Religion and the World,” and then identifies his departure from it. She explores Oakeshott’s recurring theme of “living one’s life in the present”; examines his explicit discussions of religion, aesthetics, and morality; and then considers his political thought in light of this moral vision. She finally compares his idea of Rationalism to Eric Voegelin’s concept of Gnosticism and considers both thinkers’ treatment of Hobbes to delineate their philosophical differences. Through this insightful analysis, Corey shows Oakeshott to be not merely a political philosopher but a thinker with humanistic interests—one who throughout his life was deeply interested in the question of what it means to be human and was moved by art, poetry, and religion while recognizing the necessary evil of political arrangements in order for those activities to flourish. Her work is a major step in a reevaluation of Oakeshott, showing that his conservatism has been greatly misunderstood and that he is more properly regarded as a philosopher whose vision of the human condition, while oftentimes detached and skeptical, is also romantic and inspired. (shrink)

More than forty years have passed since Congress, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, enacted sweeping antidiscrimination laws in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. As a signal achievement of that legacy, in 2008, Americans elected their first African American president. Some would argue that we have finally arrived at a postracial America, butThe Imperative of Integration indicates otherwise. Elizabeth Anderson demonstrates that, despite progress (...) toward racial equality, African Americans remain disadvantaged on virtually all measures of well-being. Segregation remains a key cause of these problems, and Anderson skillfully shows why racial integration is needed to address these issues. Weaving together extensive social science findings--in economics, sociology, and psychology--with political theory, this book provides a compelling argument for reviving the ideal of racial integration to overcome injustice and inequality, and to build a better democracy. -/- Considering the effects of segregation and integration across multiple social arenas, Anderson exposes the deficiencies of racial views on both the right and the left. She reveals the limitations of conservative explanations for black disadvantage in terms of cultural pathology within the black community and explains why color blindness is morally misguided. Multicultural celebrations of group differences are also not enough to solve our racial problems. Anderson provides a distinctive rationale for affirmative action as a tool for promoting integration, and explores how integration can be practiced beyond affirmative action. -/- Offering an expansive model for practicing political philosophy in close collaboration with the social sciences, this book is a trenchant examination of how racial integration can lead to a more robust and responsive democracy. (shrink)

Though emotion conveys memory benefits, it does not enhance memory equally for all aspects of an experience, nor for all types of emotional events. In this review, I outline the behavioral evidence for arousal's focal enhancements of memory and describe the neural processes that may support those focal enhancements. I also present behavioral evidence to suggest that these focal enhancements occur more often for negative experiences than for positive ones. This result appears to arise because of valence-dependent effects on (...) the neural processes recruited during episodic encoding and retrieval, with negative affect associated with increased engagement of sensory processes, and positive affect leading to enhanced recruitment of conceptual processes. (shrink)

Interpreting the letters characterized as written by Alice Alington and Margaret Roper in 1534 has proved perplexing since their first publication, when the editor wrote, “It is not certainly known” whether Thomas More or Roper wrote the letter to Alington. Did Roper, More, or both write it? This study looks at both letters from a variety of perspectives, pointing out many reasons that complicate reading them before focusing on the personal and political circumstances, the structural knot of wise/foolish, (...) and the writing styles of father and daughter, including an analysis of Roper's known writing, characteristically empathic. It agrees that More was the chief writer, but that Roper might well have written some, though not all, of her speeches, and that she was involved in their discussions and as More's personal representative. Finally, it suggests both letters constitute a mini-dialogue. (shrink)

In this paper I trace Quine's early development of his treatment of names, first as abbreviations for definite descriptions with "Frege-Rusell" style substantive content, then as abbreviations for definite descriptions containing simple predicative content, through to a treatment of names themselves as predicates rather than as abbreviations for this or that type of more complex expression. Along the way, I explain why—despite ubiquitous claims and suggestions to the contrary—Quine never actually uses the verbized name "Socratizes".

In 2017 and 2019, two research teams claimed ‘proof of principle’ for artificial womb technology (AWT). AWT has long been a subject of speculation in bioethical literature, with broad consensus that it is a welcome development. Despite this, little attention is afforded to more immediate ethical problems in the development of AWT, particularly as an alternative to neonatal intensive care. To start this conversation, I consider whether experimental AWT is innovative treatment or medical research. The research–treatment distinction, pervasive in (...) regulation worldwide, is intended to isolate research activities and subject them to a greater degree of oversight. I argue that there is a tendency in the literature to conceptualize AWT for partial ectogenesis as innovative treatment. However, there are sufficiently serious ethical concerns with experimental AWT that mean that it must not be first used on humans on the basis that it is a ‘beneficial treatment’. First, I outline the prospects for translation of AWT animal studies into treatment for human preterms. Second, I challenge the conceptualizations of experimental AWT as innovative treatment. It must be considered medical research to reflect the investigatory nature of the process and guarantee sufficient protections for subjects. Identifying that AWT is research is crucial in formulating further ethico‐legal questions regarding the experimental use of AWT. Third, I demonstrate that clinical trials will be a necessary part of the clinical translation of AWT because of requirements laid out by regulators. I consider the justification for clinical trials and highlight some of the crucial ethical questions about the conditions under which they should proceed. (shrink)

Seven studies explored the empirical basis for claims that infants represent cardinal values of small sets of objects. Many studies investigating numerical ability did not properly control for continuous stimulus properties such as surface area, volume, contour length, or dimensions that correlate with these properties. Experiment 1 extended the standard habituation/dishabituation paradigm to a 1 vs 2 comparison with three-dimensional objects and confirmed that when number and total front surface area are confounded, infants discriminate the arrays. Experiment 2 revealed that (...) infants dishabituated to a change in front surface area but not to a change in number when the two variables were pitted against each other. Experiments 3 through 5 revealed no sensitivity to number when front surface area was controlled, and Experiments 6 and 7 extended this pattern of findings to the Wynn (1992) transformation task. Infants’ lack of a response to number, combined with their demonstrated sensitivity to one or more dimensions of continuous extent, supports the hypothesis that the representations subserving object-based attention, rather than those subserving enumeration, underlie performance in the above tasks. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the conversational management of blaming and accountability. In particular, we explore how involved speakers routinely allocate and avoid blame in everyday talk. In considering such a problematic notion of social interaction, we analyse the BBC interview between Princess Diana and Martin Bashir that was aired on British national television on 20 November 1995. In the analysis, we consider how different discursive strategies are employed by speakers in ways that work up credible and authentic accounts. (...) More specifically, we argue that Diana attributes blame to external `others' within a negotiated context of routine description of past events. Categories such as `the media', `the royal household' and `Charles' are constructed and made relevant throughout the interview and the analytic interest is what is accomplished rhetorically for both Diana and Bashir. Of further interest is the overall script design of the interview and how devices such as script formulation, stake management, footing shifts and progressive narrative function in the negotiation of blame. We conclude that `doing blaming' is attended to and managed locally by participants in conversation and this `doing' can be accomplished in a number of ways. (shrink)

Permissivism is the thesis that, for some body of evidence and a proposition p, there is more than one rational doxastic attitude any agent with that evidence can take toward p. Proponents of uniqueness deny permissivism, maintaining that every body of evidence always determines a single rational doxastic attitude. In this paper, we explore the debate between permissivism and uniqueness about evidence, outlining some of the major arguments on each side. We then consider how permissivism can be understood as (...) an underdetermination thesis, and show how this moves the debate forward in fruitful ways: in distinguishing between different types of permissivism, in dispelling classic objections to permissivism, and in shedding light on the relationship between permissivism and evidentialism. (shrink)

Is human nature something that the natural and social sciences aim to describe, or is it a pernicious fiction? What role, if any, does ”human nature’ play in directing and informing scientific work? Can we talk about human nature without invoking---either implicitly or explicitly---a contrast with human culture? It might be tempting to think that the respectability of ”human nature’ is an issue that divides natural and social scientists along disciplinary boundaries, but the truth is more complex. The contributors (...) to this collection take very different stances with regard to the idea of human nature. They come from the fields of psychology, the philosophy of science, social and biological anthropology, evolutionary theory, and the study of animal cognition. Some of them are ”human nature’ enthusiasts, some are sceptics, and some say that human nature is a concept with many faces, each of which plays a role in its own investigative niche. Some want to eliminate the notion altogether, some think it unproblematic, others want to retain it with reforming modifications. Some say that human nature is a target for investigation that the human sciences cannot do without, others argue that the term does far more harm than good. The diverse perspectives articulated in this book help to explain why we disagree about human nature, and what, if anything, might resolve that disagreement. Introduction Tim Lewens 1 Doubling Down on the Nomological Notion of Human Nature Edouard Machery 2 Trait Bin and Trait Cluster Accounts of Human Nature Grant Ramsey 3 A Developmental Systems Account of Human Nature Karola Stotz and Paul Griffiths 4 Human Nature, Natural Pedagogy, and Evolutionary Causal Essentialism Cecilia Heyes 5 Human Nature John Dupré 6 Sceptical Reflections on Human Nature Kim Sterelny 7 The Social Construction of Human Nature Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown 8 The Use and Non-Use of the Human Nature Concept by Evolutionary Biologists Peter J. Richerson 9 Human Ontogenies as Historical Processes Christina Toren 10 Divide and Conquer Maria Kronfeldner. (shrink)

One of the alleged advantages of a constructivist theory in metaethics is that the theory avoids the epistemological problems with moral realism while reaping many of realism's benefits. According to evolutionary debunking arguments, the epistemological problem with moral realism is that the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs makes it hard to see how our moral beliefs count as knowledge of moral facts, realistically construed. Certain forms of constructivism are supposed to be immune to this argument, giving the view a (...) key advantage. This paper considers the challenge that evolutionary debunking arguments pose for the possibility of moral knowledge and concludes that such arguments do not reveal any advantages for constructivism. Furthermore, once we consider how defenders of moral knowledge should best respond to this epistemological objection, constructivists may face more difficulties, not less, explaining how our moral beliefs represent moral knowledge. (shrink)

In their paper, ‘How to reach trustworthy decisions for caesarean sections on maternal request: a call for beneficial power’, Eide and Bærøe present maternal request caesarean sections (MRCS) as a site of conflict in obstetrics because birthing people are seeking access to a treatment ‘without any anticipated medical benefit’. While I agree with the conclusions of their paper -that there is a need to reform the approach to MRCS counselling to ensure that the structural vulnerability of pregnant people making birth (...) decisions is addressed—I disagree with the framing of MRCS as having ‘no anticipated medical benefit’. I argue that MRCS is often inappropriately presented as unduly risky,without supporting empirical evidence,and that MRCS is most often sought by birthing people on the basis of a clinical need. I argue that there needs to be open conversation and frank willingness to acknowledge the values that are currently underpinning the presentation of MRCS as ‘clinically unnecessary’; specifically there needs to be more discussion of where and why the benefits of MRCS that are recognised by individual birthing people are not recognised by clinicians. This is important to ensure access to MRCS for birthing people that need it. (shrink)

The practice of relational leadership is essential for dealing with the increasingly urgent and complex social, economic and environmental issues that characterize sustainability. Despite growing attention to both relational leadership and leadership for sustainability, an ethical understanding of both is limited. This is problematic as both sustainability and relational leadership are rife with moral implications. This paper conceptually explores how the moral theory of ‘ethics of care’ can help to illuminate the ethical dimensions of relational leadership for sustainability. In doing (...) so, the implications of ethics of care more broadly for the practice of relational leadership development are elaborated. From a caring perspective, a ‘relational stance’ or logic of effectiveness can be fostered through engaging in a reflective process of moral education through conversation. In starting this dialogue, we can begin to build capacity for relational leadership for sustainability and, thus, support the development of individual well-being and organizational and societal flourishing. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organisational behaviour is an ongoing concern, prompting the need for more nuanced understanding of the workplace environment most likely to inhibit it. This study considers the role of risk climate, sometimes referred to as risk culture, as well as ethical climate, for reducing UPB. The study investigates whether four risk climate factors can, by focusing on the long-term consequences of UPB to the organisation, and providing guidance on behavioural norms, reduce UPB misconduct. Surveying employees in three financial institutions (...) we found that only one of the risk climate factors, avoidance, is consistently associated with UPB. On the other hand, a self-interested, ethical climate significantly increases UPB in all samples. In multi-climate analysis, we found that risk climate factors interacted with ethical climate to predict UPB. That is, when employees perceive that the workplace ethos is not self-interested, three factors of risk climate—avoidance, proactive and manager—significantly predict UPB. UPB is least likely when self-interest is low, avoidance risk climate is low, proactive risk climate is high and manager risk climate is high. Implications for leaders are discussed. (shrink)

Despite the centrality of emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders such as depression, there is a lack of experimental studies examining the psychological factors that influence emotion regulation in individuals with depressive symptoms. Participants with current depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to an experimental manipulation promoting more malleable emotion beliefs or the control condition. Participants underwent a negative emotion induction and reported on their affect and emotion regulation during the induction. Individuals who received the experimental manipulation reported greater cognitive reappraisal (...) and greater emotion recovery. Experimental manipulations that can enhance emotion regulation and emotion recovery possess significant promise as a preliminary step in developing brief interventions that can overcome formal barriers to care. (shrink)

A large body of literature considers the ethico-legal and regulatory issues surrounding assisted conception. Surrogacy, however, within this body of literature is an odd-fit. It involves a unique demand of another person—a form of reproductive labour—that many other aspects of assisted conception, such as gamete donation do not involve. Surrogacy is a form of assisted gestation. The potential alternatives for individuals who want a genetically related child but who do not have the capacity to gestate are ever increasing: with the (...) advent of uterus transplantation, and the anticipated development of artificial placentas.In this paper, I highlight the pertinent conceptual differences between technologies assisting conception and those assisting gestation to demonstrate that distinct issues arise when assisted gestative technologies are used. I argue that there is utility in considering AGTs as a genus of technologies. These technologies perform the same function from the perspective of putative parents and might exist on a spectrum of alternatives when they become more available. Moreover, since many of the same or very similar ethical, social and legal issues are raised by surrogacy, UTx and ectogestation, analysis of these issues will be better contextualised by considering these technologies together. Many of the matters currently being highlighted for reform in the context of surrogacy will inevitably impact on how other forms of assisted gestation are governed. The conversation should be broadened; we should consider how far other emerging technologies might be accommodated in revised regulatory schemes. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how the prospect of artificial placenta technology (nearing clinical trials in human subjects) should encourage further consideration of the loss experienced by individuals when their pregnancy ends unexpectedly. Discussions of pregnancy loss are intertwined with procreative loss, whereby the gestated entity has died when the pregnancy ends. However, we demonstrate how pregnancy loss can and does exist separate to procreative loss in circumstances where the gestated entity survives the premature ending of the pregnancy. In outlining (...) the value that can be attached to pregnancy beyond fetal-centric narratives, we illustrate how pregnancy loss, separate to procreative loss, can be experienced. This loss has already been recognised among parents who have experienced an unexpected early ending of their pregnancy, resulting in their child being cared for in neonatal intensive care unit. Artificial placentas, however, may exacerbate these feelings and make pregnancy loss (without procreative loss) more visible. We argue that pregnancy is an embodied state in which gestation is facilitated by the body but gestation itself should be recognised as a process—and one that could be separable from pregnancy. In demarcating the two, we explore the different ways in which pregnancy loss can be understood. Our objective in this paper goes beyond contributing to our philosophical understanding of pregnancy towards practical-orientated conclusions regarding the care pathways surrounding the artificial placenta. We make recommendations including the need for counselling and careful consideration of the language used when an artificial placenta is used. (shrink)

This article aims to present Queen Jadwiga’ actual influence on nominations for episcopal sees during her reign and joint rule with Władysław Jagiełło. Until now, except for Krzysztof Ożóg, researchers expressed only a marginal interest in the subject. The author cites relevant views contained in all major studies on Jadwiga’s reign as well as analyses all available sources, mainly printed ones, both papal documents and chronicles, with special regard to the works of Jan Długosz. Using the induction method, the author (...) analyses 22 nominations for episcopal sees. Contrary to the views expressed in the literature of the subject, Jadwiga did not influence all episcopal nominations she has been attributed with. Nonetheless, in some cases we may argue that she exerted noticeable pressure; in other instances it was probably only more or less subtle. In all analysed nominations, whenever her role was clearly proved in sources, we may notice that Jadwiga was invariably cooperative in the common ecclesiastical policy which she pursued together with her husband. For example, both took advantage of the Holy Sees’ vulnerability in the era of the Occidental Schism, which allowed them to push their own candidates for episcopal seats. The present analysis revealed that with regard to the majority of most prestigious bishoprics in the Kingdom of Poland it was Jagiełło who had key influence on candidates for episcopal nominations, building his own political power base. At the same time, certain episcopal promotions, especially those in Ruthenia, Moldova and Mazovia, were reported inadequately and in few sources, hence Jadwiga’s and Władysław’s influence on the nominations of bishops can only be hypothetically determined. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This is (...) true not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fricker’s focus on individual epistemic virtue is important, we also need to consider what epistemic justice as a virtue of social systems would require. My paper will indicate some directions forward on this front, focusing on the need for integration of diverse institutions and persons engaged in inquiry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Patient Self-Determination ActElizabeth Leibold McCloskey (bio)What are the ethics of extending the length of life? We know that we cannot artificially end life (Thou Shalt not Kill), but how about artificially extending life? Is that always good, sometimes good?... In ethics, is keeping people alive the highest good? Should our priority be to keep people breathing?... What does basic religious ethics say about this?(John C. Danforth, letter to (...) the author, 19 August 1989)The Patient Self-Determination Act, signed into law as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA '90) last November, marks the first time that Congress has passed legislation concerning the ethics of life-sustaining medical treatment. The bill was spearheaded by Senator John C. Danforth (RMO), who has a special interest in this area. An Episcopal priest, Danforth was formerly an assistant chaplain at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and now sits as a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. Although Senator Danforth's legislative initiative was not a result of the Cruzan case, it was in his state of Missouri that the U.S. Supreme Court case involving removal of Nancy Cruzan's feeding tube arose (Cruzan v. Director of Missouri Department of Health, U.S. Supreme Court, 58 LW 4916, 26 June 1990). From his unique vantage point, he felt it was time to craft a legislative response to some of the difficult issues surrounding prolongation of life.The short answer to Senator Danforth's questions about when to artificially extend life is simple enough: people must be free to determine that for themselves. Common law and common sense dictate such a conclusion; living will and health care proxy statutes, enacted in almost every state, codify that right. The Catholic moral tradition teaches that one is not morally obligated to use extraordinary means to prolong life, a tradition shared both by the mainline Protestant and the reform and conservative Jewish community. Yet most people are unaware of their fundamental legal right to make such decisions, and as court cases from Quinlan (In re Quinlin, 137 N.J. Super. 227, 1975) to Cruzan demonstrate, few know [End Page 163] how to make arrangements for this right to be exercised if they become incapacitated.Meanwhile, health care practices are often driven by a denial of death. When Senator Danforth and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) introduced the bill on October 17, 1989, Senator Danforth said:More and more it is arguable that we play God by subjecting people to unwanted and sometimes unnecessary treatment, treatment that unnaturally prolongs the dying process. Our health care system has become obsessed with extending life, at times neglecting the caring component of medicine and trampling on the rights of patients.(Congressional Record 1989, 135:5.13566)The American Hospital Association estimates that 70 percent of deaths now occur after a determination to withhold or withdraw medical treatment. Many of those decisions are made without the benefit of an incapacitated patient's views, yet a Harvard study revealed that 95 percent of the population would like to prepare in advance for such decisions. Only 4 percent of hospitals have a systematic method of asking patients if they have an advance directive. Family members confront painful choices in the face of uncertainty about their loved one's wishes and it can be even more painful when a family knows the patient's desires but providers and the courts act otherwise because clear evidence is lacking.The Patient Self-Determination Act is rooted in the belief that people should be given information that enables them to specify the extent of medical treatment they wish to receive should they become incapacitated. The public should be educated about applicable state laws that protect the individual's right to make such choices through the use of an advance directive.The Act moves toward that goal by promoting knowledge of state laws. It requires every hospital, nursing home, home health agency, hospice, and health maintenance organization that participates in Medicaid or Medicare to routinely give all adult patients information about advance directives. Patients will also be given information on the... (shrink)

Under some circumstances, individuals are willing to engage in unethical behaviors that benefit another entity. In this research we advance the unethical pro-organizational behavior construct by showing that individuals also have the potential to behave unethically to benefit their supervisors. Previous research has not examined if employees engage in unethical acts to benefit an entity that is separate from oneself and if they will conduct these acts to benefit a supervisor. Our research helps to address these gaps. We also demonstrate (...) that unethical behavior to benefit a supervisor, what we term unethical pro-supervisor behavior, is more likely to occur if individuals are more (versus less) identified with their organization or supervisor. That is, feeling a sense of oneness with one’s organization or supervisor can result in employees engaging in unethical behavior to help their supervisor. Further, this positive relationship is weakened if the employee possesses higher levels of moral identity. We test our hypotheses with a two-part laboratory study, a field study, and a time-lagged field study. Theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that non-identity actions are wrong because they _cause_ harm to people. While non-identity actions also typically benefit people, failure to act would similarly benefit someone, so considerations of benefit are ineligible to justify the harm. However, in some non-identity cases, failure to act would not benefit anyone: cases where one is choosing whether to procreate at all. These are the _hard_ non-identity cases. Not all "different-number" cases are hard. In some cases, we don't know whether acting would (...) result in more or fewer people; this paper argues that this _epistemic_ factor makes acting in these cases wrong. (shrink)

Essays at the intersection of philosophy and architecture explore how we understand and inhabit space. To be outside allows one a fresh perspective on the inside. In these essays, philosopher Elizabeth Grosz explores the ways in which two disciplines that are fundamentally outside each another—architecture and philosophy—can meet in a third space to interact free of their internal constraints. "Outside" also refers to those whose voices are not usually heard in architectural discourse but who inhabit its space—the destitute, the (...) homeless, the sick, and the dying, as well as women and minorities. Grosz asks how we can understand space differently in order to structure and inhabit our living arrangements accordingly. Two themes run throughout the book: temporal flow and sexual specificity. Grosz argues that time, change, and emergence, traditionally viewed as outside the concerns of space, must become more integral to the processes of design and construction. She also argues against architecture's historical indifference to sexual specificity, asking what the existence of (at least) two sexes has to do with how we understand and experience space. Drawing on the work of such philosophers as Henri Bergson, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan, Grosz raises abstract but nonformalistic questions about space, inhabitation, and building. All of the essays propose philosophical experiments to render space and building more mobile and dynamic. (shrink)

De Smet et al. (2018) propose that when functionally similar constructions come to overlap, analogical attraction may occur. So may differentiation, but this process involves attraction to other subnetworks and is both “accidental” and “exceptional”. I argue that differentiation plays a considerably more significant role than De Smet et al. allow. My case study is the development of the dative and benefactive alternations. The rise of the dative alternation (e.g., “gave the Saxons land” ∼ “gave land to the Saxons”) (...) has been shown to occur in later Middle English between 1400 and 1500 (Zehentner 2018). Building on Zehentner and Traugott (2020), the rise of the benefactive alternation (e.g., “build her a house” ∼ “build a house for her”) in Early Modern English c1650 is analyzed from a historical constructionalist perspective and compared with the rise of the dative alternation. The histories of the alternations exemplify the rise of functionally similar constructions that overlap, and show that differentiation from each other plays as large a role as attraction. Both attraction and differentiation occur at several levels of abstraction: verb-specific constructions, schemas and larger systemic changes. (shrink)

A growing frustration with “spin doctors,” doublespeak, and outright lying by public officials has resulted in a deep public cynicism regarding politics today. It has also led many voters to seek out politicians who engage in “straight talk,” out of a hope that sincerity signifies a dedication to the truth. While this is an understandable reaction to the degradation of public discourse inflicted by political hype, Elizabeth Markovits argues that the search for sincerity in the public arena actually constitutes (...) a dangerous distraction from more important concerns, including factual truth and the ethical import of political statements. Her argument takes her back to an examination of the Greek notion of _parrhesia_, and she draws from her study of the Platonic dialogues a nuanced understanding of this ancient analogue of “straight talk.” She shows Plato to have an appreciation for rhetoric rather than a desire to purge it from public life, providing insights into the ways it can contribute to a fruitful form of deliberative democracy today. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that there are evidential situations that rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. In this paper, I argue for Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism (IaBP): that there are evidential situations in which a single agent can rationally adopt more than one belief-attitude toward a proposition. I give two positive arguments for IaBP; the first involves epistemic supererogation and the second involves doubt. Then, I should how these arguments give intrapersonal permissivists a distinct response to (...) the toggling objection. I conclude that IaBP is a view that philosophers should take seriously. (shrink)

Research on human infants, adult nonhuman primates, and children and adults in diverse cultures provides converging evidence for four systems at the foundations of human knowledge. These systems are domain specific and serve to represent both entities in the perceptible world (inanimate manipulable objects and animate agents) and entities that are more abstract (numbers and geometrical forms). Human cognition may be based, as well, on a fifth system for representing social partners and for categorizing the social world into groups. (...) Research on infants and children may contribute both to understanding of these systems and to attempts to overcome misconceptions that they may foster. (shrink)

Theories such as effective altruism contend that people are morally obligated to give to charitable organizations that will efficiently do the most net good. The assumption is that aiding people who are most in need will create the most good; yet, it may be more inefficient to reach those most in need. In response, I outline my Inefficiency Principle in which efficiency has less moral weight when aiding those lacking in basic capabilities, and efficiency has more moral weight (...) when aiding those who are lacking in more complex capabilities. This principle acknowledges the obstacles in assisting those most in need while sustaining the moral importance of efficiency. (shrink)

A report of a person's desire can be true even if its embedded clause underspecifies the content of the desire that makes the report true. It is true that Fiona wants to catch a fish even if she has no desire that is satisfied if she catches a poisoned minnow. Her desire is satisfied only if she catches an edible, meal-sized fish. The content of her desire is more specific than the propositional content of the embedded clause in our (...) true report of her desires. Standard semantic accounts of belief reports require, however, that the embedded clause of a true belief report specify precisely the content of the belief that makes it true. Such accounts of belief reports therefore face what I call "the problem of underspecification" if they are extended to desire reports. Such standard accounts are sometimes refined by requiring that a belief report can be true not only if its subject has a belief with precisely the propositional content specified by its embedded clause, but also only if its subject grasps that content in a particular way. Such refinements do not, however, help to address the problem of underspecification for desire reports. (shrink)