Teachers Behaving Badly? is concerned about sexual behaviour that may occur between adults working in and connected to the school, and teacher/older pupil relations, initiated by both parties. Leaders faced with trying to sort out these issues find that they are not always clear-cut. Often there are no easy resolutions and the consequences may be potentially explosive for the individuals concerned, for the school, and for the community.

The corporate social responsibility literature has increasingly explored relationships between civil society and social movements, including non-governmental organizations, and corporations, as well as the role of NGOs in multi-stakeholder governance processes. This paper addresses the challenge of including a plurality of civil society voices and perspectives in business–NGO relations, and in CSR as a process of governance. The paper contributes to CSR scholarship by bringing insights from feminist literature to bear on CSR as a process of governance, and engaging with (...) leaders of women’s NGOs, a group of actors rarely included in CSR research. The issues raised inform contributions to the CSR literature relating to the role of women’s NGOs with regard to the gender equality practices and impacts of corporations, and with respect to defining the meaning and practice of CSR. The paper frames marginalized NGOs as important actors which can contribute to pluralism, inclusion and legitimacy in CSR as a process of governance. It identifies several key barriers to the participation of women’s NGOs in CSR, and concludes by making suggestions for future research, as well as practice. (shrink)

Circumcision is often claimed to be simpler, safer and more cost-effective when performed in the neonatal period as opposed to later in life, with a greater benefit-to-risk ratio. In the first part of this paper, we critically examine the evidence base for these claims, and find that it is not as robust as is commonly assumed. In the second part, we demonstrate that, even if one simply grants these claims for the sake of argument, it still does not follow that (...) neonatal circumcision is ethically permissible absent urgent medical necessity. Based on a careful consideration of the relevant evidence, arguments and counterarguments, we conclude that medically unnecessary penile circumcision—like other medically unnecessary genital procedures, such as ‘cosmetic’ labiaplasty—should not be performed on individuals who are too young (or otherwise unable) to provide meaningful consent to the procedure. (shrink)

What form does power take in situations of retaliation against whistleblowers? In this article, we move away from dominant perspectives that see power as a resource. In place, we propose a theory of normative power and violence in whistleblower retaliation, drawing on an in-depth empirical study. This enables a deeper understanding of power as it circulates in complex processes of whistleblowing. We offer the following contributions. First, supported by empirical findings we propose a novel theoretical framing of whistleblower retaliation and (...) the role of mental health, which draws upon poststructuralist psychoanalytic thinking. Specifically, we highlight how intra- and inter-psychic affective and ambivalent attachments to organizations influence the use of normative violence in cases of whistleblower retaliation. The second contribution is empirical and builds upon the existing literature on whistleblower retaliation by highlighting how organizations position whistleblower subjects as mentally unstable and unreliable individuals, to undermine their claims. We conclude by highlighting the implications of normative power for the outcomes of whistleblower struggles. (shrink)

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of (...) mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort. (shrink)

The article considers the objection to a commercial market in living donor organs for transplantation on the ground that such a market would be exploitative of the vendors. It examines a key challenge to that objection, to the effect that denying poor people the option to sell an organ is to withhold from them the best that a bad situation has to offer. The article casts serious doubt on this attempt at justifying an organ market, and its philosophical underpinning. Drawing, (...) in part, from the catalogued consequences of a thriving kidney market in some parts of India, it is argued that the justification relies on conditions which are extremely unlikely to obtain, even in a regulated donor market: that organ selling meaningfully improves the material situation of the organ vendor. Far from being axiomatic, both logic and the extant empirical evidence point towards the unlikelihood of such an upshot. Finally, the article considers a few conventional counter-arguments in favour of a permissive stance on organ sales. (shrink)

Rancière’s political thought is the object of growing fascination, particularly as a lens through which to interpret contemporary political protests, yet his conception of axiomatic equality remains unexamined. This article investigates Rancière’s account of equality as a ‘presupposition’, showing that an axiom of equality guides momentary acts of resistance, but also serves as a ‘necessary and sufficient condition’ of all societies, however hierarchical. Although this account holds some appeal, I argue that it restricts equality to two, not especially satisfying possibilities: (...) a temporary revelation or a hidden secret. This rendering of axiomatic equality is symptomatic of Rancière’s general hostility toward institutional politics. Because Rancière tends to depict ‘institutions’ per se as oppressive, equality is positioned ‘outside’ the socio-political order – as its fleeting interruption or disavowed condition of possibility. I argue, on the contrary, that a radically egalitarian politics today should affirm a practice-centered project of institution-building. (shrink)

An action-oriented epistemology takes the idea that our capacity for belief subserves our capacity for action as the starting point for epistemological theorizing. This paper argues that an action-oriented epistemology is especially well-positioned to explain why it is that, at least for believers like us, whether or not conforming with the epistemic norms that govern belief-regulation would lead us to believe that p always bears on whether we have normative reasons to believe that p. If the arguments of this paper (...) are successful, then an action-oriented approach has a kind of explanatory power that has proved elusive, and so merits serious and sustained philosophical attention that it has yet to receive. (shrink)

The study seeks to determine the influence of economic reward on unethical behavior with the help of a Reward Punishment Model. The model postulates that ethical or unethical behavior depends on the relationship among three factors: economic reward or benefit that a businessperson receives from the unethical practice, the severity of punishment the society imposes for such wrong-doing, and the probability of receiving the punishment. A short survey, which contained a hypothetical ethical situation, was administered to 251 respondents. The findings (...) indicate that the probability of risk-taking decreases as the level of punishmentand the chance of being caught increases. (shrink)

Recruitment processes for clinical trials are governed by guidelines and regulatory systems intended to ensure participation is informed and voluntary. Although the guidelines and systems provide some protection to potential participants, current recruitment processes often result in limited understanding and experiences of inadequate decision support. Many trials also have high drop-out rates among participants, which are ethically troubling because they can be indicative of poor experiences and they limit the usefulness of the knowledge the trials were designed to generate. Drawing (...) on recent social-psychological and philosophical-ethical research on trial recruitment and patient participation in treatment decision-making, this paper identifies possibilities for improving communicative support for both initial decisions and ongoing participation in clinical trials. It highlights the potential of a shift in thinking about ‘voluntariness’, underpinned by relational understandings of autonomy, to encourage more nuanced judgements about the ethics of communication between trial staff and (potential) participants. The paper suggests that the idea of responsively enabling people to consider invitations or requests to participate in particular trials could serve as a general guide to communication. This might help ensure decisions about trial participation are meaningfully informed and voluntary, and that relationships between trial staff and participants contribute to positive experiences of trial participation and ultimately to the generation of the robust knowledge. (shrink)

Most computational theories of cognition lack a representation of physiology. Understanding the cognitive effects of compounds present in the environment is important for explaining and predicting changes in cognition and behavior given exposure to toxins, pharmaceuticals, or the deprivation of critical compounds like oxygen. This research integrates physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model predictions of caffeine concentrations in blood and tissues with ACT-R's fatigue module to predict the effects of caffeine on fatigue. Mapping between the PBPK model parameters and ACT-R model (...) parameters is informed by the neurophysiological literature and established associations between ACT-R modules and brain regions. The results from three such parameter mappings are explored to explain observed data from sleep-deprived participants performing the psychomotor vigilance test with and without caffeine. Predicted caffeine concentrations in the brain are used to modulate procedural parameters in the fatigue module to explain caffeine's effects on multiple performance metrics. (shrink)

Children are individuals, and they are owed rights as individuals. Here, I offer a defence of the child's right to bodily integrity against genital cutting and modification practices. The liberal commitment to the right to bodily integrity works with the harm principle as a liberty limiting commitment within a system that respects people's embodied moral personhood and their decisions about their lives and bodies. Like adults within a political system committed to the equal protection of individual rights, children must have (...) equal rights that transcend the differences between them. But, they are different to adults in important ways, both philosophically and empirically. I offer an account of the child's right to bodily integrity that recognises them as particular embodied individuals, and prioritises their welfare interest in having their bodily integrity respected. (shrink)

A starting point for the sort of alethic epistemological approach that dominates both historical and contemporary western philosophy is that epistemic norms, standards, or ideals are to be characterized by appeal to some kind of substantively normative relationship between belief and truth. Accordingly, the alethic epistemologist maintains that false beliefs are necessarily defective, imperfect, or flawed, at least from the epistemic perspective. In this paper, I develop an action-oriented alternative to the alethic approach, an alternative that is inspired by and (...) jives with the kind of thinking that underwrites promising and increasingly popular enactive or embodied research programs in cognitive science. Moreover, I argue that the proponent of an action-oriented epistemological approach ought to deny that falsity, in and of itself, necessarily constitutes a kind of epistemic imperfection in belief. The action-oriented epistemologist ought to embrace the possibility that there are epistemically flawless false beliefs. (shrink)

(Penultimate draft) Embodied Cognition holds that bodily (e.g. sensorimotor) states and processes are directly involved in some higher-level cognitive functions (e.g. reasoning). This challenges traditional views of cognition according to which bodily states and processes are, at most, indirectly involved in higher-level cognition. Although some elements of Embodied Cognition have been integrated into mainstream cognitive science, others still face adamant resistance. In this paper, rather than straightforwardly defend Embodied Cognition against specific objections I will do the following. First, I will (...) present a concise account of embodied conceptual processing and highlight some of its advantages over non-embodied accounts, specifically focusing on the role of metaphors. Second, I will detail the influence of computational metaphors on theories of cognition and evaluation of these theories. Third, I will argue that embodied cognitive mechanisms, specifically those operating through computational metaphors, may drive some of the resistance to Embodied Cognition - and that Embodied Cognition is able to offer a uniquely compelling account of this. Ultimately, this will contribute to an improved understanding of Embodied Cognition, its explanatory power, and how it ought to be evaluated. Additionally, it will shed light on the role of metaphors in shaping philosophical thought and highlight the importance of these influences. (shrink)

The Element provides an overview of Immanuel Kant's arguments regarding the content of the moral law, as well as an exposition of his arguments for the bindingness of the moral law for rational agents. The Element also considers common objections to Kant's ethics.

David Enoch, in Taking Morality Seriously, argues for a broad normative asymmetry between how we should behave when disagreeing about facts and how we should behave when disagreeing due to differing preferences. Enoch claims that moral disputes have the earmarks of a factual dispute rather than a preference dispute and that this makes more plausible a realist understanding of morality. We try to clarify what such claims would have to look like to be compelling and we resist his main conclusions.

We examined whether variations in contextual diversity, spacing, and retrieval practice influenced how well adults learned new words from reading experience. Eye movements were recorded as adults read novel words embedded in sentences. In the learning phase, unfamiliar words were presented either in the same sentence repeated four times (same context) or in four different sentences (diverse context). Spacing was manipulated by presenting the sentences under distributed or non‐distributed practice. After learning, half of the participants were asked to retrieve the (...) new words, and half had an extra exposure to the new words. Although words experienced in diverse contexts were acquired more slowly during learning, they enjoyed a greater benefit of learning at immediate posttest. Distributed practice also slowed learning, but no benefit was observed at posttest. Although participants who had an extra exposure showed the greatest learning benefit overall, learning also benefited from retrieval opportunity, when words were experienced in diverse contexts. These findings demonstrate that variation in the content and structure of the learning environment impacts on word learning via reading. (shrink)

The primary justification for mathematical structuralism is its capacity to explain two observations about mathematical objects, typically natural numbers. Non-eliminative structuralism attributes these features to the particular ontology of mathematics. I argue that attributing the features to an ontology of structural objects conflicts with claims often made by structuralists to the effect that their structuralist theses are versions of Quine’s ontological relativity or Putnam’s internal realism. I describe and argue for an alternative explanation for these features which instead explains the (...) attributes them to the mathematical practice of representing numbers using more concrete tokens, such as sets, strokes and so on. (shrink)

Can an effective argument against scepticism about objective values be modelled on Donald Davidson’s familiar argument against scepticism about external things?

Associated with each first-order theory is a Boolean algebra of sentences and a Boolean space of models. Homomorphisms between the sentence algebras correspond to continuous maps between the model spaces. To what do recursive homomorphisms correspond? We introduce axiomatizable maps as the appropriate dual. For these maps we prove a Cantor-Bernstein theorem. Duality and the Cantor-Bernstein theorem are used to show that the Boolean sentence algebras of any two undecidable languages or of any two functional languages are recursively isomorphic where (...) a language is undecidable iff it has at least one operation or relation symbol of two or more places or at least two unary operation symbols, and a language is functional iff it has exactly one unary operation symbol and all other symbols are for unary relations, constants, or propositions. (shrink)

Suppose a diner says, 'Can you pass the salt?' Although her utterance is literally a question (about the physical abilities of the addressee), most would take it as a request (that the addressee pass the salt). In such a case, the request is performed indirectly by way of directly asking a question. Accordingly this utterance is known as an indirect speech act. On the standard account of such speech acts, a single utterance constitutes two distinct speech acts. On this account (...) then, 'Can you pass the salt?' is both a question and a request. In a provocative essay, Rod Bertolet argues that there are no indirect speech acts. According to Bertolet, 'Can you pass the salt?' is only a question. It is a question that merely functions as a request (without also being one). In this paper we respond to Bertolet's skeptical argument. Appealing to Searle's theory of speech acts and to certain features of linguistic communication, we argue that, despite Bertolet's challenge, there is good reason to countenance indirect speech acts. (shrink)

Children are treated differently to adults in liberal societies with respect to their right to bodily integrity. A commonly given justification for treating them differently is that they supposedly lack the sort of autonomy that is normally attributed to neurotypical adults. As such children fall through the cracks when it comes to protecting their bodily integrity: they are viewed as less than fully autonomous persons in philosophical, medical, and legal settings. With this editorial, we analyse current treatments of the concept (...) of the child's right to bodily integrity and how this relates to their (developing or future) autonomy on various conceptions. (shrink)

Background: Past research has highlighted the role of trauma in social adjustment problems, but little is known about the underlying process. This is a barrier to developing effective interventions for social adjustment of traumatized individuals. The present study addressed this research gap through a cognitive model.Methods: A total of 604 young adults from different backgrounds were assessed through self-report questionnaires. The data were analyzed through path analysis and multivariate analysis of variance. Two path analyses were conducted separately for migrant and (...) Australian groups.Results: Analyses indicated that cognitive avoidance and social problem solving can significantly mediate the relation between trauma and social adjustment. According to the model, reacting to trauma by cognitive avoidance can disturb the cognitive capacities that are required for social problem solving. Consequently, a lack of effective social problem solving significantly hinders social adjustment. There were no significant differences among the Australian, non-refugee immigrant and refugee participants on the dependent variables. Moreover, the hypothesized links between the variables was confirmed similarly for both migrant and Australian groups.Conclusion: The findings have important implications for interventions targeting the social adjustment of young individuals. We assert that overlooking the processes identified in this study, can hinder the improvement of social adjustment in young adults with a history of trauma. Recommendations for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article aborde la querelle comme un élément de la stratégie d’un philosophe vis-à-vis de la postérité. On pourrait évidemment penser à des querelleurs invétérés comme Pascal, Voltaire ou Rousseau, mais il sera question ici du cas plus complexe de Diderot et du dernier ouvrage publié de son vivant, l’_Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron et sur les moeurs et les écrits de Sénèque pour servir à l’introduction de la lecture de ce philosophe_ (1782). L’article démontre (...) que celui-ci constitue un cas de « texte-querelle », c’est-à-dire un texte qui met en scène la querelle menée à son propre sujet et qui ainsi la fait redémarrer; il analyse la posture qu’adopte le philosophe-querelleur, surtout dans l’énoncé paradoxal « ne nous engageons point dans les querelles », dont il examine les qualités performatives. (shrink)

Narratives structure and inform how we understand our experiences and identity, especially in instances of suffering. Suffering in mental disorder (e.g. bipolar disorder) is often uniquely distressing as it impacts capacities central to our ability to make sense of ourselves and the world—and the role of narratives in explaining and addressing these effects is well-known. For many with a mental disorder, spiritual/religious narratives shape how they understand and experience it. For most, this is because they are spiritual and/or religious. For (...) others, spiritual/religious narratives still often influence secular approaches to mental disorder, more than approaches to other disabilities (e.g. intellectual, physical) or causes of suffering (e.g. physical disease). Such narratives are often harmful, especially insofar as they ‘over-spiritualize’ mental disorder; and undercut ‘spiritual meaning-making’. Here I address the impact of spiritual/religious narratives that helpfully avoid over-spiritualizing mental disorder while enabling spiritual meaning-making about it. First, I address the role of narratives in meaning-making more generally; then, I present results from my recent empirical study testing the impact of such narratives on participants’ meaning-making about their mental disorder. I conclude by addressing implications and potential worries. (shrink)

Nature-based solutions (NbS) have in recent years occupied a central position in conservation and climate discussions among both scientists and policy makers. NbS generally refer to a set of strategies which use nature, or natural objects, to address societal (human) issues while simultaneously supporting the broader environment. This paper examines the concept of NbS to determine whether it is a useful and well-motivated category to guide future climate and conservation efforts. I argue that NbS may in fact be a valuable (...) contribution to environmental thought and policy, but not for the reasons that they are typically thought to be. Specifically: while we have reason to doubt that NbS should be prioritized over other environmental strategies on the grounds that they are uniquely environmentally-friendly or supportive of biodiversity, they may nevertheless have an advantage insofar as they play a vital aesthetic role in developing a healthier relationship between humans and the nonhuman world. (shrink)

An influential heuristic for thinking about climate adaptation asserts that “natural” adaptation strategies are the best ones. This heuristic has been roundly criticized but is difficult to dislodge in the absence of an alternative. We introduce a new heuristic that assesses adaptation strategies by looking at their maturity, power, and commitment. Maturity is the extent to which we understand an adaptation strategy’s effects. Power is the size of the effect an adaptation strategy will have. Commitment is the degree to which (...) an adaptation strategy is difficult to test or reverse. (shrink)

At several key moments in his works, Hume draws our attention to the differences between two conceptions of philosophy. Deploying what were already then well‐worn metaphors, he calls these two “species” of philosophy “anatomy” and “painting.” Hume’s remarks about philosophical anatomy and painting have recently given rise to a number of scholarly debates. I focus here on just one of these debates: did Hume intend to combine anatomy and painting in some of his later works? Through an examination of the (...) evidence that has to date been adduced, I argue that we have at least one very good reason to think that such were Hume’s intentions, and no good reason to suppose otherwise. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of ‘vices of culture’ in Immanuel Kant’s account of radical evil and education. I argue that Kant was keenly aware of a uniquely human tendency to allow a self-centered concern for status to misunderstand or co-opt the language of dignity and equal worth for its own purposes. This tendency lies at the root of the ‘vices of culture’ and ‘aggravated vices’ that Kant describes in the Religion and Doctrine of Virtue, respectively. When it comes to (...) moral education, then, it will be crucial that the developing agent have a clear understanding of the shared dignity of rational agents and the particular duties that are defined, in part, by their tendency to alter status among agents. I argue that the casuistical questions that Kant attaches to these discussions in the Doctrine of Virtue are an example of a pedagogical device that might help pupils to overcome this tendency so closely associated with radical evil. (shrink)

While documentary ethics has been largely normative to date, there is growing interest in alternative forms of ethical thinking. The work of Emmanuel Levinas in particular is providing a way of thinking through both the ethics of documentary viewing and production. This article begins by drawing attention to the link between documentary ethics and aesthetics and then uses Levinas's work to consider the ethical relations established in observational documentary production. Of the different documentary modes, the observational has been the source (...) of particular ethical difficulties, yet viewed from a Levinisian perspective it is possible to identify ways in which observation preserves the alterity of the documentary subject. (shrink)

The proposals gathered under the rubric of “Hilbert Problems” (HPs) demonstrate the progress, the disciplinary maturity, and the distinctive analytical potential of bio-cultural approaches to the study of religion. The HPs identify and investigate the ubiquitous evolutionary, cognitive, and neural processes that undergird the disparate array of religious phenomena. Many of the proposals offer fresh perspectives on conventional components of religion by connecting the study of religion to disciplines as diverse as psychiatry, semiotics, and statistics. In these ways, the HPs (...) demonstrate the naturalness of religion in the evolution of the human species. This short commentary briefly explores the issues of the definition of religion, religion and morality, the naturalistic basis for religious hermeneutics, and tradition-centered research and suggests ways in which the humanities can inform and enrich bio-cultural approaches. It proposes that collaboration between science and the humanities can advance research and help illuminate religion’s relevance to humanity’s lived experience. (shrink)

Music, literature, history. These things are not quite alike. But in Europe, before the advent of recording machines that made it possible for sounds to be recorded and played back, the three activities relied on the same technology of preservation. They were kept in/as books. Bookishness, in European and colonial imaginaries, was an often-idealized, powerful means of keeping things from slipping away. An understanding of bookish things as a repository can be evinced in laws that required preserving a copy of (...) newly published literary works and music for the benefit of posterity; or in popular novels where a book featured as the chronicler (both recorder and narrator) of its own adventures, beyond the lifespans of individual users. Scholars have paid specialist attention to the ontological differences among music, literature, and history when they are kept as books. Discipline-specific trainings and conversations tend to emphasize how different these objects and practices are. Yet focusing on their shared mode of bookish preservation offers other rewards. Our multi-authored article is a creative experiment in bringing together musicologists, literary scholars, and historians to test the potential, for our own fields and with implications for other humanities disciplines, of foregrounding this technological convergence. We propose the more capacious categories of bookkeepers (people who keep things as books) and cultures of note-taking (whether glossing a textbook or notating music) as fruitful avenues to avoid writing the artificially separate histories of creation versus consumption, public versus personal, authoritative versus amateurish, or artistic versus documentary practices. Music, broadly conceived, and the nineteenth-century album (a book of blank pages to keep verses, music, memories, and many more things) serve as the starting point for our reflections. Both exhibit a tangential connection to the normative codes of what Roger Chartier called “the order of books.” In considering actors/artifacts/acts at the very margins of textuality, or existing in a perverse relationship with bookishness, our aim is to redraw the knowledge-making structures we use to investigate our objects of study, calling attention to the intermedial and social practices, and cultures of remembrance, in which they are historically imbricated. (shrink)

"I am a Jew who was born and who grew up in a Catholic country; I never had a religious education; my Jewish identity is in large measure the result of persecution." This brief autobiographical statement is a key to understanding Carlo Ginzburg's interest in the topic of his latest book: distance. In nine linked essays, he addresses the question: "What is the exact distance that permits us to see things as they are?" To understand our world, suggests Ginzburg, it (...) is necessary to find a balance between being so close to the object that our vision is warped by familiarity or so far from it that the distance becomes distorting. Opening with a reflection on the sense of feeling astray, of familiarization and defamiliarization, the author goes on to consider the concepts of perspective, representation, imagery, and myth. Arising from the theme of proximity is the recurring issue of the opposition between Jews and Christians -- a topic Ginzburg explores with an impressive array of examples, from Latin translations of Greek and Hebrew scriptures to Pope John Paul II's recent apology to the Jews for antisemitism. Moving with equal acuity from Aristotle to Marcus Aurelius to Montaigne to Voltaire, touching on philosophy, history, philology, and ethics, and including examples from present-day popular culture, the book offers a new perspective on the universally relevant theme of distance. (shrink)

Open access. This open-access book discusses vulnerability and the protection-inclusion dilemma of including those who suffer from serious poverty, severe stigma, and structural violence in research. Co-written with representatives from indigenous peoples in South Africa and sex workers in Nairobi, the authors come down firmly on the side of inclusion. In the spirit of leaving no one behind in research, the team experimented with data collection methods that prioritize research participant needs over researcher needs. This involved foregoing the collection of (...) personal data and community researchers being involved in all stages of the research. In the process, the term ‘vulnerability’ was illuminated across significant language barriers as it was defined by indigenous peoples and sex workers themselves. The book describes a potential alternative to exclusion from research that moves away from traditional research methods. By ensuring that the research is led by vulnerable groups for vulnerable groups, it offers an approach that fosters trust and collaboration with benefits for the community researchers, the wider community as well as research academics. Those living in low-income settings, in dire situations that are summarized with the term ‘vulnerability’ know best what their problems are and which priorities they have. To exclude them from research for their own protection is a patronizing approach which insinuates that researchers and research ethics committees know best. The team from this book have shown that minimally risky and minimally burdensome research tailored towards the needs of highly marginalized and stigmatized communities can be scientifically valuable as well as inclusive and equitable. I congratulate them. Prof. Klaus Leisinger, President Global Values Alliance, Former personal advisor to Kofi Annan on corporate responsibility. (shrink)

This article critiques the recent House of Lords decision, R(Purdy) v DPP, and explores the wider debate over the legalization of assisted suicide, with particular focus on assistance in ‘suicide-tourism’. It proceeds in roughly two parts. In the first part, I seek to make the case that it was not legally necessary for the Lords to order that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) clarify his long-standing policy of not prosecuting those who compassionately assist loved ones to travel abroad to (...) die. On the purely legal merits of the case, the Lords’ hands were not ‘tied’, so to speak, and I will attempt to show that a closer analysis of the argumentation leading to the decision will expose its errors in this respect. This conclusion will then open up the normative question of whether clarification of the DPP’s policy is a progressive development. I suggest that in light of the special practical and ethical considerations at stake, the DPP’s previous practice of turning a blind eye to instances of assisted suicide bearing out certain features—whilst not clarifying his policy to this effect—was the most satisfactory one, and that the Lords’ decision was hence a retrograde step. (shrink)

Since locke, introspection has been generally defined as a form of observation. this is true, for example, of the classical tradition in psychology exemplified by wundt and titchener. recent experimental work by cognitive psychologists continues to treat introspection as a mode of observation while denying its alleged success in identifying cognitive processes. besides psychologists, philosophers such as james, ryle, and quinton are discussed, and they, too, define introspection as a type of observation analogous to perception. the present article calls attention (...) to other concepts of introspection that are important but that have figured less prominently in the history of philosophy and psychology. it is agreed here that, so far as the goals of self-knowledge and self-control are concerned, a concept of introspection other than that of observation is the significant one. explicating the nature of this alternative concept of introspection and its relevance for self-knowledge is the major aim of the article. (shrink)