In perceptual experience we are directed towards objects in a way which establishes a real relation between a mental act and its target. In reading works of fiction we enjoy experiences which manifest certain internal similarities to such relational acts, but which lack objects. The substitution theory of art attempts to provide a reason why we seek out such experiences and the artifacts which they generate. Briefly, we seek out works of art because we enjoy the physiology and the phenomenology (...) of, for example, the experience of love or mountain climbing, and works of art serve as props for the promotion of substitutes for the corresponding genuine feelings. Art arose, or came to be separated out from other, related phenomena, through the discovery that the experience of substitute emotions can be pleasurable. (shrink)

We agree with Ramsey et al. regarding the need for new methods and concepts in the study of innovation, and welcome their initiative, but are concerned that their operationalization is over-reliant on subjective judgements.

In this article we will be arguing in favour of legislating to protect doctors who bring about the deaths of PVS patients, regardless of whether the death is through passive means or active means. We will first discuss the ethical dilemmas doctors and lawmakers faced in the more famous PVS cases arising in the US and UK, before exploring what the law should be regarding such patients, particularly in Australia. We will continue by arguing in favour of allowing euthanasia in (...) the interests of PVS patients, their families, and finally the wider community, before concluding with some suggestions for how these ethical arguments could be transformed into a set of guidelines for medical practice in this area. (shrink)

That photography is a supremely realistic medium may be the commonsense view, but—as Edward Steichen reminds us—it is by no means universal. Dissenters note how unlike reality a photograph is and how unlikely we are to confuse the one with the other. They point to “distortions” engendered by the photographic process and to the control which the photographer exercises over the finished product, the opportunities he enjoys for interpretation and falsification. Many emphasize the expressive nature of the medium, observing that (...) photographs are inevitably colored by the photographer’s personal interests, attitudes, and prejudices.1 Whether any of these various considerations really does collide with photography’s claim of extraordinary realism depends, of course, on how that claim is to be understood.Those who find photographs especially realistic sometimes think of photography as a further advance in a direction which many picture makers have taken during the last several centuries, as a continuation or culmination of the post-Renaissance quest for realism.2 There is some truth in this. Such earlier advances toward realism include the development of perspective and modeling techniques, the portrayal of ordinary and incidental details, attention to the effects of light, and so on. From its very beginning, photography mastered perspective . Subtleties of shading, gradations of brightness nearly impossible to achieve with the brush, became commonplace. Photographs include as a matter of course the most mundane details of the scenes they portray—stray chickens, facial warts, clutters of dirty dishes. Photographic images easily can seem to be what painters striving for realism have always been after. 2. See André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” What is Cinema?, trans. Hugh Gray, vol. 1 , p. 12; all further references to this work, abbreviated “OPI,” will be included in the text. See also Rudolf Arnheim, “Melancholy Unshaped,” Toward a Psychology of Art: Collected Essays , p. 186. Kendall L. Walton is professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He is currently completing a book on representation in the arts. (shrink)

In fifteen essays-one new, two newly revised and expanded, three with new postscripts-Kendall L. Walton wrestles with philosophical issues concerning music, metaphor, empathy, existence, fiction, and expressiveness in the arts. These subjects are intertwined in striking and surprising ways. By exploring connections among them, appealing sometimes to notions of imagining oneself in shoes different from one's own, Walton creates a wide-ranging mosaic of innovative insights.

The twelve essays by Kendall Walton in this volume address a broad range of issues concerning the arts. Walton introduces an innovative account of aesthetic value, and explores relations between aesthetic value and values of other kinds. His classic 'Categories of Art' is included, as is 'Transparent Pictures', his controversial account of what is special about photographs. A new essay investigates the fact that still pictures are still, although some of them depict motion. New postscripts have been added to several (...) of the reprinted essays. (shrink)

Representation—in visual arts and fiction—play an important part in our lives and culture. Walton presents a theory of representation which illuminates its many varieties and goes a long way toward explaining its importance. Walton’s theory also provides solutions to thorny philosophical problems concerning the existence of fictitious beings.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kendall L. Walton FICTION, FICTION-MAKING, AND STYLES OF FICTIONALITY Both objectsandactions are said to have styles. Styles eire attributed to works of art, bathing suits, neckties, and automobiles. But we also think of styles as ways of doing things. There are styles of teaching, styles of chess playing, styles of travel. The primary notion of style is the one which attaches to actions. When we speak of die style (...) of a poem or a portrait or em automobile we do so with reference to an action or actions associated with the object, usually the action or actions which appear to have been performed in die making of it. I will not argue now for this claim about style except to note that style attributions eure peculietrly alien to objects which are not products of human action. What is the style of a tulip, or an alpine meadow, or a pristine lake in the high Sierras? Are the Grand Canyon and Yosemite Valley in the same style or different ones? Sunsets in the tropics are very different from sunsets in the arctic, but is die difference a stylistic one? We might allow that in unusual cases natured objects can have styles. A chorus ofchirping birds might, just conceivably, chirp in the style of Haydn. But die notion of style here is obviously parasitic on diat which is applied to man-made eirtifacts. To think of an object as having a style is to mink of it as a product of human action.1 If actions are the primary possessors of style, to understand styles of fictionality we must look at die action of fiction-meddng emd its relation to works of fiction. I will concentrate on the very basic question ofwhat fiction is, what it is for something to be a work of fiction, and on attempts to answer this question in terms of die action offiction-making. It has been especially fashionable to utilize die notion ofspeech acts introduced by John Austin in tackling this problem. The fictional status of a work is, supposedly, to be accounted for by what illocutionary actions were or were not performed by the artist producing it, or by connections between what the artist did and certain illocutionary actions. My assessment of mis program will be mostly negative. Speech-act theory is remarkably unhelpful in explaining what fiction is. We have here something ofa "Have dieory, will travel" syndrome. There is a tendency for theorists, when 78 Kendall L. Walton79 faced with a new problem, to dust off an old theory which they know emd love, one devised with other questions in mind, shove it into die breach, and pray mat it will fit. In this case it does not fit, and the result is confusion radier dian illumination. Lest I step on toes other man the ones I am aiming at, let me empheisize that my present concern is not with the viability of speech-act theory as a dieory of language. Nor do I mean to deny that speech-act theory can be used fruitfully to illuminate important features of literary fictions. I am now addressing only die basic question of what fiction is, how works of fiction are to be differentiated from odier things. Whatever the other merits of speech-act theory, its applications to this question have been distinctly infelicitous. From our discussion of such applications em even stronger conclusion will emerge, the conclusion that the nature of fiction is not to be explicated in terms of acts of fiction-making at all. The notion of fiction is in diis respect contrary to that of style, and certain consequences about styles of fictionality follow. I Speech-act theory has been brought to bear on the problem of the nature of fiction in a number of rather different ways. I will look at four of them. The first is the idea that works of fiction are simply texts (or other representations ) which are not vehicles of illocutionary acts. It is true mat in writing fiction an author typically does not perform the illocutionary acts that a person who uses the setme words in a nonfictional setting is likely to be performing... (shrink)

Niche construction theory (NCT) can be applied to examine the influence of culturally constructed learning environments on the acquisition and retention of beliefs, values, role expectations, and skills. Thus, NCT provides a quantitative framework to account for cultural-historical contingency affecting development and cultural evolution. Learning in a culturally constructed environment is of central concern to many sociologists, cognitive scientists, and sociocultural anthropologists, albeit often from different perspectives. This article summarizes four pertinent theories from these fields—situated learning, activity theory, practice theory, (...) and distributed cognition. As a basis for interdisciplinary investigation, the article considers how these theories may be addressed using a cultural niche-construction framework, including the utility of an embedded model that explicitly accounts for effects of the constructed learning environment on within-individual learning dynamics in an evolutionary framework. (shrink)

Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) became the first state law to permit VAD in Australia under limited circumstances from June 2019. Before this, many palliative care physicians relied on the doctrine of double effect (DDE) to justify the use of pain relievers for terminally ill patients that were known to hasten death. The DDE claims that there is a morally significant difference between intending evil and merely foreseeing some bad side-effect will occur as a result of one’s actions. (...) This article argues that the legacy of the DDE is promoting inequitable access to VAD in Victoria due to the assumption that death represents an “evil” for the patient and that the intentions of physicians providing VAD cannot be trusted. The latter claim relies on two common objections to the DDE: the risk of “purifying the intentions” and the issue of “closeness” when evaluating moral acts under this theory. (shrink)

I propose a way of understanding empathy on which it does not necessarily involve any-thing like thinking oneself into another’s shoes, or any imagining at all. Briefly, the empa-thizer uses an aspect of her own mental state as a sample, expressed by means of a phenomenal concept, to understand the other person. This account does a better job of explaining the connection between empathetic experiences and the objects of empathy than most traditional ones do. And it helps to clarify the (...) relations among different varieties of empathy and empathy-like experiences, including empathy with fictional characters. -/- . (shrink)

This paper aims to address how artificial gestation might affect equality of opportunity for the unborn and any resultant generation of “ectogenetic” babies. It will first explore the current legal obstacles preventing the development of ectogenesis, before looking at the benefits of allowing this technology to control fetal growth and development. This will open up a discussion of the treatment/enhancement divide regarding the use of reproductive technologies, a topic featured in various bioethical debates on the subject. Using current maternity practices (...) in Western society as a comparator, this paper will conclude that neither naturally nor artificially gestated fetuses have interests that can conflict with those of potential parents who might want to use this technology to control fetal development. Such control may include selective implantation of embryos of a desired gender, deliberate choice of genetic traits, or maintenance of an ideal incubation environment to avoid fetal damage. Objections on the basis of disability as well as concerns regarding eugenics will be addressed. The paper will conclude that none of these objections are compelling grounds to prevent the development and use of ectogenesis technologies for the purpose of achieving specific reproductive goals, particularly when compared to current practices in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and selective abortion on the grounds of undesired traits. As such, when deciding whether to support ectogenesis research, the enduring interests of parents must be the primary consideration, with societal concerns regarding potential misuse the only valid secondary consideration. (shrink)

It is a very great honor to address my friends and colleagues as president of the American Society for Aesthetics, an organization that plays a unique role in a field that is, at once, a major traditional branch of philosophy and also central to disciplines often regarded as remote from philosophy, as well as depending crucially on their contributions.

The potential benefits of an alternative to physical gestation are numerous. These include providing reproductive options for prospective parents who are unable to establish or maintain a physiological pregnancy, and saving the lives of some infants born prematurely. Ectogenesis could also promote sexual equality in reproduction, and represents a necessary option for women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy who are morally opposed to abortion. Despite these broad, and in some cases unique benefits, one major ethical concern is the potential impact of (...) this emerging technology on abortion rights. This article will argue that ectogenesis poses a challenge to many common arguments in favour of a pregnant woman’s right to choose, but only insomuch as it highlights that their underlying justifications for abortion are based on flawed conceptions of what the foetus and pregnancy actually are. By interrogating the various interests and relationships involved in a pregnancy, this article will demonstrate that the emergence of artificial gestation need not impact existing abortion rights or legislation, nor definitions of independent viability or moral status. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002) 328-344 [Access article in PDF] Spaces of Invention:Dissension, Freedom, and Thought in Foucault Kendall R. Phillips Over the past two decades, invention has become an increasingly difficult concept to discuss. In an age when the free, rational actor has become not only de-centered but viewed as both impossible and undesirable by some social theorists, the traditional conception of invention, especially rhetorical invention, becomes more (...) tenuous. While some continue to promote a rational deliberative model of the human subject—Habermas is a prime example of this school of thought—the harsh and unrelenting critiques of poststructural and postmodern thinkers have cast these recovery efforts in a nostalgic and often negative light. Chief among these critics of the modern, humanist conception of human action is Michel Foucault. Within Foucault's perspective our utterances are governed by underlying rules of discourse formations, our actions are proscribed and authorized by relations of power, and our very conception of our self is circumscribed by technologies of subjectivity. Contained within these intertwined relations of knowledge, power, and subjectivity, the human subject takes on a very different meaning and even the concept of "human subject" is itself a product of these intertwined relations; a product that may, in time, disappear under new relations of discourse and governance.Despite the apparent centrality of a creative human subject to the study of rhetoric, Foucault has taken his place within the study of rhetoric. Of course, neither this incorporation of Foucault nor the observation of its peculiarity is particularly new. The incorporation of Foucault into rhetoric took its most dramatic turn in 1989 with Raymie McKerrow's "Critical Rhetoric" essay and the implications of this union of Foucault and rhetoric were forcefully raised by Barbara Biesecker in "Michel Foucault and the Question of Rhetoric" (1992). These two important essays made the relationship between Foucault and rhetoric most pressing: McKerrow by offering [End Page 328] a practical agenda for a Foucaultian rhetorical perspective and Biesecker by opening a space for reflection on this type of agenda. In the intervening decade, however, the incorporation of Foucault into rhetoric has outstripped the reflection on this incorporation and Foucault now sits as comfortably in the bibliographies of rhetorical scholars as Burke or McKeon or Perelman.The purpose of the present essay is to revisit this relationship between Foucault and rhetoric. I pursue this end not in order to critique McKerrow's project or to outstrip Biesecker's reflections, but in order to press the importance of their earlier arguments. The project of a Foucaultian rhetoric should be taken seriously, seriously enough to keep the peculiarity of this union in the forefront of our minds as we pursue it. My present effort furthers this end by seeking within Foucault a space for invention and, in so doing, asks the question: how might invention be rendered within a Foucaultian framework?My contention is that a space for invention exists within Foucault's studies of knowledge, power, and subjectivity and that this space can be demonstrated by considering the counterpoints to his tripartite understanding of the human condition. The limiting/enabling relations of knowledge/power/subjectivity are counterpointed by three terms that describe the conditions for invention: dissension, freedom, and thought. Before turning to the conditions for these spaces of invention and the unique shape of invention that emerges from them, I will briefly consider previous discussions of Foucault. Power, resistance, and invention Rhetoricians, to be clear, are not the first to be concerned with the apparent foreclosing of the possibility of invention within Foucault. Focusing mainly on dominating relations of power/knowledge/subjectivity, Foucault seems to leave little ground for the creation of new ways of acting, speaking, or being. However, what I call a concern for invention has generally not been expressed as such; rather, in rhetoric and in other fields, criticism of Foucault has been largely couched in terms of resistance. Edward Said (1986), for instance, contends that Foucault's work is "not finally as contestatory, or as oppositional as on the surface it seems to be" (152... (shrink)

Realist theories about fictional entities must explain the fact that, in ordinary contexts people deny, apparently in all seriousness, that there are such things as the Big Bad Wolf and Santa Claus. The usual explanation treats these denials as involving restricted quantification: The speaker is said to be denying only that the Big Bad Wolf and Santa Claus are to be found among real or actual things, not that there are no such things at all. This is unconvincing. The denials (...) may just as naturally be phrased as “The Big Bad Wolf and Santa Claus don't exist”, and claims of nonexistence seem not to admit of interpretations corresponding to statements of restricted quantification. Ordinary denials of the existence of fictional entities constitute a severe difficulty for realist theories. (shrink)

It is tempting to assume that understatement and overstatement, meiosis and hyperbole, are analogous figures of speech, differing only in whether the speaker represents a quantity as larger, or as smaller, than she means to claim that it is. But these tropes have hugely different roles in conversation. Understatement is akin to irony, perhaps a species of it. Overstatement is an entirely different kettle of fish. Things get interestingly messy when we notice that to overstate how large or expensive or (...) distant something is, is to understate how small or inexpensive or close it is, and vice versa. So it may seem, anyway. I propose an account of the two tropes that counts some utterances, in their conversational contexts, as overstatements of a quantity but not understatements of the opposite quantity, and other utterances as understatements only. This account shows why understatement is closely related to irony and overstatement is not. Although overstatement and understatement (or irony) are very different, they are sometimes combined. An understatement of one quantity may be an overstatement of a different one. (shrink)

Poetry is a literary art, and is often examined alongside the novel, stories, and theater. But poetry, much of it, has more in common with music, in important respects, than with other forms of literature. The emphasis on sound and rhythm in both poetry and music is obvious, but I will explore a very different similarity between them. All or almost all works of literary fiction have narrators—so it is said anyway—characters who, in the world of the fiction, utter or (...) write the words of the text thereby reporting the events of the story. But there is a very different way of understanding literary works, one applicable especially to poetry. Much music can be understood in a similar manner, and doing so nicely explains several important characteristics of listen-ers’ experiences. (shrink)

Reproductive biotechnologies can separate concepts of parenthood into genetic, gestational and social dimensions, often leading to a fragmentation of heteronormative kinship models and posing a challenge to historical methods of establishing legal and/or moral parenthood. Using fictional cases, this article will demonstrate that the issues surrounding the intersection of current and emerging reproductive biotechnologies with definitions of parenthood are already leading to confusion regarding social and legal family ties for offspring, which is only expected to increase as new technologies develop. (...) Rather than opposing these new technologies to reassert traditional concepts of the family, however, this article will explore the opportunities that these technologies represent for re‐imagining various culturally cherished values of family‐making in a way that is inclusive of diverse genders, sexualities and cultures. It will consider IVF, gametogenesis, mitochondrial donation, surrogacy, artificial gestation, CRISPR‐Cas9 gene editing, foster care and adoption as some of many possible pathways to parenthood, including for members of the LGBTIAUQ+ community. (shrink)

Humans living off-world will face numerous physical, psychological and social challenges and are likely to suffer negative health effects due to their lack of evolutionary adaptation to space environments. While some of the necessary adaptations may develop naturally over many generations, genetic technologies could be used to speed this process along, potentially improving the wellbeing of early space settlers and their offspring. With broad support, such a program could lead to significant genetic modification of off-world communities, for example, to limit (...) radiation damage on body systems or prevent bone and muscle loss in reduced gravity conditions. Given the extreme stressors of living off-world, and the need to have a healthy workforce to support a fledgling human settlement, those in favour of using genetic technologies to enhance settlers might even claim there is a moral imperative to protect their health in the face of the unique threats of space travel, especially for children born in settlements who did not take on these risks voluntarily. For some, this might simply be an extension of procreative beneficence. However, ethical concerns arise regarding the risks of embracing a eugenicist agenda and the potential impacts on the rights of future settlers to refuse such genetic enhancements for themselves or their children. (shrink)

The reader's access to the fictional world of a novel is mediated by the narrator, when there is one; the fictional world is presented from the narrator's perspective. do depictions ever have anything comparable to narrators? apparent artists sometimes have a certain perspective on the fictional world. but they don't mediate our access to it; the fictional world is presented independently of their perspective on it. depictions do present fictional worlds from certain perspectives, but not usually the perspectives of any (...) fictional characters. however, there are characters in some special depictions, especially certain films, who function very much like narrators. (shrink)

In his discussion of the rational soul as form of the body in Summa Theologiae I.76.1, St. Thomas Aquinas largely devotes his response to the consideration and elimination of a few competing accounts of the relationship between the human body and soul. After rejecting these alternatives, he concludes that his account, on which the soul is the substantial form of the body, must be correct. I argue that Aquinas’s argument, which seems to involve a hasty move to affirm his own (...) view, in fact reveals a specific and plausible set of desiderata based on Aristotle’s definition of the human being as a rational animal in the category of substance. Aquinas’s argument, therefore, provides the constraints on any viable account of human ontology. Moreover, given his metaphysical framework, only his hylomorphic account can satisfy the desiderata. These considerations allow us to understand and appreciate Aquinas’s argumentative strategy more fully. (shrink)

The representational arts seem friendly territory for “symbol” theories of aesthetics. Much of the initial resistance one may feel to the idea that a Mondrian composition or a Scarlatti sonata is a symbol evaporates when we switch to a portrait of Mozart, Michelangelo’s Pietá, or Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. These representational works have reference to things outside themselves. The portrait is a picture of Mozart; the Pietá is a sculpture of Christ and his Mother; A Tale of Two (...) Cities is about London, Paris, and the French Revolution. It is natural enough to consider the relation between these works and what they are of or about a semantic one. And if the representational is to be understood in terms of this semantic relation it is reasonable to hold that to be representational is to be a symbol of a certain kind. (shrink)

In nelson goodman's "languages of art" a symbol system must be 'finitely differentiated', both syntactically and semantically, to count as a 'notation'. goodman's formulations of these differentiation requirements are seriously defective. it is shown that most of the examples of systems which he claims fail these requirements, do not fail them as they are stated. reformulations of the two requirements are offered, which accord with the examples and seem otherwise acceptable.

Georges Bataille made no secret of the importance Friedrich Nietzsche’s life and work held for him. But Bataille’s encounter with Nietzsche remained paradoxical: he rejected or ignored most of Nietzsche’s major concepts while nevertheless insisting on the value of Nietzsche’s thought and experience as a necessary counterpoint to the political, religious, and social currents of modernity. This paper demonstrates the extent to which Bataille owes the content and to some degree also the form of his idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche to (...) the influence and example of the Russian emigré philosopher Lev Shestov (1866–1938). In 1925, Georges Bataille published a translation of Shestov’s The Idea of the Good in Tolstoy and Nietzsche: Philosophy and Preaching, co-signed with Shestov’s daughter Tatiana Beresovski-Chestov. The translation was the product of a period during which Bataille also spent time with the older man and benefited from his tutelage. It was Shestov’s interpretation of the meaning of the death of God in Nietzsche’s life and thought that would have the most decisive influence on Bataille’s own life and work and make him, in his turn, a philosopher of tragedy. (shrink)

Stuart Kendall now translates the work and life of the renowned French writer into a concise yet informative biography that reveals fascinating facets of this intellectual giant.

Prop oriented make-believe is make-believe utilized for the purpose of understanding what I call “props,” actual objects or states of affairs that make propositions “fictional,” true in the make-believe world. I, David Hills, and others have claimed that prop oriented make-believe lies at the heart of the functioning of many metaphors, and one variety of fictionalism in metaphysics invokes prop oriented make-believe to explain away apparent references to entities some find questionable or problematic (fictional characters, propositions, moral properties, numbers). Elisabeth (...) Camp has argued against my and David Hills’ views of metaphor. Her arguments, many of them echoed by Catharine Wearing, demolish a very implausible account of metaphor, but leave entirely untouched the views that Hills and I actually proposed. Clarifying what we say about metaphor serves also as a defense of fictionalist theories that invoke prop oriented make-believe. (shrink)

Most, if not all, journals require the use of Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, to be acknowledged. This article argues that current guidelines do not go far enough as the use of an LLM may be acknowledged but the reviewers, and future readers, do not know which parts of the article were generated with AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistance and how that text was subsequently edited. It’s possible that an entire article could be generated with AI and, as long, (...) as the authors acknowledge that an LLM was used then they are meeting the journal’s guidelines. In this opinion article current publisher guidelines are examined, followed by a brief case study which highlights some of the issues that the scholarly community faces. Proposed changes to the guidelines are presented which say that LLM prompts, and the generated text, should be provided to the reviewers, and to future readers, so that they can see which parts of the article were generated and what edits were made to that text. (shrink)

Gay and lesbian-sponsored antiviolence projects have used activist strategies and “collective action frames” similar to the contemporary women's movement's antiviolence against women campaigns and have defined violence against gays and lesbians as a social problem resulting from criminal sexual assault that stems from institutionalized sexual terrorism. Unlike the contemporary feminist movement, which has been anchored in an all-encompassing critique of patriarchy, activism around antigay and lesbian violence has ignored patriarchy and the gender relations that sustain and reflect it; instead, gay (...) and lesbian activism has been preoccupied with homophobia and only implicitly concerned with institutionalized heterosexism. As a result, the fact that gays and lesbians embody gender and are firmly situated in gender relations is rendered invisible. This analysis examines how the collective action frame of one social movement can be appropriated, employed, and transformed by a subsequent movement. (shrink)

One minor problem in understanding Bradley's moral philosophy is that of how he manages to combine a reverence for the ordinary man's moral sense with what amounts almost to contempt for the actual precepts of popular morality. The reverence seems clear. At the outset of Ethical Studies Bradley appears as the great defender of the plain man against the depredations of theorizing and cultivation. Contemporary moral philosophers were too sophisticated, with their cavalier disregard of the moral feelings and convictions of (...) uneducated people. Admittedly popular moral views had their limitations: they were neither all-comprehensive nor everywhere consistent. Still, ‘if we want a moral sense that has not yet been adulterated, we must not be afraid to leave enlightenment behind us’. (shrink)

This article reports on the Boundaries in Practice (BIP) Scale developed to measure knowledge, comfort, ethical decision making, and experience. Few instruments used in studies conducted on professional/?client boundaries have been validated. The BIP demonstrated sound face, content and construct validity, and adequate internal consistency reliability. The BIP Scale provides the first reliable and valid means of investigating multiple boundary domains across health disciplines and teams. The sensitivity and complexity of boundary issues and the serious consequences of breaches highlight the (...) importance of a valid and reliable measure in building empirical knowledge in this field. (shrink)

In ‘Assisted Gestative Technologies,’ Romanis argues for the conceptual creation of a new genus of assisted reproductive technologies, in recognition of the unique ethical, legal and social implications assistive gestative technologies raise.1 She argues this taxonomic classification might allow for ethicolegal determinations regarding one AGT to be generalised to other instances of this technology. Romanis correctly identifies a lack of appropriate regulations for dealing with the rapidly developing field of assisted and artificial gestation, noting the current discussion of surrogacy law (...) reform in the UK offers an opportunity to redress this. However, when reading this article what strikes me most is not how AGTs, ARTs or assisted conception are defined, but rather what constitutes a technology. Surrogacy is introduced as assisted gestation, but uterine transplantation as being on the spectrum of AGTs. While both might use assisted conception, for example, in vitro fertilisation, it is unclear what part of uterus donation or transplantation is to be considered technological? This is not to say such processes do not involve technologies—of course they do—but we do not typically describe surgery itself as an instance of technology. This distinction is relevant if the purpose of establishing this genus of AGTs is to group morally relevant characteristics of technologies together or create paradigm cases for casuistical reasoning. Considering the above …. (shrink)

Leading scholars offer new readings of Degas1 representations of the family, prostitution, city life and leisure in which looking at women is shown to be a complex and ambiguous process. One major topic of the book is the encounter between feminism and art history. Having put images of women1 on the agenda of cultural analysis, feminist interventions in the theory and analysis of representation have created a diverse and intricate field of interpretation which now supersedes that formulation. These essays challenge (...) art history to confront issues of spectatorship, the interface of class and gender, identification and the politics of vision. This illustrated collection is thus a major contribution to debates on representation and sexuality. (shrink)

At some time between 1907 and 1912, probably very much nearer the earlier date, Bradley produced the first draft of an article on Christian morality. He did this in response to criticism that his moral ideas were anti-Christian. This charge was based mainly on the content of two articles that he published during 1894 in the International Journal of Ethics , one called ‘Some Remarks on Punishment’ and the other ‘The Limits of Individual and National Self-Sacrifice’. In these Bradley had (...) maintained that the conventional ‘Christian’ belief in the sacredness of life undermined any sensible approach to punishment and any clear understanding of the moral importance of self-assertion . It encouraged a squeamishness about retribution and ‘social surgery’. It devalued proper human ends and interests, and the rights and duties founded on them. There was needed ‘a correction of our moral view, and a return to a non-Christian and perhaps a Hellenic ideal’, one that would recognize the unlimited right of the moral organism to dispose of its members and to use force internationally in defence of right. Bradley pulled no punches and had this to say about the self-styled ‘Christian’ party. (shrink)

The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture collects essays and lectures by Georges Bataille spanning 30 years of research in anthropology, comparative religion, aesthetics, and philosophy. These were neither idle nor idyllic years; the discovery of Lascaux in 1940 coincides with the bloodiest war in history -- with new machines of death, Auschwitz, and Hiroshima. Bataille's reflections on the possible origins of humanity coincide with the intensified threat of its possible extinction.For Bataille, prehistory is universal history; it is the (...) history of a human community prior to its fall into separation, into nations and races. The art of prehistory offers the earliest traces of nascent yet fully human consciousness -- of consciousness not yet fully separated from natural flora and fauna, or from the energetic forces of the universe. A play of identities, the art of prehistory is the art of a consciousness struggling against itself, of a human spirit struggling against brute animal physicality. Prehistory is the cradle of humanity, the birth of tragedy.Bataille reaches beyond disciplinary specializations to imagine a moment when thought was universal. Bataille's work provides a model for interdisciplinary inquiry in our own day, a universal imagination and thought for our own potential community. The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture speaks to philosophers and historians of thought, to anthropologists interested in the history of their discipline and in new methodologies, to theologians and religious comparatists interested in the origins and nature of man's encounter with the sacred, and to art historians and aestheticians grappling with the place of prehistory in the canons of art. (shrink)

This paper argues that uterine transplants are a potentially dangerous distraction from the development of alternative methods of providing reproductive options for women with absolute uterine factor infertility. We consider two alternatives in particular: the bioengineering of wombs using stem cells and ectogenesis. Whether biologically or mechanically engineered, these womb replacements could provide a way for women to have children, including genetically related offspring for those who would value this possibility. Most importantly, this alternative would avoid the challenge of sourcing (...) wombs for transplant, a practice that we argue would likely be exploitative and unethical. Continued research into bioengineering and ectogenesis will therefore remain morally important despite the recent development of uterine transplantation, even if the procedure reaches routine clinical application. (shrink)

Today we know that the planet is both too small for the globalization of progress and too large, active, and complex to remain within the local. Latour at this point in his argument postulates an alternative vector that is present and real enough to attract our thoughts from current political-economic categories such as progressive vs. conservative, left vs. right. This alternative vector—the Modern/Terrestrial--is attractive because there is a lingering sense that there was once such a thing as the common good, (...) while today too often it is all about power and self-interest, mine and yours. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetorical Maneuvers:Subjectivity, Power, and ResistanceKendall R. Phillips and James P. ZappenA sense of subjectivity as fluid, dynamic, and multiple has become almost orthodox throughout the humanities. The widespread influence of poststructural thought has seemingly routed earlier Enlightenment notions of a unified, transcendent subject and opened the door for critical approaches to the numerous and changing manifestations of human subjectivity. The fluidity of the human subject, however, is not without (...) its bounds or constraints. Indeed, the same line of poststructural thinking that served to de-center the Enlightenment subject, especially the work of Michel Foucault, also stipulated that the subject was positioned by larger formations of discourse over which they had limited if any control. These two sides of poststructural subjectivity—its fluidity and its positioning—establish not so much two divergent approaches, but the two poles between which the human subject can be thought to operate. In turn the two poles of the apparent fixity of the subject position and the seeming fluidity of the subjectivity manifested within that position suggest the kind of productive tension through which we are simultaneously limited and enabled by the discourse formations within which we operate and against which we, at times, resist.This productive tension between the multiplicity of the subject and the singularity of the subject position has, of course, been the focus of numerous inquiries. In his later work, Foucault attended to the processes by which the subject makes itself an object upon which work might be done and urged a more aesthetic approach to the continuous crafting of the self.1 Along similar lines, Judith Butler has conceived of the subject in terms of its performativity and the ways that the "I" is crafted through numerous and fluid citations of existing power relations. Conceived in this way, the notion of the "self" is a constantly changing object crafted and re-crafted out of the points of identification provided in the exterior fields of power and knowledge. These points of identification, in turn, provide symbolic anchors by which a subject is moored, at least temporarily, into a particular subject position within which they become identifiable and intelligible in terms of the broader formation of discourse. [End Page 310]In addition to posing a serious challenge to Enlightenment philosophy, this conception of the self as fluid and dynamic presents some vexing questions concerning the practices of self and the capacity of a subject to offer any meaningful challenge to the formations of discourse that constitute its existence. As Butler puts the problem, "The paradox of subjectivation (assujetissement) is precisely that the subject who would resist such norms is itself enabled, if not produced, by such norms" (1993, 15). The theoretical concerns over the relationship between agency and subjectivity also impact upon a series of political questions surrounding the nature and possibility of identity politics and recent debates concerning the importance and efficacy of gaining "recognition" as a political move.2 Whatever one's position within such debates, it is clear that the question of subjectivity and its concomitant questions of subjectivation and agency must be addressed in order to conceive of any kinds of democratic politics.The question of the subject, then, clearly entails broad philosophical and political implications. Rhetorical scholars have entered this conversation with a particular concern for the practices that both constitute and challenge the constitution of the self and many of these scholars have attended specifically to the points of friction between prescribed positions in which a subject is constituted and the dynamic nature of subjectivity as performed. Following from the works of Foucault, Barbara Biesecker (1992), for instance, urges attention to the canon of style as a crucially rhetorical element in the processes by which the individual negotiates relations of power, knowledge, and subjectivity. In a similar vein, Bradford Vivian draws from the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to suggest that rhetoricians recognize "that the self may be conceived as a form—a rhetorical form—that exists only in its continual and aesthetic creation, in its indefinite becoming" (2000, 304). The indefinite nature of this becoming is, for both Vivian and Deleuze and Guattari, a politically crucial insight into the ways that... (shrink)

Dissociative Identity Disorder is an uncommon disorder that has long been associated with exposure to traumatic stressors exceeding manageable levels commonly encompassing physical, psychological and sexual abuse in childhood that is prolonged and severe in nature. In DID, dissociation continues after the traumatic experience and produces a disruption in identity where distinct personality states develop. These personalities are accompanied by variations in behaviour, emotions, memory, perception and cognition. The use of literature in psychiatry can enrich comprehension over the subjective experience (...) of a disorder, and the utilisation of 'illness narratives' in nursing research have been considered a way of improving knowledge about nursing care and theory development. This research explores experiences of DID through close textual reading and thematic analysis of five biographical and autobiographical texts, discussing the lived experience of the disorder. This narrative approach aims to inform empathetic understanding and support the facilitation of therapeutic alliances in mental healthcare for those experiencing the potentially debilitating and distressing symptoms of DID. Although controversies surrounding the biomedical diagnosis of DID are important to consider, the lived experiences of those who mental health nurses encounter should be priority. (shrink)

Non-actual model systems discussed in scientific theories are compared to fictions in literature. This comparison may help with the understanding of similarity relations between models and real-world target systems. The ontological problems surrounding fictions in science may be particularly difficult, however. A comparison is also made to ontological problems that arise in the philosophy of mathematics.

ABSTRACTIt has recently become fashionable among those who write on questions of moral responsibility to distinguish two different concepts, or senses, of moral responsibility via the labels ‘responsibility as attributability’ and ‘responsibility as accountability’. Gary Watson was perhaps the first to introduce this distinction in his influential 1996 article ‘Two Faces of Responsibility’ , but it has since been taken up by many other philosophers. My aim in this study is to raise some questions and doubts about this distinction and (...) to argue that it has led to confusion rather than clarification in debates over moral responsibility. In place of the attributability/accountability distinction, I propose that there is a single concept of moral responsibility underlying our actual moral practices. This core notion of moral responsibility, which I call ‘responsibility as answerability’, is well positioned to explain thos.. (shrink)

The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies or ‘ontologies’. Unfortunately, the very success of this approach has led to a proliferation of ontologies which itself creates obstacles to integration. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) consortium has set in train a strategy to overcome this problem. Existing (...) OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing a process of coordinated reform and new ontologies being created on the basis of an evolving set of shared principles governing ontology development. The result is an expanding family of ontologies designed to be interoperable, logically well-formed, and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality. We describe the OBO Foundry initiative, and provide guidelines for those who might wish to become involved. (shrink)

Despite the fact that psychedelics were proscribed from medical research half a century ago, recent, early-phase trials on psychedelics have suggested that they bring novel benefits to patients in the treatment of several mental and substance use disorders. When beneficial, the psychedelic experience is characterized by features unlike those of other psychiatric and medical treatments. These include senses of losing self-importance, ineffable knowledge, feelings of unity and connection with others and encountering ‘deep’ reality or God. In addition to symptom relief, (...) psychedelic experiences often lead to significant changes in a patient’s personality and worldview. Focusing on the case of psilocybin, we argue that the peculiar features of psychedelics pose certain novel risks, which warrant an enhanced informed consent process–one that is more comprehensive than what may be typical for other psychiatric medications. We highlight key issues that should be focused on during the consent process and suggest discussion prompts for enhanced consent in psychedelic psychiatry. Finally, we respond to potential objections before concluding with a discussion of ethical considerations that will arise as psychedelics proceed from highly controlled research environments into mainstream clinical psychiatry. (shrink)

BackgroundParanoia is associated with a multitude of social cognitive deficits, observed in both clinical and subclinical populations. Empathy is significantly and broadly impaired in schizophrenia, yet its relationship with subclinical paranoia is poorly understood. Furthermore, deficits in emotion recognition – a very early component of empathic processing – are present in both clinical and subclinical paranoia. Deficits in emotion recognition may therefore underlie relationships between paranoia and empathic processing. The current investigation aims to add to the literature on social cognition (...) and paranoia by: (1) characterizing the relationship between paranoia and empathy, and (2) testing whether there is an indirect effect of emotion recognition on the relationship between empathy and paranoia.MethodsParanoia, empathy, and emotion recognition were assessed in a non-clinical sample of adults (n= 226) from the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland (NKI-Rockland) dataset. Paranoia was measured using the Peters Delusions Inventory-21 (PDI-21). Empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a self-report instrument designed to assess empathy using four subscales: Personal Distress, Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, and Fantasy. Emotion recognition was assessed using the Penn Emotion Recognition Test (ER-40). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to estimate relationships between paranoia, the four measures of empathy and emotion recognition.ResultsParanoia was associated with the Fantasy subscale of the IRI, such that higher Fantasy was associated with more severe paranoia (p< 0.001). No other empathy subscales were associated with paranoia. Fantasy was also associated with the emotion recognition of fear, such that higher Fantasy was correlated with better recognition of fear (p= 0.008). Paranoia and emotion recognition were not significantly associated. The Empathic Concern subscale was negatively associated with emotion recognition, with higher empathic concern related to worse overall emotion recognition (p= 0.002). All indirect paths through emotion recognition were non-significant.DiscussionThese results suggest that imaginative perspective-taking contributes to paranoia in the general population. These data do not, however, point to robust global relationships between empathy and paranoia or to emotion recognition as an underlying mechanism. Deficits in empathy and emotion recognition observed in schizophrenia may be associated with the broader pathology of schizophrenia, and therefore not detectable with subclinical populations. (shrink)