Prolonged solitary confinement has become a widespread and standard practice in U.S. prisons—even though it consistently drives healthy prisoners insane, makes the mentally ill sicker, and, according to the testimony of prisoners, threatens to reduce life to a living death. In this profoundly important and original book, Lisa Guenther examines the death-in-life experience of solitary confinement in America from the early nineteenth century to today’s supermax prisons. Documenting how solitary confinement undermines prisoners’ sense of identity and their ability to (...) understand the world, Guenther demonstrates the real effects of forcibly isolating a person for weeks, months, or years. -/- Drawing on the testimony of prisoners and the work of philosophers and social activists from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, the author defines solitary confinement as a kind of social death. It argues that isolation exposes the relational structure of being by showing what happens when that structure is abused—when prisoners are deprived of the concrete relations with others on which our existence as sense-making creatures depends. Solitary confinement is beyond a form of racial or political violence; it is an assault on being. (shrink)

Lisa Tessman's Burdened Virtues is a deeply original and provocative work that engages questions central to feminist theory and practice, from the perspective of Aristotelian ethics. Focused primarily on selves who endure and resist oppression, she addresses the ways in which devastating conditions confronted by these selves both limit and burden their moral goodness, and affect their possibilities of flourishing. She describes two different forms of "moral trouble" prevalent under oppression. The first is that the oppressed self may be (...) morally damaged, prevented from developing or exercising some of the virtues; the second is that the very conditions of oppression require the oppressed to develop a set of virtues that carry a moral cost to those who practice them--traits that Tessman refers to as "burdened virtues." These virtues have the unusual feature of being disjoined from their bearer's own well being. Tessman's work focuses on issues that have been missed by many feminist moral theories, and her use of the virtue ethics framework brings feminist concerns more closely into contact with mainstream ethical theory. This book will appeal to feminist theorists in philosophy and women's studies, but also more broadly, ethicists and social theorists. (shrink)

This volume presents cutting-edge theory and research on emotions as constructed events rather than fixed, essential entities. It provides a thorough introduction to the assumptions, hypotheses, and scientific methods that embody psychological constructionist approaches. Leading scholars examine the neurobiological, cognitive/perceptual, and social processes that give rise to the experiences Western cultures call sadness, anger, fear, and so on. The book explores such compelling questions as how the brain creates emotional experiences, whether the "ingredients" of emotions also give rise to other (...) mental states, and how to define what is or is not an emotion. Introductory and concluding chapters by the editors identify key themes and controversies and compare psychological construction to other theories of emotion. (shrink)

Lisa Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs are epistemically innocent and deliver significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. While the benefits of the irrational belief may not outweigh the costs, epistemic innocence helps to clarify the epistemic and psychological effects of irrational beliefs on agency.

The Gift of the Other brings together a philosophical analysis of time, embodiment, and ethical responsibility with a feminist critique of the way women’s reproductive capacity has been theorized and represented in Western culture. Author Lisa Guenther develops the ethical and temporal implications of understanding birth as the gift of the Other, a gift which makes existence possible, and already orients this existence toward a radical responsibility for Others. Through an engagement with the work of Levinas, Beauvoir, Arendt, Irigaray, (...) and Kristeva, the author outlines an ethics of maternity based on the givenness of existence and a feminist politics of motherhood which critiques the exploitation of maternal generosity. (shrink)

The present study provides evidence that valence focus and arousal focus are important processes in determining whether a dimensional or a discrete emotion model best captures how people label their affective states. Individuals high in valence focus and low in arousal focus fit a dimensional model better in that they reported more co-occurrences among like-valenced affective states, whereas those lower in valence focus and higher in arousal focus fit a discrete model better in that they reported fewer co-occurrences between like-valenced (...) affective states. Taken together, these findings suggest that one static, nomothetic theory may not accurately describe the subjective affective experience of all individuals. (shrink)

Confronting any science studies or learning sciences researcher in the 21st century is the reality of interdisciplinary science. New hybrid fields1 collaboratively build new concepts, combine models from two or more disciplines and forge inter-reliant relationships among specialists with different skill sets to solve new problems. This paper emerges from our recognition that inescapable psychological factors, including identity dynamics, must be described and analyzed in order to better understand the social and cognitive practices specific to interdisciplinary science. In analysis of (...) the foundations and opportunities for an... (shrink)

Is curiosity a virtue or a vice? Curiosity, as a disposition to attain new, worthwhile information, can manifest as an epistemic virtue. When the disposition to attain new information is not manifested virtuously, this is either because the agent lacks the appropriate motivation to attain the information or because the agent has poor judgement, seeking information that is not worthwhile or seeking information by inappropriate means. In the right circumstances, curiosity contributes to the agent’s excellence in character: it is appropriate (...) to praise the agent for being curious, blame the agent for not being curious, and also prompt the agent to cultivate such curiosity, at least in some of the relevant contexts. We believe curiosity can also manifest as a moral virtue when it helps an interpreter view a speaker as an agent with a valuable perspective on the world. Especially in interactions where either there is a marked power imbalance between interpreter and speaker, or interpreter and speaker have identity beliefs that lead them to radically different worldviews, curiosity can help foster mutual understanding, and prevent the interpreter from dismissing, marginalizing, or pathologizing the speaker’s perspective. (shrink)

Stem cell research. Drug company influence. Abortion. Contraception. Long-term and end-of-life care. Human participants research. Informed consent. The list of ethical issues in science, medicine, and public health is long and continually growing. These complex issues pose a daunting task for professionals in the expanding field of bioethics. But what of the practice of bioethics itself? What issues do ethicists and bioethicists confront in their efforts to facilitate sound moral reasoning and judgment in a variety of venues? Are those immersed (...) in the field capable of making the right decisions? How and why do they face moral challenge -- and even compromise -- as ethicists? What values should guide them? In The Ethics of Bioethics, Lisa A. Eckenwiler and Felicia G. Cohn tackle these questions head on, bringing together notable medical ethicists and people outside the discipline to discuss common criticisms, the field's inherent tensions, and efforts to assign values and assess success. Through twenty-five lively essays examining the field's history and trends, shortcomings and strengths, and the political and policy interplay within the bioethical realm, this comprehensive book begins a much-needed critical and constructive discussion of the moral landscape of bioethics. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the relationships among corporate accountability, reputation, and tax behavior as a corporate social responsibility issue. As part of our investigation, we provide empirical examples of corporate reputation and corporate tax behaviors using a sample of large, U.S.-based multinational companies. In addition, we utilize corporate tax controversies to illustrate possibilities for aggressive corporate tax behaviors of high-profile multinationals to become a reputation threat. Finally, we consider whether reputation serves as an accountability mechanism for corporate tax behaviors (...) among other mechanisms for holding firms accountable for corporate tax behaviors. Our conceptual work points to a complicated relationship among shareholder, stakeholder, and civic responsibilities in the development and execution of firm’s corporate tax strategies. Building on those insights, our empirical illustration considers corporate reputation data alongside data which reflects corporate tax behavior. Based on this work, we find no clear trend or pattern indicating that reputation is associated with or affected by certain types of corporate tax behaviors. That is, our exploratory empirical illustration suggests that corporate tax behavior does not produce broad reputational consequences that would motivate a change in firm behavior. Drawing from celebrity and strategic silence research, we then suggest that reputation may not be a well-functioning mechanism for holding corporations to account for contributing their fair share of the resources used by government for the benefit of society and offer-related theoretical insights. (shrink)

Habit is an integral concept for body studies, a hybrid concept and one that has provided the bedrock across the humanities for considering the interrelationships between movement and stasis, being and becoming, and process and fixity. Habits are seen to provide relay points between what is taken to be inside and outside, disrupting any clear and distinct boundary between nature and culture, self and other, the psychological and social, and even mind and matter. Habit thus discloses a paradox. It takes (...) up a unique position in affect modulation, which encompasses both regulation (in the form of discipline) and also extends the body’s potential for engaging the new, change and creativity. In order to understand the basis of the ambivalent duality governing understandings of habit it is argued that a genealogical approach to this question is necessary. This will be located within the recent ‘turn to affect’ and histories of conation within the psychological sciences, particularly taking the writings of William McDougall as a focus. (shrink)

Cahill addresses the ethics of sexuality, marriage, parenthood and family from a feminist Christian standpoint. She wants to reaffirm the traditional unity of sex, love and parenthood, not as an absolute norm, but a guiding framework. The book also develops the significance of New Testament models of community and of moral formation, to argue that the human values associated with sex and family should be embodied in a context of concern for society's poor and marginalized. Roman Catholicism receives special but (...) not exclusive attention. (shrink)

Despite increasing public attention to animal suffering, little seems to have changed: human beings continue to exploit billions of animals in factory farms, medical laboratories, and elsewhere. In this wide-ranging and perceptive study, Lisa Kemmerer shows how spiritual writings and teachings in seven major religious traditions can help people to consider their ethical obligations towards other creatures.

The right not to know is often defended on the basis of the principle of respect for personal autonomy. If I choose not to acquire personal information that impacts on my future prospects, such a choice should be respected, because I should be able to decide whether to access information about myself and how to use it. But, according to the incoherence objection to the right not to know in the context of genetic testing, the choice not to acquire genetic (...) information undermines the capacity for autonomous decision making. The claim is that it is incoherent to defend a choice that is inimical to autonomy by appealing to autonomy. In this paper, I suggest that the choice not to know in the context of genetic testing does not undermine self-authorship, which is a key aspect of autonomous decision making. In the light of this, the incoherence objection to the right not to know seems less compelling. (shrink)

With its wealth of readily and often publicly available information about Web users’ lives, the Web has created new opportunities for conducting online research. Although digital data are easily accessible, ethical guidelines are inconsistent about how researchers should use them. Some academics claim that traditional ethical principles are sufficient and applicable to online research. However, the Web poses new challenges that compel researchers to reconsider concerns of consent, privacy and anonymity. Based on doctoral research into the investigation of online medicine (...) purchasing, this article presents a case study involving online forums, and reviews the existing ethical guidance surrounding the Web. The suggestion is that new ethical guidelines, particularly in relation to informed consent and participants’ own perceptions of what is public or private, are needed owing to the unique challenges of online research. (shrink)

Exceptionalism is the view that one group is better than other groups and, by virtue of its alleged superiority, is not subject to the same constraints. Here we identify national exceptionalism in the responses made by political leaders in the United States and the United Kingdom to the covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. First, we observe that responses appealed to national values and national character and were marked by a denial of the severity of the situation. Second, we suggest an (...) analogy between national exceptionalism and unrealistic optimism, i.e., people’s tendency to make rosier predictions about their future than is warranted by the evidence due to illusions of superiority and control. Finally, we argue that, at the national level, exceptionalism gave rise to an assumption of invulnerability that made for slow responses to the pandemic, and at the individual level, it served as a justification of people’s failures to adopt safety behaviors. (shrink)

McCullough et al. suggest that revenge and forgiveness rest upon risk computation. Risk computation is implemented by emotions that evolved for additional functions, giving rise to phenomena such as betrayal aversion and taboo-tradeoffs, and specific patterns of forgiveness we have documented. A complete account of revenge and reconciliation should incorporate broader constructs from social psychology, including emotions and values hierarchies.

It is important to be able to offer an account of which activities count as scientific research, given our current interest in promoting research as a means to benefit humankind and in ethically regulating it. We attempt to offer such an account, arguing that we need to consider both the procedural and functional dimensions of an activity before we can establish whether it is a genuine instance of scientific research. By placing research in a broader schema of activities, the similarities (...) and differences between research activities and other activities become visible. It is also easier to show why some activities that do not count as research can sometimes be confused with research and why some other activities can be regarded only partially as research. Although the concept of research is important to delimit a class of activities which we might be morally obliged to promote, we observe that the class of activities which are regarded as subject to ethical regulation is not exhausted by research activities. We argue that, whether they be research or not, all the activities that are likely to affect the rights and interests of the individuals involved and impact on the rights and interests of other individuals raise ethical issues and might be in need of ethical regulation. (shrink)

Although much has been written about the property of rationality, its requirements, and whether it is normative, rationality attributions themselves have not received much attention. The main aim of this paper is to address this oversight by focussing directly on rationality attributions and their complexities. After offering a diagnosis for why attributions have been largely overlooked, the paper introduces three problems that have plagued the rationality debate as a result: implausible symmetry, conflicts within rationality, and with reasons. Brunero’s (2012) answer (...) to the symmetry problem provides the beginnings of a solution but makes it harder to compare the rationality of agents. The remainder of the paper is dedicated to spelling out the new approach: to understand rationality attributions as relative to specific sets of attitudes. This approach circumvents the previous problems and meets a number of desiderata, resulting in a more nuanced and complete understanding of rationality that can enhance our practices of praising or criticising agents based on their rational performance. (shrink)

In philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive science, definitions of clinical delusions are not based on the mechanisms responsible for the formation of delusions, since there is no consensus yet on what causes delusions. Some of the defining features of delusions are epistemic and focus on whether delusions are true, justified, or rational, as in the definition of delusions as fixed beliefs that are badly supported by evidence. Other defining features of delusions are psychological and focus on whether delusions are harmful, as (...) in the definition of delusions as beliefs that disrupt good functioning. Even if the epistemic features go some way towards capturing what otherwise different instances of clinical delusions have in common, they do not succeed in distinguishing delusions as a clinical phenomenon from everyday irrational beliefs. Focusing on the psychological features is a more promising way to mark the difference between clinical and non-clinical irrational beliefs, but there is wide variability in the extent to which delusions are psychologically harmful, and some everyday irrational beliefs can affect functioning in similarly negative ways. In this chapter we consider three types of belief that share similar epistemic features and exhibit variation with respect to how psychologically harmful they are: (1) delusions of thought insertion, (2) alien abduction beliefs, and (3) self-enhancing beliefs. In the light of the similarities and differences among these cases, we highlight the difficulty in providing an answer to what makes an irrational belief delusional. (shrink)

The pervasive effects of early childhood experiences on health at older ages, documented with methods from life course epidemiology, have served to refocus many public health efforts towards understanding the impact of both cumulative disadvantage and what are known as "sensitive periods" and "critical periods" in shaping health trajectories. While the impact of early childhood experiences has been well-studied, much less attention has been focused on other periods of the life course that might also serve as critical junctures in shaping (...) exposures and risks, periods that may also influence biological pathways leading to poor health in late life. This is especially important as we examine social and economic... (shrink)

This descriptive case study explores how on cohort of 17 White elementary preservice teachers examined counter-narratives of racism and Whiteness in selected documentary films using a historical inquiry approach. Findings indicate that by joining documentary film and historical inquiry in elementary social studies education, teacher educators can foster preservice teachers' engagement with perspective recognition while developing historical content knowledge. This study also documents White preservice teachers' acceptance of racism and resistance towards unpacking their White privilege and racism as status quo. (...) Implications for using this approach with preservice teachers and the dilemma of White avoidance in social studies education are discussed. (shrink)

Argues that in order to reinvigorate our moral inheritances we must endeavor not only to live well, but also to live better.

_Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice_ addresses interconnections between speciesism, sexism, racism, and homophobia, clarifying why social justice activists in the twenty-first century must challenge intersecting forms of oppression. This anthology presents bold and gripping--sometimes horrifying--personal narratives from fourteen activists who have personally explored links of oppression between humans and animals, including such exploitative enterprises as cockfighting, factory farming, vivisection, and the bushmeat trade. _Sister Species_ asks readers to rethink how they view "others," how they affect animals with their (...) daily choices, and how they might bring change for all who are abused. These essays remind readers that women have always been important to social justice and animal advocacy, and they urge each of us to recognize the links that continue to bind all oppressed individuals. The astonishing honesty of these contributors demonstrates with painful clarity why every woman should be an animal activist and why every animal activist should be a feminist. Contributors are Carol J. Adams, Tara Sophia Bahna-James, Karen Davis, Elizabeth Jane Farians, Hope Ferdowsian, Linda Fisher, Twyla François, Christine Garcia, A. Breeze Harper, Sangamithra Iyer, Pattrice Jones, Lisa Kemmerer, Allison Lance, Ingrid Newkirk, Lauren Ornelas, and Miyun Park. (shrink)

In _Law’s Rule_, Gerald Postema provides a robust theoretical framework of the rule of law that technology scholars can use to analyze power in the digital world. He articulates how the rule of law can be concerned with private power, and not just public power. His emphasis on the ethos of fidelity allows us to see how the rule of law of law may be degraded in the digital era through the erosion of the informal institutions and practices needed to (...) sustain the rule of law. In addition to outlining these contributions, this paper argues that Postema’s account of digital power needs to focus more on digital power structures rather than digital power wielding, that digital power structures erode many informal constraints on power, and that addressing sociotechnical systems might require rethinking law’s distinctive instrumentalities in order to embrace the use of digital technologies to increase transparency and compliance. (shrink)

This paper looks at two figures in the modern, European, eighteenth-century debate on luxury. It claims to better understand the differences between Francis Hutcheson and Bernard Mandeville by exploring how Hutcheson treated the topic of luxury as a distinction between two desires, thus differing from Mandeville's concept of luxury, and a concept of temperance based on moral sense. It explores why Hutcheson believed that luxury was a moral, social and political issue and particularly why he considered Mandeville the embodiment of (...) a threat that went beyond simple considerations of the content of The Fable of the Bees to touch on reflections on the equilibrium of a social and political system. It aims to show how the psychological and the moral dimension were connected to Hutcheson's political theory and how luxury was one of the key points of this connection. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A recent issue of the journal Design and Culture included Lucy Kimbell's interview of object-oriented ontology philosopher Graham Harman. The invitation was premised on Harman's ability to counter the contemporary focus on user-centered design with an object orientation. Harman's appearance in the world of design discourse presents a paradox. To ask what object-oriented ontology that explicitly rejects anthropocentrism can offer user-centered and decidedly anthropocentric design practice seems to miss the point of an object orientation. An answer to the paradox (...) may reside in Ian Bogost's account of the metaphorism of object-oriented ontology. This essay explores Bogost's Alien Phenomenology, or What It's like to Be a Thing, which uses Harman's metaphor of black noise as “the background noise of peripheral objects,” and considers the design implications of Bogost's call to amplify black noise and linger in the speculative fiction of things, such as roasted green chile peppers, udon noodles, and pound cake. (shrink)

Legal minds have utilized the principle of double effect as proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas for centuries to shape legal authority in cases where moral judgment and legal reasoning meet. The U.S. Supreme Court had uti­lized double-effect reasoning in the realm of self-defense cases. This article discusses more recent use of double-effect reasoning in the landmark Supreme Court case Vacco v. Quill and its companion case, Washington v. Glucksberg. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the Court in Vacco, introduced double-effect (...) reasoning to identify the distinctions between palliative care and assisted suicide in an effort to uphold the constitutionality of the ban on assisted suicide in New York. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 41–48. (shrink)

This open access book offers an exploration of delusions--unusual beliefs that can significantly disrupt people's lives. Experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including lived experience, clinical psychiatry, philosophy, clinical psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, discuss how delusions emerge, why it is so difficult to give them up, what their effects are, how they are managed, and what we can do to reduce the stigma associated with them. Taken as a whole, the book proposes that there is continuity between delusions and (...) everyday beliefs. It is essential reading for researchers working on delusions and mental health more generally, and will also appeal to anybody who wants to gain a better understanding of what happens when the way we experience and interpret the world is different from that of the people around us. (shrink)

Catholic social teaching frames a practical, political tradition, historically embodied and directed toward the dignity of the person, solidarity, and the common good as essential to social justice. It aims not only to convert the Church but to be an agent of change in societies globally. Yet despite over 130 years of condemnations by CST of violence, exploitation, and other forms of social injustice, scourges like poverty, war, racism, and sexism still blight human existence. The work of the Belgian theologian (...) Johan Verstraeten offers resources for a view of social movements as agents of the transformation of social institutions and structures. Social movements can provoke and enhance the formation of justice as an institutional virtue, disposing institutions to better foster solidarity and the common good. (shrink)

Using a queer theory and disrupting heteronormativity framework, we applied a model lesson in the elementary methods course to understand preservice teachers’ experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and their beliefs about utilizing children׳s literature portraying LGBTQ families in the elementary classroom. Participants reported a range of personal experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and relatively positive responses to the family text set presented but wavered on LGBTQ themed books due to perceived conflict, religious beliefs, and ideas about what is (...) appropriate content for young learners. A discussion of the findings also includes preservice teachers’ intentions for future teaching related to LGBTQ topics. Implications for teacher education and social studies education are explored. (shrink)

This very short paper highlights some of my recent and forthcoming work on “good epistemic practices” in the financial services industry. It identifies some epistemic dimensions of risk management in banking and illustrates how managing for good epistemic practices might be helpful.