This paper develops the argument that the acquisition of responsible organizations can be a source of competitive advantage for acquiring firms. We arguethat corporate responsibility identity is a tacit and strategic resource because it is valuable, rare, non-imitable and non-substitutable. We postulate that organizational identity is a useful framework to better understand corporate responsibility identity. Finally, we argue that to capitalize on the acquisition of responsible organizations, acquiring firms must engage in critical self-reflexivity and be willing to modify their organizational (...) identity. (shrink)

This article discusses what is involved in having full moral status, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status and surveys different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.

From the Supreme Court to the bedroom, privacy is an intensely contested interest in our everyday lives and privacy law. Some people appeal to privacy to protect such critical areas as abortion, sexuality, and personal information. Yet, privacy skeptics argue that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. I argue that we cannot abandon the concept of privacy. If we wish to avoid extending this elusive concept to cover too much of our lives or shrinking it to (...) cover too little, we must come to understand it. After exploring the privacy arguments of philosophers and constitutional and tort privacy law, I argue for a new definition of privacy and an explanation of its value that clarifies and resolves many of our conflicts. Privacy is critical because it allows us to protect a realm in which we can have intimate relations with others. (shrink)

This article discusses a Leverhulme residency undertaken by the author Julie Brixey-Williams in 2003–4 at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. Notions of medical visibility were explored through practice-led investigations under the umbrella title, Traces of the Invisible, that concentrated on making concrete, visible responses to the hidden or intangible elements of the anesthetist’s working life in areas such as sleep, breath, pain and genetic markers. Rosebud is a unique nine-foot concertina bookwork created after reading the (...) entire story of The Sleeping Beauty into an anesthetic machine. This essay expands upon the concepts and material responses that led to the making of the book with particular reference to how the book’s structure forms a relationship to language and the body-as-site, whilst operating as a sculptural object that raises the visibility of the anesthetic profession. Fairy tales and their telling, including stories of enchanted sleep, transformational qualities, magical languages and shaman healers, will be examined alongside. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:131. THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1978 The Hume Literature from 1925 to 1976 has been thoroughly covered in my book Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship : A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; J¿ 5.50), which also lists the main earlier writings on Hume. Publications of the year 1977 were listed in Hume Studies last November. What follows here will bring the record up to the end of 1978. (...) Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions, and to send me offprints of their own articles. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of an annual bibliography covering the previous year, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. References to recently-appearing reviews (of books from earlier lists) are given at the end. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQAmerican Philosophical Quarterly JHIJournal of the History of Ideas JHPJournal of the History of Philosophy JPJournal of Philosophy PASProceedings of the Aristotelian Society PBPhilosophical Books PQPhilosophical Quarterly PRPhilosophical Review RIPRevue Internationale de Philosophie RMReview of Metaphysics TLSTimes Literary Supplement Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly follow the British Standard (no. 4148). ANSCOMBE, G. E. M. 'Rules, Rights, and Promises', Midwest Studies in Phil. 3, 318-23. ARMSTRONG, D. M. Universals and Scientific Realism, vol. 2: A Theory of Universals, 85-90. Cambridge. ATTFIELD, R. God and the Secular, esp. chs. 5-6. Cardiff. 132. BAIER, A. 'Hume's Analysis of Pride', JP 75, 27-40. (on Davidson 1976) BALDI, M. 'Le edizioni italiane dei Saggi economici di David Hume', Riv. crit. Stor. FiI. 33, 275-96. BARNOUW, D. 'Skepticism as a Literary Mode - Hume, David and Musil, Robert', Mod. Lang. Notes 93, 852-70. BASU, D. K. 'Who is the Real Hume in the Dialogues?', Indian Phil. Q. 6, 21-8. BEAUCHAMP. see ROBINSON. BECK, L. W. Essays on Kant and Hume. New Haven & London, (includes reprints of his 1967a and b, and 1974, and the first Eng. tr. of his 1969; also a new paper,? Prussian Hume and a Scottish Kant', on pp. Ill ff) BLACKMAN, L. L. 'The Logical Impossibility of Miracles in Hume', Int. J. Phil. Relig. 9, 179-87. BOSS, G. "1I Promise": Les fonctions du langage chez Hume et Austin', Revue Théol. et Phil. 110, 29-48. BRACKEN, H. M. 'Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume', EighteenthCentury Studies 11, 227-45. BROWNSEY, P. F. 'Hume and the Social Contract', PQ 28, 132-48. BURKE, J. J. 'Hume's History of England: Waking the English from a Dogmatic Slumber', Studies in 18th-century Culture 7, 235-50. CAPALDI, N. 'Hume as Social Scientist', RM 32, 99-123. CARNIE, R. H. 'The Hume-Hailes Relationship', Forum for Mod. Lang. Studies 14, 289-303. CARTWRIGHT, N. 'Comments on Wesley Salmon's "Science and Religion..."', Phil. Studies 33, 177-83. COHEN, Benjamin. 'Contrariety and Causality in Hume', Hume Studies 4, 29-39. CONNIFF, J. 'Hume on Political Parties: The Case for Hume as a Whig', Eighteenth-Century Studies 12, 150-73. CUMMINS, R. 'The Missing Shade of Blue', PR 87, 548-65. DOUBLE, R. 'Hume's Empirical Argument for Empiricism', Sth J. Phil. 16, 329-38. 133. ERDE, E. L. 'Founding Morality: "Hume v. Plato" or "Hume & Plato"?', S. -west. J. Phil. 9, 19-25. FARR, J. 'Hume, Hermeneutics, and History: A "Sympathetic" Account', Hist. & Theory 17, 285-310. FLEW, A. 'Inconsistency within a Reconciling Project', Hume Studies 4, 1-6. GASKIN, J. C. A. Hume's Philosophy of Religion, (xi, 188 pp.* London. [Times Higher Ed. Suppl. 21 July (1978), 17; TLS 28 July (1978), 863; RB 20 (1979), 68-71] GINSBERG, R. 'Hume and the Social Contract', EighteenthCentury Life 4, 91-4. GUPTA, G. 'Another Look at the Buddha-Hume "Connection"', Indian Phil. Q. 5, 371-86. GUPTA, R. 'Certain Aspects of the Causal Theories of the Buddhist, Hume and Mill', Indian Phil. Q. 5, 319-35. HAAKONSSEN, K. 'Hume's Obligations', Hume Studies 4, 7-17. HACKING, I. 'Hume's Species of Probability', Phil. Studies 33, 21-37. HALL, R. Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A bibliographical guide. (x, 150 pp.) Edinburgh. [British Book News... (shrink)

"Margaret L. King has put together a highly representative selection of readings from most of the more significant—but by no means the most obvious—texts by the authors who made up the movement we have come to call the 'Enlightenment.' They range across much of Europe and the Americas, and from the early seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth. In the originality of the choice of texts, in its range and depth, this collection offers both wide coverage and striking (...) insights into the intellectual transformation which has done more than any other to shape the world in which we live today. It is _simply the best introduction to the subject now available_."_ —Anthony Pagden, UCLA, and author of _The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters_ Contents:_ Chronology, Introduction _Chapter One - Casting Out Idols: 1620–1697_ _Idols, or false notions: _Francis Bacon, _The New Instrument_ _I think, therefore I am: _René Descartes, Discourse on Method _God, or Nature: _Baruch Spinoza, _Ethics_ _The system of the world: _Isaac Newton, _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_ _He searched for truth throughout his life: _Pierre Bayle, _Historical and Critical Dictionary_ _Chapter Two - _The Learned Maid: 1638–1740 _A face raised toward heaven:_ Anna Maria van Schurman, _Whether the Study of Letters Befits a Christian Woman_ _The worlds I have made:_ Margaret Cavendish, _The Blazing World_ _A finer sort of cattle:_ Bathsua Makin, _An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen_ _I warn you of the world:_ Madame de Maintenon, _Letter: On the Education of the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr_, and _Instruction: On the World_ _The daybreak of your reason:_ Émilie Du Châtelet, _Fundamentals of Physics_ _Chapter Three - _A State of Perfect Freedom: 1689–1695 _The chief criterion of the True Church:_ John Locke, _Letter on Toleration_ _Freedom from any superior power on earth:_ John Locke, _Second Treatise on Civil Government_ _A white paper, with nothing written on it:_ John Locke, _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_ _Let your rules be as few as possible:_ John Locke, _Some Thoughts Concerning Education_ _From death, Jesus Christ restores all to life:_ John Locke, _The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures_ _Chapter Four - All Things Made New: 1725–1784_ _In the wilderness, they are reborn:_ Giambattista Vico, _The New Science_ _Without these Names, nothing can be known,_ Carl Linnaeus, _System of Nature_ _All the clouds at last are lifted:_ Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, _The Successive Advancement of the Human Mind_ _A genealogical or encyclopedic tree of knowledge:_ Jean le Rond d’Alembert, _Preliminary Discourse_ _Dare to know! :_ Immanuel Kant, _What Is Enlightenment?_ _Chapter Five - Mind, Soul, and God: 1740–1779_ _The narrow limits of human understanding:_ David Hume, _Anof a Book Lately Published_ _The soul is but an empty word:_ Julien Offray de La Mettrie, _Man a Machine_ _All is reduced to sensation:_ Claude Adrien Helvétius, _On the Mind_ _An endless web of fantasies and falsehoods:_ Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d’Holbach, _Common Sense_ _Let each believe that his own ring is real:_ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, _Nathan the Wise_ _Chapter Six - Crush That Infamous Thing: 1733–1764_ _This is the country of sects:_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Letters_ _Disfigured by myth, until enlightenment comes:_ Voltaire, _The Culture and Spirit of Nations_ _The best of all possible worlds:_ Voltaire, _Candide_ _Are we not all children of the same God?:_ Voltaire, _Treatise on Tolerance_ _If a book displeases you, refute it! :_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Dictionary_ _Chapter Seven - Toward the Greater Good: 1748–1776_ _Things must be so ordered that power checks power,_ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, _The Spirit of the Laws_ _Complete freedom of trade must be ensured:_ François Quesnay, _General Maxims for the Economic Management of an Agricultural Kingdom_ _The nation's war against the citizen: Cesare_ Beccaria, _On Crimes and Punishments_ _There is no peace in the absence of justice:_ Adam Ferguson, _An Essay on the History of Civil Society_ _Led by an invisible hand:_ Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ _Chapter Eight - Encountering Others: 1688–1785_ _Thus died this great man:_ Aphra Behn, _Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave_ _Not one sins the less for not being Christian: _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, _Embassy Letters_ _Do you not restore to them their liberty?:_ Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, _Philosophical and Political History of European Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies_ _Some things which are rather interesting:_ Captain James Cook, _Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World_ _The inner genius of my being:_ Johann Gottfried von Herder, _Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humankind_ _Chapter - Nine Citizen of Geneva: 1755–1782_ _The most cunning project ever to enter the human mind: _Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Human Inequality_ _The supreme direction of the General Will:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract _Two lovers from a small town at the foot of the Alps,_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Julie, or the New Heloise_ _Build a fence around your child’s soul:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Emile, or On Education_ _This man will be myself:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Confessions_ _Chapter Ten - Vindications of Women: 1685–1792_ _No higher design than to get her a husband:_ Mary Astell, _Reflections on Marriage_ _The days of my bondage begin:_ Anna Stanisławska, _Orphan Girl_ _A dying victim dragged to the altar:_ Denis Diderot, _The Nun_ _Created to be the toy of man:_ Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ _Man, are you capable of being just?:_ Olympe de Gouges, _Declaration of the Rights of Woman as Citizen_ _Chapter Eleven - American Reverberations: 1771–1792_ _I took upon me to assert my freedom:_ Benjamin Franklin, _Autobiography_ _Freedom has been hunted round the globe:_ Thomas Paine, _Common Sense_ _Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:_ Thomas Jefferson and Others, _Declaration of Independence_ _A safeguard against faction and insurrection:_ James Madison, _Federalist No. 10_ _An end to government by force and fraud:_ Thomas Paine, _The Rights of Man_ _Chapter Twelve - Enlightenment's End: 1790–1794_ _A partnership of the living, the dead, and those unborn:_ Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ _The future destiny of the human species:_ Nicolas de Condorcet, _A Sketch of a Historical Portrait of the Progress of the Human Mind_ Texts and Studies, Index. 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In this paper, I examine a heretofore ignored critic of Descartes on the heterogeneity problem: Anton Wilhelm Amo. Looking at Amo’s critique of Descartes reveals a very clear case of a thinker who attempts to offer a causal system that is not a solution to the mind-body problem, but rather that transcends it. The focus of my discussion is Amo’s 1734 dissertation: The Apathy [ἀπάθεια] of the Human Mind or The Absence of Sensation and the Faculty of Sense in the (...) Human Mind and their Presence in our Organic and Living Body. Amo’s discussion of the interaction, or lack thereof, of the mind and body hinges on the essential feature he identifies for the human mind—apathy, that is, impassivity. In this work, Amo engages explicitly with Descartes’s writing, which allows us to more precisely see the nature of his agreement and disagreement with the Cartesian metaphysics of mind. I proceed by treating Amo’s five stated criteria for spirit-hood which, in turn, reveal the kinds of causal connections that are possible for embodied spirits on his view. My aim is threefold: To lay out what I take to be Amo’s view of and arguments for the five criteria he takes to be required for a substance to be spirit. To locate Amo’s agreement and disagreement with Descartes. To suggest that Amo’s view on mind-body interaction involves a kind of occasional causation. (shrink)

_In _Challenging the One Best System_, a team of leading education scholars offers a rich comparative analysis of the set of urban education governance reforms collectively known as the “portfolio management model.”_ They investigate the degree to which this model—a system of schools operating under different types of governance and with different degrees of autonomy—challenges the standard structure of district governance famously characterized by David Tyack as “the one best system.” The authors examine the design and enactment of the portfolio (...) management model in three major cities: New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Denver. They identify the five interlocking mechanisms at the core of the model—planning and oversight, choice, autonomy, human capital, and school supports—and show how these are implemented differently in each city. Using rich qualitative data from extensive interviews, the authors trace the internal tensions and tradeoffs that characterize these systems and highlight the influence of historical and contextual factors as well. Most importantly, they question whether the portfolio management model represents a fundamental restructuring of education governance or more incremental change, and whether it points in the direction of meaningful improvement in school practices. Drawing on a rigorous, multimethod study, _Challenging the One Best System_ represents a significant contribution to our understanding of system-level change in education. (shrink)

2017 substantive revision of the original 2008 "Continental Rationalism" entry (and 2012 revision) that introduces women and non-European authors and new historiographical considerations.

Some interesting exceptions notwithstanding, the traditional logic of economic efficiency has long favored hierarchical forms of organization and disfavored democracy in business. What does the balance of arguments look like, however, when values besides efficient revenue production are brought into the picture? The question is not hypothetical: In recent years, an ever increasing number of corporations have developed and adopted socially responsible behaviors, thereby hybridizing aspects of corporate businesses and social organizations. We argue that the joint pursuit of financial and (...) social objectives warrants significant rethinking of organizational democracy’s merits compared both to hierarchy and to non-democratic alternatives to hierarchy. In making this argument, we draw on an extensive literature review to document the relative lack of substantive discussion of organizational democracy since 1960. And we draw lessons from political theory, suggesting that the success of political democracy in integrating diverse values offers some grounds for asserting parallel virtues in the business case. (shrink)

In most discussions of moral responsibility, an agent’s moral responsibility for harming or failing to aid is equated with the agent’s being blameworthy for having done wrong. In this paper, I will argue that one can be morally responsible for one’s action even if the action was not wrong, not blameworthy, and not the result of blameworthy deliberation or bad motivation. This makes a difference to how we should relate to each other and ourselves in the aftermath. Some people have (...) blown off their responsibility when they shouldn't have, and others have held themselves responsible – or second and third parties have held them responsible – as if they were wrongdoers and blameworthy when neither is the case. (shrink)

In this paper the authors argue that the exploration of the nature of needs and rights should begin with the actually existing organization of care and of justice in society. The authors raise two key concerns with this organization: 1) the invisibility of care to some, and 2) the inaccessibility of rights to others. Recent work by care scholars has called attention to the ways the current organization of care work perpetuates the myth of self-sufficiency for some, while reducing others (...) to mere dependents. Law and Society scholars have demonstrated the problems of uneven access to legal remedies within the current organization of the legal system. Addressing these concerns simultaneously reveals both the problems of the current organization of needs and rights as well as illuminating alternative possibilities. The authors argue, first, that a justice perspective, based on rights is inadequate because its presumed universality is belied by the reality of the inaccessibility of rights to many. Second, the authors argue that a care perspective, currently formulated upon the assumption that only some people have needs, is also flawed because its presumed particularity distorts the human experience and subsequent policies. Instead, the authors need to conceive of care in a public way that permits both rights and needs to be understood as applicable to all. The authors propose some initial thoughts about how to create such a public concept of care. (shrink)

An empirical study of whether the ordinary conception of race in the United States is biological or social, and how different conceptions connect to racism.

The question of capacity building in education has predominantly been approached with regard to the methods and methodologies of educational research. Far less attention has been given to capacity building in relation to theory. In many ways the latter is as pressing an issue as the former, given that good research depends on a combination of high quality techniques and high quality theorising. The ability to capitalise on capacity building in relation to methods and methodologies may therefore well be restricted (...) by a lack of attention to theory. In this paper we make a case for capacity building with regard to theory, explore the different roles of theory in educational research, and provide an outline of an agenda for capacity building with regard to theory. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, an entity has moral status if and only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Some philosophers, who think of moral status in terms of duties and rights owed to an entity, allow that moral status can come in degrees, with only some beings having status of the highest degree – that is, full moral status (FMS). We critically review the competing accounts of what qualifies one for FMS. Some accounts demand cognitive sophistication, which (...) excludes many children, while others are inclusive of children but fail by (a) putting children morally on a par with most animals (experiencing subject of a life), (b) invoking criteria of dubious moral relevance (potentiality, membership in a biological species), or (c) not securing impartial moral status (special relationships). We end with our own account, which attempts to rectify such problems, addressing specifically the moral status of children. (shrink)

This contributed volume explores the ways logical skills have been perceived over the course of history. The authors approach the topic from the lenses of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and history to examine two opposing perceptions of logic: the first as an innate human ability and the second as a skill that can be learned and mastered. Chapters focus on the social and political dynamics of the use of logic throughout history, utilizing case studies and critical analyses. Specific topics covered include: (...) the rise of logical skills problems concerning medieval notions of idiocy and rationality decolonizing natural logic natural logic and the course of time Logical Skills: Social-Historical Perspectives will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers in the fields of history, sociology, philosophy, and logic. Psychology and colonial studies scholars will also find this volume to be of particular interest. (shrink)

Qu'entendre par modernité? Résulte-t-elle d'une transposition des schèmes théologiques et des dispositifs théologico-politiques propres au christianisme médiéval, ou bien s'est-elle affirmée contre son propre passé théologique, en rupture avec les formes héritées du passé? Et comment situer, dans ce processus, les philosophies de Hobbes et de Spinoza, comprises tantôt comme héritières des théologies de la toute-puissance divine, de l'augustinisme ou de la Réforme, tantôt comme inaugurant le.

This commentary places Jussim in dialogue with sociological perspectives on social reality and the political-academic nature of scientific paradigms. Specifically, we highlight how institutions, observers, and what is being observed intersect, and discuss the implications of this intersection on measurement within the social world. We then identify similarities between Jussim's specific narrative regarding social perception research, with noted patterns of scientific change.

Case Study research is characterized by the employment of multiple data gathering methods. In this paper, I examine the concurrent use of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The question I examine is: what is the rationale behind their combination in case study research? In the literature on case study research, the two most common reasons for using multiple methods appeal to comprehensiveness and convergent confirmation respectively. I argue that there is a third significant, yet overlooked, way to motivate the joint (...) use of participant observation and qualitative interviews: the methods may generate complementary evidence and this puts the researcher in a better position to confirm that her data manifest central epistemic values and so are suitable as basis for providing an adequate answer to her research question. I refer to this as the rationale of blended epistemic value validation. (shrink)

In a series of powerful and challenging articles emerging since the mid-1990s, Brian Leiter has argued that certain theoretical strains in contemporary legal philosophy are ‘epistemologically bankrupt’, in virtue of their reliance on misguided argumentative devices: analysing concepts, such as the concepts of law and of authority; and doing so by appealing to intuitions regarding the correct way to understand the concepts in question. In response to this state of affairs, Leiter advocates that jurisprudence ought to attempt to catch-up with (...) ‘naturalistic’ developments which have influenced the direction of other branches of philosophy – such as epistemology, philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy – in the last few decades. This article offers a critical analysis of some of Leiter’s proposals for what Jurisprudence should become, in light of his views on the relevance of naturalism for this discipline. (shrink)

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a rise in the number of deaths of undocumented Mexican migrants crossing the U.S./Mexican border. Who is responsible for these deaths? This article examines the culpability of (1) migrants, (2) humanitarian volunteers, (3) the Mexican government, (4) the U.S. government, and (5) U.S. businesses. A significant portion of the blame is assigned to U.S. free trade policies and U.S. businesses employing undocumented immigrants.

This chapter focuses on moral personhood understood in terms of the notion of moral status. An entity is said to have moral status only if it or its interest matters morally for its own sake. Nonutilitarians tend to think of moral status in terms of entitlements and protections that can conflict with, and sometimes override, doing what would maximize the good and minimize the bad. If moral status comes in degrees, and if there is a status of the highest degree (...) (i.e., full moral status), then moral persons are those with full moral status. After giving a more precise account of it, we assess different views of what it takes to qualify for full moral status (some of which appeal to metaphysical notions of person). We also briefly discuss how metaphysical notions of personhood are put to moral use in utilitarian moral theorizing that eschews the notion of moral personhood. (shrink)

Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb, whereas changing the verb had little impact on noun recognition. Experiment 2 revealed that verbs exhibited context effects more similar to those shown by superordinate nouns rather (...) than basic-level nouns. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the degree of meaning change in a target word resulting from changes in semantic context influenced the magnitude of context effects, but context effects remained larger for verbs than for nouns even when the degree of meaning change was similar for nouns and verbs. These results are discussed with respect to the imageability and grammatical roles played by nouns and verbs in a sentence. (shrink)

An article by Luigino Bruni and Robert Sugden published in this journal argues that market relations contain elements of what they call ‘fraternity’. This Response demonstrates that my own views on interpersonal relations and markets – which originated in the feminist analysis of caring labour – are far closer to Bruni and Sugden's than they acknowledge in their article, and goes on to discuss additional important dimensions of sociality that they neglect.

The common assumption is that if a group comprising moral agents can act intentionally, as a group, then the group itself can also be properly regarded as a moral agent with respect to that action. I argue, however, that this common assumption is the result of a problematic line of reasoning I refer to as “the collective fallacy.” Recognizing the collective fallacy as a fallacy allows us to see that if there are, in fact, irreducibly joint actors, then some of (...) them will lack the full-fledged moral agency of their members. The descriptivist question of whether a group can perform irreducibly joint intentional action need not rise and fall with the normative question of whether a group can be a moral agent. (shrink)

IntroductionMilitary personnel and Veterans are at increased risk of mental and physical health conditions, which can impact their families. Spouses often perform a vital role in caring for service members and Veterans facing illness or injury, which can lead to caregiver burden. In turn, this may contribute to relationship issues. Research suggests that ensuring that spouses are well supported can alleviate some of these negative effects. The current study examined whether social support received by spouses of newly released Veterans buffers (...) the impact of Veterans’ health on caregiver burden, subsequently impacting spouses’ relationship satisfaction.MethodsData were collected as part of the Canadian Armed Forces Transition and Well-being Survey. The sample included N = 595 spouses of Regular Force Veterans who released in 2016 with at least 2 years of service. We examined Veterans’ mental and physical health and spouses’ caregiver burden, social support, and relationship satisfaction. A moderated mediation model was tested using structural equation modeling.ResultsThere was a significant indirect association between Veterans’ health and spouses’ relationship satisfaction through caregiver burden. Furthermore, social support moderated the association, as evidenced by a weaker association between Veterans’ health and caregiver burden at low levels of social support compared to high levels.ImplicationsFindings suggest additional efforts should be made to ensure sufficient support is provided to spouses, especially when they are caring for a service member or Veteran facing illness or injury, to strengthen their families’ well-being. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of proximity as socio-spatial distance by looking at the temporally and spatially condensed events of contemporary art exhibition openings. The article begins by examining some developments in proximity research, the limitations of theorizing the importance of proximity as mere physical nearness, arguing that potentiality renders proximity meaningful. After introducing the art event, we offer a three-pronged approach to proximity by showing the imperatives for being-there, the conditional indeterminacy of potentiality and the politics of proximity. In (...) contrast to much recent research, it is argued that the significance of events is not reducible to evaluated outcomes. Two ethnographic vignettes show the imperatives, indeterminacies and politics in action. We conclude by showing how this conceptualization of proximity has analytic purchase beyond the empirical realm of contemporary art. (shrink)

This article explores the consequences of failure to communicate early, as recommended in risk communication scholarship, during the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and the United Kingdom. We begin by observing that the principles of risk communication are regarded as basic best practices rather than as moral rules. We argue firstly, that they nonetheless encapsulate value commitments, and secondly, that these values should more explicitly underpin communication practices in a pandemic. Our focus is to explore the values (...) associated with the principle of communicating early and often and how use of this principle can signal respect for people’s self-determination whilst also conveying other values relevant to the circumstances. We suggest that doing this requires communication that explicitly acknowledges and addresses with empathy those who will be most directly impacted by any disease-control measures. We suggest further that communication in a pandemic should be more explicit about how values are expressed in response strategies and that doing so may improve the appraisal of new information as it becomes available. (shrink)

To date, studies of the relationship between technology and its consumers have used the constructs of traditional paradigms of production and consumption as the foundation for analysis. These studies have served to reinforce traditional concepts of gender and hierarchy in the nursing–technology dichotomy. To propose a new and more relevant framework for analysing the technology–nursing relationship, the analysis of gender within the methodology of the social history of technology will be used. Healthcare will be viewed as a technologic network, and (...) within that network multiple knowledge domains reside and interact. These domains, in turn, are socially constructed and historically contingent. This paper operationalizes this argument by examining the domain of the early nurse practitioner movement of the 1960s as part of a gendered technologic system. The findings of this study illuminate the agency of nurses in the shaping of traditionally male knowledge domains and as a crucial factor for understanding the evolution of not only the particularities of the nurse–technology relationship, but also the generalities of the gendered ways of knowing within the healthcare–technology relationship. Perhaps most importantly, different sets of questions can be formulated to analyse the history of the nurse practitioner movement from a technologic perspective that will provide new standpoints for the nursing‐technology dichotomy in the millennium. (shrink)

Aberrations and variations within kinds of creatures required explanation to Western medievals, who took the Genesis creation narratives together with Aristotelian species to imply that change was limited to within species; consequently, species were presumed static. Medieval philosophers often explained variation—including “new” kinds like mules—as due to problems in procreation/gestation (following Aristotle) or by sin. I argue that Aquinas's explanation of variation in women, people with disabilities, and mules suggests that Aquinas cannot be taken to entirely reject the possibility of (...) new kinds, and parallels in his explanation of the existence of women and the possible existence of new kinds provides warrant for a re‐evaluation of his understanding of the notion of the natures or essences shared by kinds. Sin—individual or original—is an inadequate explanation for variation, and the argumentative parallels between Aquinas's treatment of women and mules challenge presumptions about what medievals mean by “static kinds” at all, revealing space for evolutionary thought. (shrink)

For most people using an advertising slogan as the title for a philosophical paper is going to seem, at best, provocative, and at worst, simply cynical. However, this kind of cynical provocation is precisely what I want to address. That is, Marks and Spencer's tagline 'exclusively for everyone' is an affront to rational thought, but this is also the motive for its effectiveness. Rather than simply stating what's on offer, it plays to our dreams; rather than simply offering to match (...) our expectations, it promises to exceed them. (shrink)

When it comes to the notion of creativity, both R. Dawkins and D. Dennett argue that creativity is a matter of random mutation, in the same way that genes randomly mutate. Neither Dennett nor Dawkins see anything else in the mimetic theory of creativity than a process of Darwinian evolution. However, this complete reliance upon the extension of evolution for understanding creativity needs to be supplemented by combining it with other ideas such as those of "schema theory," because creativity always (...) occurs within a structured context and is not simply a matter of random mutation of ideas. Schema theory comes largely from the works of E.H Gombrich, who argued that "schemas" play a crucial role in how it is that we are able to be creative. He defines schemas as structure and traditions in society that help to convey the meaning of our creative efforts. Just as semantics needs syntax within language in order to formulate and convey meaning, so by analogy memes need schemas for the creation and expression of new ideas. Rather than being the antithesis of creativity, existing forms of expression and traditions are important for the creation of new ideas. This needs to be factored into any theory of creativity in order to account for the effect of the social context on creative endeavours in addition to a Darwinian account of memes. The unconscious processes at work within the brain that are involved in the generation of ideas and other creative products can be understood using the notion of a "generator", as originally conceived by D. Dennett. This notion goes beyond mere concrete Skinnerian behavioural trial and error. Within this generator, there appear to be at work processes such as those of bisociation and association, as discussed by A. Koestler, as well as processes such as the role of language, memory, generate-and-test and intentionality that must be acknowledged in addition to the syntactic operations of schemas and the replicating contents of memes. The operation of all of these ingredients within the generator, when understood together, can be seen as responsible for our ability to be creative. (shrink)

Assessments of an action done intentionally, as we might expect, influence judgments of moral responsibility. What we don't expect is the converse--judgments of moral responsibility influencing assessments of whether an action was done intentionally. Yet this is precisely how people decide, according to Knobe (2003, 2004) and Mendlow (2004) and Nadelhoffer (2004a). I evaluate whether the studies actually support this biasing effect. I argue that the studies are at best inconclusive and that even if they demonstrated that people fall under (...) the biasing effect, such tendencies ought to have no bearing upon philosophical analyses of the concept of intentional action. (shrink)