Abstract The article argues that a consideration of the idea, common in ancient ethical theory, that virtue is a skill or craft, reveals that some common construals of it are mistaken. The analogy between virtue and skill is not meant to suggest that virtue is an unreflective habit of practised action. Rather what interests ancient ethical theorists is the intellectual structure of a skill, one demanding grasp of the principles defining the field and an ability to reflect on the justification (...) of particular actions. This is brought out with reference particularly to the discussion of virtue as analogous with skill in Plato's early Socratic dialogues. The demands made of the virtuous agent by philosophers who regard virtue as analogous to skill are akin to the demands made by more recent theories of morality which demand that the moral agent be able to reflect on her practices, extract the principles that these depend on, and produce justification when needed. This point about ancient ethical theories enables us to appreciate their distance from modern versions of ?virtue ethics? ? which stress the importance of the traditions and contexts within which the content of the virtues is learned, and place less importance on the need for intellectual justification. The type of virtue ethics defended by Alasdair Maclntyre provides an instructive example of this contrasting kind of theory. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is sometimes taken to be incapable of providing guidance for an individual's actions, as some other ethical theories do. I show how virtue ethics does provide guidance for action, and also meet the objection that, while it may account for what we ought to do, it cannot account for the force of duty and obligation.

In 2009, Greenpeace launched an aggressive campaign against Nestlé, accusing the organization of driving rainforest deforestation through its palm oil suppliers. The objective was to damage the brand image of Nestlé and, thereby, force the organization to make its supply chain more sustainable. Prominent cases such as these have led to the prevailing view that sustainable supply chain management is primarily reactive and propelled by external pressures. This research, in contrast, assumes that SSCM can contribute positively to the reputation of (...) an organization as a “good citizen” and, thereby, counter the impression that external stakeholder pressure is the only driver of SSCM. The study draws on Resource Dependence Theory in analyzing the three competing models of the potential stakeholder, SSCM and the corporate sustainability performance relationship. A dataset of 1,621 organizations allows the statistical comparison of these three models. Findings suggest that stakeholder pressure and SSCM both contribute to an organization’s sustainability performance. Thus, supply chain managers will perceive benefits from SSCM other than merely the reduction of risk from reputational damage through stakeholder activism. (shrink)

Music is an inescapable part of social, cultural and political life, and has played a powerful role in mobilising support for popular movements demanding social justice. The impact of David Bowie, Prince and Bob Dylan, for example, on diversity awareness and legislative reform relating to sexuality, gender and racial equality respectively is still felt; with the latter receiving a Nobel Prize in 2016 for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The influence of these composers and (...) performers reached far beyond the concert hall. Conversely, musical propaganda has been a common feature of many dictatorships, most notably Nazism’s Adolf Hitler and Communism’s Joseph Stalin, and is still instrumental in the election campaigns of political parties. US President Donald Trump’s winning retro classic rock campaign playlist conveyed an idealised version of the past which aligned with the tastes and interests of his core constituency, and evoked feelings of nationalistic pride and patriotism. The eclectic selection of upbeat music effectively masked the underlying capitalist initiatives, corporate greed and allegations of financial impropriety that characterised both the Democrat and Republican campaigns. Although unable to impart meaning with the same level of precision as language, music has a potentially broader semantic capacity due to its greater elasticity. It constitutes a common language which has the ability to create a community of people that sings, speaks, reasons, votes and even feels the same way. Accordingly, this article explores the symbiotic relationship between music and law, identity politics and social justice, via the lens of musical semiosis. (shrink)

This volume contains papers by a group of leading experts on Aristotle and the later Aristotelian tradition of Neoplatonism. The discussion ranges from Aristotle's treatment of Parmenides, the most important pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, to Neoplatonic and medieval use of Aristotle, for which Aristotle himself set guidelines in his discussions of his predecessors. Traces of these guidelines can be seen in the work of Plotinus, and that of the later Greek commentators on Aristotle. The study of these commentators, and the recognition (...) of the philosophical interest and importance of the ideas which they expressed in their commentaries, is an exciting new development in ancient philosophy to which this book makes a unique and distinguished contribution. (shrink)

In recent years, theories of social understanding have moved away from arguing that just one epistemic strategy, such as theory-based inference or simulation constitutes our ability of social understanding. Empirical observations speak against any monistic view and have given rise to pluralistic accounts arguing that humans rely on a large variety of epistemic strategies in social understanding. We agree with this promising pluralist approach, but highlight two open questions: what is the residual role of mindreading, i.e. the indirect attribution of (...) mental states to others within this framework, and how do different strategies of social understanding relate to each other? In a first step, we aim to clarify the arguments that might be considered in evaluating the role that epistemic strategies play in a pluralistic framework. On this basis, we argue that mindreading constitutes a core epiststrategy in human social life that opens new central spheres of social understanding. In a second step, we provide an account of the relation between different epistemic strategies which integrates and demarks the important role of mindreading for social understanding. (shrink)

Sextus’s arguments against ethical theories are shorter and more general than those he brings against the other two parts of ancient philosophy, logic and physics. Until recently this part of his work, in Outlines of Pyrrhonism III and Adversus Mathematicos XI has been comparatively neglected. Now, as well as the splendidly scholarly book by Emidio Spinelli, Sesto Empirico: Contro Gli Etici we have Richard Bett’s translation with commentary in the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series. Both books make Sextus’s sometimes elusive (...) work far more available and usable to the modern reader. (shrink)

Epicurus' answers to the problem of how we can be free agents in his atomic world do not seem at first to cohere. I examine all of them, including a notorious papyrus fragment.

I begin with some points from the Republic which are familiar, perhaps over-familiar, to everyone, and then raise an issue about the role of law in Kallipolis which points us to something not so familiar. I hope that this contribution to honoring Fred Miller will lead to the kind of discussion that his own work has stimulated over the years, across an incredibly wide range of topics. I am honored and delighted to contribute to honoring Fred, and hope that this (...) paper will be worthy of its inclusion in this collection. (shrink)

This study examined cancer patients’ perceived emotional and informational support from a variety of interpersonal and media sources. We recruited patients from cancer patient association websites and online cancer forums and asked them to report to what extent they received support from interpersonal and media sources. Patients rated professional sources and personal sources as nearly equal sources of emotional support; however, professional sources were rated as significantly greater sources of informational support. Although family and oncologists were the most mentioned interpersonal (...) sources of support, they were also the most mentioned disappointing sources. Of the media sources, online interaction sources were rated as nearly equivalent sources of emotional support as interpersonal sources. That patients perceived emotional support, not only informational support, from various media sources is promising since interpersonal sources can be disappointing to some patients. (shrink)

Our ability to understand others is one of the most central parts of human life, but explaining how this ability develops remains a controversial issue, exercising psychologists and philosophers alike. Within this literature the Paradox of False Belief Understanding remains one of the main open challenges. Based on an up to date overview of the empirical and theoretical literature, this book highlights the significance of this paradox for our understanding of the development of social cognition and provides a new explanation (...) of it in the form of the Situational Mental File Account. Central features of the account are, firstly, identitfying three distinct stages in the development of belief understanding and, secondly, elaborating the role of both cognitive and situational factors as well as their interaction in the development of belief understanding. This account is also applied to the related phenomenon of pretend play, demonstrating the potential for a wider application of the account. This account generates both new empirical predications and a framework for further theoretical work, thereby providing a fruitful ground for further interdisciplinary research in this area. (shrink)

Bioethics has evolved from a non-institutional, ideal, and ahistorical model toward a more political, institutional, and historically anchored one. This change is healthy and has, in part, been a product of the devastating consequences of globalization. I illustrate the distinct moments in the evolution of bioethics with an analysis of three discussions within the discipline: the debate on autonomy and the right to health and some of the issues raised by biotechnology, especially by the patenting of genetic material.

In the original publication of the article.

This paper is a tribute to H.T. Engelhardt Jr. for the intellectual resources he provided to challenge cosmopolitan liberalism as the foundation for an overarching global bioethics in the post-modern world. It is a also a tribute to the moral pluralism and cultural diversity which he argued so forcefully in all his works and which have inspired the flourishing of fierce bioethical debates across the world, including in the non-Western and Asian societies.

ABSTRACT:Biomedical and philosophical traditions postulate the experience of pain either as quantifiable or as sociocultural phenomena. This critical assessment offers a close reading of Lara Parker’s Vagina Problems: Endometriosis, Painful Sex, and Other Taboo Topics (2020) and Abby Norman’s Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain (2018), analyzing the authors’ use of language as a tool to comprehend and communicate pain. Norman’s and Parker’s memoirs narrate the lived experience of endometriosis, a condition diagnosed (...) almost exclusively in women and characterized by chronic pain. The essay looks at how metaphors are employed in living and narrating endometriosis in medical, social, and cultural settings that are highly skeptical of women’s pain and trace a shift in the use of pain metaphors towards an acceptance of the pain experience, which is conceptualized as empowering by the climax of the narrative. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that individuals who identify as being more religious request more aggressive medical treatment at end of life. These requests may generate disagreement over life-sustaining treatment (LST). Outside of anecdotal observation, however, the actual role of religion in conflict over LST has been underexplored. Because ethics committees are often consulted to help mediate these conflicts, the ethics consultation experience provides a unique context in which to investigate this question. The purpose of this paper was to examine the (...) ways religion was present in cases involving conflict around LST. Using medical records from ethics consultation cases for conflict over LST in one large academic medical centre, we found that religion can be central to conflict over LST but was also present in two additional ways through (1) religious coping, including a belief in miracles and support from a higher power, and (2) chaplaincy visits. In-hospital mortality was not different between patients with religiously versus non-religiously centred conflict. In our retrospective cohort study, religion played a variety of roles and did not lead to increased treatment intensity or prolong time to death. Ethics consultants and healthcare professionals involved in these cases should be cognisant of the complex ways that religion can manifest in conflict over LST. (shrink)

Aristotle, in making virtuous activity necessary but not sufficient for happiness, tries to do justice to the intuitive requirement that the content of happiness not be revised so as to shock our intuitions that happiness involves worldly success and enjoyment. But he also tries to do justice to the theoretical pull: happiness must involve virtuous activity over one's life as a whole. Aristotle runs into difficulties over the level of external goods required for the virtuous life to be happy, as (...) well as the results when the virtuous happy person loses external goods. (shrink)

Later hybrid theories in Antiochus and Arius Didymus restate an Aristotelian position on the insufficiency of virtue for happiness, with some attempted compromise with the Stoic view, but these attempts, though interesting, are not successful.

Ancient ethical theories produce differing accounts of happiness, depending on their position on the nature and importance of virtue. These are important debates, recognizably on the same topic as modern debates about the nature and importance of morality. In the ancient debates Aristotelian and Stoic views can both draw on compelling arguments, and no simple resolution is obvious.

Ancient ethical theories all assume that we are seeking our happiness when we try to live a moral life. This produces considerable revision of the intuitive content of happiness, different theories making more or less revisionary transformations of its content.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is an annual publication which includes original articles, which may be of substantial length, on a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, and review articles of major books. All the contributors to this volume are based in the US, except for David Bostock who is at Merton College, Oxford, and Eric Lewis who is at King's College London.

An annual publication which publishes original articles, some of substantial length, on a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, and review articles of major books.

An annual publication which publishes original articles, some of substantial length, on a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, and review articles of major books.

Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus sharpened the claim that happiness requires external goods as well as virtue, a claim prominently denied by the Stoics. Their position that virtue is sufficient for happiness requires revision of the content of happiness and adjustment of our attitudes to premature death and many other matters. The strain put on our concept of happiness is, however, greatly alleviated by the Stoic theory of preferred indifferents, which allows things other than virtue to have value of a different kind, (...) as the material on which virtuous activity is exercised. (shrink)

Neste artigo, a autora aborda a questão da possibilidade de uma teoria da justiça social que seja compatível com a totalidade do sistema kantiano, examinando diversas posições acerca dessa problemática, seguindo-se a essa parte a exposição de sua própria posição no tocante a essa questão.

Les 25 et 26 mars 2021, en pleine pandémie de Covid-19, ont eu lieu deux journées d’études organisées par Sorbonne Université sur la thématique des patients experts, des patients partenaires et de leur intégration dans divers dispositifs de participation en santé. Elles ont réuni des chercheurs canadiens et européens autour du développement de la démocratie en santé, dont les principaux modèles sont issus de ces deux régions. Cette nouvelle forme de gouvernance de la santé invite à la collaboration entre les (...) acteurs classiques politiques et médicaux du champ de la santé et des individus de la société civile organisés ou non en associations. Il s'agit là d'un sujet devenu central dans les domaines de la médecine et des humanités biomédicales, et que le contexte de la pandémie de Covid-19 n'a rendu que plus saillant. (shrink)

An analysis of the evolution of the overlapping histories of human rights and development, and an exploration of the alternatives, through the lens of indigenous and other southern theories and epistemologies.

In the twenty-first century, 70.6 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians,1 58 percent of them still segregate themselves by race on Sunday mornings, and white Protestants make up the majority of this 58 percent.2 These facts belie the claim, popularized after Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election, that America is living in a postracial society3 And yet, the role played by religion in white people's lived experiences of race, racism, and white class privilege in the United States tends to be neglected (...) by philosophers and religious studies scholars, except perhaps when considering white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.4 Contemporary philosophy is secular in a way that generally excludes and... (shrink)

Prior to any research data collection a proposal outlining methods and protocols is required to undergo ethical scrutiny. The issues surrounding a research ethics review process within sport and exercise science departments are not dissimilar to other subject areas. In particular, the ethical review process may be unclear to the researcher and can either present a difficult and time-consuming challenge or be merely perceived as a tick-box exercise. The aim of this study was to explore and compare research ethics processes (...) and decisions within sport and exercise science departments and institutions across the UK. Participants were asked to provide decisions and justification of those decisions on ten typical sports and exercise science proposals. Results found that all respondents cited evidence of informed consent and subject information sheets, detailed methodology and data protection procedures as highly important across all scenarios. Additionally it was found that similar processes occur regarding research ethical scrutiny and similar decisions are made at the departmental level. However, confidence fluctuates for individuals when reviewing in non-specialist subject areas and qualitative data collected calls for more research ethics training. (shrink)