The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival.

Offers an outline for a new ethical practice - one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject. The author demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human.

This paper explains the metaphysical implications of the view that species are individuals (SAI). I first clarify SAI in light of the separate distinctions between individuals and classes, particulars and universals, and abstract and concrete things. I then show why the standard arguments given in defense of SAI are not compelling. Nonetheless, the ontological status of species is linked to the traditional "species problem," in that certain species concepts do entail that species are individuals. I develop the idea that species (...) names are rigid designators and show how this provides additional motivation for SAI. (shrink)

The author draws on the policy analysis literature to delineate the linkage between conceptualization of risk and the formulation and proposed solution of risk-related policy problems. Two concepts of risk are identified: a concept of risk as a physically given attribute of hazardous technologies and a concept of risk as a socially constructed attribute. The argument is advanced that the social construction of risk provides a firm, theoretical basis for the design of policy. The discussion links the perception, manage ment, (...) and communication of risk to the more fundamental issue of the nature and role of science and technology. (shrink)

The question of what makes a life livable is linked with the question, what makes for an inhabitable world. This last was not Scheler’s question, but it follows from the world that he describes, the world that he claims is exhibited through the tragic. When the world is an object immersed in sorrow, how is it possible to inhabit such a world? What about the persistence of uninhabitable sorrow? The answer lies less in individual conduct or practice than in the (...) forms of solidarity that emerge, across whatever distance, to produce the conditions for inhabiting the world. (shrink)

Locke is often cited as a precursor to contemporary natural kind realism. However, careful attention to Locke’s arguments show that he was unequivocally a conventionalist about natural kinds. To the extent that contemporary natural kind realists see themselves as following Locke, they misunderstand what he was trying to do. Locke argues that natural kinds require either dubious metaphysical commitments (e.g., to substantial forms or universals), or a question-begging version of essentialism. Contemporary natural kind realists face a similar dilemma, and should (...) not appeal to Locke in their defense. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva attempts to expose the limits of Lacan's theory of language by revealing the semiotic dimension of language that it excludes. She argues that the semiotic potential of language is subversive, and describes the semiotic as a poetic-maternal linguistic practice that disrupts the symbolic, understood as culturally intelligible rule-governed speech. In the course of arguing that the semiotic contests the universality of the Symbolic, Kristeva makes several theoretical moves which end up consolidating the power of the Symbolic and paternal (...) authority generally. She defends a maternal instinct as a pre-discursive biological necessity, thereby naturalizing a specific cultural configuration of maternity. In her use of psychoanalytic theory, she ends up claiming the cultural unintelligibility of lesbianism. Her distinction between the semiotic and the Symbolic operates to foreclose a cultural investigation into the genesis of precisely those feminine principles for which she claims a pre-discursive, naturalistic ontology. Although she claims that the maternal aspects of language are repressed in Symbolic speech and provide a critical possibility of displacing the hegemony of the paternal/symbolic, her very descriptions of the maternal appear to accept rather than contest the inevitable hegemony of the Symbolic. In conclusion, this essay offers a genealogical critique of the maternal discourse in Kristeva and suggests that recourse to the maternal does not constitute a subversive strategy as Kristeva appears to assume. (shrink)

It has been claimed that a sense of us is presupposed for shared intentions to be possible. Searle introduced this notion together with the notion of the sense of the other. in joint action. It argues that the sense of the other is a necessary condition for a sense of us. Whereas thisarticle distinguishes between the “sense of the other” and the “sense of us” and elaborates on their role the sense of the other is immediate and automatic, the sense (...) of us can (but need not) arise between people and can (a) develop over time, (b) depend on the situation, and (c) involves several sufficient but not necessary processes. The article relies on research on core knowledge to better understand the sense of the other. It elaborates the sense of us using insights from cognitive science and social psychology. The article shows that the sense of the other and the sense of us can contribute to our understanding of the perception of possibilities for joint action and how individuals can come to experience actions and intentions as shared, even if the participants lack common knowledge. This leads to the conclusion that people are ordinarily socially oriented rather than individually. (shrink)

Moral theorists often say such things as “But surely A ought to do such and such,” or “Plainly it is morally permissible for B to do so and so,” and do not even try to prove that those judgments are true. Moreover, they often rest weight on the supposition that those judgments are true. In particular, they often rest theories on them: they take them as data. Others object. They say that nobody is entitled to rest any weight at all (...) on judgments such as those. They say, not that the judgments are false, but that there is no reason to believe them true. They say, more generally, that there is no reason to think of any moral judgment that it is true. I will call this The No Reason Thesis. Is there reason to think The No Reason Thesis true? There are lots of arguments for it in the literature, but I want to focus on one of them in particular. I think that the one I will focus on lies behind all the others, but no matter if it does not: I suggest that if this argument fails, they all fail. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Understanding and Experience of Compassion:Aquinas and the Dalai LamaJudith BaradHis Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama writes that the essence of Mahayana Buddhism is compassion.1 Although most people recognize compassion as one of the most admirable virtues, it is not easy to find discussions of it by Christian theologians. Instead, Christian theologians tend to discuss charity, a virtue infused by God into a person. Some of these theologians, such (...) as Cardinal Henri de Lubac,2 insist that Christian charity and Buddhist compassion are very different from each other. Are they correct? A good source to investigate this claim is in Aquinas's Summa Theologica, which contains a very developed discussion of charity. If we look at Aquinas's text and compare it to what the current Dalai Lama writes about compassion, we will recognize that they are discussing the same virtue. Moreover, by combining the insights from East and West, as expressed by the thoughts of the current Dalai Lama and St. Thomas Aquinas, we can achieve a better grasp of compassion so that we can more easily practice it in our daily lives. Though remarkably similar, the two accounts offer differing perspectives, which can be incorporated for mutual enrichment.Much of Aquinas's philosophy of compassion derives from his Christian beliefs, just as much of the Dalai Lama's teachings on compassion are based on Tibetan Buddhism. This explains some of the differences in their accounts. Unlike Christians, Buddhists neither believe in a personal God nor in a soul. Yet despite their theological differences, Aquinas and the Dalai Lama generally share a very similar view of compassion. In fact, one could well imagine Aquinas agreeing with the Dalai Lama who, after acknowledging his religious influence, writes that his goal is "to appeal for an approach to ethics based on universal rather than religious principles."3 It is appropriate, therefore, to begin by considering the similarities in their accounts of compassion, starting with their definitions of compassion. [End Page 11]DefinitionsEtymologically, the word "compassion"—compassio—comes from two Latin words: com means "with" and pati means "suffer." Literally, then, "compassion" means "to suffer with." Aquinas discusses compassion as an interior effect of charity, a theological virtue. It is interior because compassion is felt within the person who has charity. The cause of compassion, charity, Aquinas describes as the friendship between God's children and God Himself. Although Aquinas wrote prolifically on the subject of charity, someone could overlook his writing on compassion because he discusses it under the term "mercy." Diana Fritz Cates, for instance, who draws on an Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical framework to develop a theory of compassion, observes, "Aristotle and Thomas have little to say about compassion: hence, it will not be helpful to begin with their accounts."4 However, Aquinas uses the word misericordia (mercy) as a synonym of compassio (compassion). The synonymous relationship between compassion and mercy is also recognized by the Dalai Lama, who affirms, "Mercy and compassion are the same."5Aquinas defines mercy as "heartfelt sympathy for another's distress, impelling us to succor him if we can." If we experience this heartfelt sympathy, we're not discouraged if the person we try to help doesn't respond. Explicitly connecting mercy and compassion, Aquinas add that mercy, misericordia, gets its name "from denoting a person's compassionate heart (miserum cor) for another's unhappiness."6 The concept of "another's unhappiness" is important to his discussion. A necessary condition of being happy, in Aquinas's view, is that an individual must obtain what he or she wishes. Conversely, someone is unhappy when he suffers what he doesn't wish to suffer. Aquinas maintains that the suffering produced by one's frustrated desire for what he or she perceives as good is a sufficient condition for evoking mercy. In regard to the merciful response, it shouldn't matter what the suffering person perceives as good. So long as the person is suffering what he doesn't wish to suffer, this person should be treated mercifully. Suppose a teenager suffers from being unpopular with his peers. Although the compassionate person may not value popularity, she should extend compassion to the... (shrink)

In this paper, we critically and constructively examine the methodology of evidence-based development economics, which deploys randomized field experiments as its main tool. We describe the...

Adults have been shown to attribute certain properties more frequently than others to the dead. This category-specific pattern has been interpreted in terms of simulation constraints, whereby it may be harder to imagine the absence of some states than others. Afterlife beliefs have also shown context-sensitivity, suggesting that environmental exposure to different types of information might influence adults? reasoning about post-death states. We sought to clarify category and context effects in adults afterlife reasoning. Participants read a story describing the death (...) of a human protagonist after exposure to a biological prime, an emotional prime, or no prime. Emotions, desires, and epistemic states were more frequently attributed to the dead character than biological, psychobiological, and perceptual states, partially replicating previous findings. The biological prime decreased the attribution of certain post-death states relative to the control condition, whereas the emotional prime had no effect. Simulation theory does not provide a satisfactory explanation of the present findings, which may be better accounted for by conflict between different cognitive systems that are engaged in thinking about the dead. (shrink)

Employability is one of the leading challenges of the contemporary organizational environment. While much is known about the positive effects of job crafting on employees’ employability in general, little is known about its effects when employment contacts are different. Differentiating between temporary and permanent workers, in this article we investigate how in the environment of psychological safety, these two types of employees engage in job crafting, and how job crafting is related to their perceived employability. Data were collected among two (...) samples, consisting of temporary agency workers ( N = 527), and permanent employees ( N = 796). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses indicated a different pattern of results for the two groups: for permanent employees, increasing challenging job demands was positively, and decreasing hindering job demands was negatively related to perceived employability. Moreover, psychological safety was related to all job crafting dimensions. For agency workers, only increasing structural job resources was related to employability, while psychological safety was negatively associated with crafting hindrances. These findings suggest that a climate of psychological safety is particularly effective for permanent employees in fostering job crafting and employability. (shrink)

This paper explores the reasons why women who are themselves fertile might consent to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) with an infertile male partner. The reasons often given are desire to have that particular man's child, or altruism, giving a gift to the partner. Although ethically, the decision should be completely woman's prerogative, because IVF programs usually treat the couple as a unit, she may be offered few other options by the medical staff. In social terms, whether the woman is (...) or is not infertile may be immaterial because in either situation, if she wants to try to have a biological child and maintain the relationship, she may have to make a patriarchal bargain and undergo in vitro fertilization. (shrink)

7. The rights of immigrants: Joseph H. Carens.

The role of olfaction in kin recognition and parental investment is documented in many mammalian/vertebrate species. Research on humans, however, has only focused on whether parents are able to recognize their children by smell, not whether humans use these cues for investment decisions. Here we show that fathers exhibit more affection and attachment and fewer ignoring behaviors toward children whose smell they can identify than toward those whose smell they cannot recognize. Thus, olfaction might serve as a means for males (...) to determine their genetic relatedness to purported offspring. We also demonstrate that mothers’ olfactory recognition and hedonistic ratings are linked with the use of physical punishment. Mothers report using more punishment with children whose odor they cannot recognize and less with children whose odor they rated as more pleasant. These results provide the first preliminary evidence in humans that olfactory cues may guide parents in the allocation of care. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a new theoretical framework to analyse socio‐technical epistemic practices and systems on the Web and beyond, and apply it to the topic of web‐based scientific publishing. This framework is informed by social epistemology, science and technology studies (STS) and feminist epistemology. Its core consists of a tripartite classification of socio‐technical epistemic systems based on the mechanisms of closure they employ to terminate socio‐epistemic processes in which multiple agents are involved. In particular I distinguish three mechanisms (...) of closure, integration, aggregation and selection, and argue that they correspond to three different types of epistemic sociality. Different systems can employ different mechanism of closure or combinations thereof. Yet each mechanism has its own epistemic merits, depends on specific social, technical and epistemic prerequisites, has different strengths and weaknesses, and is optimal for different epistemic tasks. The aim of my analysis is twofold. Distinguishing different modes of epistemic sociality is a way for me not only to put forward a more nuanced framework for analysing socio‐epistemic practices, such as web‐based scientific publishing and scholarly communication. It can also serve as the theoretical basis for improving them. (shrink)

In der Theoriegeschichte der ästhetischen Theorie hat sich im 20. Jahrhundert eine Lesart der Kantischen Analytik des Schönen herausgebildet, welche die Zweckfreiheit der Künste als Dogma ihrer Funktionslosigkeit versteht. Dem gegenüber gibt es Entwicklungen auf dem Feld der Künste, die in eine andere Richtung weisen. Das Buchprojekt geht von der impliziten Annahme aus, dass ästhetische Theorie sich ihrem Gegenstand gegenüber als angemessen erweisen muss. Es besteht daher eine Notwendigkeit, die theoretischen Parameter der Zweckfreiheit, Autonomie und Funktionslosigkeit neu zu überdenken. Die (...) Strategie dieser Operation besteht darin, sich mit der philosophischen Geschichte des Zweckbegriffs auseinanderzusetzen und diese in ein Verhältnis zu aktuellen Diskursen und Phänomenologien der Kunst zu setzen. Auf dem Prüfstand steht damit die Funktion/Funktionslosigkeit der Kunst in der Gesellschaft sowie eine Neufassung ihrer Zwecke. (shrink)

In an increasingly litigious society where ritual demands for accountability and “taking responsibility” are now commonplace, it is not surprising that members of clinical ethics committees (CECs) are becoming more aware of their potential legal liability. Yet the vulnerability of committee members to legal action is difficult to assess with any certainty. This is because the CECs which have been set up in the UK are—if the American experience is followed—likely to vary significantly in terms of their functions, procedures, composition, (...) structures and authority. As a consequence it is difficult to generalise about the legal implications. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties this article will outline the broad legal principles governing the potential liability of committee members. It will also consider the relationship between CECs and the courts. It begins, however, with a brief analysis of the relationship between ethics and law in committee deliberations, and in particular of the role of law and legal expertise on CECs. (shrink)

The article scutinizes the solicitation we experience when affected by human suffering at a distance. Referring to the approaches of Emmanuel Lévinas and Hannah Arendt, the author outlines her Ethic of Cohabitation and points to both writers’ particular and rather diverging affiliation to Jewish heritage. The author’s own idea of alternative Jewishness emphasizes the importance of solidarity with those who are threatened by persecution or subjugation, with the dispossessed and the “ungrievable”, even and especially with those who exceed our immediate (...) sphere of belonging. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty—reasons why an agent might have such a responsibility. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states, societies, or corporations, on the one hand, or individual human beings on the other. We often talk about our responsibilities to the poorest people in the world, (...) or what we owe them. So the question is who this we is. I shall argue that the answer depends on the source of the responsibility. Some responsibilities—one species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to collectives, although they will also trickle down to at least some individuals within the collective. Other responsibilities—humanitarian responsibilities, and a different species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to individuals, but can, I shall argue, “trickle up” to collectives of which individuals are members. (shrink)

Faculty resistance to Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is an issue that has been recognized by WAC program directors and practitioners for decades, yet it remains unresolved. Perhaps the problem is not resistance per se, but how we interpret and react to it. Faculty resistance is typically viewed as an impediment to the pedagogical change WAC programs hope to achieve. Moreover, the label of "resistance" is often used without further examination of the underlying causes. Based on research and experience as (...) doctoral Writing Fellows in the Borough of Manhattan Community College WAC Program, we argue that so-called resistances are often justified concerns in regard to implementing WAC under given institutional, disciplinary, departmental, and personal constraints. We also suggest that if we listen and respond to these concerns, they become means to facilitate faculty engagement with WAC. By working through their concerns and adapting WAC to their context, faculty can take ownership of WAC and further develop the practice. Thus, what at first appears to be an impediment to deep-rooted pedagogical change ”resistance” can be used to encourage faculty to make WAC their own. (shrink)

In recent years, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has grown both in popularity and economic importance. I argue that this success is primarily the result of domestication to the dominant culture of biomedicine and is readily observable in images and metaphors of the body used both in CAM and biomedical discourse. It is suggested that this shared imagery points to a new phase in the relationship between the body and society. The domestication of CAM is further illustrated through processes of (...) dissemination and professionalization. The article concludes by discussing the domestication of CAM as a reflection of an epistemological shift in biomedicine alongside its continued hegemony. (shrink)

Moral distress is the sense that one must do, or cooperate in, what is wrong. It is paradigmatically faced by nurses, but it is almost a universal occupational hazard.

A discussion of the ethics of stem cell research, and attempts to regulate it.