“I would prefer not”HERMAN MELVILLE, BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER: A STORY OF WALL STREET (1853), reprinted in THE PIAZZA TALES 32, 48 (London, Sampson Low, Son & Co. 1856). Scholars have recently challenged the claim in classical deterrence theory that law influences behavior only through the expected sanction imposed. Some go further and argue that law may also “shape preferences,” changing people’s wants and values. In this Article, we analyze existing claims that criminal and civil law alter preferences and conclude that (...) none suggest that the law shapes preferences. We first clarify this preference-shaping claim by elaborating the structure of rational choice theory generally and “preference” in particular. We then investigate three mechanisms of legal influence suggested by the preference-shaping literature: (1) the “serious harm” mechanism; (2) the “social norm” mechanism; and (3) the “self-improvement” mechanism. We then show that each of these mechanisms operates by changing the agent’s beliefs about the attributes or consequences of her choice options rather than by changing her preferences. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the (...) letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is a critical study of Jason Brennan's Against Democracy. We make three main points. First, we argue that Brennan's proposal of a right to competent government only works if one considers the absence of government a viable proposition, something most of his opponents are not prepared to do. Second, we suggest that Brennan's account of competent decision-making is blind to forms of oligarchic power that work against the very ideals of justice and epistemic virtue that competence is (...) meant to safeguard. Third, we muster empirical evidence to argue that, in the real world, democracy is not just about making decisions and selecting policies, in which case Brennan's argument misses its mark. (shrink)

This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated w...

This article tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists to confront this problem. A realist approach offers three distinct advantages, elaborated in the three subsequent sections (...) of the article. First, it relaxes the theoretical burden by starting from the real practice of tax evasion rather than from an abstract theory of equality or justice. Second, this approach recognizes that sheltering is a political harm: a threat to the very maintenance of order, not just a problem of inequality or injustice. If politicians fail at such polity maintenance, realism's ethic of responsibility provides clear political reasons why they should be held accountable. Third, realism's focus on power and its acceptance of coercion open up new strategies for addressing the problem that would not be allowed by theories with a stronger emphasis on consensus. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on developing an experimental technique for inducing flow and creating instances of effortless action in the laboratory. The effort to experimentally induce flow involves two conditions which are correlated with the flow state: The firstis the idea that the challenges of a given task are well within one’s capabilities; the other involves perceived goals and immediate feedback from the given task. The chapter explores these factors along with other contextual factors, including autonomy and distractions, to experimentally induce (...) flow and demonstrate instances of effortless action in the laboratory. One of the most extensively used approaches for experimental induction of flow in the laboratory involves exploring difficulty levels of video games. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Evidence is presented that the singularities induced in causal Lorentzian spacetimes by changes in 3-space topology give rise to infinite particle and energy production under reasonable laws of quantum field propagation. In the case of the gravitational field, if 3-space is compact the total energy must vanish. A topological transition therefore induces a violent collapse that effectively aborts the transition, since the collapse mode is the only mode carrying the negative energy needed to compensate the associated infinite energy production. The (...) existence of the Hamiltonian constraint of general relativity suggests that topological stability is a local property of the quantum theory that is maintained even when 3-space is noncompact. (shrink)

Philosophers of language have long recognized that in opaque contexts, such as those involving propositional attitude reports, substitution of co-referring names may not preserve truth value. For example, the name ‘Clark Kent’ cannot be substituted for ‘Superman’ in a context like:1. Lois believes that Superman can flywithout a change in truth value. In an earlier paper, Jennifer Saul demonstrated that substitution failure could also occur in ‘simple sentences’ where none of the ordinary opacity-producing conditions existed, such as:2. Superman leaps (...) more tall buildings than Clark Kent does.Accounts focusing on opacity were unable to explain our ‘anti-substitution intuitions’ in such cases.In Simple Sentences, Substitution, and Intuitions, Saul extends her earlier work. She provides a comprehensive presentation and criticism of recent accounts of simple sentence substitution failure, and proposes a new approach drawing on psychological evidence about cognitive processing. Saul's purpose is not merely to solve the substitution puzzle cases, but to make …. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more filled with wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores certain ways in which such changes—both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech—have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as “88,” used by Nazis online to mean “Heil Hitler”) serve to disguise messages that would otherwise (...) be rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as “just asking questions”) take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Importantly, these work against the background of a divided public. They are particularly effective in influencing people who are conflicted yet malleable—those who don’t want to be racist, for example, but are willing to be convinced that something which seems racist really isn’t. Saul shows how these dogwhistles and figleaves have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. (shrink)

Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, the alternative involves grasping the challenges that a holistic analysis presents, (...) taking account of the many different levels and paces at which societies function, and developing appropriate methods that help to integrate science and history. Often neglected elements in considerations of collapse are the perceptions and beliefs of a historical society and how a given society deals with change; an important facet of this, almost entirely ignored in the discussion, is the understanding of time held by the individuals and social groups affected by change; and from this perspective ‘collapse’ depends very much on perception, including the perceptions of the modern commentator. With this in mind, this article challenges simplistic notions of ‘collapse’ in an effort to encourage a more nuanced understanding of the impact and process of both social and environmental change on past human societies. (shrink)

Background: Not all patients are considered equal. For patients who are considered to be “very important persons,” care can be different from that of other patients with advantages of greater access to resources, special attention from staff, and options for luxurious hospital amenities. While very important person care is common and widely accepted by healthcare administration, it has negative implications for both very important person and non-very important person patients, supports care disparities and inequities, and can create serious ethical dilemmas (...) for healthcare professionals. Very important person care can also result in negative care outcomes for its recipients. Objective: This article sought to explore the implications and ethical considerations of very important person care within the context of United States healthcare system, and integrate bioethical principles and American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses to influence recommendations for managing ethical dilemmas associated with very important person care. Method: A synthesis of the literature on very important person care was undertaken for this article. Ethical considerations: Ethical conduct was considered and respected when performing the literature review, referencing sources, and establishing authorship. Findings: According to the published literature, very important person care bares both positive and negative implications for patients, and negative implications for nurses. Nurses are the most affected by the demands from their administrators to provide special care and attention to patients in the “very important person” category and their families. Very important person care can be disruptive, disorienting, challenging, and stressful to nurses. Conclusion: While physicians and other healthcare professionals have commented on very important person care, limited work has been done in nursing. There have not been any empirical studies on very important person care. Therefore, in order to minimize the negative implications of very important person care, studies of this phenomenon are warranted. Exposing very important person care is important in the development of an ethical healthcare system. Moreover, understanding the ethical principles surrounding the concept of very important person care will empower nurses to effectively manage conflicts and ethical dilemmas that arise with very important person care. (shrink)

Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. We rely on the reports of those around us for everything from the ingredients in our food and medicine to the identity of our family members. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the epistemology of testimony. Despite the multitude of views offered, a single thesis is nearly universally accepted: testimonial knowledge is acquired through the process of transmission from speaker to hearer. In this book, Jennifer Lackey shows that this (...) thesis is false and, hence, that the literature on testimony has been shaped at its core by a view that is fundamentally misguided. She then defends a detailed alternative to this conception of testimony: whereas the views currently dominant focus on the epistemic status of what speakers believe, Lackey advances a theory that instead centers on what speakers say. The upshot is that, strictly speaking, we do not learn from one another's beliefs - we learn from one another's words. Once this shift in focus is in place, Lackey goes on to argue that, though positive reasons are necessary for testimonial knowledge, testimony itself is an irreducible epistemic source. This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge. The resulting view not only reveals that testimony has the capacity to generate knowledge, but it also gives appropriate weight to our nature as both socially indebted and individually rational creatures. The approach found in this book will, then, represent a radical departure from the views currently dominating the epistemology of testimony, and thus is intended to reshape our understanding of the deep and ubiquitous reliance we have on the testimony of those around us. (shrink)

This book addresses these and a cluster of other questions about changes in the self through time and about the moral attitudes we adopt in the face of these...

Jennifer Lackey presents a ground-breaking exploration of the epistemology of groups, and its implications for group agency and responsibility. She argues that group belief and knowledge depend on what individual group members do or are capable of doing, while being subject to group-level normative requirements.

Jennifer McKitrick offers an opinionated guide to the philosophy of dispositions. In her view, when an object has a disposition, it is such that, if a certain type of circumstance were to occur, a certain kind of event would occur. Since this is very common for this to be the case, dispositions are an abundant and diverse feature of our world.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface In this issue, one cluster of articles presents scholarly and creative work focused on Latin American queer politics. Each article reveals queer challenges—theoretical, aesthetic, political, ideological, libidinal, corporeal—to prevailing logics of heteronormativity and neoliberalism, and to asymmetrical processes of knowledge production and circulation. Rafael de la Dehesa examines how political responses to AIDS in Brazil enabled surprising alliances between NGOs, activists, and the state, which produced radical social (...) change and, at times, engendered exclusion and vulnerability. Christine Keating and Amy Lind’s essay explores indigenous and transfeminist efforts to transform the Ecuadorian constitution, producing new conceptions of both state and family. Constanza Tabbush and Melina Gaona trace the rise and fall of a neighborhood organization in Argentina called Tupac Amaru, which provided a space of encounter for lesbian, non-gender normative, and marginalized women. In a review of recent work on Latin American sexualities, Juan Camilo Galeano Sánchez finds LGBT people across Latin America and the diaspora deploying “queer revolutionary gestures” as a form of resistance to social, political, and economic marginalization. María Amelia Viteri’s commentary examines the intellectual trajectories of a network of queer scholars from across the Americas. The art essay by Tara Daly engages Iquitos artist Christian Bendayán’s visual efforts to queer prevailing conceptions of the Amazon, and tatiana de la tierra’s* poems offer a deep celebration of female eroticism. * We have spelled tatiana de la tierra’s name in lower case in accordance with the wishes of her literary executors. 256Preface Another cluster of essays highlights reproductive rights and race in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Gabriela Arguedas Ramírez and Lynn M. Morgan study the tactics that right-wing, US-based organizations deploy against sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico and Central America. Jennifer L. Shoaff examines the Dominican cultural construction of the Haitian mother as “beggar-mother,” which shores up ideas of pathological black maternity. Ana-Maurine Lara’s article considers the gendered and sexual logics of anti-blackness, and anti-Haitianism, in the Dominican Republic. The provocation for our cluster on representations of queer identities and politics in Latin America came, broadly, from developments in Latin America in recent decades: the wave of LGBT organizing around issues from same-sex marriage to transgender rights, alongside the continued, if not escalated, violence against trans, travestis, and other queer people in countries throughout the region. More immediately, it came from a symposium on Latin American/Latin@ queer and sexuality studies, cosponsored by the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS) and the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, in March 2013. Several of the papers published here were initially presented at that event and have been complemented and extended by other analytical essays and creative material on similar questions. Based on their familiarity with the debates, Sonia Alvarez, UMass CLACLS Director and professor of political science, and Amy Lind, head of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, offered invaluable input for this issue, and we thank them for their intellectual generosity and collaborative spirit. Three of the articles in the cluster take us inside the complex relations between queer movements and neoliberal institutions, illustrating the distinctive ways these dynamics play out in different national contexts and political configurations. In “NGOs, Governmentality, and the Brazilian Response to AIDS: A Multistranded Genealogy of the Current Crisis,” Rafael de la Dehesa argues that the AIDS crisis served as a “doorway to the state” for marginalized actors, such as sex workers and LGBT activists. These groups pushed for and won a national AIDS program that dramatically reduced rates of mortality and new infections in Brazil in the 1990s through universal access to treatment and a nonstigmatizing approach to prevention. Its success was based, in part, on World Bank Preface 257 loans and, in part, on a participatory model of public-private partnerships characteristic of neoliberal government. De la Dehesa argues that, “Far from encapsulating activism in a seamless web of biopolitical management... nodes of articulation between officials and activists became sites of conflict and productive tension.” However, while the alliances between NGOs... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 491 Jennifer Anne Moses The Teacher It didn’t start percolating out until years—decades—later, and by that time even the youngest of what we’d soon be calling “the victims ” were in their early fifties, with husbands and children and grandchildren of their own, or not, with houses, careers, garages stuffed to the gills with lifetimes’ worth of (...) patio furniture and forgotten Halloween costumes and broken lamps and tools. Someone saw someone who knew someone, who’d remembered someone, and again the stories were abroad, the whisperings, only this time it was with heavy sighs of regret and anxious handwringing: How could we not have known better? How could our parents not have known? And if they, the parents, had known—and surely some of them had—they were too busy themselves, and perhaps too ashamed, too abashed to see it for what it was, and after all, busy and perplexed with their own lives, their own divorces or philandering husbands or careers that felt like prison, with alcoholism and dying parents, with inheritances and bright futures withered to nothing. All those bright promises of their bright and perfect childhoods curling like so many brown November leaves. His name was Mr. Bryce—Evan Bryce, as we later came to call him—and he was among the most popular, perhaps the most popular, of the upper-school teachers, with a yearly following of students lucky enough not only to have been enrolled in one of his classes, but allowed, as if by virtue of their own charmed stars, their own charming uniqueness, to lean against his desk during free time, or joke around with him as he walked, his battered book bag in hand, toward the lunchroom. He 492 Jennifer Anne Moses taught history and geography; his classroom was the first on the left as you rounded the corner from the art room to the open-air corridor that the upper school classrooms abutted. Beyond that strip of covered poured white concrete was a kind of rough lawn, made patchy by years of boys tackling each other there or throwing a Frisbee around, and beyond that, on the other side of a narrow gravel road used only, as far as we could tell, by the school’s groundskeepers whose names, despite their ubiquitous presence, we didn’t know, was the first of the playing fields, used for hockey and soccer. Beyond the playing field was a covered sports arena with a huge swooping roof like the wings of a swan, and beyond that, hills covered with mowed green grass—perfect for tumbling down on bright spring days—and others still wooded, watered with streams and crisscrossed with trails. We knew the trails of course— some of our natural science classes took place in the woods—and we knew each of the hills and fields as well, each tree, each row of boxwoods or pines, until finally, out there, beyond the school grounds, was where the residents of the town lived in red-brick development houses of two and sometimes one-and-a-half floors, in modified colonials and California-style split-levels, each on its own small patch of lawn, and a garage. We felt sorry for the people who lived in those developments (we always called them developments, never neighborhoods, which is where we lived), but we rarely wondered what their lives might be like, or where their children, if they had them, might go to school. Our houses weren’t like that, of course. Susie Bluestone’s house was old, tall and thin, in a neighborhood of other old, tall, thin houses, with Oriental carpets running up the stairways, and a laundry shoot that the children were forbidden to play in and played in anyway. My best friend Nan Jones lived in a farmhouse on the top of a hill and wasn’t allowed to use the guestroom bathroom, even though her room was right next to it; her mother kept horses and her father had once been some kind of fencing champion. There were black-and-white pictures of him, in black frames, on the walls... (shrink)

This article extends earlier research concerning the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance, with particular emphasis on methodological inconsistencies. Research in this area is extended in three critical areas. First, it focuses on a particular industry, the chemical industry. Second, it uses multiple sources of data-two that are perceptual based (KLD Index and Fortune reputation survey), and two that are performance based (TRI database and corporate philanthropy) in order to triangulate toward assessing corporate social performance. Third, it (...) uses the five most commonly applied accounting measures in the corporate social performance and corporate financial performance (CSP/CFP) literature to assess corporate financial performance. The results indicate that the a priori use of measures may actually predetermine the CSP/CFP relationship outcome. Surprisingly, Fortune and KLD indices very closely track one another, whereas TRI and corporate philanthropy differentiate between high and low social performers and do not correlate to the firm's financial performance. (shrink)

This article analyzes narratives about encounters between police officers and domestic violence victim/survivors in the context of domestic violence calls. Narratives are sites in which individuals create relationships between themselves and others, oriented around a set of unfolding events. Narrative is a motivated, engaged retelling of prior or anticipated events produced in interaction with others, in a particular context stocked with constraints and affordances. In the process of telling stories, identities emerge. In order to understand the relationship between narrative and (...) identity, I analyze stories told about police interactions with domestic violence victim/survivors from the perspectives of both the police and the victim/survivors. Working empirically with a data set of 48 interviews, I use critical discourse analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the ways both groups narrate domestic violence and confrontations with police officers, the ways they create story worlds stocked with characters, the ways story characters are formed and deployed, and the ways those characters are positioned against/with/by the storyteller, allowing the storyteller’s identity to emerge. This article is an analysis of the relationship between the storyteller and the story world and the storyteller’s process of constructing an/other in order to position in relation to that other. Ultimately, I argue that identity emerges for the storyteller in the way she or he constructs characters in a story and then positions in relation to those characters. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 44-46, February 2012.

Introductory article in a collection entitled Philosophical Works of Lady Mary Shepherd. Published in 2 volumes. Thoemmes Press, 2000.

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 8, August 2022.

Jennifer Johnston’s fiction presents the conditions of Irish culture and society by exploring the separations between interior and exterior realms and past and present temporalities persisting within the insulating privacy of the familial home space. In _The Christmas Tree_ (1981), the home is both haven and prison for Johnston’s heroine. In this paper, I argue that the home—which assumes the form of the individual body and the familial home—is paradoxical. The protagonist leaves 1950s Ireland because of the country’s rigid (...) gender roles in order to pursue an autonomous life as a writer in England, but she is unable to publish her writing within the confines of the patriarchal publishing world. The home of her body becomes paradoxical when she becomes a single mother as an avenue for creativity but is then diagnosed with terminal cancer. She returns to her father’s home to die, which she re-orders and reclaims through the disorder of the uncanny—represented by her non-conformity and illness brought into the patriarchal home. By writing her life story and creating a brief, alternative maternal relationship with her young caretaker, the protagonist confronts her own ambivalence toward her parents, who also represent aspects of oppressive heteronormative gender expectations. (shrink)

When Jennifer Wallace travelled round Greece as a student, hiking through olive groves to hunt out the stones of old temples and lost cities, she became fascinated by archaeology. It was magical. It was absurd. Give an archaeologist a few rocks and, like a master storyteller, he could bring another world to life. Give him a vague hunch about the past, and he was prepared to spend hours raking through the soil in search of proof. From the plain of (...) Troy to the Titanic, and from Britain's Stonehenge to Ground Zero in New York, Digging the Dirt explores the excavation sites that have exerted the strongest pull on the public imagination. Some sites, in which bones are indistinguishable from dust, have driven archaeologists to despair. Other sites haunt poets with memories of loss and romance. All reveal the relevance of archaeology to our deepest cultural anxieties. Passionate and intelligent, Digging the Dirt engages with the work of philosophers and writers who have been stirred by the life below the ground, while never losing sight of the pressing demands of archaeologists today. In a world of postmodern spin, Wallace calls for a renewed sense of the poetics of depth and shows how ex. (shrink)

Do epistemic intuitions tell us anything about knowledge? Stich has argued that we respond to cases according to our contingent cultural programming, and not in a manner that tends to reveal anything significant about knowledge itself. I’ve argued that a cross-culturally universal capacity for mindreading produces the intuitive sense that the subject of a case has or lacks knowledge. This paper responds to Stich’s charge that mindreading is cross-culturally varied in a way that will strip epistemic intuitions of their evidential (...) value. I argue that existing work on cross-cultural variation in mindreading favors my position over Stich’s. (shrink)

Saul_Jennifer, Scepticism and Implicit Bias.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Canada and Pure Land, a New Field and Buddha-Land:Womanists and Buddhists Reading TogetherJennifer LeathReligion, in theory and in praxis, is often a journey through and to territories known and unknown. Sometimes the paths of particular traditions seem to avoid intersection at all costs. Thus, it is no small accomplishment that Womanists and scholars and practitioners of Buddhism, who typically reflect very different demographic groups, have been in dialogue about (...) Buddhist texts. I participated in two dialogues, in 2009 and 2011, which brought together scholars and practitioners of Buddhism and of Womanism, as well as scholars of Black religion more broadly, to read Buddhist texts from our individual and collective scholarly and faith perspectives. These dialogues addressed several challenges facing Womanist scholarship and praxis. The three discussed in this essay are (1) the Christian parameters that continue to constrain much contemporary Womanist discourse, (2) the ways that Womanism negotiates orthopraxy, and (3) the unique ways that Womanist scholarship and practice pursue liberation amid various postmodern conditions. Ultimately, the content and methodology of the Womanist-Buddhist dialogues inspire new ways to approach and mediate among these challenges. Throughout the dialogues, it became increasingly clear that the traditions of Womanism and Buddhism are similar insofar as they trouble the category of religion, while they contribute to the study of religion.I will begin with a brief exegesis that exemplifies one way of reading and weaving Womanism and Buddhism. Next, I will expound upon the three challenges mentioned above. Finally, I will raise some questions and concerns that must inform the ongoing development of Womanist-Buddhist dialogue. In the process, I will invite Womanist and Buddhist scholars to refashion our concepts of journey and destination.Canada and Pure Land: Journeys Toward FreedomAccording to Alice Walker's definition, among other things, a Womanist is: "Traditionally capable, as in: 'Mama, I'm walking to Canada and I'm taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.' Reply: 'It wouldn't be the first time.'"1 This is important [End Page 57] because it underscores the three-dimensional nature of Womanism: (1) it is rooted in convictions (i.e., faith), not least of which is a commitment to liberation; (2) it is confirmed through praxis (i.e., walking to Canada—and taking others); and (3) it is something about which one may write (i.e., scholarship). It is also important because it establishes the significance of distinct and intersecting "movements": through space, place, time, and social position. Walking to Canada refers to movement from the Southern slave territories of the United States to the Northern free territories of Canada (i.e., movement through space, from one place to another). "Walking to Canada" is both ideological and pragmatic; it reinterprets the antebellum objective of migrating toward freedom for various postbellum times and conditions (i.e., movement through time). It is an ongoing journey from slavery to freedom (i.e., movement from one social position to another). Walker asserts that although our "Canada" may change, the quest for freedom, for oneself and one's community, remains the objective for Womanists and Womanism.In order to draw the reader's attention to Canada and to journeys toward freedom, Walker presents a dialogue between a child and mother. This exchange clearly establishes the identity of the first speaker, who indicates her plan to head to Canada, and to bring her "Mama" and other slaves with her, as a Womanist—a mother's child with womanish behaviors. However, her womanish/Womanist identity depends upon "Mama's" reply: "It wouldn't be the first time." In other words, the child's identity as a Womanist is fully realized in the process of dialogue.Although certain expressions of the relationship between land and freedom are unique to Womanism, the relationship between land and individual and collective freedom is not, of course, a Womanist invention. During one of the Womanist-Buddhist dialogues in which I participated, we discussed this relationship as we read The Sūtra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, from the Pure Land tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In this sutra, Ajātasatru imprisons his father, King Bimbisāra, whose power and... (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas argues that baptism is necessary for salvation. However, he entertains a scenario described by Ambrose of Milan, such that Emperor Valentinian II converted to Christianity and was intending to be baptized but died before the sacrament could be performed. Aquinas argues that the Emperor could have achieved salvation without being baptized with water because he desired baptism and that desire was the result of his faith in God. In this paper, I offer a short treatment of Aquinas’s view (...) of baptism, his handling of the Valentinian II case, and his arguments concerning the efficacy of the baptism of desire. I conclude with a brief discussion of Aquinas’s treatment of the case of Cornelius the centurion, which illustrates how Aquinas’s view of baptism of desire and implicit faith can apply to those individuals who have no access to or connection with the Church. (shrink)

Norton argues on pragmatic “Deweyan” grounds that we should cease to ask scientists for value neutral definitions of “sustainability,” developed independently of moral and social values, to guide our environmental policy making debates. “Sustainability,” like human “health,” is a normative concept from the start—one that cannot be meaningfully developed by scientists or economists without input by all the stake holders affected. While I endorse Norton’s approach, I question his apparent presumption that concern for sustainability for the future is at odds (...) with and ought to trump concern for enhancement in the present of public opportunities to access the goods nature represents. I argue that the two are not separable in practice. I argue for Passmore’s position that unless we take care to enhance equitable access to the good and services nature represents in the present, we cannot succeed in promoting sustainability for future generations. (shrink)

This title merges Jennifer Scoggin's straight-talking blogger persona, Mrs Mimi, with her years of research and teaching to combine relatable classroom stories with research on best literacy practices, in an effort to help teachers rediscover or redefine who you are and the type of literacy teacher you want to become. At the heart of this book is teacher happiness and empowerment - reconnecting with your inner fabulous to give the best possible literacy instruction to your students.

Book Reviews Jennifer K. Dobe, Kantian Review, FirstView Article.

Testimony is a crucial source of knowledge: we are to a large extent reliant upon what others tell us. It has been the subject of much recent interest in epistemology, and this volume collects twelve original essays on the topic by some of the world's leading philosophers. It will be the starting point for future research in this fertile field. Contributors include Robert Audi, C. A. J. Coady, Elizabeth Fricker, Richard Fumerton, Sanford C. Goldberg, Peter Graham, Jennifer Lackey, Keith (...) Lehrer, Richard Moran, Frederick F. Schmitt, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. (shrink)

Sexual and gender minorities in contemporary India are formed in the interstices between the neoliberal, Hindutva state; transnational discourses of liberal democracy and sexual ‘rights’; as well as cosmopolitan culture and global LGBT movements. As is evident in recent court judgments and legislation, particularly since 2014, postcolonial Hindu nationalism has created cultural conditions where forms of queer gender are permissible while queer sexuality is generally unacceptable. In recent years, significant developments have focused on transgender communities, complicating activism surrounding sexual and (...) gender identities. By positing some identities as state-sanctioned acceptable citizens and others as not, certain ‘transgender’ individuals are conceptualised as bearers of rights while finding other facets of their identities discriminated against and maintained as illegal. The 2014 Supreme Court NALSA v. Union of India judgment and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 passed by the Lok Sabha, alongside further judgments and legislation affecting wider LGBT communities, have kept discourses fixed on sexual and gender identities and their relationship to Indian citizenship at the forefront of discussions of gender justices and injustices in India today. Focusing on recent judicial and legislative developments, this paper examines how transgender rights are being granted in the context of the neoliberal, Hindutva state and considers which forms of transgender identity are currently being conceptualised as legitimate and authentic in such discourses, which can serve to bolster larger right-wing visions and ideologies of the nation and its citizens. It contemplates the ways in which gender ‘justices’, framed in relation to both transnational LGBT rights discourses and right-wing agendas, are conceptualised and played out on the bodies of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)