In Interpreting the Religious Experience, John Carmody and Denise Lardner Carmody attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the nature of the major religions of the world. According to the Carmodys, religion is that aspect of a person’s life which concerns the ultimate structures and values of human life. If we accept this definition for the sake of argument, it follows that a people’s religion lies at the heart of that people’s concept of themselves, their (...) world, and their relationship with other peoples; and it follows that if one understands the nature of the world religions, one will be in a position to understand the nature of international conflict; presumably the problems of the USSR in Afghanistan as well as the problems of the Middle East and Ireland. The aim of the book’s authors might seem, therefore, to be providing the reader with materials to enable him to understand world politics better, and so to understand why the world is on the brink of ecological and nuclear disaster. Tracts of that sort are familiar. But it turns out, the authors’ aim is not so commonplace. They are out to analyze the religions of the world, sift the good from the bad, and propose a new religion which would enable the peoples of the world to have a proper respect for the world and for each other. (shrink)

This paper discusses the cult of relics and saints in Lombardy under Visconti rule during the second half of the fourteenth century through the study of the influence of the artistic patronage of Emperor Charles IV and his devotion to the relics under the patronage of the Visconti and in their entourage. It highlights similarities in the politico-religious use of relics and in the veneration of saints by the Bohemian lord and the lords of Milan to legitimize their respective dynasties. (...) Similarly, the Visconti, through the cult of St. John the Baptist in Monza and their interest in Theodolinda's treasure, consolidated their dynasty, linking its legitimacy with the Lombard reign approved by St. John the Baptist - reflecting the motives underlying the devotion to Saint Wenceslas and the importance given to relics by Charles IV. The concept of beata stirps intrinsic in the promotion of Charles IV's cult of St. Wenceslas was absent, however, from the Visconti cult of saints. During the second half of the fourteenth century, the cult of relics practiced by Charles IV seems not to have affected the Visconti, though clearer evidence of the cult of relics seemms to have been present among the Visconti entourage, as demonstrated by the fresco cycles of the S. Stefano oratory at Lentate and at Albizzate: in both, many scenes depict the invention and translations of saints' bodies. In Santo Stefano, commissioned by Stefano Porro, Galcazzo II Visconti's secretary in charge of diplomatic missions to Charles IV in Prague, the cycle depicts the fictional translation of the body of St. Stephen in the oratory, which thus became its new burial ground. This example shows how the imperial devotion of Charles IV was spread in Lombardy through diplomatic exchanges, and the importance of possessing and visualizing relics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.2 (2000) 88-112 [Access article in PDF] Milton's Aesthetics Of Eating Denise Gigante It is not a little curious that, with the exception of Ben Jonson (and he did not speak gravely about it so often), the poet in our own country who has written with the greatest gusto on the subject of eating is Milton. He omits none of the pleasures of the palate, great or (...) small. In his Latin poems, when young, he speaks of the pears and chestnuts which he used to roast at the fire with his friend Diodati. Junkets and other "country-messes" are not forgotten in his "Allegro." The simple Temptation in the Wilderness, "Command that these stones be made bread" (which was quite sufficient for a hunger that had fasted "forty days"), is turned, in Paradise Regained, with more poetry than propriety, into the set out of a great feast, containing every delicacy in and out of season. The very "names" of the viands, he says, were "exquisite." And in Paradise Lost, Eve is not only described as being skilful in paradisaical cookery ("tempering dulcet creams"), but the angel Raphael is invited to dinner, and helped by his entertainers to a series of tid-bits and contrasted relishes--Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change. --Leigh Hunt, "Eating Songs" The title of an old play gives us a direct taste and surmise of its inwards, as the first lines of the Paradise Lost smack of the great Poem. --John Keats, "On 'Retribution, or the Chieftain's Daughter'" That Milton's Romantic readers should invoke the "taste" of his epic poetry suggests an awareness beyond the anecdotal. For as this essay will show, Milton complicates the category of physiological taste in such a manner as to form the ground for the possibility of aesthetic taste, which emerges as a distinct discourse in the early years of the eighteenth century. This is not to say that Milton is the only source for this dubious meaning-in-transition. But precisely how, prior to the interventions of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and the entire tradition of post-Miltonic theorists of taste, is one to read Adam's darkly sardonic postlapsarian remark: "Eve, now I see thou art exact of taste... And Palate call judicious" [PL IX.1017-20]? Critics have observed Milton's "ruthless and relentless pressure on 'taste,'" the fact that the word and its variants appear thirty times in Book IX of Paradise Lost alone [Ricks 69]. What I would like to suggest is that just as Milton is a seminal figure for the eighteenth-century aesthetic preoccupation with the sublime, 1 he is theoretically situated at the origins of the more generic thing called taste as well. [End Page 88]Of course Milton himself was aware of the epistemological implications of taste, whereby the Latin sapere can mean both "to taste" and "to know." 2 The fruit whose "mortal taste" was the source of all our woe did, after all, grow on the tree of knowledge, knowingly described by Satan as "precious of all Trees / In Paradise, of operation blest / To Sapience" [PL I.2, IX.795-97]. So too, when Adam calls Eve "exact of taste," he adds "of Sapience no small part" [PL IX.1018]. Throughout Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Milton plays with the epistemological connotation of taste, incorporating it even into the 1671 companion piece of the latter, Samson Agonistes, whose blind hero declares, "The way to know were not to see but taste" [1091]. At the time Milton was writing, however, taste was philosophically connected not only to knowledge and pleasure, but to morality as well. At the origins of the British empirical discourse of taste, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, inheriting this link between epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, inquires: "Will it not be found... that what is beautiful is... true; and what is at once both beautiful and true is, of consequence, agreeable and good?" [2: 268-69]. For Milton as for Shaftesbury, the beautiful was the true was the good, and access to these ideals was bound up with the philosophic complexity... (shrink)

Over several articles, John McDowell sketches an analogy between virtue and perception, whereby the virtuous person sees situations in a distinctive way, a way that explains her virtuous behavior. Central to this view is his notion of silencing, a psychological phenomenon in which certain considerations fail to operate as reasons in a virtuous person's practical reasoning. Despite its influence on many prominent virtue ethicists, McDowell's ‘silencing view’ has been criticized as psychologically unrealistic. In this article, I defend a silencing (...) view of practical reasoning. I argue that the phenomenon of silencing has a narrower scope than is typically acknowledged. As a result, the view does not require the virtuous to be detached, unfeeling, or unpalatably stoic. Furthermore, I offer a psychologically plausible interpretation of McDowell's claim that the virtuous see situations in a distinctive sort of way. The salient fact at which the virtuous arrive in their view of a situation should be understood, I argue, in terms of subjective construal. (shrink)

In recent years, the US and the EU have pursued markedly different agendas in the pursuit of board gender diversity. The EU has taken a more pro-active governmental approach of mandated quotas, whereas the US is relying largely on the endogenous mechanism of shareholder diversity proposals. Despite their obvious allure as a means of bringing about rapid change, evidence is mounting that board gender diversity quotas may yield various deleterious side effects; and quotas may not be as successful in their (...) core aim of promoting gender diversity as initial broad statistical measures indicate. In this paper we critique the expanding EU quota regime, and consider US shareholder proposals as an alternative change mechanism for improving gender diversity in corporate boards. As an alternative to quotas, diversity resolutions are often dismissed as ineffective because the vast majority fail to formally pass (with a failure rate close to 95%). However, on closer inspection, this ‘failure’ actually results in success. Contrary to the conventional ‘folk’ wisdom -- in the quest to promote gender diversity on corporate boards, the endogenous (US) mechanism of board diversity proposals has, to date, resulted in similar increases in gender diversity as the exogenous (EU) mechanism of government-mandated gender quotas. Furthermore, the former mechanism is more consistent with recent ‘third-wave’ feminist theory. We conclude with the policy recommendation that, rather than quotas, the EU should focus on removing the regulatory barriers that inhibit shareholder democracy. (shrink)

The idea that the exercise of state power should be limited so as to permit free choice in matters of personal conduct has been central to liberalism ever since John Stuart Mill defended the harm principle. However, this surface agreement conceals deeper disagreements. One disputed matter relates to the nature of the tolerant state: is it a state that refrains from improving our moral character by coercive means is it a state that takes no interest whatsoever in the moral (...) character of our lives? A second matter relates to the philosophical justification of tolerance. Should it be justified by relying on distinctively liberal values, such as personal autonomy and self-determination? Or is a less controversial justification available — one that can be endorsed by non-liberals as well as liberals? This article explores these issues. It examines the views of Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls and Joseph Raz, arguing that Rawls?s version of liberalism provides both the best conception and the best justification of the liberal ideal of tolerance. (shrink)

Global justice is one of the most important subjects in law and political theory today. What principles of justice might tell us about the actual practices of the WTO and other international economic institutions is of vital importance to states and their citizens. This volume reflects the results of a symposium held at Tillar House, the ASIL headquarters in Washington, DC, in November 2008 which brought together philosophers, legal scholars, and economists to discuss the problems of understanding international economic law (...) from the standpoint of rights, justice, and economic efficiency. The book makes advances in developing the normative criterion for ecaluation and justifying the international economic legal order. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the contemporary philosophical literature, ideal virtue is often accused of setting a standard more appropriate for saints or gods than for human beings. In this paper, I undermine divinity-infused depictions of the fully virtuous, and argue that ideal virtue is, indeed, human. I focus on the virtuous person’s imperviousness to temptation, and contend that this imperviousness is not as psychologically implausible as it might seem. I argue that it is a virtuous person’s subjective construal of a situation that (...) silences reasons in favour of acting contrary to virtue. That silencing, however, is not the whole story when it comes to their practical reasoning. Practical reasoning can, and often does, continue beyond silencing, particularly in the search for what Bernard Williams calls ‘constitutive solutions’. The upshot is a view of the virtuous as less god-like and more human—who will sometimes have to figure out what the virtuous response to a situation is, and who can still care deeply about the central concerns of human existence, including their life, health, loved ones, and life projects, even if those things will never provide them with a reason to act contrary to virtue. (shrink)

At the request of the Midwest Bioethics Center (MBC), we surveyed nurses' and physicians' attitudes and needs regarding Hospital Ethics Committees (HECs). The primary objective of this research project was to inform the practices and policies of the Ethics Committee Consortium of the Bioethics Center.Four thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine surveys were distributed to the medical and nursing staff of eight Kansas City metropolitan area hospitals. One thousand and fifty-five surveys were returned, representing a response rate of 21%.

John Berry, a risk manager for a U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm (Best Co.), is assigned additional responsibilities when his territory is expanded to include the South America region. When an employee in one of Best Co.’s South American manufacturing facilities dies in a work-related incident, John must determine an appropriate response. In a business context that is increasingly global, ethical decisions are further complicated by cultural differences. This case considers thefactors influencing John as he weighs his options on (...) how to resolve this incident. The case further considers how cultural differences coupled with John’s limited cross-cultural sensitivities and personal viewpoint might inevitably skew his judgment. San Luis, the disguised name for this South American locale, is less litigious than John’s home country, the U.S. In light of these differences, the case raises a number of ethical questions. For example, how should an international corporation compensate an employee’s family for the employee’s work-related death – if at all? Are John’s own cultural limitations preventing him from doing the right thing? (shrink)

Realist evaluation has gained prominence in the field of evaluation in recent years. Its theory-driven approach to explaining how and why programmes work or not makes it attractive to many novices, early career researchers, and organizations implementing various programmes globally and relevant to policymakers and programme implementers. While realist evaluation seeks to be pragmatic, adopting principles and methods that can be used to help focus an evaluation, its deep ontological and epistemological foundations make its application in real-life situations challenging. In (...) this paper, we seek to unpack the key tenets scaffolding the practical application of realist evaluation. Although Pawson and Tilley foreground realist evaluation in applied scientific realism, we argue that an amalgam of scientific and critical realist principles underpins realist evaluation. We unpack these principles and illustrate how they fit into each other to provide a cogent theoretical foundation for realist evaluation. (shrink)

This book is a contribution both to analytical philosophy of mind, and to Marxist philosophy. Marxists see pervasive irrationality in the conduct of human affairs, and claim that people in a class-divided society are prone to a variety of misconceptions. They say that we can suffer from "false consciousness" in our views about what inspires our behavior and in our judgments as to what is good for us. Meyerson uses the techniques of analytic philosophy to investigate this picture and argues (...) that Marxism is committed to the idea of motivated belief, and that the idea is philosophically defensible. She shows that there are other philosophically defensible claims which are congenial to Marxism: that there are facts about interests, that interests are not based on wants, that a desire can be contaminated by its history, that our judgments about our interests do not automatically motivate us, and that beliefs can survive the evidence that they are false. Meyerson throws light on puzzling psychological phenomena which confront everyone in their everyday political experience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SOME DOGMATIC CONSEQUENCES OF PAUL F. KNITTER'S UNITARIAN THEOCENTRISM PAUL D. MOLNAR St. John's University Jamaica, New York EACTIONS TO Paul Knitter's No Other Nanie? vary from criticizing his "unitarian theocentrism" 1 and his sliding away from "creedal Chrisitology" 2 to unequivocail endorsement of his" less Christocentric approach to a theo1ogy of religions;" 3 this shows the challenge Knitter poses to current dogmatics. This 1arHcile w1ll explore three (...) critical dogmatic issues related to Knitter's non-normative ChristoJogy. First, can the idea that Jesus is one savior among others be defonded froni within the Christian-Catholic 1tradition without yie1ding the truth of Christology? Second, if "Jesus remains universailly normativ ;e " for Christians while " other revelations or rev;ea:lers might also be universaUy normative," then does this not p:vomote some form of docetic Christology and lead to a unitarianism, exduded by the naiture of the God revealed in Christ? Third, on the basis of " l'eligious experience " Knitter olaims to perceive an" evolution from ecolesiocentrism to chrfatocentrism to theocentrism" and finally to "soteriooentrism." 4 Is there 1!1ea1ly such an evolution? And if there is noit, oan those who de- ~end the tradition succeed by arguing from experience and praxis rather than from revelation and faith? 5 Moreover, if 1"Review Symposium: Paul Knitter's No Other Name?: A Critical Survey of OMistian Attitudes toward the World Religions," in Horizons 13 (1986): 116-135. This is the view of Daniel Sheridan, p. llS. 2 This is the view of Denise Carmody. Ibid., p. 122. s This is the view of William Cenkner. Ibid., p. 127. 4 Ibid., pp. 133-34. 5 Denise Carmody, e.g., believes that we should stress praxis more than 449 450 PAUL D. MOLNAR we think the tradition should not be defended, have we not ceased to think about theological truth? Rather, have we not made divinity itself indis:tingiuishab1e from our human experiences and praxis at the outset? And does this not open the door to both polytheism allJd pantheism? By making God hut noit Christ normative, Knitter's " nonnormati ¥e" Christology re-1transiates the truth of Jesus' oonsubstantiality with the Father into the content of a myth, an experienice or a vailue judgment having no re1ality in itseH.6 It then defines :reveiLation and salvation.aocording to a unitarian view of God. While Knitter denies this,7 his reasoning aictuaUy is unitarian: In my proposed model, Jesus remains universally normative, but I am asking whether Christians can recognize that other revelations or revealers might also be universally normative. Could there be a complementary uniqueness among the religious traditions of the world? To try to answer that question, 'intellectual conversion;... is a requisite. But it will have to be an intellectual conversion that walks more than' the way to Nicea and Chalcedon'... only on the basis of the praxis of authentic dialogue-grounded in intellectual, moral, and religious conversion-can we know the unique~ ness of Christ.8 doctrine without relativizing Christ. Thus, for her, Rahner's Christology does not mean " that Christians cannot be open to the Buddha or Lord Krishna," Ibid., p. 126. The problem is that this very thinking already relativizes Christ. 6 Even theologians who do not intend the radical views of John Hick run a similar risk by beginning Christology from below in the manner of Paul Knitter. Cf., e.g., Edward L. Krasevac, O.P., "' Christology From Above' And 'Christology From Below '," The Thomist, 51 (1987) : 299-306, arguing that "Christological faith is an apostolic faith that has its origins in a historical process which began with the public ministry of our Lord...." (p. 300) causes us to ask what makes Christology true? Is it "the actual apostolic process " (306) or is it Jesus as the Lord who is and remains the sole foundation and validation for faith in any age? Does this approach not leave the door open to the kind of evolution which Knitter claims to have discovered in Christianity, which then enables him to move beyond Jesus as the only Lord and Savior? 1 Review Symposium, Horizons, p. 131. s Ibid., p. 133. KNITTER'S UNITARIAN THEOCENTRISM 451 Here the ha:.sis... (shrink)

A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does (...) servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Ce livre questionne. Il ne prétend pas dissoudre les obscurités qui subsistent concernant l'histoire du XXe siècle. Bien plutôt se voit-il confronté à la nécessité d'entamer une réflexion de fond sur l'écriture de l'histoire abordée sous un jour nouveau, dans une perspective transdisciplinaire - la discipline historique n'ayant pas le monopole de son objet. L'écriture de l'histoire est appréhendée thématiquement, géopolitiquement (auteurs allemands et français alternent), historiquement (du milieu du XVIIIe à nos jours) et par les disciplines respectives dont ils (...) émanent. (shrink)

Ethics consultants and critical care clinicians reflect on Seattle’s early experience as the United States’ first epicenter of COVID-19. We discuss ethically salient issues confronted at UW Medicin...

Radical Feminism Today offers a timely and engaging account of exactly what feminism is, and what it is not. Author Denise Thompson questions much of what has come to be taken for granted as `feminism' and points to the limitations of implicitly defining feminism in terms of `women', `gender', `difference' or `race//gender//class'. She challenges some of the most widely accepted ideas about feminism and in doing so opens up a number of hitheto closed debates, allowing for the possibility of (...) moving those debates further. (shrink)

De tout temps, les hommes d'Etat ont eu pour préoccupation majeure de réaliser l'intégration de leurs citoyens. C'est ce souci qui conduit, dès -334, Alexandre le Grand, élève d'Aristote, à l'élaboration d'une pensée unique et universelle pour assurer la cohésion de son Empire à l'échelle planétaire. La pensée devient alors, par sa fonction d'intégration, une entreprise gérée par l'Etat qui la fait évoluer selon des procédés appelés à se transmettre d'Empire à Empire. L'enquête menée par l'auteur, en suivant la formation (...) de la pensée universelle en milieux grec et romain, sa rivalité avec le judaïsme, sa rencontre avec le christianisme et sa confrontation avec l'Islam révèle les enjeux de fond qui expliquent la genèse de la pensée en Occident et les temps forts de son évolution. C'est à la lumière de ces enjeux que se sont trouvés éclairés les grands phénomènes de l'Histoire tels que la construction de l'Europe, les Renaissances et les profondes transformations mentales, culturelles et sociales qu'elles provoquent dans les sociétés d'Occident, l'explosion des hérésies, (des albigeois, des vaudois... ) et leur répression, les guerres saintes (le djihad, les croisades), l'antijudaïsme précurseur de l'antisémitisme, l'inquisition... Poursuivie jusqu'à Saint Louis, l'enquête a confronté l'auteur à trois espaces: l'Orient sunnite et chiite, l'Espagne musulmane et l'Occident chrétien et à plusieurs courants de pensée. En cela cet ouvrage pose un jalon essentiel dans l'exploration de l'histoire de l'Occident dans ses rapports avec l'histoire universelle, l'histoire du Saint-Siège et celle des minorités à laquelle Denise Bonan accorde une grande place. " Autant de sujets de discussion, souligne Jean Glénisson dans sa préface, pour les historiens et les philosophes qui trouveront dans cet ouvrage le lieu de rencontres stimulantes. ". (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in initiating life-sustaining health technology is complex and often conducted at time-critical junctures in clinical care. Many of these decisions have profound, often irreversible, consequences for the child and family, as well as potential benefits for functioning, health and quality of life. Yet little is known about what influences these decisions. A systematic review of reasoning identified the range of reasons clinicians give in the literature when initiating technology dependence in a child, and as a result helps determine the (...) range of influences on these decisions.MethodsMedline, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Web of Science, ASSIA and Global Health Library databases were searched to identify all reasons given for the initiation of technology dependence in a child. Each reason was coded as a broad and narrow reason type, and whether it supported or rejected technology dependence.Results53 relevant papers were retained from 1604 publications, containing 116 broad reason types and 383 narrow reason types. These were grouped into broad thematic categories: clinical factors, quality of life factors, moral imperatives and duty and personal values; and whether they supported, rejected or described the initiation of technology dependence. The majority were conceptual or discussion papers, less than a third were empirical studies. Most discussed neonates and focused on end-of-life care.ConclusionsThere is a lack of empirical studies on this topic, scant knowledge about the experience of older children and their families in particular; and little written on choices made outside ‘end-of-life’ care. This review provides a sound basis for empirical research into the important influences on a child’s potential technology dependence. (shrink)

Previous research on sustainable entrepreneurship has mainly aimed to understand the antecedents of entrepreneurs’ sustainability-oriented behavior. Yet the literature lacks a more nuanced understanding of how entrepreneurs implement sustainability strategies when creating a new venture. Drawing on sustainability concepts, we first examine how entrepreneurs balance the economic, environmental, and social dimensions as part of their ventures’ strategic ambitions. We show that sustainable entrepreneurs prioritize the three sustainability dimensions and possibly reprioritize them in response to stakeholder interests. Applying a stakeholder theory (...) perspective, we theorize that how entrepreneurs balance their sustainability dimensions and goals depends on the degree of stakeholder involvement and of external expectations. Our contributions refine the growing sustainable entrepreneurship literature and call attention to the importance of including weightings and time when examining the dimensions of sustainability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 32.1 (2002) 49-62 [Access article in PDF] "What I Want Back is What I Was" Consolation's Retrospect Denise Riley "If a horse in its elation should say 'I am beautiful' it would be bearable" [Epictetus 289]. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, doesn't go on to say that if a human were to utter the same sentiment, it would be unbearable: only that the horse's owner shouldn't try to (...) take credit himself for the gratuitous beauty of his animal, or try to bask in those equine good looks which, if owned by him, aren't his. The horse, though, in its jubilation can get away with boasting.There's a noticeable awkwardness in any mention of human physical beauty; its embarrassment can include a fear of lapsing into that vanity deplored alike by the Old Testament and by some feminisms. This hesitation isn't simply the wish to steer clear of laying arrogant claims to distinction; for someone can say, not boastfully but in the spirit of mentioning a contingent fact, "I used to be a strong swimmer," without the same sheepishness. But there does seem to be something especially stubborn, unmentionable, about beauty's independence. The fact that, as a lost thing, it was never owned isn't enough to characterize faded beauty's discursive peculiarities. For the same holds true, for instance, of youth. It's extremely difficult to feel yourself to be young at the actual time when you are. Certainly I was never a child.These pages skip all but one small aspect of this matter of who or what can claim beauty. They'll look only at an extremely common sentence of regret for lost physical beauty: at the strange bending of time implicit in saying inwardly, "Yes, I suppose in the past I must have been beautiful, as people used to say, although at the time I never saw it." To meditate on this very ordinary thought is by no means to despise it; and it would be foolish to tut over such retrospective self-shaping. This is how the language of self-characterization often operates backwards.1It would be vacuous to condemn our attempts at a little distraction from the approach of death with sentences like "After all, I suppose I must have been something of a beauty when I was young," or at least, where you know you can't make such a claim, the ever-reliable lament "Compared to what I am now, they should have seen me then!" (Indeed such slipping into the retrospective-fantastic mood may be positively benign in another content: for instance, a compensating refusal to treat anyone now as harshly as I was myself treated then. And there could be far riskier contents to a sentence of retrospective "realization" than mere vanity, such as revelation and enlightenment: "now I see that all along I was a favored son of God, though formerly I was blind to this shining truth.") Meanwhile timor mortis is ever at hand, and will only intensify: [End Page 49]The wrinkles which thy glass will truly showOf mouthèd graves will give thee memory.2Still, there's something of a taboo or an unnameability about the gradual erosion of whatever we feel we once had by way of beauty, a silence which, unsurprisingly, persists irrespective of the enormous new industries of repair and regeneration. This anxiety over the eclipse of your looks is exhaustively catered to (and, in the process, magnified) yet is itself a dread scarcely mentioned. How beauty's ordinary loss is silently spoken is a point at which the consolations of illusion meet and fortify the illusions of consolation. If their encounter produces a blankness liable to sink into depressive shame, arguably this adds to an unvoiced vertigo of the everyday; but what more might thinking aloud about it do? 1 The Sentence of Retrospect For the purposes of illustrating this grammar of concessive retrospect, let's imagine a puppet (for the purposes of argument here, a caricature will have to do) oddly equipped with... (shrink)

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with (...) both negative and positive reactions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 41-53 [Access article in PDF] Bad Words Denise Riley Introduction The worst words revivify themselves within us, vampirically. Injurious speech echoes relentlessly, years after the occasion of its utterance, in the mind of the one at whom it was aimed: the bad word, splinterlike, pierces to lodge. In its violently emotional materiality, the word is indeed made flesh and dwells amongst us—often long outstaying its (...) welcome. Old word-scars embody a "knowing it by heart," as if phrases had been hurled like darts into that thickly pulsating organ, but their resonances are not amorous. Where amnesia would help us, we can't forget.This sonorousness of vindictive words might help to characterize how, say, racist speech works on and in its targets. But doesn't such speculation also risk becoming an advocacy for the cultivation of insensitivity on the part of those liable to get hurt—or worse, a criticism of their linguistic vulnerability: "They just shouldn't be so linguistically sensitive"? There's much to be said for studiously practicing indifference. But the old playground chant of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me" was always notoriously untrue. The success of the tactics of indifference will also depend on the vicissitudes of the words' fate in the world, which is beyond my control. I change, too. As the terrain upon which malevolent accusation falls, I am malleable, while the harsh words themselves undergo their own alterations across time, and so their import for me weakens or intensifies accordingly. At times the impact of violent speech may even be recuperable through its own incantation; the repetition of abusive language may be occasionally "redemptive" through the irony of iteration, which may drain the venom out of the original insult and neutralize it by displaying its idiocy. 1 Yet angry interpellation's very failure to always work as intended (since at particular historical moments, I may be able to parody, to weaken by adopting, to corrode its aim), is also exactly what, at other times, works for it. In any event, interpellation operates with a deep indifference as to where the side of the good may lie, and we can't realistically build an optimistic theory of the eventual recuperability of harm. Here there's no guaranteed rationality, nor any inescapable irrationality. Repetition breeds its own confident mishearing, 2 but its volatile alterations lean towards neither automatic amelioration nor inevitable worsening.This observation, though, leaves us with the still largely uninvestigated forensics of spoken injury. Verbal attacks, in the moment they happen, resemble stoning. Isn't it making heavy weather, then, to ask how they do damage: isn't the answer plain, that they hurt just as stones hurt? At the instant of their impact, so they do. Yet the peculiarity of violent words, as distinct from lumps of rock, is their power to resonate within their target for decades after the occasion on which they were weapons. Perhaps an urge for privacy about being maliciously named may perpetuate the words' remorseless afterlife: [End Page 41] [Begin Page 42] I keep what I was told I was to myself, out of reserve, shame, a wish not to seem mawkish and other not-too-creditable reasons such as guarding the word so it can't slip away to be lost in the broad linguistic flood; yet even if I manage to relinquish this fatal stance of nursing my injury, it may well refuse to let go of me. Why, though, should even the most irrational verbal onslaught lodge in us, and why should it stubbornly resist ejection, and defy its own fading? For an accusation to inhere, must its human target already be burdened with her own prehistory of vulnerability, in the shape of some psychic susceptibility; must it even depend on her anticipating readiness to accept or even embrace the accusation that also horrifies? Maybe, then, there's some fatal attraction from the aggression uttered in the present toward earlier established reverberations within us, so that to grasp this phenomenon, we have to leave a linguistic account and turn instead to a prelinguistic... (shrink)

There are significant challenges to developing a neo-Aristotelian account of a virtue of patience. First, on an Aristotelian understanding, virtue is both instrumentally good and good in itself. Yet exclusively instrumental views of patience are pervasive in the philosophical literature. Furthermore, these instrumental views present patience as more like a psychological skill than a virtue of character. Skills, however, can be misused. If patience is to be a virtue, its account must entail goodness in its possessor. Finally, there is the (...) challenge of specifying a field, or sphere of concern, for patience, given the diversity of phenomena that we tend to attribute to it. I propose a thin account of a virtue of patience that, I contend, can meet these challenges. (shrink)

Empathy is a specific moral aspect of human behavior. The global workplace, and thereby a consideration of employee stakeholders, includes unique behavioral and ethical considerations, including a consideration of human empathy. Further, the human aspects of workplaces are within the domain of human resources and managerial oversight in business organizations. As such, human emotions and interactions are complicated by daily work related expectations, employee/employer interactions and work practices, and the outcomes of employees’ work routines. Business ethics, human resources, and risk (...) management practices are endemic aspects within workplaces. Increasingly, the understanding of models of AI-reliant business practices underscores the need for the consideration of the ethical aspects of AI impacts on employees in the workplace. This paper explores a systematic ethical lens of the opportunities and the risks of AI ideation, development, and deployment in business-employee relations practices beyond a compliance mindset, and that introduces a further set of workplace considerations. Empathy is concerned with human intentions. As such, attributive ethical indications of the role of AI in the workplace and its impacts on employees is necessary. Moreover, this paper uses a cognitive lens of empathy and focuses on artificial morality related to the ethical concerns, implications, and practices of AI development, deployment, and workplace practices that may impact employees in a variety of business aspects. (shrink)