With the development of the division of labor, the household has declined in importance as a unit of economic production. Yet even as the individual wage earner has assumed a central place in modern exchange economies, the household has still been seen as an important unit of distribution, in which wage earners provide for their non-income-producing family members. With the breakdown of the family in recent decades, however, the communal income-sharing function of the family has, in significant part, been taken (...) overby the state. In this essay, I examine this fundamental change in the structure of production and distribution in modern exchange economies. Going beyond this, I propose a new structure of markets–markets for rights to influence collective decision-making within a society. Such markets, I suggest, wouldprovide a source of income for each member of the society. (shrink)

Background Biobanking and genomic research requires collection and storage of human tissue from study participants. From participants’ perspectives within the African context, this can be associated with fears and misgivings due to a myriad of factors including myths and mistrust of researchers. From the researchers angle ethical dilemmas may arise especially with consenting and sample reuse during storage. The aim of this paper was to explore these ethical considerations in the establishment and conduct of biobanking and genomic studies in Africa. (...) Methods We conducted a narrative synthesis following a comprehensive search of nine (9) databases and grey literature. All primary research study designs were eligible for inclusion as well as both quantitative and qualitative evidence from peer reviewed journals, spanning a maximum of 20 years (2000–2020). It focused on research work conducted in Africa, even if data was stored or analysed outside the region. Results Of 2,663 title and abstracts screened, 94 full texts were retrieved and reviewed for eligibility. We included 12 studies (7 qualitative; 4 quantitative and one mixed methods). Ethical issues described in these papers related to community knowledge and understanding of biobanking and genomic research, regulation, and governance of same by research ethics committees, enrolment of participants, types of informed consents, data collection, storage, usage and sharing as well as material transfer, returning results and benefit sharing. ca. Biospecimen collection and storage is given in trust and participants expect confidentially of data and results generated. Most participants are comfortable with broad consent due to trust in researchers, though a few would like to be contacted for reconsenting in future studies, and this would depend on whether the new research is for good cause. Sharing data with external partners is welcome in some contexts but some research participants did not trust foreign researchers. Conclusion Biobanking and genomic studies are a real need in Africa. Linked to this are ethical considerations related to setting up and participation in biobanks as well as data storage, export, use and sharing. There is emerging or pre-existing consensus around the acceptability of broad consent as a suitable model of consent, the need for Africans to take the lead in international collaborative studies, with deliberate efforts to build capacity in local storage and analysis of samples and employ processes of sample collection and use that build trust of communities and potential study participants. Research ethics committees, researchers and communities need to work together to work together to adapt and use clearly defined ethical frameworks, guidelines, and policy documents to harmonize the establishment and running of biobanking and genomic research in Africa. (shrink)

Jules Coleman, one of the world's most influential philosophers of law, here expounds his recent views on a range of important issues in legal theory. Coleman offers for the first time an explicit account of the pragmatist method that has long informed his work, and takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Ronald Dworkin and Joseph Raz.

What should advocates of phenomenal intentionality say about unconscious intentional states? I approach this question by focusing on a recent debate between Tim Crane and David Pitt, about the nature of belief. Crane argues that beliefs are never conscious. Pitt, concerned that the phenomenal intentionality thesis coupled with a commitment to beliefs as essentially unconscious embroils Crane in positing unconscious phenomenology, counter-argues that beliefs are essentially conscious. I examine and rebut Crane’s arguments for the essential unconsciousness of beliefs, some of (...) which are widely endorsed. On the way I sketch a model of how belief states could participate in the stream of consciousness. I then consider Pitt’s position, arguing in reply, along Freudian lines, that we should posit not just dispositional but occurrent unconscious beliefs. This result, I argue, indeed requires advocates of phenomenal intentionality to posit unconscious qualia to fix these unconscious occurrent thoughts, and I defend the coherence of the notion of unconscious qualia against some common attacks. Ultimately, I claim, the combination of taking seriously the occurrent unconscious, and a commitment to phenomenal intentionality, should lead us to expand William James’s conception of the stream of consciousness to encompass, additionally, a stream of unconscious mental life—or, perhaps better, to posit a single partly conscious partly unconscious qualia-stream of mental goings-on. (shrink)

This essay is part of a larger project exploring the extent to which the market paradigm might be usefully employed to explain and in some instances justify nonmarket institutions. The focus of the market paradigm in this essay is the relationship between the idea of a perfectly competitive market and aspects of both the rationality of political association and the theory of collective choice. In particular, this essay seeks to identify what connections, if any, exist between one kind of market (...) account of the rationality of political association and one kind of market-based social choice rule. The market theory of political association I intend to discuss I call “market contractarianism,” and the collective choice rule whose relation to it I intend to explore is the unanimity rule. What, if anything, is the relationship between market contractarianism and the unanimity rule? (shrink)

Notwithstanding its phenomenological appeal, physicalists have tended to shun the notion that we are ‘acquainted’ with our mental states in consciousness, due to the fact that the acquaintance relation seems mysterious, irreducible, and consequently unnatural. I propose a model of conscious experience based on the idea of ‘mental quotation’, and argue that this captures what we want from acquaintance but without any threat to naturalism. More generally the chapter embodies a complaint that reductionists seem unable to look past the representation (...) relation to do the implementing of consciousness, and a call for theorists to investigate other relations to model our connection to our conscious states, like the constitution/part-whole relationship. This mundane relation has what it takes to give us natural acquaintance with our conscious-mental states. (shrink)

Suppose the prevailing distribution of property rights is unjust as determined by the relevant conception of distributive justice. You have far more than you should have under that theory and I have far less. Then I defraud you and in doing so reallocate resources so that our holdings ex post more closely approximate what distributive justice requires. Do I have a duty to return the property to you? There are many good reasons for requiring me to return to you what (...) I have taken. One is that while you may have no right in justice to all that you own, it does not follow that I do, or that I have a right to take it. Thus, requiring me to return the property to you is a way of recognizing that I had no right to take it from you in the first place. (shrink)

Mindfulness for the High Performance World provides a unique approach to mindfulness training, built upon the principles of Buddhist philosophy written in line with the Dalai Lama’s description of meditation and mindfulness as “Science of the Mind”. This unique volume explores mindfulness as a learnable skill in context with the underpinnings of the teachings of Eastern psychology. The authors, Norm, a physician, cancer researcher and triathlete and Karolynn, a psychotherapist, mindfulness meditation teacher and marathoner, live and work in a high-stress, (...) high-expectation world. Their approach is rooted in an understanding that thoughts produce biochemical and physiological changes and provides a strategic framework to instruct an individual on how to categorize types of thoughts. After harnessing this ability, one is positioned to become both more aware of his or her thoughts as well as the specific patterns of sensations they produce, or Sentinel SitesSM. The awareness of what the mind is doing and the ability to interrupt a thought pattern and/or control the response almost instantly leads one to having a healthier life, improved relationships with others and better adaptability to one’s environment. Emphasizing the importance of physical activity and nutrition, the authors present a systematic approach for people who want to learn and incorporate mindfulness and transform how they live without having to divert their lives and careers. Offering itself as an accessible and skill-based introduction to the principles, practices, and benefits of mindfulness, Mindfulness for the High Performance World is a useful resource for students, athletes and professionals living and working in high-performance, high-stress environments and also for mindfulness practitioners seeking to deepen their skill level. (shrink)

Nine themes help in understanding B.F. Skinner's development from graduate student in 1928 to the publication of his Behavior of Organisms in 1938. It is claimed that Skinner's primary personal development was from the role of precocious critic to mature theorist; that Skinner's discoveries of behavioral lawfulness enabled him to shed major portions of his earlier reflexological commitment; that his postulation of operants served several nonempirical functions; and that the postulation required that he depart from the restrictive philosophical framework in (...) which he had been working. (shrink)

Due to their reliance on constitutive higher-order representing to generate the qualities of which the subject is consciously aware, I argue that the major existing higher-order representational theories of consciousness insulate us from our first-order sensory states. In fact on these views we are never properly conscious of our sensory states at all. In their place I offer a new higher-order theory of consciousness, with a view to making us suitably intimate with our sensory states in experience. This theory relies (...) on the idea of ‘quoting’ sensory qualities, so is dubbed the ‘quotational higher-order thought theory’. I argue that it can capture something of the idea that we are ‘acquainted’ with our conscious states without slipping beyond the pale for naturalists, whilst also providing satisfying treatments of traditional problems for higher-order theories concerning representational mismatch. The theory achieves this by abandoning a representational mechanism for mental intentionality, in favour of one based on ‘embedding’. (shrink)

In this article, James Joshua Coleman and Jon Wargo interrogate the (queer) child as a concept and specter that haunts civic life in the United States. Whereas scholars across a range of fields and standpoints have questioned the value of LGBTQ+ inclusion in public school curricula, and society more broadly, together Coleman and Wargo wonder at the capacity of civics education to include queer (as opposed to LGBTQ+) citizens within the cis-straight nation-state. To explore this possibility, they read (...) across two bills: (1) H.R. 9197 (Stop the Sexualization of Children Act), and (2) Illinois House Bill 246 (Inclusive Curriculum Law). In so doing, they highlight how the (Queer) Child operates as an organizing binary logic within these bills and examine how hermeneutical injustice impedes the formation of a truly queer civics education. Specifically, Coleman and Wargo demonstrate how hermeneutical injustice limits the nature of inclusion for LGBTQ+ citizens, both for exclusionary, anti-LGBTQ+ policy and for seemingly inclusive legislation. Pointing to scenes that demonstrate hermeneutical justice and queer survivance, they conclude by suggesting the construction of a queer civics education that stands outside the binary logics of the cis-straight nation-state. (shrink)

In this paper I first examine two important assumptions underlying the argument that physicalism entails panpsychism. These need unearthing because opponents in the literature distinguish themselves from Strawson in the main by rejecting one or the other. Once they have been stated, and something has been said about the positions that reject them, the onus of argument becomes clear: the assumptions require careful defence. I believe they are true, in fact, but their defence is a large project that cannot begin (...) here. So, in the final section I comment on what follows if they are granted. I agree with Strawson that --broadly -- 'panpsychism' is the direction in which philosophy of mind should be heading; nevertheless, there are certain difficulties in the detail of his position. In light of these I argue for changes to the doctrine, bringing it into line with the slightly. (shrink)

BackgroundCountries are increasingly devoting significant resources to creating or strengthening research ethics committees, but there has been insufficient attention to assessing whether these committees are actually improving the protection of human research participants.DiscussionResearch ethics committees face numerous obstacles to achieving their goal of improving research participant protection. These include the inherently amorphous nature of ethics review, the tendency of regulatory systems to encourage a focus on form over substance, financial and resource constraints, and conflicts of interest. Auditing and accreditation programs (...) can improve the quality of ethics review by encouraging the development of standardized policies and procedures, promoting a common base of knowledge, and enhancing the status of research ethics committees within their own institutions. However, these mechanisms focus largely on questions of structure and process and are therefore incapable of answering many critical questions about ethics committees' actual impact on research practices.The first step in determining whether research ethics committees are achieving their intended function is to identify what prospective research participants and their communities hope to get out of the ethics review process. Answers to this question can help guide the development of effective outcomes assessment measures. It is also important to determine whether research ethics committees' guidance to investigators is actually being followed. Finally, the information developed through outcomes assessment must be disseminated to key decision-makers and incorporated into practice. This article offers concrete suggestions for achieving these goals.ConclusionOutcomes assessment of research ethics committees should address the following questions: First, does research ethics committee review improve participants' understanding of the risks and potential benefits of studies? Second, does the process affect prospective participants' decisions about whether to participate in research? Third, does it change participants' subjective experiences in studies or their attitudes about research? Fourth, does it reduce the riskiness of research? Fifth, does it result in more research responsive to the local community's self-identified needs? Sixth, is research ethics committees' guidance to researchers actually being followed? (shrink)

Conscious mental qualities, aka phenomenal qualities, are seemingly a leading factor in much of our behaviour. Pains make us recoil from painful stimuli, itches make us scratch, feelings of anger sometimes make us shout, visually perceiving red leads us to halt at stop lights, and so on. To relinquish this claim about the efficacy of conscious mental qualities would mean surrendering a major component of our everyday, intuitive self-conception; hence, the claim enjoys considerable prima facie plausibility. Unconscious mental qualities, however, (...) have been posited by a mere handful of philosophers historically, and are nowadays almost universally rejected. Via a case study of ‘restless legs syndrome’, I argue that there is a hitherto unnoticed cost to this prevailing rejection of unconscious mental qualities: the causal efficacy of conscious mental qualities is threatened. In fact, I argue, we face a dilemma: To endorse epiphenomenalism about conscious mental qualities, or to posit unconscious mental qualities. Since it is so plausible that conscious mental qualities are causally efficacious, this reasoning constitutes an argument for unconscious mental qualities. Moving beyond the sensory case, I explain how analogous reasoning might apply to other mental faculties where phenomenal qualities seem causally involved: notably, emotions and mental imagery. (shrink)

The Postscript to The Concept of Law contains Herbert Hart's only sustained and considered response to the objections pressed against his views by his distinguished critic, Ronald Dworkin. In this extraordinary collection, many of the leading legal philosophers in the world evaluate the success of Hart's responses to Dworkin on several of these counts. Notable contributors include Joseph Raz of Oxford University and Jules L. Coleman of the Yale Law School.

Taking their motivation from the perceived failure of the reductive physicalist project concerning consciousness, panpsychists ascribe subjectivity to fundamental material entities in order to account for macro-consciousness. But there exists an unresolved tension within the mainstream panpsychist position, the seriousness of which has yet to be appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer advice to panpsychists on how to resolve it. The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature phenomenal properties, plus micro-subjects to (...) whom these properties belong. However, it is impossible to explain the generation of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, as I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of giving up her explanatory ambitions, or of giving up the claim that the ultimates are subjects. I argue that the latter option is preferable, leading to neutral monism, on which phenomenal qualities are irreducible but subjects are reducible. So panpsychists should be neutral monists. (shrink)

The overall goal of clinical ethics consultation is to “improve the quality of healthcare outcomes” (ASBH 2011, 3). I find this focus helps me avoid people pleasing, system allegiance, being swayed...

In a world of pervasive media and ubiquitous computing, this article asks what happens as everything (objects, subjects, and actions) moves toward animation across a network. How do media and mediation affect our sense of agency? I argue that the contemporary subject, as described by real-world media practice and animated film, exists within a space of accelerated mediation that distorts self-perception. I use the example of A Scanner Darkly, the 2006 Richard Linklater film, to discuss the effects of pervasive media (...) and how it affects the parameters of self-reflection and agency. The importance of A Scanner Darkly to my argument is that it provides a vision of pervasive mediation in which subjects and objects collide. In A Scanner Darkly, I focus on the use of rotoscoping animation as visual effect and conceptual filter. Effectively, as I argue, animation is used in this case to illustrate the loss of face-to-face engagement – the impossibility of the unmediated encounter. In the first section of the article, I conceptualize a networked subject in reference to the film’s rendition of a subject adrift in a field of mediation. In the second section, I contrast this vision with a formulation of networked subjectivity that engages modalities of mediated presence to explore issues of agency in light of a technologically animated environment. The question I ask is: if as a society we are subjected to a pervasive mediation, how may we imagine modes of agency within an animated world? (shrink)

In today’s society, models of God are challenged to account for more than the postmodern context in which Western Christianity finds itself; they should also consider the reality of religious pluralism. Non-monotheistic religions present a particular challenge to Western theological and philosophical God-modeling because they require a model of Gods. This paper uses an African traditional religion as a case study to problematize the effects of monotheism on philosophical models of God. The desire to uphold the image of a singular (...) God tends to invalidate religious experiences that deviate from a given scientifically-verifiable norm. It also mischaracterizes the concept of divinity in religions that maintain divine multiplicity. That is, scholars of African traditional religions affirm that “polytheism” is not an accurate naming of their traditions; rather these religions affirm a community of gods. I propose a Whiteheadian process model that describes a community of gods that has active interaction with the temporal world. Such a model not only broadens conversations of religious pluralism for Western-trained religious scholars, but also acknowledges the Western context in which many practitioners of African traditional religions live. (shrink)

The article supplies an overview of UK modern languages education at school and university level. It attends particularly to trends over recent years, with regard both to numbers and to social elitism, and reflects on perceptions of language learning in the wider culture and the importance of gaining wider recognition of the value of languages education.

There is no paucity of academic studies, medical literature, or media attention given to concerns about gender ideology and being transgender. When reporting their findings, however, some researchers and practitioners working from a purely secular perspective overstep medical observations to make metaphysical pronouncements. This causes considerable confusion and stifles dialogue that could occur if the line between medicine and philosophy were clearly delineated. Properly understood, transgender describes an observable distress due to incongruence between one’s birth sex and gender identity. Conversely, (...) gender ideology is a metaphysical conclusion, which argues that a person’s gender is fluid and open to personal choice. Clearly distinguishing between these can help families, clinicians, and society provide medically appropriate and culturally competent care to those with gender dysphoria, especially children. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century imperialist discourses constructed European colonisation of indigenous inhabitants as an inevitable and necessary process for the progress of the colonies and the extension of the British Empire. Within this construct, imperialist and patriarchal discourses intersected to construct ‘white women’ in a manner that denied them legitimacy as autonomous individuals but simultaneously positioned them as actors within the imperial endeavour. Recent feminist scholarship has extended this historiography by considering how some women in nineteenth-century New Zealand were complexly positioned as both (...) agents and critics of colonisation, involved in imperial strategies and yet disruptive of practices of cultural assimilation of Maori. This article furthers this scholarship through an illustrative case study of one woman who embodied this complex positioning within patriarchal and imperialist discourses. English-born wife of the first Chief Justice of New Zealand, and outspoken critic of colonial policies associated with government appropriation of Maori land, Mary Ann Martin was actively involved in establishing Anglican training institutions for young Maori men and women, and in dispensing medical assistance to Maori. Examination of her positioning on the margins of imperial discourses offers an opportunity to consider the operation of colonialism as a discourse implicated by gendered, racialised identities. Detailed textual analyses of selected extracts of her reminiscences of her 34-year residence in New Zealand, which focus on her positioning as a member of the ‘inferior’ sex in the dominant race, offer an opportunity to examine the ways in which she simultaneously challenged and reinforced Victorian prescriptions of respectable womanhood; how her views on and interactions with Maori may have destabilised accepted notions of women's appropriate spheres of influence; and the extent to which her challenges to dominant views on race relations may have been inflected by her positioning within gendered discourses of femininity. (shrink)