Beginning in the 1940s, mass production of antibiotics involved the industrial-scale growth of microorganisms to harvest their metabolic products. Unfortunately, the use of antibiotics selects for resistance at answering scale. The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies. In turning to biological manifestations of antibiotic use, sciences fathom material outcomes of their (...) own previous concepts. Archival work with stored soil and clinical samples produces a record described here as ‘the biology of history’: the physical registration of human history in bacterial life. This account thus foregrounds the importance of understanding both the materiality of history and the historicity of matter in theories and concepts of life today. (shrink)

A number of philosophers, including Kant, Kripke, Boghossian, Gibbard and Brandom, can be read as endorsing the view that concepts are normative. I distinguish two versions of that view: a strong, non-naturalistic version which identifies concepts with norms or rules (Kant, Kripke), and a weaker version, compatible with naturalism, on which the normativity of concepts amounts only to their application’s being governed by norms or rules (Boghossian, Gibbard, Brandom). I consider a problem for the strong version: grasp of a rule (...) seems to require grasp of the concepts which constitute the content of that rule, so how can we explain concept acquisition without falling into regress? I offer a Kantian response, on which grasp of a rule does not require antecedent grasp of concepts, but still involves the recognition of normativity in one’s rule-governed behavior. I distinguish the normativity of concepts, so understood, from the normativity associated with truth or warrant. Keywords: concepts, normativity, rules, Kant, Kripke, Boghossian, Gibbard, Brandom. (shrink)

Feminist Theory After Deleuze addresses the encounter between one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, and one of its most significant political and intellectual movements, feminism. Feminist theory is a broad, contradictory, and still evolving school of thought. This book introduces the key movements within feminist theory, engaging with both Anglo-American and French feminism, as well as important strains of feminist thought that have originated in Australia and other parts of Europe. Mapping both the feminist critique of (...) Deleuze's work and the ways in which it has brought vitality to feminist theory, this book brings Deleuze into dialogue with significant thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz and Luce Irigaray. It takes key terms in feminist theory such as, 'difference', 'gender', 'bodies', 'desire' and 'politics' and approaches them from a Deleuzian perspective. (shrink)

Prima facie, it seems highly plausible to suppose that there is some kind of constitutive relationship between self-control and the self, i.e., that self-control is “control at the service of the self” or even “control by the self.” This belief is not only attractive from a pre-theoretical standpoint, but it also seems to be supported by theoretical reasons. In particular, there is a natural fit between a certain attractive approach to self-control—the so-called “divided mind approach”—and a certain well-established approach to (...) the self—the so-called “deep self” approach. I argue, however, that this initial impression is misleading: on closer inspection, the combination of the divided mind approach to self-control with the deep self approach fails to provide us with a theoretical foundation for the claim that self-control is constitutively linked to the self. I show that, in an interesting twist, combining these two approaches actually supports the opposite claim, leading us to the view that self-control and the self can come apart, and, more specifically, that we sometimes exercise self-control without our self or even against our self. (shrink)

This meta-analysis synthesizes quantitative findings of the gender differences in moral sensitivity retrieved from 19 primary studies. We found the average effect size of 0.25, favoring women, with a standard deviation of 0.14. The variation in the observed effect sizes could not be attributed to differences in participants' educational level, the utilized measure of moral sensitivity, or the publication format in which the study was reported. This suggests that gender differences in moral sensitivity are consistent across different levels of participants' (...) education regardless of the instrument used to assess moral sensitivity or the format in which the research was reported. (shrink)

While there has been much focus on the disempowering and incapacitating effects of ‘normative’ femininity, less attention has been paid to the queer possibilities of femininity. Queer femme has been proposed by some as a key site for rethinking femininity. Extending upon these discussions, and drawing on interviews conducted with queer femmes in Australia in 2013, this article proposes focusing on affective dimensions to deepen our understanding of queer femme as more than an identity, but rather, as assemblage Working from (...) the basis of assemblage, this article examines exactly how and why femme bodies queer femininity. However the article also argues that where queer femme discourse distances itself from non-femme, or ‘normative’, femininity, it misses an opportunity for advocating for a different approach to gender presentation within a broader collective. The central argument of this article is that from an affective theory of queer femme as assemblage, we can better understand both queer femme identity and the attachments to femininity that people maintain more generally, without relying on a binary logic that proclaims femininity as only disempowering or empowering, queer or not queer enough. (shrink)

How individuals reason deductively has concerned researchers for many years. Yet, it is still unclear whether, and if so how, participants’ reasoning performance changes over time. In two test sessions one week apart, we examined how the syllogistic reasoning performance of 100 participants changed within and between sessions. Participants’ reasoning performance increased during the first session. A week later, they started off at the same level of reasoning performance but did not further improve. The reported performance gains were only found (...) for logically valid, but not for invalid syllogisms indicating a bias against responding that ‘no valid conclusion’ follows from the premises. Importantly, we demonstrate that participants substantially varied in the strength of the temporal performance changes and explored how individual characteristics, such as participants’ personality and cognitive ability, relate to these interindividual differences. Together, our findings contradict common assumptions that reasoning performance only reflects a stable inherent ability. (shrink)

Philosophy is one of the least inclusive disciplines in the humanities and this situation is changing only very slowly. In this article I consider how one of the women of the Wartime Quartet, Iris Murdoch, can help to challenge this situation. Taking my cue from feminist and philosophical practices, I focus on Murdoch's experience of being a woman and a philosopher and on the role experience plays in her philosophical writing. I argue that her thinking is best characterised with the (...) notion of common sense orsensus communis. This term recognises her understanding of philosophy as based in experience and as a shared effort ‘to make sense of our life’, as Mary Midgley puts it. (shrink)

For a long time, Kant’s Doctrine of Right languished in relative neglect, even among Kantians. The work was best known for its uncompromising views on punishment and revolution, and for a seemingly limited and not particularly original emphasis on private property. Kant’s more interesting political claims were often said to be located elsewhere: in the third Critique (Hannah Arendt, Patrick Riley), or the structure of the critical project (Onora O’Neill). When John Rawls explained why his theory of justice (...) could be given a ‘Kantian interpretation’, he drew on concepts found just in Kant’s moral philosophy, bypassing the Doctrine of Right entirely. -/- In recent years, however, there has been an expanding body of work on the Doctrine of Right, by writers like B. Sharon Byrd and Joachim Hruschka, Arthur Ripstein, Elisabeth Ellis, and Lea Ypi. Ripstein and Ellis, in particular, have sought to reframe the arguments of Kant’s text in terms more congenial to contemporary legal and political theory. But can Kant’s arguments really be applied to twenty-first-century political debates? -/- The authors in this collection of essays explore this question in different ways, by looking at different aspects of Kant’s text. What is distinctive about Kant’s conception of the social contract, or human rights? Can a Kantian political philosophy concern itself with poverty and welfare rights? Can a Kantian affirm a conception of civil disobedience? What kind of view should a Kantian have of international relations? Can Kant’s views on punishment be reconciled with a conception of forgiveness? What would a Kantian position be in contemporary debates about marriage? -/- The authors of this volume do not always agree with one another, but they always seek to be faithful to the text, and to understand what a political position grounded in the Doctrine of Right would look like in twenty-first-century terms. (shrink)

Interventions designed to promote perspective taking are increasingly prevalent in educational settings, and are also being considered for applications in other domains. Thus far, these perspective-taking interventions (PTIs) have largely escaped philosophical attention, however they are sometimes _prima facie_ morally problematic in at least two respects: they are neither transparent nor easy to resist. Nontransparent or hard-to-resist PTIs call for a moral defense and our primary aim in this paper is to provide such a defense. We offer two arguments for (...) the view that an exemplar PTI is morally permissible even though it is plausibly neither transparent nor easy to resist. The first argument appeals to an analogy between PTIs and permissible deceptive research practices. The second appeals to the way in which PTIs draw participants’ attention to their reasons for action. We also respond to the objection that, by imposing a particular conception of the good, PTIs violate liberal neutrality. (shrink)

This article discusses the relationship between stress, physical health, and well-being in cultural context, offers examples of laws, policies, and programs to promote mental health and well-being, and examines how collective impact supports mental health and well-being.

If you ask people ‘What does a philosopher look like?’, their first response is often an image of an elderly man with a beard. This image can be explained by looking at philosophy's history, which has been dominated by a very select group of men. Yet, in recent years it has become obvious that the history of philosophy is not as monochrome as is often assumed. In this article, I consider how the inclusion of different voices in the history of (...) philosophy should impel us to rethink the ways in which the history of philosophy is told. (shrink)

So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn't exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains - and our choices over what we eat, who we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of (...) our unconscious minds. Leading neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow draws vividly from everyday life and other experts in their field to show the extraordinary potential, as well as dangers, which come with being able to predict our likely futures - and looking at how we can alter what's in store for us. (shrink)

The biological world is full of phenomena that seem to run counter to Darwin's insight that natural selection can lead to the appearance of design. For instance, why do organisms in some species divide reproductive labor? The existence of non-reproducing organisms in such 'eusocial' species looks to be at odds with an evolutionary theory which posits traits exist because they help organisms survive and reproduce. What is the evolutionary advantage of an insect being distasteful to its predators? The distastefulness appears (...) designed to deter predators, but can only affect the predator's actions when the insect is eaten; it is hard to see how such a trait could be passed on. This Element will cover the shared foundations of evolutionary explanations for these and other seemingly puzzling phenomena, focusing on the concepts of inclusive fitness and kin selection. (shrink)

Back in 1978, Louise Brown made international headlines simply for being born, the first to do so after in vitro fertilization (IVF). One ethicist acknowledged fears that IVF “might move us toward...

Although Hannah Arendt is considered one of the major contributors to social and political thought in the twentieth century, this is the first general anthology ...

I defend the normativity of meaning against recent objections by arguing for a new interpretation of the ‘ought’ relevant to meaning. Both critics and defenders of the normativity thesis have understood statements about how an expression ought to be used as either prescriptive or semantic. I propose an alternative view of the ‘ought’ as conveying the primitively normative attitudes speakers must adopt towards their uses if they are to use the expression with understanding.

Competitive negotiators frequently use tactics which others view as "unethical", in that these tactics either violate standards of truth telling or violate the perceived rules of negotiation. This paper sought to determine how business students viewed a number of marginally ethical negotiating tactics, and to determine the underlying factor structure of these tactics. The factor analysis of these tactics revealed five clear factors which were highly similar across the two samples, and which parallel (to a moderate degree) categories of tactics (...) proposed by earlier theory. Data from one sample also permitted comparisons of the appropriateness of certain tactics across gender, nationality, ethnic origin and perception of one's negotiating style. (shrink)

Arrhenius and Rabinowicz have argued that Millian qualitative superiorities are possible without assuming that any pleasure, or type of pleasure, is infinitely superior to another. But AR's analysis is fatally flawed in the context of ethical hedonism, where the assumption in question is necessary and sufficient for Millian qualitative superiorities. Marginalist analysis of the sort pressed by AR continues to have a valid role to play within any plausible version of hedonism, provided the fundamental incoherence that infects AR's use of (...) such analysis is removed. But what AR call ‘Millian superiorities’ are never genuine qualitative superiorities in Mill's sense. Mill scholars need to appreciate this point and recognize that the interpretation of qualitative superiorities as infinite superiorities is the only interpretation which is compatible with the text of Mill's Utilitarianism. The continuing failure to appreciate the possibility of infinite superiorities has precluded any adequate understanding of the extraordinary structure of Mill's pluralistic hedonistic utilitarianism. (shrink)

The profound changes in personality, mood, and other features of the self that neural interventions can induce can be disconcerting to patients, their families, and caregivers. In the neuroethical debate, these concerns are often addressed in the context of possible threats to the narrative self. In this paper, I argue that it is necessary to consider a dimension of impacts on the narrative self which has so far been neglected: neural interventions can lead to a loss of meaning of actions, (...) feelings, beliefs, and other intentional elements of our self-narratives. To uphold the coherence of the self-narrative, the changes induced by neural interventions need to be accounted for through explanations in intentional or biochemical terms. However, only an explanation including intentional states delivers the content to directly ascribe personal meaning, i.e., subjective value to events. Neural interventions can deprive events of meaning because they may favor a predominantly biochemical account. A loss of meaning is not inherently negative but it can be problematic, particularly if events are affected one was not prepared or willing to have stripped of meaning. The paper further examines what it is about neural interventions that impacts meaning by analyzing different methods. To which degree the pull towards a biochemical view occurs depends on the characteristics of the neural intervention. By comparing Deep Brain Stimulation, Prozac, Ritalin, psychedelics, and psychotherapy, the paper identifies some main factors: the rate of change, the transparency of the causal chain, the involvement of the patient, and the presence of an acute phenomenological experience. (shrink)

In this paper we outline the activities of young girls in a Toba community of northern Argentina and examine the effect of girl helpers on time allocation of nursing women. Activity budgets were obtained for 41 girls aged 3 to 15 using spot observations. Girls spent substantial portions of observations engaged in helping behaviors. Individual values varied with age, anthropometric characteristics, and birth order. Activity budgets of 21 nursing women were obtained through focal observation sessions. Women living in households with (...) girls aged 7 to 15 allocated 17% less time to domestic work and 9% more time to socializing during afternoon observation sessions. For nursing women in this community, direct childcare (provided by the infant’s own mother) seemed to be a priority. Living with a girl helper did not have any measurable effect on the frequency or duration of nursing, or on the time that women spent caring for their infants. Based on these findings, hypotheses are outlined for future work on the effect of girl helpers on women’s fertility. (shrink)

We are reviewing and summarizing evidence for the processes of acquisition of information outside of conscious awareness (processing information about covariations, nonconscious indirect and interactive inferences, self-perpetuation of procedural knowledge). A considerable amount of data indicates that as compared to consciously controlled cognition, the nonconscious information-acquisition processes are not only much faster but also structurally more sophisticated in the sense that they are capable of efficient processing of multidimensional and interactive relations between variables. Those mechanisms of nonconscious acquisition of information (...) provide a major channel for the development of procedural knowledge which is indispensable for such important aspects of cognitive functioning as encoding and interpretation of stimuli and the triggering emotional reactions. (shrink)

An accessible yet rigorous introduction to the influential French philosopher Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of individuation. Gilbert Simondon, one of the most influential contemporary French philosophers, published only three works: L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique and L'individuation psychique et collective, both drawn from his doctoral thesis, and Du mode d'existence des objets techniques. It is this last work that brought Simondon into the public eye; as a consequence, he has been considered a “thinker of technics” and cited often in pedagogical reports (...) on teaching technology. Yet Simondon was a philosopher whose ambitions lay in an in-depth renewal of ontology as a process of individuation—that is, how individuals come into being, persist, and transform. In this accessible yet rigorous introduction to Simondon's work, Muriel Combes helps to bridge the gap between Simondon's account of technics and his philosophy of individuation. Some thinkers have found inspiration in Simondon's philosophy of individuation, notably Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Combes's account, first published in French in 1999, is one of the only studies of Simondon to appear in English. Combes breaks new ground, exploring an ethics and politics adequate to Simondon's hypothesis of preindividual being, considering through the lens of transindividual philosophy what form a nonservile relation to technology might take today. Her book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Simondon's work. (shrink)

The potential of memory modification techniques (MMTs) has raised concerns and sparked a debate in neuroethics, particularly in the context of identity and authenticity. This paper addresses the question whether and how MMTs influence authenticity. I proceed by drawing two distinctions within the received views on authenticity. From this, I conclude that an analysis of MMTs based on a dual-basis, process view of authenticity is warranted, which implies that the influence of MMTs on authenticity crucially depends on the specifics of (...) how memory modification would eventually work. Therefore, I continue with a systematic analysis of possible properties of MMTs in which I distinguish between the dimensions of memories and the kinds of experiences that can be modified as well as the properties of the process of memory modification. The impact of MMTs on authenticity is analyzed regarding the possible properties of MMTs and based on a narrative approach to authenticity which fulfills the requirements of a dual-basis, process view of authenticity. Lastly, I explore the potential of MMTs to shift the balance between self-discovery and self-creation within authenticity and thereby alter the concept itself as well as the value of authenticity. (shrink)

This paper presents a functional genealogy of essentialist authenticity. The essentialist account maintains that authenticity is the result of discovering and realizing one’s ‘true self’. The genealogy shows that essentialist authenticity can serve the function of supporting continuity in one’s individual characteristics. A genealogy of essentialist authenticity is not only methodologically interesting as the first functional genealogy of a contingent concept. It can also deepen the functional understanding of authenticity used in neuroethics, provide a possible explanation for the prevalence of (...) the idea of an essentialist true self and justify the use of the ideal of authenticity. First, essentialist authenticity is defined and explained through the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Second, a general need to have steady characteristics is derived from basic human practices. Third, circumstances that make it more challenging to steady oneself are identified and shown to have become more prevalent in the age of modernity when the ideal of authenticity emerged. Finally, it is shown how essentialist authenticity helps to steady the self. (shrink)

This paper argues that human dignity is a sui generis status principle whose function lies in unifying our normative orders. More fully, human dignity denotes a basic status to be preserved in any institution or process; it is a principle demanding determination in different contexts; and it has its most characteristic application where the legal, moral, and political place competing obligations on individuals. The implication of this account is that we should not seek to reduce human dignity to either a (...) legal norm or a legal principle. (shrink)

The recent wave of medical assistance in dying legalisation raises questions about proper oversight of the practice as new systems for data collection, case assessment and public reporting emerge. Newer systems, such as in Spain, New Zealand and Colombia, are eschewing the retrospective approach used for case assessment in older systems, particularly those in the Netherlands, Belgium and the USA, in favour of an approach requiring more extensive review prior to the procedure. This shift aims to increase compliance with each (...) jurisdiction’s specific safeguards and legal criteria as well as to protect vulnerable patients, but also risks stifling access to the practice and increasing administrative burden on clinicians and patients. Newer systems also tend to favour more extensive data collection than older systems, while failing to be as transparent with public reporting. Inconsistency in data collection and public reporting make it difficult for researchers, policymakers and the public to assess the practice and help achieve a balance between access and compliance. Research on oversight activities is sparse, and there is a need for clarity to determine how best to handle violations of the law and how to create best practices. (shrink)

Patrick Riley traces the forgotten roots of Rousseau's concept to seventeenth-century questions about the justice of God. If He wills that all men be saved, does He have a general will that produces universal salvation? And, if He does not, why does He will particularly" that some men be damned? The theological origin of the "general will" was important to Rousseau himself. He uses the language of divinity bequeathed to him by Pascal, Malebranche, Fenelon, and others to dignify, to (...) elevate, and to "save" politics. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)