Harvey and Gurvir’s Law is a bill proposed to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (Canada) to reduce stigma and bias associated with Down syndrome, by developing and disseminating quality information about Down syndrome in the context of prenatal testing.

This study focuses on how moral aspects of purpose shape collaborative processes. It does so by analyzing the unfolding of 21 relationships between four nonprofits and their funders using a framework based on French pragmatist sociology to help uncover the deeply held, ideological and moral beliefs that underscore assumptions about what the overarching purpose of a collaborative effort is or should be. This study contributes to the literature on single and cross-sectoral collaboration by showing that the way partners handle and (...) reconcile differences about purpose is related to the forms of agreement likely to be achieved. It also suggests that certain forms of agreement are inherently more enduring than others. Taken as a whole, this study provides some plausible explanations as to why so many collaborations fail despite their seeming benefits for all the parties involved. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that self-involvement enhances the memorability of information encountered in the past. The emergence of this effect, however, is dependent on guided evaluative processing and the explicit association of items with self. It remains to be seen, therefore, whether self-memory effects would emerge in task contexts characterized by incidental-encoding and minimal self-involvement. Integrating insights from work on source monitoring and action recognition, we hypothesized that the effects of self-involvement on memory function may be moderated by the extent (...) to which encoding experiences entail volitional processing. The results of three experiments supported this prediction. Despite the adoption of an incidental task context and stimulus materials that were inconsequential to participants, the act of selection enhanced the memorability and accessibility of information. The implications of these findings for contemporary treatments of self are considered. (shrink)

Social theory can help Christian ethics respond to structural evil, both by accurately naming “what is there” and by precisely specifying “what to do.” William Cavanaugh and Katie Grimes, representing distinct neo-Franciscan and Junian approaches, draw extensively on social theory to confront structural evils of nation-state violence and racism. Yet they fall short of an adequate account of how social structures and individual agency interact. Their works obscure the actual mechanisms of social change, call for overly heroic actions, and offer (...) rival formulations of the church–world relationship. I use critical realist social theory to offer an alternative approach that better accounts for the interaction of structure and agency needed for effective Christian responses. (shrink)

La question du mal politique est devenue un thème central dans la pensée de Hannah Arendt. Lorsqu'elle travailla sur la compréhension du phénomène du totalitarisme, Arendt utilisa l'expression kantienne de «mal radical» afin de rendre compte de l'apparition d'une nouvelle forme extrême de mal politique. À la suite du procès du criminel nazi Adolf Eichmann, auquel elle assista à titre d'envoyée spéciale pour le New Yorker, Arendt se retrouva face à un nouveau concept, celui de «banalité du mal». Cet article (...) propose donc de faire état de ces deux conceptions du mal en demandant si le passage d'un concept à l'autre marque une rupture ou une continuité dans l'oeuvre de Arendt. (shrink)

Contemporary social discourse oscillates between norms against being judgmental and discourse filled with highly judgmental conflicts. The paper suggests the inability to understand the scope and limits of judgment in society requires Christian ethics to recover its own understanding of judgment, including of a final judgment as something other than a courtroom encounter over one’s individual sins. After exploring the centrality of God’s judgment in Scripture as an ongoing activity of social ordering for justice and mercy, I draw on several (...) theologians to develop a different imagination for what final judgment means, rooted in conflicts of social identities, and then identify four key lessons for ethical discourse about social sins. (shrink)

THE VATICAN II MANDATE TO TREAT TOPICS IN MORAL THEOLOGY IN A WAY that will "shed light on the loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ" points the way to an alternative approach, in which sexuality and the lofty calling to the Kingdom are not simply kept separate. Such an approach would be a genuinely eschatological narration of marriage and sexuality. In this essay I argue three points: First, as a background story, the characterization of the shift in (...) the tradition on sexual issues from a "negative" to a "positive" view of sexuality is both inaccurate and theologically rather empty. Second, four writers all manifest this shift, but their construals of eschatology differ significantly—indicating that future debate about sexual ethics will have to take place among competing narrations of eschatology rather than in terms of competing moral theories about how to justify certain norms. Finally, I gesture toward potential implications for sexual norms in light of eschatological approaches to marriage and sexuality. (shrink)

Section I: Introduction -- Section II: Managing organizational pluralism: how individuals navigate moral contradictions and compromise -- Section III: Looking at organizations critically: rhetoric, justification and criticism-as-practice -- Section IV: Reconsidering valuation and evaluation in organizations -- Section V: Pushing the boundaries of pragmatic sociology's theoretical agenda.

Using a new typology based on information available from the Labour Force Survey, the authors analyse how job quality evolved in Québec for both women and men over the last decade (1997-2007). Results show that family situation and educational attainment are two important factors in the determination of gender inequality in the labour market. The analysis emphasizes the very significant decline in gender differences with regard to job quality (from 23% to 35% according to groups), especially for persons without children (...) and individuals who achieved higher education. The changes represent a definite progress in the status of women in general, although some indicators also reveal degradation with respect to job quality in some of the sub-groups. (shrink)

La notion arendtienne de « banalité du mal » est au coeur d’une controverse depuis la parution en 1963 de Eichmann à Jérusalem : Rapport sur la banalité du mal. L’objectif de cet article n’est pas de reprendre l’entièreté du débat, mais de clarifier la pluralité des racines théoriques de Hannah Arendt, et plus particulièrement l’héritage augustinien du mal comme privatio boni. Il s’agit d’une source très peu commentée qui permet pourtant d’analyser le rôle de la volonté dans la banalité (...) du mal et de mettre en lumière la réponse d’Arendt au mal dans l’amor mundi et la formation du caractère. (shrink)

À quoi attribuer le succès médiatique de Sartre à Montréal en mars 1946 ? Quelles furent les conditions de la réception de cette philosophie dans la culture québécoise ? Cette étude montre que le succès médiatique de Sartre est rendu possible principalement par l’action de journalistes et de critiques littéraires qui exploitèrent les thématiques de la philosophie sartrienne en vue d’ouvrir le climat intellectuel québécois et d’accroître leur pouvoir dans le champ intellectuel.What contributed to Sartre’s Montreal media success of March (...) 1946 ? What conditionned the enthusiastic reception of Sartre’s philosophy ? This study shows that journalists and literary critics were largely responsible for the French philosopher’s media success. They used Sartre’s philosophy for the purpose of expanding the cultural climat while extending their own power base within Quebec’s intellectual life. (shrink)

Aucun point de vue particulier ou général ne peut se constituer en éthique. Par contre l'exigence d'universalisation n'implique pas un sujet impersonnel mais se réalise dans le processus d'interpellation des consciences singulières situées et interdépendantes dans leur dévoilement du monde. Comme le montre Sartre, tout projet d'une éhiquedoitreposersurd) l'assomption du fait que tout point de vue soit totalité-détotalisée et sur la reconnaissance de l'interdépendance des consciences. Dès lors, la lucidité doit remplacer la mauvaise foi originelle et la générosité doit faire (...) échec à la tentation de la violence comme refus de l'autre comme liberté.No individual or general point of view may constitute itself as an ethic. Nevertheless, the requirement of universalisation does not imply an impersonal subject, but it is lived through the process of interpellation of singular, situated and interdependent consciences. As Sartre claims, an ethic must meet two requirements : to assume the fact that every point of view is totalized-detotalized; and to recognize the interdependency of the consciences. Therefore, lucidity must replace the original bad faith and generosity must counter the temptation of violence as a refusal of the other's freedom. (shrink)

In his 2016 book, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, Alasdair MacIntyre spends considerable time discussing how disputes between different moral theorists and different forms of practice might be adjudicated. A crucial addition to the tradition-constituted historical narrative approach of Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is his introduction of what he calls ‘sociological self-knowledge’. The present article outlines what MacIntyre means by this and suggests that his approach here dovetails well with Christian ethicists who have advocated the use of critical realist (...) sociology in Christian ethics. MacIntyre’s account stresses the importance of ‘a grasp of the nature of the roles and relationships in which one is involved’, a grasp helpfully conceptualized by critical realists. Daniel Finn also notes that the use of critical realism to analyze structures must be paired with a basic typology, and MacIntyre’s sociological self-knowledge, I argue, rests on precisely such a typology between two different types of moral practices. The article concludes by suggesting much more attention be paid to these ‘moral-social’ analyses when addressing apparently intractable disagreements in Christian social ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World by Laura M. HartmanDavid CloutierThe Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World LAURA M. HARTMAN New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 256 pp. $29.95Laura Hartman has written an elegant, graceful, and gentle book about a topic often inspiring jeremiads: consumer society. Setting out to provide “an effective and explicitly practical ethics of consumption” (5), she develops an ethical (...) language that goes beyond sociological generalizations about “consumerism.” She structures her study by engaging ancient and contemporary theological sources to discuss “four primary considerations” (21): avoiding sin, embracing creation, loving the neighbor, and envisioning the future. Each represents a “node” of “theological reflection: sin, creation, love, and the reign of God” (25). In each area, she is unusually careful to point out the limitations of any one consideration without the others. Avoiding sin, for example, can become “a self-focused pursuit of holiness” (52); embracing creation can ignore justice concerns or, worse, lead to prosperity theology. Such limitations are less apparent when considering the final two areas. In loving the neighbor, the challenge is balancing considerations between close and distant neighbors. Finally, Hartman makes an impassioned case for Sabbath-keeping and Eucharist as practices of our destined eschatological fullness, even while recognizing that an overemphasis on these can lead to escapism and bickering over “vague and idiosyncratic” differences among Christians (167). By attending to all four notions, Hartman is able to offer a much richer picture of the conceptual field in which our consumption choices should be made. A closing chapter imagines a dinner conversation among three of her frequent interlocutors, Shannon Jung, Elizabeth Theokritoff, and James Nash, as well as applying the concepts to concrete choices of transportation and meat-eating.The book goes a long way toward its stated goal. Hartman has a skillful grasp of the complexities of both contemporary consumption practices and theological description. She displays a remarkably generous attitude toward a variety of voices, engaging positively figures as disparate as the severe abolitionist John Woolman and the prosperity televangelist Creflo Dollar. Her generosity works well; I can imagine this book being especially effective with students or church groups who might be alienated by a stronger anticonsumerism screed. As a work [End Page 247] of constructive ethics, though, the generosity leaves open a lot of questions. Hartman describes her methodology as “using a blend of methods,” owing some debts to “principalism” and to virtue ethics, explaining her four considerations “as diverse lenses on one holistic vision of virtuous consumption” (28). The four “considerations” are described as “not principles” but “actions that produce virtue” or “a school of virtue” (27)—neither are they moral rules, despite their being phrased in the form of verbal commands to action. This methodological looseness enables her to voice multiple harmony lines, which “form a chorus of perspectives on consumption” (5). But this approach can slip from generosity to vagueness. How does one determine what is off-key? The application section seems to have difficulty adjudicating particular actions; there is in effect a nonrational “weighing” that goes on, one that sometimes seems to reduce to a consideration of (incommensurable) competing consequences.The project could be furthered in two ways. First, Hartman could consider some way of ordering the considerations—not strictly ordinally but rather, for example, by recognizing that avoiding sin is a prelude to a proper embrace of creation and that creation is ordered to communion. The sequencing of her chapters hints at such an ordering, but she does not make use of it. While not reducing everything to love of God and neighbor, certainly sin, creation, and even eschatology point to this telos. Second, Hartman could go further in developing the language of virtue—for example, temperance and prudence—as a way of specifying more clearly what both avoiding sin and embracing creation mean. But her template is a valuable orientation to further needed work on this important topic. It should find a wide audience. [End Page 248]David CloutierMount St. Mary’s UniversityCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

DESPITE ITS PROMINENCE IN BOTH BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE, the moral category of luxury has been lost in contemporary Christian ethics. To address the spending of one's money as a moral act, I propose recovering the category. A survey of the history of the term illustrates its particular place in a set of economic virtues and vices, and suggests that its "defenders" in the eighteenth century rely on arguments that are antithetical to a virtue ethics perspective and are called into (...) question by contemporary science and experience. But what counts as luxury? I conclude with a beginning casuistry in the context of the contemporary economy, suggesting that "cheap" goods may be luxuries but shared public goods are not. (shrink)

Cet article examine la question de savoir si les codes d’éthique privés sont mieux adaptés à l’atteinte du bien public que ne le sont la réglementation étatique ou l’absence de réglementation quelle qu’en soit l’origine. Par ailleurs, la mondialisation de l’économie rendant plus difficile l’intervention efficace des gouvernement nationaux, l’article souligne le rôle accru et le pouvoir des citoyens pour influencer le comportement des milieux d’affaires. Bref, la mondialisation des communications et des échanges commerciaux permet une redistribution des rôles et (...) des moyens en vue d’encadrer le comportement des entreprises en vue de grands objectifs de société tels que la croissance économique, la distribution des richesses et la préservation de l’environnement. L’État peut favoriser l’émergence de cette nouvelle gouverne même si cela l’amène ultimement à se retirer de certains champs d’intervention. (shrink)

BackgroundThe advent of learning healthcare systems (LHSs) raises an important implementation challenge concerning how to request and manage consent to support secondary use of data in learning cycles, particularly research activities. Current consent models in Quebec were not established with the context of LHSs in mind and do not support the agility and transparency required to obtain consent from all involved, especially the citizens. Therefore, a new approach to consent is needed. Previous work identified the meta-consent model as a promising (...) alternative to fulfill the requirements of LHSs, particularly large-scale deployments. We elicited the public’s attitude toward the meta-consent model to evaluate if the model could be understood by the citizens and would be deemed acceptable to prepare for its possible implementation in Quebec.MethodsEight focus groups, with a total of 63 members of the general public from various backgrounds were conducted in Quebec, Canada, in 2019. Explicit attention was given to literacy levels, language spoken at home and rural vs urban settings. We assessed attitudes, concerns and facilitators regarding key components of the meta-consent model: predefined categories to personalized consent requests, a dynamic web-based infrastructure to record meta-consent, and default settings. To analyse the discussions, a thematic content analysis was performed using a qualitative software.ResultsOur findings showed that participants were supportive of this new approach of consent as it promotes transparency and offers autonomy for the management of their health data. Key facilitators were identified to be considered in the implementation of a meta-consent model in the Quebec LHSs: information and transparency, awareness campaigns, development of educational tools, collaboration of front-line healthcare professionals, default settings deemed acceptable by the society as well as close partnerships with recognized and trusted institutions.ConclusionsThis qualitative study reveals the openness of a sample of the Quebec population regarding the meta-consent model for secondary use of health data for research. This first exploratory study conducted with the public is an important step in guiding decision-makers in the next phases of implementing the various strategies to support access and use of health data in Quebec. (shrink)

There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cognitive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mechanism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors that are crucial for the reproductive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model, (...) together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature. It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empathy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of development, and situations. Key Words: altruism; cognitive empathy ; comparative; emotion; emotional contagion; empathy ; evolution; human; perception-action; perspective taking. (shrink)

Stephanie Mills presented the following as the keynote address at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy in Chicago. Mills addresses the readers of this journal in her role as a bioregional author and social critic. Adopting a narrative style rather than the typical format of the “philosophical essay,” she raises questions that are always and still at the core of our philosophical dialogue: What is nature? How do we humans perceive our relationship with nature? And (...) how may the blind spots of academic philosophy be discerned in traditional approaches to issues such as “nature versus humans,” the wilderness debate, and the possibility and limits of technology? (shrink)

In this paper, I consider a particular amoralist challenge against those who would morally criticize our single-player video play, viz., “come on, it’s only a game!” The amoralist challenge with which I engage gains strength from two facts: the activities to which the amoralist lays claim are only those that do not involve interactions with other rational or sentient creatures, and the amoralist concedes that there may be extrinsic, consequentialist considerations that support legitimate moral criticisms. I argue that the amoralist (...) is mistaken and that there are non-consequentialist resources for morally evaluating our single-player game play. On my view, some video games contain details that anyone who has a proper understanding of and is properly sensitive to features of a shared moral reality will see as having an incorrigible social meaning that targets groups of individuals, e.g., women and minorities. I offer arguments to support the claim that there are such incorrigible social meanings and that they constrain the imaginative world so that challenges like “it’s only a game” lose their credibility. I also argue that our responses to such meanings bear on evaluations of our character, and in light of this fact video game designers have a duty to understand and work against the meanings of such imagery. (shrink)

In this roundtable discussion, early-career researchers working in the field of law, gender, and sexuality discuss international and trans-national developments to legal gender. ‘The Future of Legal Gender’ research project focused on the legislative framework of England and Wales to develop a prototype for decertification. The domestic legislation, however, was situated within a wider international context throughout the project. This roundtable discussion, therefore, provided an opportunity for reflection on the transnational issues raised by decertification, with a particular focus on developments (...) arising in the jurisdiction(s) studied by the early career researchers. The roundtable began with a brief outline of these recent developments before moving to an open discussion on key themes including the value of reform on wider society, changes on-the-ground by non-state actors, and alternative processes for tackling gender inequalities without certifying legal gender. The online conversation took place on 28 June 2021 and has been transcribed and edited for continuity, clarity, and referencing. (shrink)

This paper engages with the artistic practice and work of Vanessa Dion Fletcher from my perspective as a non-Indigenous academic and curator. Dion Fletcher and I have worked together over the past several years through discussions about her work, studio visits, and various events. In her art practice, Dion Fletcher uses porcupine quills and menstrual blood to inquire into a range of issues and concepts including Indigenous language revitalization, feminist Indigenous corporeality, Land as pedagogy, decolonization, and neurodiversity. In particular her (...) work confronts the ways that Indigeneity, the queer and gendered body, and disability are rendered expendable. In this paper I engage with Dylan Robinson’s “sovereign sense”: a transcorporeal mode of perception that is affective, land-based, and formed through relations between human and non-humans. Dion Fletcher’s work makes palpable this sense of sovereignty through its unruly and mutating feltness. Further, her work makes visible feminist Indigenous artistic acts of resurgence alongside the frictions at the intersections of settler colonialism and disability. Following Karyn Recollet, I contend that Dion Fletcher’s work activates an Indigenous affective experience of futurity and creative intimacy that in turn imagines disability and Indigeneity as sites through which new pedagogical relations can be formed. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 58-59.

Moral duties are regularly attributed to groups. Does this make conceptual sense or is this merely political rhetoric? And what are the implications for these individuals within groups? Collins outlines a Tripartite Model of group duties that can target political demands at the right entities, in the right way and for the right reasons.

Plausibly, only moral agents can bear action-demanding duties. Not all groups are moral agents. This places constraints on which groups can bear action-demanding duties. Moreover, if such duties imply ability then moral agents – of both the individual and group varieties – can only bear duties over actions they are able to perform. I tease out the implications of this for duties over group actions, and argue that groups in many instances cannot bear these duties. This is because only groups (...) with the right kind of structure – groups I call ‘collectives’ – have the agency to bear action-demanding duties. Yet neither can individuals bear these duties, assuming that individuals cannot perform group actions and that duty implies ability. This appears to leave us at a loss when assigning duties to perform some group actions. I argue we can solve this problem by assigning collectivization duties to individuals – duties to form a collective that then incurs a duty over the action. I give criteria for when individuals have collectivization duties and discuss the demands these duties place on their bearers. (shrink)