We systematically examined the content of the websites of 46 agencies that buy and sell human eggs to understand how they market themselves to both donors and recipients. We found that these websites use marketing techniques that obscure the realities of egg donation, presenting egg donation as a mutually beneficial and fulfilling experience. Sites emphasize egg donors' emotional fulfillment and address recipients' anxieties by stressing the ability to find the perfect “fit” or “match”, suiting recipients’“preferences”/“desires”, and even designing/customizing a child. (...) Agencies attempt to create a sense of connection between the recipients and donors by reporting donors' personal characteristics — e.g., interests/hobbies, traits, mood/temperament, and self-reported childhood behavior/memories. Sites present donors as caring/generous and smart/successful/beautiful. These data, the first to examine several key aspects of egg donation agency websites, reveal critical aspects of how these companies communicate to prospective donors and recipients, raising several ethical concerns. Websites frame information in ways that may bias consumers, making emotional appeals that may distract from appropriate risk/benefit assessments and obscure the ethical challenges of egg donation. These data highlight needs for improved practices, adherence to guidelines, and consideration of enhanced guidelines or policy. (shrink)

This book is the first systematic treatment of 'responsibilist' or character-based virtue epistemology, an approach to epistemology that focuses on intellectual ...

Chapter 1: Ryle on Knowing How Chapter 2: Knowledge-wh Chapter 3: PRO and the Representation of First-Person Thought Chapter 4: Ways of Thinking Chapter 5: Knowledge How Chapter 6: Ascribing Knowledge How Chapter 7: The Cognitive Science of Practical Knowledge Chapter 8: Knowledge Justified Preface A fact, as I shall use the term, is a true proposition. A proposition is the sort of thing that is capable of being believed or asserted. A proposition is also something that is characteristically the (...) kind of thing that is true or false; that snow is white is a true proposition, that Barack Obama is President of the United States as I am writing these words is another. Facts in this sense are not only among the things we believe and assert; they are also the kinds of things we know. The thesis of this book is that knowing how to do something is the same as knowing a fact. It follows that learning how to do something is learning a fact. For example, when you learned how to swim, what happened is that you learned some facts about swimming. Knowledge of these facts is what gave you knowledge of how to swim. Something similar occurred with every other activity that you now know how to do, such as riding a bicycle or cooking a meal. You know how to perform activities solely in virtue of your knowledge of facts about those activities. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the thesis that alleffects of extra-linguistic context on thetruth-conditions of an assertion are traceable toelements in the actual syntactic structure of thesentence uttered. In the first section, I develop thethesis in detail, and discuss its implications for therelation between semantics and pragmatics. The nexttwo sections are devoted to apparent counterexamples.In the second section, I argue that there are noconvincing examples of true non-sentential assertions.In the third section, I argue that there are noconvincing examples of what (...) John Perry has called`unarticulated constituents''. I conclude by drawingsome consequences of my arguments for appeals tocontext-dependence in the resolution of problems inepistemology and philosophical logic. (shrink)

Open-mindedness enjoys widespread recognition as an intellectual virtue. This is evident, among other ways, in its appearance on nearly every list of intellectual virtues in the virtue epistemology literature.1 Despite its popularity, however, it is far from clear what exactly open-mindedness amounts to: that is, what sort of intellectual orientation or activity is essential to it. In fact, there are ways of thinking about open-mindedness that cast serious doubt on its status as an intellectual virtue. Consider the following description, from (...) Robert Roberts and Jay Wood (2007), of a ‘bright college freshman, taking an introductory course in philosophy.’ Given this student’s ‘taste for ideas,’ she .. (shrink)

Many business ethicists, activists, analysts, and corporate leaders claim that businesses are obligated to promote diversity for the sake of justice. Many also say—good news!—that diversity promotes the bottom line. We do need not choose between social justice and profits. This paper splashes some cold water on the attempt to mate these two claims. On the contrary, I argue, there is philosophical tension between arguments which say diversity is a matter of justice and (empirically sound) arguments which say diversity promotes (...) performance. Further, the kinds of interventions these distinct arguments suggest are different. Things get worse when we examine the theory and empirical evidence about how diversity affects group performance. The kind of diversity which promotes justice and the kind which promotes the bottom line are distinct—and the two can be at odds. (shrink)

Contextualism in epistemology is the doctrine that the proposition expressed by a knowledge attribution relative to a context is determined in part by the standards of justification salient in that context. The (non-skeptical) contextualist allows that in some context c, a speaker may truly attribute knowledge at a time of a proposition p to Hannah, despite her possession of only weak inductive evidence for the truth of that proposition. Relative to another context, someone may make the very same knowledge attribution (...) to Hannah, yet be speaking falsely, because the epistemic standards in that context are higher. The reason this is possible, according to the contextualist, is that the two knowledge attributions express different propositions. (shrink)

This paper examines the claim made by certain virtue epistemologists that intellectual character virtues like fair-mindedness, open-mindedness and intellectual courage merit an important and fundamental role in epistemology. I begin by considering whether these traits merit an important role in the analysis of knowledge. I argue that they do not and that in fact they are unlikely to be of much relevance to any of the traditional problems in epistemology. This presents a serious challenge for virtue epistemology. I go on (...) to examine the work of two other virtue epistemologists in light of this challenge and then sketch an alternative approach that reveals how the intellectual virtues might merit a substantial role in epistemology even if not a role in connection with more traditional epistemological projects. (shrink)

Democracy is both an obvious and dubious idea. Here's why democracy is an obvious idea: For most of history, most governments divided people into the few who rule and the many who obey. The few then used the state to advance their own private interests at the expense of the many. Rulers were less like noble protectors appointed by God and more like intestinal parasites. The obvious solution is to eliminate the distinction between those who rule and those who obey. (...) Make every citizen both a ruler and a subject of that rule. This ensures government promotes everyone's interests. Thus, democracy is the best form of government. It's too bad it took most of civilized history to realize this-and too bad that the world isn't more democratic than it is. Here's why democracy is a dubious idea. Government decisions are high stakes. It decides matters of war and peace, prosperity and poverty, freedom or oppression. Yet we let incompetent people steer the ship of state. Most voters are ignorant and process what little information they have in biased and irrational ways. They fall prey to propaganda and demagogues. They are conformists and don't even try to vote their interests. Democracy is the political equivalent of drunk driving. Thus, democracy is a defective form of government. Democracy is a method by which the masses shoot themselves in their feet. Philosophy students often start essays by writing, "Since the dawn of time, humanity has pondered..." In this case, these arguments and concerns are old, if not dawn-of-time old. We find laypeople, pundits, social scientists, and philosophers making these two arguments today. But in ancient Athens, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle said similar things. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We analyze corporate ethics programs as control systems, arguing that how control is exercised may have pernicious consequences and be morally problematic. In particular, the control cultivated by ethics programs may weaken employees’ ability and motivation to exercise their own moral judgment, especially in novel situations. We develop this argument first by examining how organization theorists analyze control as an instrument of management coordination, and by addressing the political implications of control. We discuss coercive and enabling control as variations that (...) help account for the distinction between compliance-based ethics programs and values-based ethics programs. We then explore three potential drawbacks of ethics programs: the specter of indoctrination, a politicization of ethics, and an atrophy of competence. Ethics programs that rely on coercive control may undermine their own effectiveness at stemming misbehavior. (shrink)

Anti-racist education within the Academy holds the potential to truly reflect the cultural hybridity of our diverse, multi-cultural society through the canons of knowledge that educators celebrate, proffer and embody. The centrality of Whiteness as an instrument of power and privilege ensures that particular types of knowledge continue to remain omitted from our curriculums. The monopoly and proliferation of dominant White European canons does comprise much of our existing curriculum; consequently, this does impact on aspects of engagement, inclusivity and belonging (...) particularly for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) learners. This paper explores the impact of a dominant Eurocentric curriculum and the Decolonising the Curriculum agenda within higher education and its influence upon navigating factors such as BAME attainment, engagement and belonging within the Academy. This paper draws on a Critical Race Theory (CRT) theoretical framework to centralize the marginalized voices of fifteen BAME students and three academics of colour regarding this phenomena. Aspects examined consider the impact of a narrow and restrictive curriculum on BAME students and staff and how the omission of diverse histories and multi-cultural knowledge canons facilitates marginalization and discriminatory cultures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Whether at the executive or the line-management levels, businesspeople face moral decisions that cannot be easily resolved with reference to a shared ethos, whether because of diversity of ethea in the organization or its environment, or because the organization's ethos is inadequate for the problem at hand. These decisions are made more common by the changing norms of a pluralistic business environment, and require collective moral deliberation to be adequately resolved. Discourse ethics ideally characterizes the form of valid collective moral (...) deliberation. I argue that accommodation for the limitations of actual discourse makes discourse ethics, conceived in terms of the rules of practical discourse, practical for realizing improvements in the openness and validity of moral decision-making over states in which these rules are flagrantly violated. These rules have normative implications at the organizational level for the integrity approach to corporate ethics programs, and at the individual level for ethical leadership. (shrink)

“Libertarian paternalism” aims to harness cognitive biases in order to improve prudential decision-making. Some critics have objected that libertarian paternalism is wrongly manipulative. I argue that this objection is mostly unsuccessful. First, I point out that some strategies endorsed by libertarian paternalists can help people to better appreciate reasons. Second, I develop an account of manipulation according to which an agent manipulates her target by worsening the target’s deliberative position. The means of influence defended by libertarian paternalists—for instance, the judicious (...) use of default rules—are not manipulative in this way. (shrink)

The new field of sustainability science that has arisen over the past three decades, largely oriented toward cities, under closer examination may prove to be wholly inadequate to deal with the issues it was initially designed to address. Built largely upon modernist value assumptions, its entire range of outlooks has failed to account for the character virtues needed to realize sustainable approaches for the future, which are better found working within different religious traditions’ theologies and ethical outlooks. In light of (...) this, the present article takes up a replicable agenda for analyzing how these particular character virtues—with special focus on parsimony and futuremindedness—work with regard to visions of sustainability that promise to bring about a more just transition in cities. (shrink)

Some bioethicists have argued that moral bioenhancement, complementing traditional means of enhancing individuals’ moral dispositions, is essential if we are to survive as a species. Traditional means of moral enhancement have historically included civil legislation, socially recognized moral exemplars, religious teachings and disciplines, and familial upbringing. I explore the necessity and feasibility of pursuing methods of moral bioenhancement as a complement to such traditional means, grounding my analysis within a virtue-theoretic framework. Specifically, I focus on the essential intellectual virtue for (...) proper moral reasoning, prudence, and whether proposed methods of moral bioenhancement could facilitate the cultivation of this virtue within the psyches of moral agents. I conclude that certain means of bioenhancement may serve to augment the ability to reason prudentially and assist moral agents to align their wills with their higher-order rational desires, though such means require those higher-order desires to already have been formulated independently. (shrink)

Although Eugen Fink often reflected upon the role religion, these reflections are yet to be addressed in secondary literature in any substantive sense. For Fink, religion is to be understood in relation to “play,” which is a metaphor for how the world presents itself. Religion is a non-repetitive, and entirely creative endeavor or “symbol” that is not achieved through work and toil, or through evaluation or power, but rather, through his idea of play and “cult” as the imaginative distanciation from (...) a predictable lifeworld. This paper describes Fink’s understanding of religion and its most relevant aspects found in Spiel als Weltsymbol. The paper is organized into five sections—1: An introduction to his phenomenological approach in general, and description of the role of “play”; 2: investigations into the relation between play and world; 3: a description of his phenomenology of religion; 4: engagements in the idea of cult-play and the sacred sphere, and 5: reflection on his idea of the play of God. (shrink)

:Empirical work has shown that patients and physicians have markedly divergent understandings of treatability statements in the context of serious illness. Patients often understand treatability statements as conveying good news for prognosis and quality of life. In contrast, physicians often do not intend treatability statements to convey improvement in prognosis or quality of life, but merely that a treatment is available. Similarly, patients often understand treatability statements as conveying encouragement to hope and pursue further treatment, though this may not be (...) intended by physicians. This radical divergence in understandings may lead to severe miscommunication. This paper seeks to better understand this divergence through linguistic theory—in particular, H.P. Grice’s notion of conversational implicature. This theoretical approach reveals three levels of meaning of treatability statements: the literal meaning, the physician’s intended meaning, and the patient’s received meaning. The divergence between the physician’s intended meaning and the patient’s received meaning can be understood to arise from the lack of shared experience between physicians and patients, and the differing assumptions that each party makes about conversations. This divergence in meaning raises new and largely unidentified challenges to informed consent and shared decision making in the context of serious illness, which indicates a need for further empirical research in this area. (shrink)

Equipoise is an essential condition to justify a clinical trial. The term, describes a state of uncertainty: the data suggest but do not prove a drug's safety and efficacy The only way to resolve this uncertainty is further study In many cases, a clinical trial seems to be the most efficient way to prove safety and efficacy Equipoise is therefore not an esoteric philosophic construct applied to research ethics. Rather, since it is vital for the justification of clinical trials, it (...) is part of how society regulates medical progress. Where there is equipoise, drug design and development proceeds according to Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services regulations. When that equipoise ends, a drug is either not approved or becomes standard care. (shrink)

According to Pierre Bourdieu, practices and habits are out the realm of rationality; this claim about their nature explains their peculiar resistance to rational revision. I argue that one can explain the fact that practices and habits are difficult to revise, without abandoning the view that they are within the space of reasons.

According to one prominent account of intellectual humility, it consists primarily of a disposition to “own” one’s intellectual limitations. This account has been criticized for neglecting the _interpersonal _dimensions of intellectual humility. We expect intellectually humble persons to be respectful and generous with their interlocutors and to avoid being haughty or domineering. I defend the limitations-owning account against this objection. I do so in two ways: first, by arguing that some of the interpersonal qualities associated with intellectual humility are qualities (...) expressive of virtues _other_ than intellectual humility; and second, by arguing that, when properly described, the kind of limitations-owning characteristic of intellectual humility in fact is robustly interpersonal. The result is a considerably broader and richer notion of the limitations the owning of which is characteristic of intellectual humility. (shrink)

Most people believe that it is permissible to kill a nonresponsible threat, or someone who threatens one's life without exercising agency. Defenders of this view must show that there is a morally relevant difference between nonresponsible threats and innocent bystanders. Some philosophers, including Jonathan Quong and Helen Frowe, have attempted to do this by arguing that one who kills a bystander takes advantage of another person, while one who kills a threat does not. In this paper, I show that the (...) proposals offered by Quong and Frowe have unacceptable implications. I then argue that those who claim that nonresponsible threats may be killed face a dilemma generated by the possibility of a stationary threat, or someone who endangers another person's life without moving. Unless we arbitrarily distinguish between stationary and moving nonresponsible threats, it is unclear how the permission to kill nonresponsible threats is to be explicated. I conclude that nonresponsible threats are not legitimate targets of self-defence. (shrink)

The Chacoan road system is an understudied aspect of a very unique culture in New Mexico. The extensive roads present important evidence to the social structure of the Chaco people. A few theories have been presented about the reason for the roads, such as economic, administrative and religion. This paper argues that the roads were used for military purposes, because the roads provided quick access to all satellite townships in the region.

A number of scientists have recently argued that neuroscience provides strong evidence against the requirements of the folk notion of free will. In one such line of argumentation, it is claimed that choice is required for free will, and neuroscience is showing that people do not make choices. In this article, we argue that this no-choice line of argumentation relies on a specific conception of choice. We then provide evidence that people do not share the conception of choice required of (...) the argument, nor do people hold that free will requires the conception of choice on which the argument relies. This leaves the proponents of the no-choice argument with a dilemma: Either they adopt a conception of choice that is not required of the folk concept of free will and thus they cease to be talking about the folk concept of free will, or they adopt a conception of choice that aligns with the folk concept of choice and thus the no-choice argument fails. (shrink)

IN THIS PAPER, I PROVIDE A FORMULATION of Thomas Aquinas’s account of the nature of human beings for the purpose of comparing it with other accounts in both the history of philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy. I discuss how his apparently dualistic understanding of the relationship between soul and body yields the conclusion that a human being exists as a unified substance composed of a rational soul informing, that is, serving as the specific organizing principle of, a physical body. I (...) further address the issue of Aquinas’s contention that a human rational soul can exist without being united to a body and show how this ability of a human soul does not contradict the thesis that a human being exists naturally as embodied. I will also respond to two related questions. First, what accounts for the individuation of human beings as distinct members of the human species? Second, what is the principle of identity by which a human being persists through time and change? (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to validate the Korean version of the Student-Athletes’ Motivation toward Sports and Academics Questionnaire using exploratory structural equation modeling. A total of 412 South Korean collegiate student-athletes competing in 27 types of sports from 13 different public and private universities across South Korea were analyzed for this study. ESEM statistical approach was employed to examine the psychometric properties of SAMSAQ-KR. To assess content validity, the SAMSAQ-KR was inspected by a panel of content subject experts. (...) The Athletic Identity Measurement Scale was used to obtain convergent validity. The results of this study illustrated that the SAMSAQ-KR appears to be a robust and reliable instrument. (shrink)

The Routledge Guidebook to Aquinas‘ Summa Theologiae introduces readers to a work which represents the pinnacle of medieval Western scholarship and which has inspired numerous commentaries, imitators, and opposing views. Outlining the main arguments Aquinas utilizes to support his conclusions on various philosophical questions, this clear and comprehensive guide explores: The historical context in which Aquinas wrote A critical discussion of the topics outlined in the text including theology, metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, ethics, and political theory. The ongoing influence of Summa (...) Theologiae in modern Philosophy and Theology Offering a close reading of the original work, this guidebook highlights the central themes of Aquinas’ masterwork and is an essential read for anyone seeking an understanding of this highly influential work in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

By most accounts Deleuze's engagement with Marx begins with the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia he co-authored with Félix Guattari. However, Deleuze's Difference and Repetition alludes to a connection between Deleuze's critique of common sense and Marx's theory of fetishism, suggesting a connection between the critique of the image of thought and the critique of capital. By tracing this connection from its emergence in the early texts on noology, or the image of thought, to the development in the critique (...) of state thought in A Thousand Plateaus, it can be argued that what initially appears as an entirely infra-philosophical problem, concerned with the presuppositions of philosophy, is not only a political problem as well, but ultimately bears on the very nature of the conjunction between thought and politics, making possible a re-examination of what is meant by revolutionary thought. It is a transition from noology to noopolitics. In the end it can be argued that revolutionary thought is no longer an eschatology, attempting to discern the signs of the future revolution in the present, but a thought oriented towards everything that exceeds the fetish of society, towards the virtual relations and micropolitical transformations that constitute society but exceed its representation. (shrink)

I begin by examining how genetics drivesschizophrenia research, and raise both familiar andrelatively novel criticisms of the evidence putativelysupporting the genetic basis of schizophrenia. Inparticular, I call attention to a set of concernsabout the effects of placentation on concordance ratesof schizophrenia in monozygotic twins, which furtherweakens the case for schizophrenia''s so-called stronggenetic component. I then underscore two criticalpoints. First, I emphasize the importance of takingseriously considerations about the complexity of bothontogenesis and the development of hereditarydiseases. The recognition of developmentalconstraints and (...) supports is crucial, for attention todevelopment exposes the naivete of too many models ofgene action in the aetiology of disease. Secondly, Iattend to those schizophreniologists who ignoremethodological criticisms and thus presume a geneticbasis for schizophrenia, and then seek the schizophrenic genotype lacking an adequatephenotype. In response I attempt to demonstrate thenecessity of a sustained effort at characterizing thephenotype of schizophrenia as an enabling conditionfor the whole enterprise of psychiatric genetics – andfor psychiatry itself. Without the organism-levelphenotype, research at the level of genes will remainunproductive – assuming of course that research at thegenetic level is appropriate at all. (shrink)

This paper is a critical re-evaluation of C.S. Lewis’s classic study of Christian love, The Four Loves (1960) that celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2020. After discussing important and neglected differences between the celebrated book and the largely forgotten radio talks which predate it, the paper asks and answers three important questions: Are there really four loves? What is the definition of love itself? What exactly is Charity? Lewis’s answers to these questions are more eclectic than is generally assumed. The (...) paper offers an appreciative rereading of The Four Loves that seeks to correct or at least challenge a number of longstanding misunderstandings about Lewis’s taxonomy of love. (shrink)

In bringing the relational ground of our being into a sharp and painful relief, grief may at times potentiate a renewed engagement with the world in which new possibilities are disclosed to us. Tracing the contours of those moments where the gift of grief becomes visible in the lives and work of two thinkers who experienced devastating personal losses amid the Great War — the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl — the article elaborates a phenomenological anthropological perspective (...) on grief and grieving. While still painful and world-destroying, the atmosphere of grief that these two thinkers experienced also gave rise in its wake to new ways of orienting and responding to the world in their lives and scholarly work. (shrink)

Aristotle famously argues that friendship can serve as a normative model for the practice of citizenship, and this view has been widely accepted by neo-Aristotelians. Liberals, however, are quick to reject both Aristotle's view of friendship and his view of citizenship. Does this mean that the concept of friendship is politically irrelevant for liberalism? This essay suggests, on the contrary, that the concept of friendship is far from obsolete, even for liberals. Specifically, communicative constraints derived from the norms of friendship, (...) as interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, could serve to promote the modest instrumental purposes of liberal citizenship-personal freedom, social justice, and civil peace-while simultaneously allowing the practice of liberal citizenship to develop in noninstrumental directions, enriched rather than strained by the multicultural realities of most modern societies. (shrink)

This article focuses on Edmund Husserl’s first and most enduring interaction with pragmatism, on the conception of habit. This began a decade before Husserl’s first writings on phenomenology, and continued throughout the time he invented and developed his new phenomenological method. Husserl first encountered pragmatic habit from the founder of pragmatism Charles S. Peirce around 1890. Husserl then further interacted with the pragmatic theory of habit through the work of William James and Josiah Royce, two scholars deeply influenced by Peirce. (...) This article explores how the theory of habit mutually influenced pragmatism and phenomenology at their origins, and how this dialogue can inform philosophy today. (shrink)

An introductory lecture on ethics -- The pharmakon artist -- Building the theater of being -- Against perennial philosophy -- Verse 4:34 -- A critique of Shiite esotericism -- Spinoza, the untimely one -- Aliens and the moral law -- Serpent power of the superman -- Paranormal phenomenology -- Trial goddess -- Wittgenstein's incoherent ethics -- Black sunrise -- Prisoners of property and propriety -- Free will vs. logical determinism -- Rewriting God's plan -- Changing destiny -- Notes on the (...) tao of Bruce Lee -- Philosophy, science, and art -- Gotham guardian. (shrink)

Engages the myriad dimensions of Night in order to explore the human experience of the after-dark."--Provided by publisher.

Louis Althusser argued that Marx initiated a transformation of philosophy, a new way of doing philosophy. This book follows that provocation to examine the way in which central Marxist concepts and problems from primitive accumulation to real abstraction animate and inform philosophers from Theodor Adorno to Paolo Virno. While also examining the way in which reading Marx casts new light on such philosophers as Spinoza. At the centre of this transformation is the production of subjectivity, the manner in which relations (...) of production produces ways of thinking and living. (shrink)

Religious nationalism is a complex topic fraught with sensitive questions. Does religion cause violence? Is nationalism a quasi-religion? Are the constant conflicts around the world really about religion, or is religion merely a form of false consciousness? Is religious nationalism primarily a powerful tool that political elites use to manipulate the masses? -/- Religious Nationalism: A Reference Handbook challenges dominant scholarly works on religious nationalism by identifying the preconceptions that skew analysis of the phenomenon dubbed “religious nationalism.” The book utilizes (...) a multidisciplinary approach that draws insight from theories of nationalism, religious studies, peace research, and political theory, and reframes the questions of religious nationalism within the perspectives of secularism, modernity, and Orientalism. In doing so, the authors enable readers to uncover their own presumptions regarding the role of religion in public life. The work also outlines connections between the analysis of the role of religion in conflict to thoughts regarding how religion may relate to processes of peacebuilding and conflict transformation, and further connects the discussion of religious nationalism to broader conversations on the so-called resurgence of religion. (shrink)

The Jewish tradition has important perspectives, history and wisdom that can contribute significantly to crucial contemporary healthcare deliberations. This book is an attempt to show how numerous classic Jewish texts and ideas have significant things to say about some of the most urgent debates in the world of medicine today, with the potential to significantly expand and benefit the field of bioethics. But this book is not only about applying classical Jewish values to bioethical dilemmas. It seeks to develop an (...) approach that is primarily informed by personal and communal obligations and social responsibilities. Jewish values focus on requirements, obligations, and commandments, and has thus sometimes been called an "Ethics of Responsibility," by advancing new relevant approaches that can encourage healthcare providers to remain dedicated to preventing harm and providing compassionate care to all, based on these inspiring and timeless values. Each chapter of this book explores questions such as: "Are we expected to risk our lives on behalf of others?" "When we can only help a limited number of people, how do we prioritize?" "What are the obligations and expectations of a society or government?" "Are issues of cultural sensitivity relevant in how we discharge our obligations to others?" "What should we do when obligations for others violate our own moral principles or commitments?" "Are there limits to how far one can be expected to go for others?" These and other issues are addressed in this book, as it attempts to describe a meaningful and compassionate Jewish bioethic of responsibility for our times. (shrink)

This essay argues for the importance of Nishitani Keiji’s thought as a critical resource to confront what the unfolding ecological crisis reveals about who and what we are. The first part considers the importance of “nature” for Nishitani that accords with insights that both resonate with his Zen practice and heritage, and which open up tacit dimensions of the Jōdo Shin tradition. The second section turns to Nishitani’s highly original Zen “existentialization” of science in general, and by extension, contemporary climate (...) science in particular, in order to highlight Nishitani’s Great Death as a response to the unfolding ecological catastrophe. In treating climate science as a kōan, we not only come to see who we are, but also come undone and awaken to a new relation to the Great Earth. (shrink)

A general feature of our moral psychology is that we feel that some moral demands are motivated externally. Stanford explains this feature with an evolutionary account, such that moral externalism was selected for its ability to facilitate prosocial interactions. Alternatively, I argue that a cognitive, non-selectionist account of moral externalism is a more parsimonious explanation.

In this paper, I elaborate a Derridean deconstruction of law through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Derrida only focuses on jurisprudential law enforcement in his famous ‘Force of Law’ lecture, leaving corporeal law enforcement untouched. In turn, I explore the irresolvable conceptual tensions within corporeal law enforcement from the standpoints of (a) individuals rationalizing their obedience to law enforcement and (b) the legal system rationalizing its circumscription of acceptable law enforcement. To support my analysis, I examine landmark court cases and (...) their deleterious effects on accountability for law enforcers. In particular, I track the progression from the legal standard of ‘shock of conscience’ (i.e., established by Rochin v. California (1952)) to that of ‘objective reasonableness’ (i.e., established by Graham v. Connor (1989)), which reinforces the legal protections for and libidinal features of police brutality. In this sense, I seek to clarify the dimensions of the libidinal economy belonging to policy brutality, namely its components of sadism and superegoic enjoyment. (shrink)