The World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines Standards of Care 8 draw on ethical arguments based on individual autonomy, to argue that healthcare and other professionals should be advocates for trans people. Such guidelines presume the presence of medical services for trans people and a degree of consensus on medical ethics. Very little is known, however, about the ethical challenges associated with both providing and accessing trans healthcare, including gender affirmation, in the Global South. In light of the challenges (...) associated with medical and legal gender affirmation in Indonesia, we conducted a qualitative study to understand the views of trans people, healthcare providers, and legal practitioners. In this qualitative study, we drew on a participatory methodology to conduct 46 semi-structured interviews between October and December 2023, with trans people (10 trans feminine people and 10 trans masculine people, each interviewed twice) and key informants (three healthcare providers and three lawyers and paralegals). Trans people were a central part of the research team from inception through to analysis and writing. Participants were recruited via community-led sampling. Data analysis of interview data took place through an immersion/crystallisation technique and preliminary inductive coding which highlighted key quotes. We focused on an inductive analysis using participant narratives to identify key concepts in the ethics of gender affirmation in Indonesia. We characterize the ethics of supportive healthcare workers, community members, and family members, as that akin to “accomplices,” a concept of ethics used in theories of racial justice which evaluate a willingness to support people to navigate laws and regulations which perpetuate injustices and violence. Overall, both trans people and key informants shared an understanding that the legal status of gender-affirming medical care was particularly ambiguous in Indonesia due to a lack of clarity in both laws and regulations. For trans participants, ethical arguments for the validity of legal and medical gender affirmation was premised on evidence that their gender identity and expression was already recognized within society, even if limited to immediate friends and family. Given that all participants expressed a desire for gender affirmation, but such services were widely unavailable, accomplices played a crucial role in supporting trans people to access healthcare. An empirical study based on an “ethics from below” helps to show that arguments grounded in autonomy, or based on biomedical evidence, are unlikely to alter unjust laws or facilitate a change to pathologizing guidelines governing understanding of trans people’s healthcare and legal needs in Indonesia. We provide an analysis that is sensitive to the ethics of facilitating gender affirmation in a context where that process is inherently social, and often articulated in relation to a prevailing religious morality. (shrink)

Traces Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's engagement with deconstructive thought from his early work in the 1960s to the present, examining his key concepts - infancy, Voice, potentiality, sovereignty, bare life, messianism - in relation to key texts and concepts in Jacques Derrida's work.

This article proposes to elucidate Wilfrid Waluchow’s notion of constitutional morality by explaining how it relates to the classical common law idea of artificial reason. It examines how Waluchow’s effort to reconcile insights from the thought of H.L.A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin through the idea of constitutional morality is both reminiscent of the artificial reason of the common law and distinct from it. It shows that constitutional morality evokes the subtle union of custom and reason found in artificial reason, but (...) also that it proposes, under the influence of Hart’s notion of rule of recognition, a narrower understanding of law’s foundation in established practices, and that it gives, consistent with Dworkin’s vision of law as integrity, a greater theoretical scope to law’s rationality. (shrink)

Mainstream political liberalism holds that legal coercion is permissible only if it is based on reasons that all can share, access or accept. But these requirements are subject to well-known problems. I articulate and defend an intelligible reasons requirement as an alternative. An intelligible reason is a reason that all suitably idealized members of the public can see as a reason for the person who offers it according to that person’s own evaluative standards. It thereby permits reasons into public justification (...) that all cannot share, access, or accept, and so contrasts with standard approaches to public justification. The intelligible reasons requirement has two striking implications. First, it severs the connection between public justification and principles of deliberative restraint. Second, it pushes political liberals to appeal to other political processes to publicly justify law, specifically bargaining, adjudication, and social evolution. (shrink)

Philosophers of science readily acknowledge that nonepistemic values influence the discovery and pursuit of scientific theories, but many tend to regard these influences as epistemically uninteresting. The present paper challenges this position by identifying three avenues through which nonepistemic values associated with discovery and pursuit in contemporary pollution research influence theory appraisal: (1) by guiding the choice of questions and research projects, (2) by altering experimental design, and (3) by affecting the creation and further investigation of theories or hypotheses. This (...) analysis indicates that the effects of these values are sufficiently complex and epistemically significant to merit further attention. †To contact the authors, please write to: Kevin Elliott, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208; e‐mail: [email protected] . Daniel McKaughan, Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

To study animal welfare empirically we need an objective basis for deciding when an animal is suffering. Suffering includes a wide range ofunpleasant emotional states such as fear, boredom, pain, and hunger. Suffering has evolved as a mechanism for avoiding sources ofdanger and threats to fitness. Captive animals often suffer in situations in which they are prevented from doing something that they are highly motivated to do. The an animal is prepared to pay to attain or to escape a situation (...) is an index ofhow the animal about that situation. Withholding conditions or commodities for which an animal shows (i.e., for which it continues to work despite increasing costs) is very likely to cause suffering. In designing environments for animals in zoos, farms, and laboratories, priority should be given to features for which animals show inelastic demand. The care ofanimals can thereby be based on an objective, animal-centered assessment of their needs. (shrink)

This paper advances the conception of social entrepreneurs as caring entrepreneurs. We argue that the care ethics of social entrepreneurs, implying the pursuit of caring goals through caring processes, can be challenged when they engage in the process of scaling up their ventures. We propose that social entrepreneurs can sustain their care ethics as the essential dimension of their venture only if they are able to build a caring enterprise. Organizational care designates the set of organizing principles that facilitate the (...) embedding of care ethics at an organizational level, beyond the imprinting induced by social entrepreneurs’ personal ethics. (shrink)

‘What is Man?’ That was the half-secret question motivating political theory in the nineties and the aughts.1 Sometimes, critics glossed the question as one of ‘subjectivity’, ‘the theory of the su...

This book offers cutting edge research on the modifications and disruptions of bodily experience in the context of anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and aging. It presents original contributions in applied phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and the use of medical technologies.

This piece defends the asymmetric convergence approach to public justification against James Boettcher's recent critique.

This contribution describes some of the relations between early analytic philosophy in Cambridge and philosophy in Austria: Stout’s early approval of the writings of Brentano and his students; the high opinion in Cambridge of the Austrian way of doing philosophy. It also outlines two Austrian versions of ideas which were to be very important in early Cambridge philosophy: Husserl on definite descriptions and Meinong on structural similarities.

Anth. Pal.10.92, ascribed to Palladas of Alexandria, appears to be a short iambic prologue to a single epigram. Evidently addressed to a judge of some sort, it survives only in the Palatinus, which preserves the text as follows:Ἐπεὶ δικάζεις καὶ σοφιστεύεις λόγοις,κἀγὼ φέρω σοι τῆς ἐμῆς ἀηδόνοςἐπίγραμμα σεμνόν, ἄξιον παρρησίας·οὐ γὰρ σὲ μέλπων τῆς Δίκης ὕπνους ἔχει.

I this paper I give minimal axioms for the ontology of time, especially A-theories and B-theories and I derive philosophically interesting lemmas. The exercise is set-theoretical, defining all notions and indicating assumptions and philosophical points of disagreement, while being easy to translate to other formal expressions . The issue of a logic for A-theories of time is treated towards the end, where I sketch ‘copresent’ operators for capturing the idea of temporal passage. The main conclusion will be that, while circularity (...) threatens both families of theories, the growing block theory (belonging to the A-theory) is the least objectionable philosophically. (shrink)

Ethicists widely accept the notion that scientists have moral responsibilities to benefit society at large. The dissemination of scientific information to the public and its political representatives is central to many of the ways in which scientists serve society. Unfortunately, the task of providing information can often give rise to moral quandaries when scientific experts participate in politically charged debates over issues that are fraught with uncertainty. This paper develops a theoretical framework for an “ethics of expertise” (EOE) based on (...) the notion that scientists have responsibilities to provide information in a way that promotes autonomous decision-making on the part of the public and its representatives. Moreover, insofar as the principle of informed consent has developed in biomedical ethics as a way for physicians to promote autonomous decision-making on the part of their patients, this paper suggests that the informed-consent concept may suggest a set of criteria and guidelines that can help scientists to fulfill their similar ethical responsibilities to the public. In order to illustrate how the resulting EOE could provide practical guidance for scientific experts, the paper examines a case study involving the dissemination of information about the low-dose biological effects of toxic chemicals and carcinogens. (shrink)

Recent research investigating the language–thought interface in the spatial domain points to representations of the horizontal and vertical dimensions that closely resemble those posited by Jeffery et al. However, the findings suggest that such representations, rather than being tied to navigation, may instead reflect more general properties of the perception of space.

In contemporary philosophy of science many theories of explanation are rooted in positivist or post-positivists accounts of explanation. This paper attempts to ground a phenomenological account of scientific explanation by using the works of Werner Heisenberg and Patrick Heelan. To explain something for Heisenberg is to describe what can be intersubjectively observed and conceptualized in an adequate language. However, this needs to be qualified, as not any adequate account will do. While Heisenberg thinks that Kant is right to think that (...) a priori concepts are the conditions which make science, and thus explanation, possible, he also believes pure a priori concepts have a limited range of applicability. Neils Bohr shared this belief with Heisenberg, but thinks human thought can go no further. However, Heisenberg never gave up on the idea that we could create new concepts that act as a priori grounds for quantum entities. To go beyond Heisenberg, I believe that we should look to Husserl’s account of Evidenz and the material a priori to help us think about a phenomenological account of explanation. (shrink)

The argument between retributivists and consequentialists about what morally justifies the punishment of offenders is incoherent. If we were to discover that all of the contending justifications were mistaken, there is no realistic prospect that this would lead us to abandon legal punishment. Justification of words, beliefs and deeds, can only be intelligible on the assumption that if one's justification were found to be invalid and there were no alternative justification, one would be prepared to stop saying, believing or doing (...) what one has attempted to justify. Therefore, the moral standing or basis of our practices of punishing offenders can not rest on a justification of it. (shrink)

This study considered representations of divine and human others in the self-understanding of monotheists from three religions. Self-understanding was conceptualized on the basis of semantic and episodic knowledge in narrative response data. Given the importance of social context in the formation of cognitive schemas, the project emphasized self-understanding in a comparative religious design. The sample included sixty nominated religious exemplars who responded to a structured interview. Schemas were subsequently mapped for Jews, Muslims, and Christians by comparison of self and other (...) representations in a computational model known as latent semantic analysis (LSA). Findings indicated that representation of the divine is far removed from parents in cognitive schemas for all participants. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims appear to represent human others on the basis of self-understanding which principally references the divine. When considered in a computational semantic space, exemplars generally represent the self in a manner corresponding with divine and peer figures. (shrink)

Praise for 50 Fast Digital Camera Techniques "Applying the lively techniques in this book will make anyone's digital camera a more productive tool." -Al Francekevich, professional photographer, on the first edition Your digital camera is an amazing and versatile creative tool, with features and capabilities you probably haven't even explored-until now. Here are step-by-step instructions for 50 hot new techniques that take advantage of all the latest camera features, fully illustrated with stunning color photos taken by the author. No matter (...) what type of digital camera you have, this book will help you create more professional pictures. Your guide to amazing results with your digital camera * Select the right shooting mode and change critical settings in seconds * Use exposure and focal length to get sharper photos * Shoot fantastic candid, nature, and pet pictures * Learn the secrets of shooting dramatic skyscapes and urban landscapes * Plan shots for creative digital manipulation * Download and print your photos or share them on the Web * Create a photographic essay or convert color shots to artsyblack-and-white. (shrink)

This chapter presents what people think about God and how one should act in this world. It discusses how people should pray, and that, if possible, one could pray through poetry. It also discusses why poetry is considered as sacrament, on how its writings reflect one's belief. It focuses on “Lachrimae”, a poem that exemplifies sacramental manner.

In his second appearance to Aeneas in Aeneid 4 Mercury drives the hero to flee Carthage with a false allegation that Dido is planning an attack, capping his warning with an infamous sententia about the mutability of female emotion. Building on a previous suggestion that Mercury's first speech to Aeneas is modelled on Athena's admonishment of Telemachus at the opening of Odyssey 15, this article proposes that Mercury's second speech as well is modelled on Athena's warning, in which the goddess (...) uses misdirection about Penelope's intentions and a misogynistic gnōmē about the changeability of women's affections to spur Telemachus’ departure from Sparta. After setting out how Virgil divides his imitation of Athena's speech verbally and thematically between Mercury's two speeches, the discussion turns to why both Athena and Mercury adopt these deceptive tactics. The speeches are shown to be culminations of the poets’ similar approaches to creating doubt and foreboding around the queens’ famed capacities for using δόλος. Common features in the ensuing hasty departures of Telemachus and Aeneas further confirm Virgil's use of Odyssey 15 in devising Aeneas’ escape from Carthage. (shrink)

Among contemporary liberal political theorists in the West, there appears to be a standoff between two camps. One camp promotes tighter social bonds through collective responsibility and patriotic fellow-feeling while the other insists on the need for relaxed social bonds through respect for individual freedom. This essay shows how two Vietnamese thinkers—Ho Chi Minh (1872–1969) and Nguyen Manh Tuong (1909–1997)—can help move this intractable debate about collective responsibility and individual freedom beyond statements of principle to a more pragmatic discussion of (...) what should be done to maintain a healthy polity. They present an alternative to the static standoff, arguing that dynamic oscillation between two activities can forge national fraternal solidarity while also respecting individual freedom when the needs arise: ‘criticism and self-criticism' which tightens social bonds, and ‘liberal self-exploration' which relaxes social bonds. (shrink)

I aim to develop a tool for comparing theories of vagueness, using Structured Query Language. Relevant SQL snippets will be used throughout.

This article argues that a phenomenological notion of “lived body” emerges in the Zhuangzi’s 莊子 critique of the Confucian body of ritual and morality. It also argues that a philosophical account of body cannot be reduced to a Sinological account. This article draws on the phenomenological distinction between “object body” and “lived body,” especially the “three ontological dimensions” of Jean-Paul Sartre to argue that the Zhuangzi criticizes the Confucian body of ritual and morality as being a “body-for-others” and that it (...) maintains a concept of “lived body.” Finally, it argues that through such methods of cultivation as “sitting and forgetting” a liberation of the body is achieved where one is connected to dao 道 and achieves a state of heightened experience. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987, this book forms a conceptual account of the relationship between music and poetry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth ...