Practitioners’ ethical orientation and responses vary between practice settings. Yet, currently, the ethics for midwifery practice that is explicit in the literature and which provides the ideals of socialization into practice, is that of bio(medical)ethics. Traditional bioethics, developed because of World War II atrocities and increased scientific research, is based on moral philosophy, normative theory, abstract universal principles and objective problem solving, all of which focus on right and wrong ‘action’ for resolving dilemmas. They exclude context and relationship. Personal narratives (...) of mothers and midwives contest the appropriateness of these accepted values and systems for childbirth because they induce conflict between work-place/service provider ethics and personal/professional midwifery ethics. In contrast to the disembedded and disembodied approach of biomedical ethics, an ethically adequate response in midwifery practice resonates more with the ethics of intimates, such as feminist virtue ethics. (shrink)

This investigation explores how contemporary motherhood is constituted in postindustrial consumer culture through a content and textual analysis of Shape Fit Pregnancy. Using all available issues of the magazine from its inception in 1997 to 2003, the authors first underscore a key tension surrounding pregnant women’s bodies within health and fitness discourse: That the pregnant form is presented as maternally successful yet aesthetically problematic. Second, the authors reveal how contemporary mothers are defined as newly responsible for a second shift of (...) household labor and child care and a new third shift of bodily labor and fitness practices. The analysis examines the way in which the second and third shift are constituted as mutually dependent and reinforcing. Last, the discussion analyzes how this particular fitness text draws on empowerment discourse derived from feminist gains of access to the public sphere while paradoxically inscribing women to the privatized realm of bodily practices, domesticity, and family values. (shrink)

First published in 1985. In this study, Donnelly distinguishes between "having a right" and "being right" and elaborates the distinction with great subtlety to show that rights have to be understood as action and not as a possession. This is done with such clarity and good sense that he is able to cast light on all aspects of the often confusing discussions of the natures and usages of "right". He illuminates an astonishing range of issues, from the limitations of (...) Thomist and utilitarian conceptions of right to the confusions of many present-day defenders of rights, both in the West and the Third World. As importantly, Donnelly is centrally concerned with the human aspect of "human rights". He is thus able to rest his discussion of rights on a plausible philosophical anthropology as well as an appreciation of an historical dimension to human rights, and, at the end of his book, is able to open the door towards potential new developments in the discussion of human rights. Down the path he points us lies a reconciliation of the notion of individual rights with that of political community. This title will be of great interest to students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines the creation of what I have called “The Other Average Man” of nineteenth-century science. This other average man was created during the course of the career of the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) and his development of physique sociale and the controversial l’homme moyen. Rather than discuss Quetelet’s abstract average man, which has received considerable attention, the paper focuses on the real average men that Quetelet imagined would do the work of providing data for physique sociale. To (...) do so, it investigates three moments in Quetelet’s administrative career in Belgium: his early life in Ghent and Brussels during the brief polity of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, his remarkable transformation of the Académie Royale de Belgique in the 1820s, and an 1846 debate at the Academy on the possible determinism entailed by Quetelet’s statistical account of human behavior. These stories not only point to the creation of another average man in Quetelet’s social physics, but also demonstrate the importance of Belgium’s unique historical context for understanding one of nineteenth-century Europe’s most enduring contributions to the social sciences. (shrink)

Le pape François se retrouve à la tête d’une Eglise confrontée à de grandes difficultés. Il a lancé et poursuivi des chantiers que son prédécesseur a eu du mal à faire avancer. Il a su se placer au centre des discussions essentielles de notre époque : la richesse et la pauvreté, l'équité et la justice, la transparence, la modernité, la mondialisation, le rôle de la femme, l’ouverture de la prêtrise aux femmes, la nature du mariage, l’accueil des divorcés remariés, les (...) tentations du pouvoir, les _relations avec l'islam, la lutte contre la pédophilie, les finances du Saint-Siège, _l’abolition du célibat ecclésiastique, _la gouvernance de l'Eglise, la redynamisation de la foi en Europe. Même si nous n’allons pas aborder tous ces thèmes, le pape pour sa part _n’a guère d’autres solutions que de poursuivre dans la route déjà empruntée pour une Église à géométrie variable. Au-delà de sa personne, il s’agit de l’Eglise et, surtout de l’accueille du Christ par notre société contemporaine dans sa diversité culturelle. Ce qui est frappant c’est de voir comment le Pape François catalyseur, conçoit son ministère à travers l’écoute des pasteurs qui ont eux-mêmes écouté le peuple. Il insiste souvent sur l’enjeu de la liberté de parole et de débat. D’où la place que nous avons à la riche culture africaine. (shrink)

Better Choices is not just the title of this book. It is also a goal for everyone who invests the time to complete the program. In Better Choices, Dr. Faye Hargrove guides you through the Decision Reframing Process to let go of the stored negative emotions that impact the decisions you make every day.

In her interesting paper on cross-jurisdictional legal approaches to brain death, Ariane Lewis considers whether informed consent is required for DNC testing in the UK, and proposes that it is not...

The book gives an painstaking analysis of Niels Bohr's understanding of quantum mechanics based on a claim that Bohr was influenced by Harald Høffding's approach to philosophical problems.

The paper surveys the origins of chemical engineering in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It deals particularly with the recognition of the field as an independent discipline, its relations with chemistry and mechanical engineering, and the influence on its growth of industrial ‘demand’. The position of chemical engineering in public discourse, in the City and Guilds Central Institution, and at Imperial College of Science and Technology and University College London are discussed, together with the creation of (...) the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 1922. The idea that the discipline grew merely in response to the demands of industrial capitalists is rejected, and a variety of other interest groups is shown to have participated. (shrink)

An investigation of criminal attempts unearths some of the most fundamental, intriguing and perplexing questions about criminal law and its place in human action. When does attempting begin? What is the relationship between attempting and intending? Do we always attempt the possible and, if so, possible to whom? Does attempting involve action and does action involve attempting? Is my attempt fixed by me or can another perspective reveal what it is? How 'much' action is needed for an attempt, how 'much' (...) intention is needed and can these matters be decided categorically? Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov's answers to these questions will interest criminal law theorists, philosophers and lawyers or law reformers, who encounter the mixed practical and philosophical phenomenon of attempting. Inspired by G. E. M. Anscombe's philosophy, Part I examines attempting generally and its relationship with intention, action subjectivity, and possibility. From the conclusions reached, Part II proposes a specific theory of criminal attempts. (shrink)

In theology, by W.L. Rowe.--Divine foreknowledge and human freedom, by A. Kenny.--Some puzzles concerning omnipotence, by G.I. Mavrodes.--The paradox of the stone, by C.W. Savage.--Creation ex nihilo, by J. Donnelly.--The miraculous, by R.F. Holland.--On miracles, by P.J. Dietl.--The tacit structure of religious knowing, by J.H. Gill.--On the observability of the self, by R.M. Chisholm.--Re-examining Kierkegaard's "Teleological suspension of the ethical," by J. Donnelly.

Donnelly's essay reconstructs the scholarly discourse on human rights that began with the initial mid-1970s "innovative and controversial" approach of linking human rights to foreign policy.

This book provides the reader with an analysis of backward causation. The notion of backward causation faces many different paradoxes that threaten to make the notion inconsistent or incoherent. The book denies that these pose a real threat. It developed a theory of causation according to which the orientation of causation is not dependent on the direction of time. In this process it takes issues with David Lewis' contrafactual analysis of causation, and denies that the direction of time is determined (...) by irreversible processes . Likewise the book argues that the conceptual possibility of backward causation requires that the future is just as real as the past and present. Finally the book considers what the physical processes may look like if backward causation not only a a conceptual possibility but also a physical possibility. The conclusion is that no normal matter can possibly participate in backward causal processes. Instead objects moving backwards in time seem to posses negative mass and energy, a kind of objects that would be different from both ordinary objects and hypothetical tachyons. (shrink)

Government lockdowns, school closures, mass unemployment, health and wealth inequality. Political Philosophy in a Pandemic asks us, where do we go from here? What are the ethics of our response to a radically changed, even more unequal society, and how do we seize the moment for enduring change? Addressing the moral and political implications of pandemic response from states and societies worldwide, the 20 essays collected here cover the most pressing debates relating to the biggest public health crisis in the (...) last century. Discussing the pandemic in five key parts covering social welfare, economic justice, democratic relations, speech and misinformation, and the relationship between justice and crisis, this book reflects the fruitful combination of political theory and philosophy in laying the theoretical and practical foundations for justice in the long-term. (shrink)

This chapter examines what role new behaviour-modification policies – commonly known as “nudges” – might play in cultivating virtues. At first sight, they would appear to be ruled out as a candidate means; but, by offering a more nuanced analysis, the chapter argues that some nudges have virtue-cultivating properties. It distinguishes between two kinds of nudges – 'automatic-behavioural' and 'discernment-developing' – and shows that what divides them is the ability of the latter, which the former lacks, to play an ecological-educative (...) role in developing the virtue of practical reason, which is required for the other virtues too. It thus provides an answer to the question of whether virtue-cultivating nudges are possible, while remaining neutral on whether virtue cultivation is, or under what conditions it could be, a legitimate aim of liberal-democratic states. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that goal orientation is associated with divergent forms of emotional reactivity under frustration. Goal orientations were assessed using bifurcations of performance goals described earlier. Physiological stress levels were measured via a blood volume pulse analysis after individuals were subjected to a computerized Stroop task using a malfunctioning mouse to induce enhanced frustration. The results indicated that performance-avoidance goals were associated with the highest levels of emotional reactivity, with normative outcome (...) goals being significantly more detrimental than ability goals. We concluded that the motivation to avoid failure or to outperform others is the most detrimental determinant of stress and needs to be avoided by all means. Instead, it is suggested that educators emphasize performance using personal best outcomes or by valuing engagement, deep processing and task completion. (shrink)

This article considers how Margaret Jane Radin’s theory of the feminist double bind can bring conceptual clarity to the difficulties feminisms face in engaging with political and legal institutions of global governance. I draw on her theory to reinitiate a conversation on ideal and nonideal theory, in order to answer the call of key proponents in international legal feminism to reevaluate methodologies in critiquing mainstream institutions. By providing an account of how to navigate the double bind, this article brings conceptual (...) clarity to the tension between resistance and compliance that has been argued to lie at the heart of the feminist project in international law. I demonstrate how this theoretical framework can foster greater pluralist perspectives in feminist engagement of ideal theories to temper the deradicalising and conservative risk of navigating feasibility constrained nonideal strategies. (shrink)

A complex network of ethico‐legal rules makes it difficult for health researchers in South Africa to lawfully recruit adolescents to the kinds of sensitive studies where it may be ethically appropriate to proceed without notifying parents or obtaining parental consent. This article responds to a recent proposal to amend the blanket requirement for mandatory parental consent presently contained in section 71 the South African National Health Act 61 of 2003 [NHA]. The proposed amendment is intended to bring the NHA into (...) alignment with South Africa's 2015 Department of Health Guidelines on Ethics in Health Research by permitting greater flexibility for a health research ethics committee to waive parental consent, and permit adolescents to consent independently. A lacuna in this proposal is highlighted with reference to the requirements of South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 [POPIA]: Even if the NHA is amended as proposed, the goal of aligning South African law with prevailing ethics norms in South Africa would not necessarily be attained, as parental consent may still be required by POPIA. This article investigates whether this goal (of aligning the law with ethics) can be attained in a way that is compliant with POPIA. It is concluded that this is indeed possible in a number of ways, and that the best way to attain this goal is by requesting the South African Information Regulator to issue a guidance note to the effect that all health research projects that are approved by institutional health research ethics committees are to be regarded as being in the public interest, which would qualify such health research projects to be exempted from POPIA's consent requirements. (shrink)

This article is concerned with understanding continuity and stability in teaching, and their significance. It looks particularly at the work of Anthony Giddens on structure and agency, that of Martin Heidegger on the limits of discursive and theoretical analysis, and the communitarian strand within ethics. It applies this discussion to understandings of teachers’ work in the context especially of policy and agendas for change, arguing that continuity and the notion of a community of practitioners is critical to maintaining the distinctive (...) ethical quality of teaching. (shrink)

Classical education includes an apprenticeship in the art of rhetoric. It also gives a central place to the study of major works of literature, philosophy, and theology. There is often, however, an assumed disconnection between the art of rhetoric and the study of great texts. This disconnection undermines students’ ability to hear the voices of these texts as conversation partners in ongoing debates. This article illustrates how historically-based rhetorical-poetic reading enables us to hear the voices in a given text and (...) to consider how they work together. The argument first outlines some modern assumptions about the relation between poetry and rhetoric. The second part explains what rhetorical-poetic reading involves when approaching John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost. The final section focuses on the second book of Milton’s poem, establishing how layered persuasive purposes constitute the fabric of the work and what the poem reveals through its curious dramatization of demonic deliberation. (shrink)

Understanding how healthcare responsibility is distributed will give insight on how health‐care is delivered and how members of a society are expected to practice health‐care. The raising cost of health‐care has resulted in restructuring of the existing Canadian healthcare system toward a system that controls costs by placing more healthcare responsibility on the individual. This shift might create more difficulty for immigrants and refugees to obtain equitable health‐care and put blame on them when they experience illness. This paper is drawn (...) from the results of a larger qualitative study exploring Vietnamese Canadian women's breast cancer and cervical cancer screening practices. Interview data were gathered from 15 Vietnamese Canadian women and six healthcare providers. We will demonstrate that (a) despite the strong influence of individualism, Vietnamese women and their healthcare providers value both individual liberty and the interrelationship between individual and society; (b) limited funding and unequal distribution of healthcare resources impacted how immigrant and refugee women practice health‐care. Thus, motivating and fostering immigrant and refugee women's healthcare practice require both individual and institutional effort. To foster immigrant and refugees’ healthcare practices, healthcare policy makers and providers need to consider how to distribute healthcare resources that meet immigrants’ and refugees’ healthcare needs in the most equitable way. (shrink)

In the school study of syntax the results of etymology, however highly they may be valued in theory, are in effect neglected. I called attention to this, and specifically to the construction of credo with the dative, in an article in the Classical Quarterly, v. 193.

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient (...) to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter-individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols. (shrink)

The AI and Society discourse has previously drawn attention to the ways that digital systems embody the values of the technology development community from which they emerge through the development and deployment process. Research shows how this effect leads to a particular treatment of gender in computer systems development, a treatment which lags far behind the rich understanding of gender that social studies scholarship reveals and people across society experience. Many people do not relate to the narrow binary gender options (...) of male or female, and many people express their gender identity in much richer ways than the sex/gender binary female/woman and male/man Boolean terms will allow. We ask: are “born-digital” gendered datasets in digital systems experienced as marginalising by those who express their identity beyond the male/female binary? Case Study: Ireland. To answer this universal question, this paper presents the findings of an empirical case study of people in Ireland with diverse gender identities and expressions, and their experiences with public data systems and new technologies. In spite of great social changes in Ireland which have led to constitutional change in favour of LGBTQI + people, born-digital systems were experienced by respondents as embodying socio-cultural values which were no longer accepted in society at large. For many of the respondents, digital technologies routinely marginalise them in all kinds of ways. These systems keep alive violence and oppression long after civil rights have been enshrined in constitutional law. This study is just one example of the way assumptions about digital are disengaged from society-at-large. It is a call to arms to all who are passionate about socially-responsible technology. (shrink)

Trust has generally been understood as an intentional mental phenomenon that one party has towards another party with respect to some object of value for the truster. In the landmark work of Annette Baier, this trust is described as a three-place predicate: A entrusts B with the care of C, such that B has discretionary powers in caring for C. In this paper we propose that, within the context of thick interpersonal relationships, trust manifests in a different way: as a (...) property of the relationship itself. We argue that this conceptualization has important implications for the debate over the ethics of interpersonal interventions. In particular, when trust is understood in this way, actions that would otherwise be deemed morally troubling may be permissible, or even morally desirable, on account of their role in strengthening trusting relationships. (shrink)

Dans cette longue lettre à Benoît Peeters, Jean-Pierre Faye revient sur les péripéties de la fondation du Collège international de philosophie, sous l’égide de Jean-Pierre Chevènement alors ministre de la recherche, dans les années 1981-1982. Il laisse entendre quel rôle ambigu – et relativement peu élégant - a joué Derrida dans cette affaire de fondation. Mais la lettre pousse plus loin. Ces circonstances relatives à la création du Collège international de philosophie ne sont qu’un cadre narratif. Il s’agit en (...) fait de questionner l’origine des fameux concepts derridiens de « déconstruction » et de « logocentrisme ». En ce qui concerne « déconstruction », qui traduit l’usage du mot « Abbau » chez Heidegger, Jean-Pierre Faye en montre le contexte inquiétant : la pensée féroce de la « race » sous le Reich nazi. Quant au « logocentrisme », le nom et l’idée d’un combat à mener contre les prétentions de la raison (« logos ») naissent dans les feuilles d’un certain Ludwig Klages, psychiatre désigné par Goering lui-même comme « Reichsführer der Psychotherapie ». Führer de la psychothérapie... (shrink)