This article examines disciplinary proceedings about sexual misconduct by lawyers. Sexual misconduct in a professional relationship is harmful and unacceptable and should result in immediate disciplinary action to protect victims, future victims and the public. However, there is no explicit offence of sexual misconduct in Australian disciplinary legislation regarding lawyers. Rather, sexual misconduct must be linked to the statutory offences. While the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules guide the interpretation of the offences, there is only express reference to sexual harassment. We (...) examined tribunal and court legal disciplinary cases from 2000 to 2020 across all Australian jurisdictions in which sexual misconduct had occurred. Decision makers typically only considered sexual misconduct sufficiently egregious to meet the required standard of a disciplinary offence when accompanied by a criminal conviction. The conduct was often portrayed as a result of character flaws, rather than harmful to victims and the public. Thus, decision makers failed to locate the behaviour in the wider incidence of violence against women. The profession’s failure to acknowledge sexual misconduct reflects narrow professional norms which do not robustly protect victims. Explicit acknowledgement of sexual misconduct in disciplinary proceedings is essential. These amendments would signify the importance, frequency and impact of sexual misconduct. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic raised not only overwhelming practical challenges but also deep ethical dilemmas for educators. There have been few efforts to connect these challenges to either ethical dilemmas teachers faced in pre-pandemic times or to philosophical analyses of complex normative terrain of teachers’ work. We facilitated eleven discussion groups with 101 educators from seven countries on the dilemmas they faced due to COVID-19. Analysis of these sessions reveals how the pandemic amplified, exacerbated and augmented pre-pandemic educational dilemmas in ways (...) that recalibrated teachers’ core values and beliefs, and highlights the importance of engaging teachers in ethical dialogue. (shrink)

Environmental and sustainability initiatives seek to respond to the challenges of ecological crises and ongoing environmental degradation by supporting students to develop knowledge and dispositions to respond to the challenges of and live in a climate changed world. However, these initiatives are often marginalised in curriculum and hamstrung by inherent tensions such as which worldviews should be prioritised, the incommensurability of some global and local values, and the pursuit of environmental needs in the age of neoliberalism. These challenges become more (...) complex when considering contextual stakeholders. In this paper we focus on the ethical dilemmas associated with environmental and sustainability education in a coal town where mining company sponsorship heralds mixed community response. In doing so, we unpack the contextual and philosophical complexities which create the crucial conditions for a viable normative case study—genuine uncertainty about issues not yet at tipping point, differences of reasonable perspectives and recognisable local concerns. We argue that teacher educators, particularly those with interdisciplinary philosophical insight should look to their local contexts for pressing ethical issues and engage in the development and field testing of their own normative case studies. We make the case that the process behind developing a normative case study involves insight into the relationships between educational ethics, policy, context, and divergent community perspectives. We argue that pedagogy using normative case study to navigate these elements has the potential to develop world-reading teacher deliberation which surpasses proceduralist approaches in teacher education. (shrink)

Aristotle connects modality and time in ways strange and perplexing to modern readers. In this book the author proposes a new solution to this exegetical problem. Although primarily expository, this work explores topics of central concern for current investigations into causality, time, and change.

In Pythagorean Women, classical scholar Sarah B. Pomeroy discusses the groundbreaking principles that Pythagoras established for family life in Archaic Greece, such as constituting a single standard of sexual conduct for women and men. Among the Pythagoreans, women played an important role and participated actively in the philosophical life. While Pythagoras encouraged women to be submissive to men, his reasoning was based on the desire to preserve harmony in the home. -/- Pythagorean Women provides English translations of all the (...) earliest extant examples of literary Greek prose by Neopythagorean women, shedding light on their attitudes about marriage, the home, music, and the cosmos. Pomeroy sets the Pythagorean and Neopythagorean women vividly in their historical, ecological, and intellectual contexts, illustrated with original photographs of sites and artifacts known to these women. (shrink)

Discussion of the role which religious experience can play in warranting theistic belief has received a great deal of attention within contemporary philosophy of religion. By contrast, the relationship between experience and atheistic belief has received relatively little focus. Our aim in this paper is to begin to remedy that neglect. In particular, we focus on the hitherto under-discussed question of whether experiences of God’s absence can provide positive epistemic status for a belief in God’s nonexistence. We argue that there (...) is good reason to accept an epistemic parity between experiences of God’s presence and experiences of God’s absence. (shrink)

The movement for ‘military preparedness’ in America and Britain gained tremendous momentum at the turn of the century. It assimilated the cult of manliness — the key public virtue, which allowed a person to claim possession of himself and a nation to reclaim possession of itself. An army was the means of marshalling a mass of people for regeneration. The symbol of a nation's preparedness to take control of its own soul was the readiness to bear arms. Although this movement (...) originated in the middle-class, Protestant cultures of the USA and England, its core ideas were adopted by many political movements. Affected by these ideas, as well as the formation of the Protestant Ulster Volunteers in 1913, a movement to reclaim Irish independence through the mass bearing of arms began in South and West Ireland in autumn 1914. Women were excluded from these Volunteer companies, but set up their own organization, Cumann na mBan, as an auxiliary to the men's. The Easter Rising in 1916 owed as much to older ideas of the coup d'état as new ideas of mass mobilization, but subsequent history recreated that Rising as the ‘founding’ moment of the Irish republic. It was not until mass conscription was threatened two years later that the mass of people were absorbed into the idea of an armed campaign against British rule. From 1919 to 1923, the reality of guerrilla-style war pressed people into a frame demanding discipline, secrecy, loyalty and a readiness to act as the prime nationalist virtues. The ideal form of relationship in war is the brotherhood, both as actuality and potent myth. The mythology of brotherhood creates its own myths of women (as not being there, and men not needing them) as well as creating the fear and the myth that rape is the inevitable expression of brotherhoods in action. Despite explicit anxiety at the time about the rape of Irish women by British soldiers, no evidence was found of mass rape, and that fear has disappeared into oblivion, throwing up important questions as to when rape is a weapon of war. The decade of war worsened the relationship of women to the political realm. Despite active involvement as ‘auxiliaries’ women's political status was permanently damaged by their exclusion as warriors and brothers, so much so that they disappear into the status of wives and mothers in the 1937 Irish Constitution. (shrink)

In season one of True Detective, people watch Rustin Cohle evolve from a man who is slowly suffocating under the weight of the world to one who can shoulder it. His metamorphosis is existential. By the end of the season, when he proclaims that the "light is winning", Cohle has arrived. Cohle has had enough of his life; he is trapped in his despair and choking on its poison. Throughout the first season of True Detective, Cohle is the shepherd who (...) is choking on all that is bitter and ugly in the world. He is struggling to find the strength to kill the snake. The snake represents the necessity of affirming all aspects of life and willing them eternally. This leads us to Errol Childress. He is the hyperbolic monster at the end of the dream; he is the specter of nihilism and suffering. Their encounter ends with a violent, crippling battle and Childress' death. (shrink)

I am so grateful to Matthew Eshleman and Adrian van den Hoven for their generous, insightful comments. Translating can be a lonely activity, especially when the text is as lengthy as BN. At the end of hours of involvement with Sartre’s French – perched, as it were, on the edge of his mind – I often felt in need of other, auxiliary minds to re-centre me, to save me from toppling over completely into Sartre’s consciousness and drowning. In these moments, (...) I usually turned to dictionaries and other internet resources to bolster my critical distance; more rarely, I would email fellow translators or philosophers for help. But I have had very little of the attentive, fine-grained dialogue offered here, and I have immensely enjoyed, and benefited from, this exchange. Hopefully, SSI readers will also find it of interest. (shrink)

On one view, the point of an assertion is to update the common ground (Stalnaker 1978, Karttunen 1974). On another, the point of an assertion is to propose an update to the com- mon ground (Groenendijk 2009, Mascarenhas 2009, and related work on the structure of discourse, e.g., Ginzburg 1996, Roberts 1996, Gunlogson 2001). In Murray (to appear), I merge these two views. I argue based on evidence from declarative sentences with eviden- tials that assertion has two components: what is (...) at-issue and what is not. The not-at-issue component of assertion is added directly to the common ground while the at-issue compo- nent is proposed to be added to the common ground. Here, I extend this analysis to yes/no questions in Cheyenne and their interaction with evidentials. I propose that the distinction between what is at-issue and what is not is also present in questions, and that it can be modeled in the same way. Specifically, both declarative and interrogative sentences make two contributions: they restrict and structure the common ground. The restriction is based on the not-at-issue component while the structuring relation is based on the at-issue component. (shrink)

The phrase 'here be monsters' or 'here be dragons' is commonly believed to have been used on ancient maps to indicate unexplored territories which might hide unknown beasts. This book maps and explores places between science and politics that have been left unexplored, sometimes hiding in plain sight - in an era when increased emphasis was put on 'openness'. The book is rooted in a programme of research funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled: 'Making Science Public: Challenges and opportunities, which (...) runs from 2014 to 2017. One focus of our research was to critically question the assumption that making science more open and public could solve various issues around scientific credibility, trust, and legitimacy. Chapters in this book explore the risks and benefits of this perspective with relation to transparency, responsibility, experts and faith. (shrink)

Academic women experience working in higher education differently to their male counterparts. This article argues that the unequal position of women academics is unethical, irrespective of whether one takes a consequentialist or deontological ethical position. By drawing on a range of international studies, the article explores the reasons for this inequity, suggesting that the ?cult of individual responsibility?, the positioning of women academics as ?other? and the impact of having a family are significant factors. Having identified the reasons why university (...) women experience the system differently, the article then reflects on how the ethical university can move towards bringing about greater equity between male and female colleagues. (shrink)

Synthetic biology has generated extensive discussion about a wide range of risks and potential benefits, the intrinsic value of the technology, and the soci­etal distribution of its risks and benefits. However, be­fore these questions can be resolved, it is important to first ask a critical question: Is synthetic biology different enough from the technologies that came before it that it raises new questions or concerns? By putting synthetic biology into context, we gain a better understanding of the issues, both old (...) and new, that it raises. We can then consider practical governance questions, including ways to improve current practices. (shrink)

Fort, da. Loin, ici. L’enfant joue avec la bobine de fil qui s’éloigne et disparaît, puis revient. Enracinement, déracinement, certaines expériences ancrent mon corps dans une présence à soi, au monde et aux autres, tandis que d’autres me rendent étrangère à moi-même, aux autres et au monde. Les modalités du jeu ou de l’existence se cristallisent dans le corps, qui oscille entre ces deux pôles : il s’affirme et se nie, il s’impose et se retire, il procure plaisir et peine, (...) il se donne et se r... (shrink)

For decades, courtrooms around the world have admitted evidence from forensic science analysts, such as fingerprint, tool-mark and bite-mark examiners, in order to solve crimes. Scientific progress, however, has led to significant criticism of the ability of such disciplines to engage in individualization i.e., “match” suspects exclusively to evidence. Despite this, American courts largely reject legal challenges based on arguments that identification evidence provided by these forensic science disciplines is unreliable. In so holding, these courts affirm precedent that it is (...) the adversarial system’s function to weed out frailties in forensic evidence, and find that criticism of the forensic sciences lacks sui generis qualities. This article provides an independent critique of relevant American case law, from which three themes emerge. These themes are (1) the law’s misuse of science; (2) law’s scepticism towards change; and (3) law’s narrow construction of rationality, which generates reductionist concepts, and divorces science from its social context. As such, this article shows how the American judiciary’s approach to this global issue provides a contemporary illustration of key institutional tensions between science and law, and offers some recommendations for reforms that aim to facilitate the legal process to utilize the most reliable forensic science evidence possible. (shrink)

Cognitive functions are directly related to interactions between the brain's functional networks. This functional organization changes in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the heterogeneous nature of autism brings inconsistency in the findings, and specific pattern of changes based on the cognitive theories of ASD still requires to be well-understood. In this study, we hypothesized that the theory of mind (ToM), and the weak central coherence theory must follow an alteration pattern in the network level of functional interactions. The main (...) aim is to understand this pattern by evaluating interactions between all the brain functional networks. Moreover, the association between the significantly altered interactions and cognitive dysfunctions in autism is also investigated. We used resting-state fMRI data of 106 subjects (5–14 years, 46 ASD: five female, 60 HC: 18 female) to define the brain functional networks. Functional networks were calculated by applying four parcellation masks and their interactions were estimated using Pearson's correlation between pairs of them. Subsequently, for each mask, a graph was formed based on the connectome of interactions. Then, the local and global parameters of the graph were calculated. Finally, statistical analysis was performed using a two-sample t-test to highlight the significant differences between autistic and healthy control groups. Our corrected results show significant changes in the interaction of default mode, sensorimotor, visuospatial, visual, and language networks with other functional networks that can support the main cognitive theories of autism. We hope this finding sheds light on a better understanding of the neural underpinning of autism. (shrink)

In this important book, Jennifer Scuro's lived experience presents a challenge to common ideas and assumptions about motherhood, femininity, and anti-abortion politics, as well as to the familiar content and form of philosophy. It is centered on an intensely personal, 176-page graphic novel that details the vivid aspects of Scuro's own miscarriage. Her experience serves as a philosophical allegory, challenging neoliberal and ableist assumptions that presume normalcy, expect results, and promise the false freedom of choice. Initially fitting the script of (...) "normal" motherhood and femininity, Scuro's experience brought her to the "razor's edge" of her cisgender, white privilege. The cutting truth of her story is that... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article considers how spray-on clothing made by Fabrican Ltd. might illuminate and complicate our understandings of craft, commodity fetishism, and object agency. Fabrican is a chemical substance that is sprayed onto the body to create a garment. I am interested in the ways this fabric appears seamless, self-made, and organic; it ostensibly removes the labor and skill associated with handcrafted and machineproduced textiles and, when worn, resembles a second skin, both concealing and revealing the body underneath. In so (...) doing it brings into sharp focus the complex ways we relate to clothing as an object of production and consumption. (shrink)

This paper considers, in the context of an undergraduate law degree, how to encourage students to develop an awareness of ethical issues relating to membership of a 'profession' and how lawyers could and should conduct themselves, whilst retaining the notion of a law degree as part of a liberal arts education. It suggests an interdisciplinary approach, both in its content and its methodologies, as an innovative and interesting means of addressing issues of legal ethics and professional responsibility. It offers an (...) analysis of the trial of Oscar Wilde, to show that it may be possible to inculcate a level of 'ethical awareness' through a study of the actions and behaviours of the legal professionals involved in famous or historical trials. (shrink)