This paper examines the functions of narrative within legal argumentation. My purposes are these: 1) to repudiate common assumptions that differentiate ‘argumentation’ and ‘storytelling’ in the law; 2) to begin to theorize anew how legal argumentation functions; 3) to explore the difficulties of evaluating the law's argumentative narratives; and 4) to trace some of the anxiety that judges themselves reveal about their roles as storytellers. I conclude that narrative is necessary to law's claims to authority, even as it complicates our (...) understandings about how legislative policy decisions produce effects, and even as judges themselves seek to mask its importance. (shrink)

There is the world of ideas and the world of practice; the French are often for sup pressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. -Matthew Arnold The Function of Criticism at the Present Time From its inception, bioethics has confronted the need to reconcile theory and practice. At first the confrontation was purely intellectual, as writers on ethical theory (within phi losophy, theology, or other humanistic disciplines) turned their attention to topics from the (...) world of medical practice. Recently the confrontation has grown more intense. The ap pointment of clinical ethicists in hospitals and other health care settings is an accelerating trend in North America. Concomitantly, those institutions involved in training peo ple in clinical ethics have added organized exposure to the world of practice, in the form of placement requirements, to the normal academic course load. In common with other dis ciplines, bioethics has begun to see clinical training as a con dition of didactic theory and apprenticeship. (shrink)

Advance refusals of life-sustaining treatment involve three potentially conflicting interests: those of the patient; those of the doctor; and those of the law. The state's interest in protecting life can clash with the patient's right to self determination which, in turn, can conflict with the doctor's desire to act in the patient's best interests. Against this background, we present the case of a patient who was treated (arguably) contrary to his advance refusal but in accordance with English law.

This book is a total joy to read. Thi Nguyen’s energy radiates from every page – the prose is truly delightful, with all sorts of poetic turns of phrase enliven.

Scientific instruments can help to shape and re-shape epistemic boundaries, especially those between communities of scienti?c researchers. But how do they function at boundaries between scienti?c communities and communities of non-experts? This paper examines the use of air monitoring instruments at the boundary between petrochemical facilities and nearby residential communities, asking whether a new generation of fenceline monitors shared by industry (and regulatory agency) experts and community members alter the epistemic boundary between the two groups. Arguing that epistemic communities organized (...) around instruments are characterized, in part, by a common understanding of the evidential contexts for instrumental data, the paper shows how the evidential contexts in which experts and residents interpret monitoring data diverge. Instead of the new, shared fenceline monitors helping to reconcile differences over evidential contexts, those pre-existing contexts shape the interpretation of data from the new instruments–perpetuating epistemic boundaries between industry experts and community members. (shrink)

Bernard Suits’ groundbreaking work, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, has profoundly shaped the philosophy of sport. Its sequel, Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure, and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, released in October 2022, enriches scholarly understandings of Suits’ views on games, emphasizing the normative aspects of gameplay and its impact on people’s pursuit of the good life. In this book symposium, world-leading Suits scholars analyze the Suitsian conception of gameplay and its relevance to his views on (...) Utopia outlined in the sequel, covering a wide range of topics. Filip Kobiela explores counterfactual situations in Suits’ oeuvre. Christopher Bartel and Gwen Bradford scrutinize the ethical nature and ramifications of Suits’ claim that life is an unconscious game. R. Scott Kretchmar and John S. Russell present thoughtful critiques of Suits’ musings on Utopia. William J. Morgan’s contribution integrates contemporary work studies to illuminate Suits’ utopia. The symposium concludes with the editors, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias and Christopher Yorke, offering their perspectives on Suitsian Utopia, ethics, and metaethics. (shrink)

Bernard Suits’ groundbreaking work, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, has profoundly shaped the philosophy of sport. Its sequel, Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure, and the Good Life in the Third Millennium, released in October 2022, enriches scholarly understandings of Suits’ views on games, emphasizing the normative aspects of gameplay and its impact on people’s pursuit of the good life. In this book symposium, world-leading Suits scholars analyze the Suitsian conception of gameplay and its relevance to his views on (...) Utopia outlined in the sequel, covering a wide range of topics. Filip Kobiela explores counterfactual situations in Suits’ oeuvre. Christopher Bartel and Gwen Bradford scrutinize the ethical nature and ramifications of Suits’ claim that life is an unconscious game. R. Scott Kretchmar and John S. Russell present thoughtful critiques of Suits’ musings on Utopia. William J. Morgan’s contribution integrates contemporary work studies to illuminate Suits’ utopia. The symposium concludes with the editors, Francisco Javier Lopez Frias and Christopher Yorke, offering their perspectives on Suitsian Utopia, ethics, and metaethics. (shrink)

This book makes the case for the news media to take the lead in combatting key threats to American society including racial injustice, economic disparity, and climate change by adopting an "ethics of care" in reporting practices. Examining how traditional news coverage of race, economics and climate change has been dedicated to straightforward facts, the author asserts that journalism should now respond to societal needs by adopting a moral philosophy of the "ethics of care," opening the door to empathetic yet (...) factual and fair coverage of news events, with a goal to move public opinion to the point that politicians are persuaded to take effective action. The book charts a clear path for how this style of ethics can be applied by today's journalists, tracing the emergence of this empathy-based ethics from feminist philosophy in the 1980s. It ultimately urges ethical news organizations to adopt the ethics of care, based on the human emotion prioritized by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, and to pursue a more pro-active, solutions-seeking coverage of current events. This is an invaluable text for students and academics in the fields of journalism ethics, media ethics and media law, as well as for media professionals looking for a fresh perspective on practicing ethical journalism. (shrink)

Cornford's interpretation of Anaxagoras' theory of matter was an attempt to solve the apparent contradiction between the Principle of Homoeomereity, as he calls it, and that which asserts that ‘there is a portion of everything in everything’; and also, perhaps, to assign a more definite place in the system to the qualitative ‘Opposites’ which Tannery and Burnet had asserted, in rather vague terms, to be Anaxagoras' elements. In effect he solves the problem by applying the former principle to the phenomenal (...) world and to the Seeds which are the elements for Anaxagoras, and confining the latter, the principle of Universal Mixture as we may call it, to the Opposites, which are the substantial but inseparable constituents of the Seeds. By this tidy and ingenious solution he avoids not only the above-mentioned contradiction but also what he calls the grotesque and gratuitous absurdity of holding that a Seed of gold contains mostly gold, but also flesh and all other natural substances, in order to explain the possibility of various changes, the great majority of which never occur anyhow. (shrink)

Gwen Bradford presents the first systematic account of what achievements are, and why they are worth the effort. She argues that more things count as achievements than we might have thought, and offers a new perfectionist theory of value in which difficulty, perhaps surprisingly, plays a central part in characterizing achievements.

In this paper, I argue that John Locke's account of knowledge coupled with his commitments to moral ideas being voluntary constructions of our own minds and to divine voluntarism (moral rules are given by God according to his will) leads to a seriously flawed view of moral knowledge. After explicating Locke's view of moral knowledge, highlighting the specific problems that seem to arise from it, and suggesting some possible Lockean responses, I conclude that the best Locke can do is give (...) us a trivial account of moral knowledge which cannot avoid problems with subjectivity and relativism. (shrink)

Moral philosophers have given increased attention to moral intuitionism in recent years. Despite articulations of moral intuitionism that should be taken more seriously than they have been, dissenters continue to express opposition. Among the most frequent criticisms of moral intuitionism are the Mysteriousness and Dogmatism Objections. The Mysteriousness Objection charges moral intuitionists with postulating a mysterious faculty of knowing. The Dogmatism Objection accuses moral intuitionists of relying on dogmatic assertions which are not, or cannot be, proven or adequately argued for. (...) In this dissertation I defend moral intuitionism against both attacks. By drawing on resources going back to eighteenth-century intuitionists, I show that a carefully articulated moral intuitionism neither requires a mysterious faculty of knowing nor invites dogmatism. I first investigate the moral intuitionism of four eighteenth-century British philosophers which anticipates and begins to address the Mysteriousness and Dogmatism Objections. Both critics of and adherents to moral intuitionism in the contemporary period have largely ignored the moral intuitionism of these eighteenth-century thinkers. Two significant contributions of this chapter are that it gives serious attention to the moral intuitionism of the eighteenth-century moral intuitionists, and it prepares for utilizing their views in answering objections to contemporary moral intuitionism. Next, I briefly explicate a plausible version of a moderate moral intuitionism against which the Mysteriousness and Dogmatism Objections are evaluated. Finally, I set out the details of each of these objections and respond to them. The sustained attention I give to these objections is a further significant contribution of this dissertation. I conclude that the Mysteriousness and Dogmatism Objections are not successful attacks on moral intuitionism. (shrink)

Many philosophers tacitly accept the View: consciousness is necessary for being a welfare subject. That is, in order to be an eligible bearer of welfare goods and bads, an entity must be capable of phenomenal consciousness. However, this paper argues that, in the absence of a compelling rationale, we are not licensed to accept the View, because doing so amounts to fallacious reasoning in theorizing about welfare: insisting on the View when consciousness is not in fact important for welfare value (...) in a systematic and significant way is objectionably “consciousist.” As a result, the View does not advance our understanding of the value of consciousness. The paper further diagnoses why we may be attracted to the View, and what we should accept instead. (shrink)

Uniqueness appears to enhance intrinsic value. A unique stamp sells for millions of dollars; Stradivarius violins are all the more precious because they are unlike any others. This observation has not gone overlooked in the value theory literature: uniqueness plays a starring role recalibrating the dominant Moorean understanding of the nature of intrinsic value. But the thesis that uniqueness enhances intrinsic value is in tension with another deeply plausible and widely held thesis, namely the thesis that there is a pro (...) tanto reason to promote the good. It is argued that there is a second, distinct type of uniqueness that plays a more interesting and important axiological role: uniqueness imparts irreplaceable value. This gives occasion to develop the surprisingly undertheorized notion of irreplaceable value. (shrink)

Pain, failure and false beliefs all make a life worse, or so it is plausible to think. These things and possibly others seem to be intrinsically bad—no matter what further good comes of them they make a life worse pro tanto. In spite of the obvious badness, this is difficult to explain. While there are many accounts of well-being, few are up to the challenge of a univocal explanation of ill-being. Perfectionism has particular difficulty. Otherwise, it is a theory that (...) has quite a lot in its favour. This paper proposes a new valuation scheme for perfectionism, the tripartite scheme, which affords perfectionism the resources to give a comprehensive account of robust bads and has further additional advantages for the view. (shrink)

This article gives an account of what makes achievements valuable. Although the natural thought is that achievements are valuable because of the product, such as a cure for cancer or a work of art, I argue that the value of the product of an achievement is not sufficient to account for its overall value. Rather, I argue that achievements are valuable in virtue of their difficulty. I propose a new perfectionist theory of value that acknowledges the will as a characteristic (...) human capacity, and thus holds that the exercise of the will, and therefore difficulty, is intrinsically valuable. (shrink)

Using a 2×2×2 experimental design, the effects of situational and individual variables on individuals' intentions to act unethically were investigated. Specifically examined were three situational variables: (1) quality of the work experience (good versus poor), (2) peer influences (unethical versus ethical), and (3) managerial influences (unethical versus ethical), and three individual variables: (4) locus of control, (5) Machiavellianism, and (6) gender, on individuals' behavioral intentions in an ethically ambiguous dilemma in an work setting. Experiment 1 revealed main effects for quality (...) of work experience, Machiavellianism, locus of control, and an interaction effect for peer influences and managerial influences. Experiment 2 showed main effects for all three situational variables and Machiavellianism. Neither experiment supported gender differences. Limitations, future research, and implications for management are discussed. (shrink)

Why is pain bad? The most straightforward theory of pain's badness,dolorism, appeals to the phenomenal quality of displeasure. In spite of its explanatory appeal, the view is too straightforward to capture two central puzzles, namely pain that is enjoyed and pain that is not painful. These cases can be captured byconditionalism, which makes the badness of displeasure conditional on an agent's attitude. But conditionalism fails where dolorism succeeds with explanatory appeal. A new approach is proposed,reverse conditionalism, which maintains the explanatory (...) appeal of dolorism, but gives attitudes a value-defeating role. It is argued that this view does best in fulfilling the desiderata and capturing the cases. (shrink)

If the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, or the Sword of Goujian were destroyed, nothing could replace them. New works of art that are even more impressive may be created, which may replenish the value in the world in quantity, but they would not fully replace the loss. Works of art and historical artifacts have irreplaceable value. But just what is irreplaceable value? This paper presents perhaps the first analysis. Irreplaceable value is a matter of intrinsic (...) value in virtue of unreinstantiable good-making properties, which give rise to reasons to preserve and protect. (shrink)

Perfectionism, the view that well-being is a matter of developing characteristically human capacities, has relatively few defenders in the literature, but plenty of critics. This paper defends perfectionism against some recent formulations of classic objections, namely, the objection that perfectionism ignores the relevance of pleasure or preference for well-being, and a sophisticated version of the ‘wrong properties’ objection, according to which the intuitive plausibility of the perfectionist ideal is threatened by an absence of theoretical pressure to accept putative wrong properties (...) cases. The paper argues these objections are unsuccessful, but introduce a new worry, the Deep Problem: Perfectionism fails to offer a satisfying foundational justification for why developing the human essence is valuable. The paper responds to the deep problem, ultimately arguing that it is a puzzle put to all theories of well-being to provide a justification for their normative significance. (shrink)

Perfectionism, broadly speaking, is the view that the development of certain characteristically human capacities is good. The view gains motivation in part from the intuitive pull of an objective approach to wellbeing, but dissatisfaction with objective list theory. According to objective list theory, goods such as knowledge, achievement, and friendship constitute good in a life. The objective list has terrific intuitive appeal – after all, it’s a list generated by reflecting on the good life. But as a theory, some find (...) it unsatisfying. What justifies presence on the list? On the traditional conception it is just a list and not much of a theory at all. Perfectionism captures the intuitive pull of the objective list and provides a unifying justification: the entries on the list share in common a special relationship to human nature. This essay gives an overview of perfectionism. (shrink)

Achievement is among the central goods in life, but just what is achievement, and how is it valuable? There is reason to think that it is a constitutive part of wellbeing; yet, it is possible to sacrifice wellbeing for the sake of achievement. How might it have been worthwhile, if not in terms of wellbeing? Perhaps, achievement is an intrinsic good, or perhaps it is valuable in terms of meaning in life. This article considers various ways in which we can (...) understand the nature and value of achievement, as well as the significance of achievement for other areas of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

In light of arguments that citizen science has the potential to make environmental knowledge and policy more robust and democratic, this article inquires into the factors that shape the ability of citizen science to actually influence scientists and decision makers. Using the case of community-based air toxics monitoring with ‘‘buckets,’’ it argues that citizen science’s effectiveness is significantly influenced by standards and standardized practices. It demonstrates that, on one hand, standards serve a boundary-bridging function that affords bucket monitoring data a (...) crucial measure of legitimacy among experts. On the other hand, standards simultaneously serve a boundary-policing function, allowing experts to dismiss bucket data as irrelevant to the central project of air quality assessment. The article thus calls attention to standard setting as an important site of intervention for citizen science-based efforts to democratize science and policy. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology appealingly characterizes knowledge as a kind of achievement, attributable to the exercise of cognitive virtues. But a more thorough understanding of the nature and value of achievements more broadly casts doubt on the view. In particular, it is argued that virtue epistemology’s answer to the Meno question is not as impressive as it purports to be, and that the favored analysis of ability is both problematic and irrelevant. However, considerations about achievements illuminate the best direction for the development (...) of virtue epistemology. The key, it is argued, is developing the notion of manifestation as the distinguishing feature of both knowledge and achievements. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 185-187 [Access article in PDF] Measuring Moral Identities:Psychopaths and Responsibility Gwen Adshead Doctor Ciocchetti examines the responsibility of psychopaths as a function of psychological capacities operating within relationships. He then argues against the punishment of psychopaths. I have some sympathy with both views, but perhaps argued in different ways, and from different standpoints, based on my clinical experience.Doctor Ciocchetti's offers an unusual (...) account of responsibility as a concept that involves at least two people, and perhaps many more than two; and this I would entirely support. In this sense, responsibility is a transitive and dynamic process that involves not only the personal sense of ownership of an action or thought, but also the attribution of responsibility by others. Moral, when applied to intentions, seems to me to suggest that they are intentions that involve another person and that they are held by an active agent who can make choices about those intentions. Responsibility implies not only causal responsibility, but also that the actor owns his own intentions about his behaviors toward others.Responsibility, either as experienced by the actor or attributed by others, is a type of moral judgment; an exercise in moral reasoning. Following Gilligan (1987), I am persuaded that moral reasoning, or the discourse of ought-and-should is relational in nature and must be seen in the context of relationships. I think much of the early work on moral reasoning in offenders is flawed because it assumes that moral reasoning was a capacity like serum bilirubin: normally distributed out there in the population, and able to be measured by an objective observer, in a process independent of the findings. Unsurprisingly, these studies found either that offenders had immature moral reasoning capacities (which we might have guessed already), or they had normal moral reasoning capacity, which was disturbing and puzzling.What we want to understand is how people come to let themselves do horrible things to others. Cioccchetti argues that psychopaths can do these things because they lack the affective capacities needed to respond to others' distress. Ordinary people care about harm to others (including the physical self/body and sentient animals) and demand explanations for the deliberate infliction of suffering on others. It is not only the lack of participant attitudes in the psychopath that bother us; it is our own responses, expressive of our participant attitudes, that tell us something about what this person is, and what is wrong. In my view, this is what punishment is all about for us, the larger social group [End Page 185] forced to respond to the distressing and disturbing actions of others.As Ciocchetti suggests, it is the perceived guilt of the offender that justifies the punishment; it is also the experienced distress of those affected that drives the need for punishment. The distress is part of the relationship between the victim and the offender; the victim is often just as active as the offender.The issue becomes most clear in relation to capital punishment and its supporters, especially those who wish not only to view executions, but also to broadcast them. In considering this, there are two useful sources of information: first, studies of the reactions of those who witness executions, and second, studies of the impact of murder on those related to the murder victim, so-called secondary victims. In those states that have capital punishment in the United States, it is often the secondary victims who witness the execution. They often have testified to the appalling impact of the offender's crime on them; most states give them a right to be present at the execution, even if they do not exercise it. It is hard not to think that it is the enormity of the feelings caused by the offender's wrongdoing that the death sentence is designed to address; the death of the offender changes the relationship between victim and offender, as much as the death of the original victim changes the relationship with their relatives. One might then wonder about the impact of his or her execution on the relatives... (shrink)

In Achievement, I suggest that failures can be just as good as achievements. Achievements are valuable because of their effort and competence, and some failures have these features too, and are therefore valuable for the same reasons. While that may be true, surely it’s also true that failures are, or can be, genuinely bad – not merely a privation of the good of achievement, but themselves intrinsically bad. As is the case for many bads, it is surprisingly difficult to give (...) an account that is not merely privative: viewed one way, a failure is simply a privation of attaining an end. This challenge is compounded by perfectionist theory of value, which may yield the most plausible account of achievement, but traditionally only offers an account of bads as privative. In this paper, I develop an account of failure as a robust bad by appealing to contrastive ends and the framework of tripartite perfectionism. (shrink)

Government officials claim open data can improve internal and external communication and collaboration. These promises hinge on “data intermediaries”: extra-institutional actors that obtain, use, and translate data for the public. However, we know little about why these individuals might regard open data as a site of civic participation. In response, we draw on Ilana Gershon to conceptualize culturally situated and socially constructed perspectives on data, or “data ideologies.” This study employs mixed methodologies to examine why members of the public hold (...) particular data ideologies and how they vary. In late 2015 the authors engaged the public through a commission in a diverse city of approximately 500,000. Qualitative data was collected from three public focus groups with residents. Simultaneously, we obtained quantitative data from surveys. Participants’ data ideologies varied based on how they perceived data to be useful for collaboration, tasks, and translations. Bucking the “geek” stereotype, only a minority of those surveyed were professional software developers or engineers. Although only a nascent movement, we argue open data intermediaries have important roles to play in a new political landscape. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Using the example of the Twitter feed #MeToo, this paper argues that CDS, in its task to understand more about how social media can offer ways for voices to challenge ideologies from below, needs to explore the ideas of ‘nodes’. Right wing populism in the west: Social media discourse and echo chambers. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/majid_khosravinik/publications) and ‘echo chambers’ in greater detail. Though #MeToo did provide an ideological challenge, I show how it is also discursively chaotic and partly driven by influencers who (...) may have a range of other motivations to align with the moral capital in the feed. At another level, #MeToo is highly nodal in terms of affect and moral conviction. These features can be understood in regard to nodal power of affective connectivity. Affective publics and structure of storytelling: Sentiment, events and mediality. Information, Communication and Society, 19, 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2015.1109697) and also in terms of major shifts in accepted norms of debating politics and society driven by social media. I consider what this means for CDS in relation to identifying discourses and discovering ideology in the social media landscape. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 15-18 [Access article in PDF] Through a Glass, Darkly:Commentary on Ward Gwen Adshead Keywords: psychopathy, moral reasoning. Now we see, as through a glass darkly.... (St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13) JIM DID AN EVIL THING. He deliberately caused another person's suffering in a way that was humiliating, cruel, and persistent. He very nearly killed another man. He knew (...) what he was doing; he knew it was wrong, but somehow, that did not matter to him. After he was caught, he came to a forensic psychiatric facility where he was offered therapy. (What the purpose of therapy is could be the subject of a paper in its own right, although I will say a little more about this at the end of the paper). Several years on, Jim has had many thoughts about his behavior. First, he has no doubt that he was responsible insofar as he chose to do what he did, and he feels guilty on that count. Second, he is also aware that he had consciously carried out such acts many times in his mind before, but had not previously acted out his fantasy; and that therefore the process of crossing the line between fantasy and reality is a crucial one for him to think about further. This metaphor of a line that has to be crossed from one place to another suggests two worlds: one of internal reality and the other of external reality. Jim used the metaphor thus: "I came up to the line, but I drew back." He also said of this moment (when he nearly killed his first victim): "I said to myself... 'This is mad... I can't justify this.'... " I have emphasized these words of Jim's because I want to use his experience to explore some of the arguments raised in David Ward's most interesting paper. I found much to agree with, and some claims that sat less easily. I should say that the context of my response is my work as a psychotherapist with mentally disordered offenders in Broadmoor Hospital, and also a current research project with Jonathan Glover and Christine Brown on moral reasoning in antisocial men. Kant and Won't I have no doubt that most if not all of the men (and women) that I work with do operate according to universalizable principles. As the author suggests, however, these principles are incoherent and contain what Cleckley (1976) called a type of agnosia, or distorted vision. It seems to me that Kant's two forms of principle are really two different levels of intention or choice-making process. Kant's hypothetical level of intention is very much about making choices in the external world: I experience the world as cold, I want to be warm because I need to be warm, I will do what I need to do to make that need happen for me. It is not universalizable because [End Page 15] others may not feel the cold as I do. Notice that this level of intention may be very closely linked to the next level, which Kant calls categorical: I would like the world to be such that everyone who is needy will get their needs met, and I would like to be the sort of person who makes that happen. The categorical level of intention is Kant's take on the Golden Rule: that you should want everyone to be treated as you yourself would wish to be treated. It is an intentional process that is interpersonal, which implies a second order of thinking—thinking about one's thoughts and wishes, and thinking about the sort of person one would wish to be in relation to others.At this point, I think it may be helpful to bring in the other aspect of Kant's vision of moral intentions, which is the injunction to treat others as ends in themselves and not merely as means to ends. Thus every individual is a unique person or self, who claims respect as a person and not... (shrink)

Núñez and colleagues (2019) question whether cognitive science still exists “as a coherent academic field with a well‐defined and cohesive interdisciplinary research program.” This worry may be premature on two grounds. First, we are not convinced that the Lakatosian criterion of coalescence around a core framework is the best standard for judging whether a field is well‐defined and productive. Second, although we acknowledge that cognitive science is not as visible as we would like, we doubt that this low profile accurately (...) reflects the state of actual research and teaching programs based on the cognitive science approach. (shrink)

Núñez and colleagues (2019) question whether cognitive science still exists “as a coherent academic field with a well‐defined and cohesive interdisciplinary research program.” This worry may be premature on two grounds. First, we are not convinced that the Lakatosian criterion of coalescence around a core framework is the best standard for judging whether a field is well‐defined and productive. Second, although we acknowledge that cognitive science is not as visible as we would like, we doubt that this low profile accurately (...) reflects the state of actual research and teaching programs based on the cognitive science approach. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 8.1 (2001) 33-37 [Access article in PDF] "Impossible Things before Breakfast":A Commentary on Burman and Richmond Gwen Adshead "Why sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking GlassBoth Burman and Richmond discuss how a feminist critique or take on a body of theory helps to illuminate or confuse further theoretical development. Burman applies such a critique (...) to False Memory Syndrome (FMS); Richmond to psychoanalytic accounts of eating disorders. In this commentary, I want to discuss the application of a feminist critique to two vital concepts for psychiatry: the recording and measurement of data, and truthful accounts of experience. These concepts are of course related, and I want to explore their connections, not only with each other, but with specific areas of mental health practice, namely, mental health research, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and expert psychiatric testimony. The Recording Angel: Subjectivity and Objectivity, Measurement and Truth Most feminist critiques of measurement begin with an attack on the traditional theoretical distinction between objective and subjective worlds (for example, Fox Keller 1985). Classical accounts of Western scientific practice have assumed that it is possible to divide external physical experience in this way, and this assumption generates two further beliefs: first, that it is possible for an observer to, as it were, stand apart or outside the events observed, and second, that objective accounts of events are somehow real-er or true-er than subjective accounts. This account contains some very old ideas about natural experience: first, that a fixed reality exists that is external to those who have experienced an event, and second, that this reality is observable by others, that is, there is a space between the observer and the observed. This notion of objectivity has been thought to be crucial to valid measurement.In contrast, a feminist critique counterargues that every observer is influenced and influences what he is studying; that he is himself "positioned" in the subject of his interest, in Rom Harré's term. Further, feminist theory argues that because the objective-subjective split is artificial, subjective accounts of experience may be just as "true" as objective accounts. Overarching is the notion that all social behavior is socially constructed and affected by social context, including "science" in all its forms.Such doubts about the exact nature of science have been fueled by two sets of theory within [End Page 33] "science"--the claims of quantum theory in the 1920s and Thomas Kuhn's account of shifting scientific paradigms in the 1960s--and both of these theories have been important for feminism and feminist critique of scientific practice. Despite many odd features, quantum theory has produced research with considerable explanatory power (Hawking 1988, Barrow 1991, Smollin 1997), and some of its claims provide indirect support for the feminist position described above. For example, one claim of quantum theory is that, at the micro-level of events, what is being observed is influenced by the position of the observer. If true, then the notion of an easy divide between internal and external space, in which observer and observed are separately located, is undermined; rather, every position taken by the observer influences the observed in a dynamic relationship. There is no objectivity but rather a developing matrix of positions that are not externally fixed, but changing and uncertain. Similarly, in relation to social construction of theory, Kuhn's description of the changing nature of scientific paradigms also emphasizes the importance of social and community influences on scientific theories and how "true" accounts of events can change. Internal and External Worlds: Implications for Mental Health Research and Psychotherapy Practice Arguably, feminist claims about the social positioning of science are now unremarkable; no one involved in research (especially mental health research) could dispute that what is studied, what is funded, and what is published is hugely influenced by many social and political processes. Even if only to a limited extent, quantum theory and Kuhn do support the doubt thrown on classic notions of objectivity by feminist theory; if only by suggesting that reality... (shrink)

What drives someone to commit an act of terrible violence? Drawing from her thirty years' experience in working with people who have committed serious offenses, Dr. Gwen Adshead provides fresh and surprising insights into violence and the mind. Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits. In eleven vivid narratives based on decades of providing therapy to people in prisons and secure hospitals, an internationally renowned forensic (...) psychiatrist and psychotherapist demonstrates the remarkable human capacity for radical empathy, change, and redemption. Based on 30 years of experience working in prisons and secure psychiatric hospitals with people convicted of serious violent offenses, internationally renowned forensic psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Adshead presents an account of mental illness and the nature of evil in this compelling series of stories. (shrink)

In this introduction to the philosophical study of religion Gwen Griffith-Dickson attempts to fill an important gap by considering these questions squarely in the context of the world's many religions and philosophical traditions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on“Psychopathy, Other-Regarding Moral Beliefs, and Responsibility”Gwen Adshead (bio)AbstractIn this commentary, I address two points raised by Fields: the origin of other-regarding beliefs, and the management of psychopaths, if they are not criminally responsible (as Fields suggests). I argue that the capacity to form affective bonds is necessary in order to hold other-regarding beliefs, and that a psychological developmental perspective may be helpful in understanding the moral understanding (...) of the psychopath. In response to Fields’s view that psychopaths should receive “treatment,” I suggest that most forensic psychiatrists do not agree.Keywordspersonality disorder, empathy, development, remorse, attachment theoryInsufficient attention has been paid to the problem posed by so-called “psychopaths.” Lloyd Fields’s paper is therefore welcome. Here I shall focus on two issues: the nature and acquisition of other-regarding beliefs, and the implications for managing those who do not have them.Fields argues that there is a subgroup of psychopaths, unable to form “other-regarding beliefs”; that such beliefs provide a motivation for acting in a particular way, and result in a “[disposition] to experience certain emotions and to have certain attitudes.”But it is arguable that the disposition to experience certain emotions and have certain attitudes towards others could be critical to acquiring the capacity to have other-regarding beliefs. If one asks what stops people from hurting others, a common answer is that it makes people feel bad. To quote Mencius (Legge, 1960): “All men have a mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others.”The question then is, how does anyone acquire a notion of “the other,” such that failing to endorse other-regarding principles/beliefs has an adverse effect on the subject?Mencius’ “mind” implied “reciprocity,” and involved four components:i. The recognition of another’s distressii. Being moved by that distress (empathy)iii. Wishing to reduce that distress (sympathy)iv. Altruism (the sense of obligation to reduce distress, and guilt if one fails).By these criteria, (iv) resembles Fields’s “other-regarding” belief, in that the sense of obligation provides a reason for acting. I would argue that (iv) is a virtue, which requires (i), (ii) and (iii) as capacities—not necessarily separate, but different aspects of a broader “affective” capacity. It is this affective capacity which is arguably lacking in the psychopath.Some of these capacities have already been discussed in the literature of psychopathy. It is the [End Page 279] failure to recognize another’s distress which Cleckley describes in many of his cases (Cleckley 1964), and which he describes as a type of “agnosia.” This term implies some neuropathological deficit, and there is some evidence for such deficits in psychopaths, mainly in the autonomic nervous system. Blair (1995) has also suggested that psychopaths lack a (postulated) violence inhibitory mechanism (VIM).It could be argued, however, that such neuropathological hypotheses lead to circular arguments about psychopathy, as described by Barbara Wootton 1(Wootton 1959). A more fruitful account is offered by theories (such as attachment theory) which offer a developmental account which includes both psychological and neuropathological perspectives. Described and developed by Bowlby (1969), attachment theory draws on experimental work with non-human primates and emphasises the importance of relationships with significant others in infancy for the development of later social relationships (Harlow 1975; Ruppenthal et al 1976). Such attachment relationships are also important for the development of cortical neural networks, and the modulation of stress, which can itself be neurotoxic (Sapolsky 1994).How could attachment theory be relevant to acquiring an affective capacity? The earliest work on attachment behaviors showed that monkeys failing to make early attachments behaved recklessly with other monkeys, and could not make relationships (for example, to mate). Of particular relevance was the finding that such monkeys launched suicidal attacks on monkeys higher in the hierarchy; not dissimilar to those “self-defeating” behaviors which Cleckley described in human psychopaths.So much for possibly psychopathic monkeys; do humans with failed attachments lack affective capacity? There is evidence that substantial proportions of “psychopaths” have histories of failed attachments in childhood. The more severe the failure, the more severe the disturbance in adulthood, which might explain why there... (shrink)