Numerous social, economic and academic pressures can have a negative impact on representations of biomedical research. We review several of the forces playing an increasingly pernicious role in how health and science information is interpreted, shared and used, drawing discussions towards the role of narrative. In turn, we explore how aspects of narrative are used in different social contexts and communication environments, and present creative responses that may help counter the negative trends. As traditional methods of communication have in many (...) ways failed the public, changes in approach are required, including the creative use of narratives. (shrink)

Trust has been identified as an indicator within Social Quality theory. As an important component of social quality, trust has become increasingly important in modern society because literature suggests that trust in a number of democratic countries is declining. Modern technologies and specialties are often beyond the understanding of lay individuals and thus, the need for trusting relations between lay individuals and organizations/individuals has grown. The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which Australians (dis)trust individuals and (...) organizations/institutions. A national postal survey was conducted with 1,044 respondents recruited using the electronic white pages directory. Findings from multivariate analyses suggest that income, age, sex, and health status are associated with trust in groups of individuals and trust in organizations/institutions. The findings highlight populations where trust needs to be (re)built. Future government policy and practice should utilize these findings as a means of facilitating social quality. (shrink)

Samantha Lay _British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit-Grit_ London: Wallflower Press, 2002 ISBN 1-903364-41-8 144 pp.

Many parents are hesitant about, or face motivational barriers to, vaccinating their children. In this paper, we propose a type of vaccination policy that could be implemented either in addition to coercive vaccination or as an alternative to it in order to increase paediatric vaccination uptake in a non-coercive way. We propose the use of vaccination nudges that exploit the very same decision biases that often undermine vaccination uptake. In particular, we propose a policy under which children would be vaccinated (...) at school or day-care by default, without requiring parental authorization, but with parents retaining the right to opt their children out of vaccination. We show that such a policy is likely to be effective, at least in cases in which non-vaccination is due to practical obstacles, rather than to strong beliefs about vaccines, ethically acceptable and less controversial than some alternatives because it is not coercive and affects individual autonomy only in a morally unproblematic way, and likely to receive support from the UK public, on the basis of original empirical research we have conducted on the lay public. (shrink)

With the development of increasingly sophisticated sociable robots, robot-human relationships are being transformed. Not only can sociable robots furnish emotional support and companionship for humans, humans can also form relationships with robots that they value highly. It is natural to ask, do robots that stand in close relationships with us have any moral standing over and above their purely instrumental value as means to human ends. We might ask our question this way, ‘Are there ways we can act towards robots (...) that would be wrong to the robot?’ To address this, Part I lays out standard approaches to moral standing: appealing to intrinsic properties, human responses, and values inhering in relationships. Part II explores the third, relational strategy in detail. Looking beyond Western analyses, it considers Eastern philosophy and the environmental philosophy of 'deep ecology' and extends these approaches to sociable robots. Part III examines practical implications for the case of Samantha, a sex robot that was allegedly raped. Part IV identifies and replies to objections. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) occupies a unique place in 20th-century philosophy. His view that human beings are not rational but symbolic animals and his famous dispute with Martin Heidegger at Davos in 1929 are compelling alternatives to the deadlock between 'analytic' and 'continental' approaches to philosophy. An astonishing polymath, Cassirer's work pays equal attention to mathematics and natural science but also art, language, myth, religion, technology, and history. However, until now the importance of his work has largely been overlooked. -/- In (...) this outstanding introduction Samantha Matherne examines and assesses the full span of Cassirer’s work. Beginning with an overview of his life and works she covers the following important topics: Cassirer’s neo-Kantian background; philosophy of mathematics and natural science, including Cassirer’s first systematic work, Substance and Function, and subsequent works, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity; the problem of culture and the ground-breaking The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms; Cassirer’s ethical and political thought and his diagnosis of fascism in The Myth of the State; and Cassirer’s influence and legacy. -/- Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of terms, this is an ideal introduction to Cassirer’s thought for anyone coming to his work for the first time. It is essential reading for students in philosophy as well as related disciplines such as intellectual history, art history, politics, and literature. (shrink)

Is there tension in a view of the conditions of being in a proper position to make aesthetic evaluations that is committed to aesthetic autonomy and norms of exposure? I define ‘aesthetic autonomy’ in terms of the Kantian idea that in order to make a proper aesthetic evaluation, one must rely on oneself rather than on any outside source. I define ‘norms of exposure’ in terms of the Humean idea that practice and aesthetic education are conditions of proper aesthetic evaluation. (...) Prima facie, these two commitments point toward competing accounts of whether exposure is a condition of being in a position to make proper aesthetic evaluations. However, I argue that a closer look at the Kantian position reveals that aesthetic exposure is a condition of being able to make aesthetic evaluations in an autonomous way in the Kantian framework. (shrink)

In _Biocultural Creatures_, Samantha Frost brings feminist and political theory together with findings in the life sciences to recuperate the category of the human for politics. Challenging the idea of human exceptionalism as well as other theories of subjectivity that rest on a distinction between biology and culture, Frost proposes that humans are biocultural creatures who quite literally are cultured within the material, social, and symbolic worlds they inhabit. Through discussions about carbon, the functions of cell membranes, the activity (...) of genes and proteins, the work of oxygen, and the passage of time, Frost recasts questions about the nature of matter, identity, and embodiment. In doing so, she elucidates the imbrication of the biological and cultural within the corporeal self. In remapping the relation of humans to their habitats and arriving at the idea that humans are biocultural creatures, Frost provides new theoretical resources for responding to political and environmental crises and for thinking about how to transform the ways we live. (shrink)

This paper poses a series of objections to Sofia Jeppsson’s hard-line reply to Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument. According to Jeppsson, the compatibilist can resist Pereboom’s argument by disregarding facts about what caused an agent to act (the ‘causal perspective’) and focusing primarily on the agent’s own perspective of their action (the ‘agential perspective’). Jeppsson argues that we have an obligation to disregard the causal perspective. This is for two reasons: (I) we must disregard the causal facts of the agent’s action, (...) including whether they have been manipulated, since the agent has reason to disregard them; and (II) the causal perspective is not obviously relevant to judgments of moral responsibility. In this paper, I show that both (I) and (II) can be undermined because the causal perspective provides information that is necessary for moral deliberations. This is because it would seem that at least one necessary condition for an agent to be considered morally responsible is that the agent’s actions are not fully controlled by someone else. Since this is information that we can only obtain via the causal perspective, we do not have an obligation to disregard this perspective and so need not accept the compatibilist’s hard-line account. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic understanding of the principle of state participation: it is specifically designed to palliate the democratic deficits of more common versions of the Principle (...) of State Consent. Second, it endorses a qualified version of the Principle of Civil Society Participation, one that is much more restrictive and more critical of the democratic defects of civil society actors than most of its current supporters. Finally, it reveals how the democratic strengths and deficits of both models are best approached as mirroring one another and need to be combined in a complex ac... (shrink)

Samantha Matherne defends a systematic interpretation of the philosopher Immanuel Kants theory of imagination. In contrast with more traditional theories of imagination, as a kind of fantasy that we exercise only in relation to objects that are not real or not present, Matherne argues that Kant theorizes imagination as something that we exercise just as much in relation to objects that are real and present. In short, she attributes to Kant a view of imagining as something that pervades our (...) lives. In order to bring out this pervasiveness, Matherne offers an account of what kind of mental capacity Kant takes imagination to be in general. She then explores Kants picture of how we exercise our imagination in perception, ordinary experience, the appreciation of beauty and sublimity, the production of art, the pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit of morality. However, she makes the case that Kants analysis of this wide range of phenomena is underwritten by a unified theory of what imagination is, as a remarkably flexible cognitive capacity that we can exercise in constrained and creative, playful and serious ways. (shrink)

In this unique volume, some of today's most eminent political philosophers examine the thought of John Rawls, focusing in particular on his most recent work. These original essays explore diverse issues, including the problem of pluralism, the relationship between constitutive commitment and liberal institutions, just treatment of dissident minorities, the constitutional implications of liberalism, international relations, and the structure of international law. The first comprehensive study of Rawls's recent work, The Idea of Political Liberalism will be indispensable for political philosophers (...) and theorists interested in contemporary political thought. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant offers a theory of artistic expression in which he claims that a work of art is a medium through which an artist expresses an ‘aesthetic idea’. While Kant’s theory of aesthetic ideas often receives rather restrictive interpretations, according to which aesthetic ideas can either present only moral concepts, or only moral concepts and purely rational concepts, in this article I offer an ‘inclusive interpretation’ of aesthetic ideas, according to which they can (...) present not only moral and purely rational concepts but also empirical concepts and emotions related to our ordinary experience. Although this latter class of experience-oriented aesthetic ideas has been neglected, I argue that recognizing the role it plays in Kant’s account is crucial for understanding his views not only of artistic production and our experience of art but also of the value he takes art to have for our ordinary experience of the world, others, and our own selves. What is more, insofar as the inclusive interpretation brings to light Kant’s acknowledgement of the close connection between experience and art, it reveals that his overall view of art is more plausible than is often thought, and recommends it as worthy of further consideration. (shrink)

In the 1880s and 1890s, the British Isles-Ireland especially-experienced a Celtic Literary Revival. Drawing on both history and religion, this revival focused on aspects of old Celtic spirituality and how their beliefs were intertwined with the natural world around them. While not everyone was sympathetic to this sense of spirituality and nostalgia, the revival did gain traction amongst many authors of the time. Using the works of influential writers like William Butler Yeats and the Rhymers Club, this paper seeks to (...) explore how Celtic spirituality was being rediscovered and interpreted during the late Victorian period. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to offer a systematic analysis of a feature of Kant’s theory of perception that tends to be overlooked, viz., his account of how the imagination forms images in perception. Although Kant emphasizes the centrality of this feature of perception, indeed, calling it a ‘necessary ingredient’ of perception, commentators have instead focused primarily on his account of sensibility and intuitions on the one hand, and understanding and concepts on the other. However, I show that careful (...) attention to what he says about the nature of images, their connection to the imagination, and their role in perception in his Metaphysics Lectures, as well as in the Deduction and Schematism chapters of the first Critique reveals that Kant is working with a richer, more nuanced framework for perception than is often attributed to him. I contend that it is only once we have a revised framework for Kant’s theory of perception in place that we will be able to make further headway in debates, e.g., about whether or not he is a conceptualist about perception. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between the law and pervasive and persistent reasonable disagreement about justice. It reveals the central moral function and creative force of reasonable disagreement in and about the law and shows why and how lawyers and legal philosophers should take reasonable conflict more seriously. Even though the law should be regarded as the primary mode of settlement of our moral conflicts,it can, and should, also be the object and the forum of further moral conflicts. There is (...) more to the rule of law than convergence and determinacy and it is important therefore to question the importance of agreement in law and politics. By addressing in detail issues pertaining to the nature and sources of disagreement, its extent and significance, as well as the procedural, institutional and substantive responses to disagreement in the law and their legitimacy, this book suggests the value of a comprehensive approach to thinking about conflict, which until recently has been analysed in a compartmentalized way. It aims to provide a fully-fledged political morality of conflict by drawing on the analysis of topical jurisprudential questions in the new light of disagreement. Developing such a global theory of disagreement in the law should be read in the context of the broader effort of reconstructing a complete account of democratic law-making in pluralistic societies. The book will be of value not only to legal philosophers and constitutional theorists, but also to political and democratic theorists, as well as to all those interested in public decision-making in conditions of conflict. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in spite of suggestions to the contrary, Merleau-Ponty defends a positive account of the kind of abstract thought involved in mathematics and natural science. More specifically, drawing on both the Phenomenology of Perception and his later writings, I show that, for Merleau-Ponty, abstract thought and perception stand in the two-way relation of “foundation,” according to which abstract thought makes what we perceive explicit and determinate, and what we perceive is made to appear by abstract (...) thought. I claim that, on Merleau-Ponty's view, although this process can sometimes lead to falsification, it can also be carried out in such a manner that allows mathematics and natural science to articulate what we perceive in a way that is non-distortive and in keeping with the demands of perception itself. (shrink)

SAMANTHA GREY | : Prevailing connotations of reconciliation orbit concord or harmonious coexistence, meaning that concern for justice is necessarily subordinated to a more casually pragmatic peace. Bringing justice considerations to the fore means focusing on reparations as a key element of reconciliation’s suite of activities—but reparations are necessarily a matter of process, which precludes considering elements of the “package” in isolation from one another, as is the case with traditional evaluative criteria of motivation or proportion. Accordingly, this article (...) proposes that reparations are better framed as a considered reaction to the unjust allocation of burdens, so that subsequent reallocations serve justice by answering the needs and demands of survivors. Taking cues from a variety of sources both within and beyond the transitional justice literature, the work at hand attempts just such a retrospective reframing by looking at a recently completed Canadian reparations process: the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. | : Les connotations dominantes de la réconciliation gravitent autour de la concorde ou de la coexistence harmonieuse, signifiant que le souci de la justice est nécessairement subordonné à une paix plus pragmatique. Mettre les considérations de justice au premier plan implique de mettre l’accent sur les réparations comme un élément clé de la série d’activités de la réconciliation, mais les réparations sont nécessairement une question de processus, ce qui exclut de considérer ses éléments isolément, comme c’est le cas des critères évaluatifs traditionnels de motivation ou de proportion. En conséquence, cet article propose que les réparations sont mieux conçues comme une réaction réfléchie à l’attribution injuste des charges, de sorte que les réallocations ultérieures servent la justice en répondant aux besoins et aux exigences des survivants. S’inspirant d’une variété de sources à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de la littérature sur la justice transitionnelle, le présent travail tente un tel recadrage rétrospectif en examinant un processus canadien de réparations récemment terminé : la Convention de règlement relative aux pensionnats indiens. (shrink)

Prefrontal cortex is dysregulated in women with restricting anorexia nervosa . It is not known whether appetitive non-conscious stimuli bias cognitive responses in those with RAN. Thirteen women with RAN and 20 healthy controls completed a dorsolateral PFC working memory task and an anterior cingulate cortex conflict task, while masked subliminal food, aversive and neutral images were presented. During the DLPFC task, accuracy was higher in the RAN compared to the HC group, but superior performance was compromised when subliminal food (...) stimuli were presented: errors positively correlated with self-reported trait anxiety in the RAN group. These effects were not observed in the ACC task. Appetitive activation is intact and anxiogenic in women with RAN, and non-consciously interacts with working memory processes associated with the DLPFC. This interaction mechanism may underlie cognitive inhibition of appetitive processes that are anxiety inducing, in people with AN. (shrink)

Lloyd analyzes every proposed evolutionary explanation of female orgasm and argues that all but one suffers from serious evidential errors. Lloyd attributes these errors to two main biases: androcentrism and adaptationism. This paper begins by arguing that the explanation Lloyd favors—the by-product account—is guilty of the androcentrism which supposedly implicates the other explanations of female orgasm with numerous evidential discrepancies. This suggests that there is another error afflicting orgasm research in addition to the biases Lloyd identities. I attempt to diagnose (...) and characterize this additional error. In short, I think the error is using an imprecise definition of the trait in question. Further, Lloyd takes her analysis to support Longino’s contextual empiricist model of scientific objectivity. I consider what implications this analysis has for contextual empiricism. Finally, I argue that theorizing about female orgasm should be done from a conceptual engineering approach. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is an iconic figure who serves as an easy reference for pundits commenting on the brutality of war as well as for critics of a distinctly modern individualism in which calculating and rapacious self-interest is the cause of the violence, destruction, and exploitation endemic to the contemporary world. Frost's reading of Hobbes's philosophy shows us that underlying such visions of self and politics is another iconic figure: that of the Cartesian subject. What gives the iconic Hobbes his hardcore (...) individualism and its corollary accounts of instrumentalism, conflict, and absolutism is a Cartesian rendering of the self as split into mind and body. Carefully elaborating Hobbes's materialist ontology, _Lessons from a Materialist Thinker_ challenges both our implicit Cartesian assumptions about the self and the commonplace Hobbes that so readily figures violence in our political imagination. Through his materialism, Hobbes presents an alternative modern account of self-consciousness, reason, agency, power, freedom, and responsibility. In doing so, he shows that our fundamental intersubjectivity and interdependence require that we pursue peace above all else. (shrink)

In order to explore the question of whether artists are phenomenologists, I consider the negative and affirmative answers defended by Edith Landmann-Kalischer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, respectively. Through this comparison, I bring to light reasons why phenomenologists take themselves to share a subject-matter with artists, viz., lived experience. However, with this comparison I also highlight the ways in which the answer to this question turns on how we conceive of what phenomenologists do. If one endorses a more scientific conception of phenomenology, (...) as Landmann-Kalischer does, then it seems that the phenomenologist does something fundamentally different from the artist. But if one endorses a more aesthetic conception of phenomenology, as Merleau-Ponty does, then the phenomenologist’s efforts appear to be of a piece with those of the artist. In the end, I will not defend one position over the other; rather, my aim is to show that in order to answer the question, are artists phenomenologists, we must also answer the question, how should a phenomenologist be. (shrink)

‘Serendipity’ is a category used to describe discoveries in science that occur at the intersection of chance and wisdom. In this paper, I argue for understanding serendipity in science as an emergent property of scientific discovery, describing an oblique relationship between the outcome of a discovery process and the intentions that drove it forward. The recognition of serendipity is correlated with an acknowledgment of the limits of expectations about potential sources of knowledge. I provide an analysis of serendipity in science (...) as a defense of this definition and its implications, drawing from theoretical and empirical research on experiences of serendipity as they occur in science and elsewhere. I focus on three interrelated features of serendipity in science. First, there are variations of serendipity. The process of serendipitous discovery can be complex. Second, a valuable outcome must be obtained before reflection upon the significance of the unexpected observation or event in respect to that outcome can take place. Therefore, serendipity is retrospectively categorized. Third, the primacy of epistemic expectations is elucidated. Finally, I place this analysis within discussions in philosophy of science regarding the impact of interpersonal competition upon the number and significance of scientific discoveries. Thus, the analysis of serendipity offered in this paper contributes to discussions about the social-epistemological aspects of scientific discovery and has normative implications for the structure of epistemically effective scientific communities. (shrink)

Perhaps the central focus of American bioethics has been to push against medical paternalism on the grounds that it impedes the autonomy of patients—that is, their ability to make choices of their...

The niche is allegedly the conceptual bedrock underpinning the most prominent, and some would say most important, theorizing in ecology. We argue this point of view is more aspirational than veridical. Rather than critically dissect existing definitions of the concept, the supposedly significant work it is thought to have done in ecology is our evaluative target. There is no denying the impressive mathematical sophistication and theoretical ingenuity of the ecological modeling that invokes ‘niche’ terminology. But despite the pervasive labeling, we (...) demonstrate that niche talk is nothing more than a gloss on theory developed without it, that doesn’t need it, and that doesn’t benefit from it. (shrink)

This article surveys recent feminist contributions to moral philosophy with an emphasis on those works which engage with debates within mainstream ethics. The article begins by examining a tension said to arise from the two criteria a theory must meet if it is to count as feminist moral theory: the women's experience requirement and the feminist conclusion requirement. Subsequent sections deal with feminist relational theories of rights, feminist work on responsibility and feminist contractarian approaches to ethics. A final section looks (...) at the application of some feminist moral theories to the problem of abortion. (shrink)

That there is a “crisis of peer review” at the moment is not in dispute, but sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the normative potential that lies in current calls for reform. In contrast to approaches to “fixing” the problems in peer review, which tend to maintain the status quo in terms of professionalising opportunities, this paper addresses the needs of philosophers and how peer‐review reform can be an opportunity to improve the academic discipline of philosophy, whereby progress (...) is understood as making the discipline more fair to the global academic community and more conducive to the flourishing of academic philosophers. The paper evaluates recent categories of relevant norms and correlating reforms. In conclusion, it recommends that philosophy pursue the norms of transparency and democracy explicitly when proposing peer‐review reform and suggest that proposals for forum‐based models of peer review are most likely to support those norms. (shrink)

What is the role of chance in scientific discovery? And, more to the point, if chance plays a key role in scientific discovery, what room is left for reason? These are grounding questions in the debates, for instance, over whether there is a distinction to be made between discovery and justification in science, and whether innate genius must play a role in discovery or if there exists some method that can be taught to anyone. While the role of chance has (...) been discussed throughout the history of science, it has resurfaced in recent debates over how science should be funded, and particularly in the field of biomedical research. The word serendipity, for example, has become increasingly... (shrink)

Habermas does not rule out the possibility of violence in language. In fact his account explicitly licenses a broad conception of violence as ‘systematically distorted communication’. Yet he does rule out the possibility that language simultaneously imposes as it discloses. That is, his argument precludes the possibility of recognizing that there is an antinomy at the heart of language and philosophical reason. This occlusion of the simultaneously world-disclosing and world-imposing character of language feeds and sustains Habermas’s legal and political arguments, (...) where he states that in order to achieve consensus rational deliberation must eliminate force. In this paper, I claim that this argument operates through a manoeuvre that leaves Habermas’s position curiously blind to its own predicament. To explain why, I turn to Kant’s treatment of the problem of evil in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Here, as in the Western philosophical tradition more generally, evil has no separate existence: it is folded back into Kant’s philosophical scheme. Arendt notes that as soon as Kant identifies the problem of evil he rationalizes it into comprehensible motives. I will show how, through a move that is structurally similar to Kant’s rationalization of evil, Habermas rationalizes and attempts to eliminate violence from his consideration of law and language. In Habermas’s work, law and language appear as ciphers for reason. The case to be made here is that Habermas’s inability to recognize the paradoxical character of language and reason makes his work blind to the violence in which it is unavoidably implicated. (shrink)

The concept of medical necessity is often used to explain or justify certain decisions—for example, which treatments should be allowed under certain conditions—as though it had an obvious, agreed-upon meaning as well as an inherent normative force. In introducing this special issue of Clinical Ethics on medical necessity, we argue that the term, as used in various discourses, generally lacks a definition that is clear, non-circular, conceptually plausible, and fit for purpose. We propose that future work on this concept should (...) address three main questions: what medical necessity is (i.e., what makes something medically necessary, as opposed to something else); what the concept does (what ‘work’ is it doing when invoked in different settings); and what should follow, normatively, from the fact that something is indeed medically necessary (on some plausible conception). (shrink)