Now I maintain that the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good. What sort of face does radical evil have? What strikes Hannah Arendt, as she sought to profile Adolf Otto Eichmann, is how completely ordinary he appeared in court. She describes him as medium-sized, middle-aged with receding hair, ill-fitting teeth, and nearsighted eyes. Yet this was the man who had meticulously organized the mass deportation of Jews to the extermination camps during the Holocaust. Like his appearance, his personality (...) seemed so typical that it led her to coin the phrase the “banality of evil.” Paradoxically, banality can be so extraordinary to the point that Eichmann appeared completely impersonal and inhuman, which.. (shrink)

Teaching Ethics through Literature provides in-depth understanding of a new and exciting shift in the fields of English education, Literature, Language Arts, and Literacy through exploring their connections with ethics. The book pioneers an approach to integrating ethics in the teaching of Literature. This has become increasingly relevant and necessary in our globally connected age. A key feature of the book is its integration of theory and practice. It begins with a historical survey of the emergence of the ethical turn (...) in Literature education and grounds this on the ideas of influential Ethical Philosophers and Literature scholars. Most importantly, it provides insights into how teachers can engage students in ethical concerns through rich on-the-ground case studies of high school Literature teachers in Australia, Singapore and the United States. (shrink)

Recent debates among scholars in Literature education have led to polarizing views about the aims of the subject. The debate reignites ancient quarrels about the aesthetic and political values of literary study and relatedly, the different pedagogical approaches to teaching. In the first part of this paper, I explore the aesthetic-political divide in Literature education paying particular attention to how this was reinforced by New Criticism and Poststructuralist Criticism as these were key movements that have had a significant influence on (...) the teaching of Literature in schools. More importantly, I argue that such a divide exemplified the different goals of the West, in which Literature education originated as a platform for the cultivation of taste, and Postcolonial countries, in which the subject was utilized as a political tool for colonization resulting in acts of mimicry and subversion among colonized subjects. In the second part of the paper, I apply third space theory to disrupt the aesthetic-political divide. I discuss the need to create third spaces in Literature classrooms that are critical, inclusive, negotiated and ethical allowing students to engage with aesthetic, political and ethical dimensions of literature. (shrink)

Michael A. Petersa and Fazal Rizvib aBeijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China; bMelbourne University, Melbourne, Australia Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘no...

Connects the work of Merleau-Ponty to environmental studies.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11.3 (2001) 219-220 [Access article in PDF] Introduction In the last couple of decades,commodification has become almost a buzz-word in bioethics. As we become technically more adept at detaching elements of human bodies and making use of them for others, it seems as if more and more things-from motherhood to gametes to kidneys to our very DNA-can be borrowed, rented, bought, and sold. Other (...) technology allows us unprecedented influence over the characteristics of our offspring (unprecedented, that is, if we ignore the many cultures in which children were and are routinely discarded because they are the wrong sex, disabled, or the product of multiple births). It is common, for example, for writers to worry that the availability of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis will seduce parents into thinking of their children as commodities, to be ordered in much the same way as automobiles, with the inevitable concomitant that they will want to "return" children who do not measure up to their specifications.Unfortunately, a great deal of the talk about "commodification" has been clumsy and sloppy. The term has been used as a magic bullet, as if saying "But that's commodification!" is the same as having made an argument. In fact, commodification of human persons, human bodies, human labor, human relationships, is a complex matter. In many human dealings, commodified and noncommodified understandings of the same thing, or the same transaction, exist more or less comfortably together. Most Westerners condemn commercial sex, for example, while at the same time knowing that in most times and places in the world, marriage was and is thought of as primarily an economic relationship. The common use of "cheap" in post-World War II American slang to describe a teenage woman who is more sexually available than her peers perfectly captures the market rhetoric inherent in respectable American sexual mores.Given this complexity, it is not surprising that many writers in bioethics have gravitated to the work of Margaret Jane Radin. In her two books, Contested Commodities (Harvard University Press, 1996) and Reinterpreting Property (University of Chicago Press, 1993), and many articles, [End Page 219] Radin has taken on the problem of commodification without falling into either sentimentality or cynicism. She is a careful thinker and a careful (and demanding!) writer. We have long valued her work as we have sought to grapple with the many ways in which the problem of commodification arises in bioethics. In this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, entitled "Who's Afraid of Commodification?," we have asked three colleagues to join us in reflecting on aspects of the problem of commodification in bioethics. We are especially delighted that Radin agreed to respond to our efforts in this direction.Lisa Sowle Cahill takes the discussion of commodification to a new level, as she focuses on global ethics, especially genetic research and the marketing and accessibility of pharmaceuticals. Dena S. Davis explores the debates over refusal of treatment and rational suicide and concludes that to put a value on particular pieces of one's lifespan does not necessarily lead to negative aspects of commodification. Ronald M. Green analyzes Radin's use of Kant. Suzanne Holland addresses commodification of body parts, from gametes to cadaveric tissue, and concludes with some specific recommendations. Thomas A. Shannon takes a fresh look at the problem of whether we should allow the sale of organs; he shares with Holland a special concern for the rhetoric of commodification. Finally, Margaret Jane Radin responds to the preceding essays, asking four "stubbornly difficult" questions, questions that show that the debate about commodification is only just begun. Dena S. Davis and Suzanne Holland... (shrink)

Information is a force multiplier. Knowledge of the enemy's capability and intentions may be of far more value to a military force than additional troops or firepower. Situation assessment is the ongoing process of inferring relevant information about the forces of concern in a military situation. Relevant information can include force types, firepower, location, and past, present and future course of action. Situation assessment involves the incorporation of uncertain evidence from diverse sources. These include photographs, radar scans, and other forms (...) of image intelligence, or IMINT; electronics intelligence, or ELINT, derived from characteristics (e.g., wavelength) of emissions generated by enemy equipment; communications intelligence, or COMINT, derived from the characteristics of messages sent by the enemy; and reports from human informants (HUMINT). These sources must be combined to form a model of the situation. The sheer volume of data, the ubiquity of uncertainty, the number and complexity of hypotheses to consider, the high-stakes environment, the compressed time frame, and deception and damage from hostile forces, combine to present a staggeringly complex problem. Even if one could formulate a decision problem in reasonable time, explicit determination of an optimal decision policy exceeds any reasonable computational resources. While it is tempting to drop any attempt at rational analysis and rely purely on simple heuristics, we argue that this can lead to catastrophic outcomes. We present an architecture for a ``complex decision machine'' that performs rational deliberation to make decisions in real time. We argue that resource limits require such an architecture to be grounded in simple heuristic reactive processes. We thus argue that both simple heuristics and complex decision machines are required for effective decision making in real time for complex problems. We describe an implementation of our architecture applied to the problem of military situation assessment. (shrink)

Kant formulated a secular argument against suicide’s permissibility based on what he regarded as the intrinsic value of humanity. In this paper, I first show that Kant’s moral framework entails that some types of suicide are morally permissible. Just as some homicides are morally permissible, according to Kant, so are suicides that are performed according to equivalent maxims. Intention, foreseeability, voluntariness, diminished responsibility, and mental capacity determine the moral characterization of the killing. I argue that a suicide taxonomy that differentiates (...) types of suicide according to morally relevant criteria is compatible with Kantian ethics; it establishes that even where we hold a robust deontological sanctity of life position, we are not obligated to preserve the lives of people whose future life only offers profound suffering, and helping them to die may be justifiable if doing so honors their dignity and autonomy. Nevertheless, homicide and suicide are only weakly morally symmetrical in that even if a given suicide is morally impermissible, we do not normally have the right to prevent it forcibly, though this may be altered by juridical laws under some circumstances. (shrink)

Translator's Preface LA LOGIQUE DE HUSSERL, etude sur "Logique for- melle et logique transcendentale" the original of the present translation, was published ...

"Fame," observes Elias Canetti, "wants to hang from the stars because they are so far removed . . ."1 What the seeker after fame finds attractive in the prospect of hanging from the stars are the conditions of distance and elevation, which promise security in the form of detachment and abstraction from the world below. We find in Canetti's image of the fame-seeking sensibility not two conflicting desires (for the renown conferred upon successful risk-takers and the safety secured through abstention (...) from risk) co-existing within the confines of an outsized temperament, but a single-minded need for safety from the threats of dissolution and oblivion. So imperative is this need that the fame seeker does not .. (shrink)

In dynamical multi-agent systems, agents are controlled by protocols. In choosing a class of formal protocols, an implicit choice is made concerning the types of agents, actions and dynamics representable. This paper investigates one such choice: An intensional protocol class for agent control in dynamic epistemic logic, called ‘DEL dynamical systems’. After illustrating how such protocols may be used in formalizing and analyzing information dynamics, the types of epistemic temporal models that they may generate are characterized. This facilitates a formal (...) comparison with the only other formal protocol framework in dynamic epistemic logic, namely the extensional ‘DEL protocols’. The paper concludes with a conceptual comparison, highlighting modeling tasks where DEL dynamical systems are natural. (shrink)

As Chinese Studies in Philosophy enters its twenty-fifth year, we wish to thank the editor since its inception, Professor Cheng Chung-ying of the University of Hawaii, for his many years of service, and to welcome with this issue our new editor, Professor Michael Schoenhals of Stockholm University.

When experiencing personal distress, people usually expect their romantic partner to be supportive. However, when put in a situation to provide support, people may at times be struggling with issues of their own. This interdependent nature of dyadic coping interactions as well as potential spillover effects is mirrored in the state-of-the-art research method to behaviorally assess couple’s dyadic coping processes. This paradigm typically includes two videotaped 8-min dyadic coping conversations in which partners swap roles as sharer and support provider. Little (...) is known about how such dyadic coping interactions may feed back into one another, impacting the motivation and ability to be a responsive support provider. In three behavioral studies, we examined how sharers’ experiences may spill over to affect their own support provision in a subsequent dyadic coping interaction. We hypothesized that the extent to which sharers perceive their partner as responsive to their self-disclosure increases the quality of their own subsequent support provision, whereas sharers’ lingering negative affect reduces the quality of their own subsequent support provision. In line with our first hypothesis, perceived partner responsiveness predicted the provision of higher-quality support, though primarily as perceived by the partner. Sharers who perceived their partner to have been more responsive were somewhat more likely to subsequently engage in positive dyadic coping and were rated as more responsive by their partners. Negative dyadic coping behavior was unaffected. Evidence for our second hypothesis was mixed. While lingering negative affect did not affect positive dyadic coping behavior or perceived support, it did increase the chances of negative dyadic coping behavior. However, given the very low occurrences of negative affect and negative dyadic coping, these findings should be interpreted with caution. Taken together, these findings suggest that support interactions may feed back into one another, highlighting the complex and interdependent nature of dyadic coping. The strongest and most consistent findings concerned the spillover effect of perceived partner responsiveness on subsequent perceived support quality, speaking to the key role of believing that one’s partner is responsive to one’s needs in promoting healthy relationship functioning. (shrink)

More widespread farming of species not typically used as livestock may be part of a sustainable approach for promoting human health and economic prosperity in a world with an increasing population; a current example is peccary farming in the Neotropics. Others have argued that species that are local to a region and which are usually not farmed should be considered for use as livestock. They may have a more desirable nutrient profile than species that are presently used as livestock. It (...) may also reduce the pressure from hunting on other wild species, and cause less environmental damage than exotic species. We propose a sentiocentric utilitarian framework that could be used to decide whether species that are local, but generally not used as livestock, should be farmed. To illustrate the use of our decision-making framework, we employ two contrasting neotropical case studies: the Spotted Paca (Cuniculus paca) and the Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). We argue that it may be acceptable to use non-sentient species that are typically not farmed as livestock. However, research should determine whether farming them offers human, environmental or sustainability benefits. In addition, we recommend that if invertebrate species are considered for farming, research should be conducted to determine the likelihood that they are sentient. Finally, given the ethical failings of current livestock farming practices, we argue that a high bar must be met if ‘new’ species that are sentient are to be farmed. (shrink)

The Dutch law states that a physician may perform euthanasia according to a written advance euthanasia directive when a patient is incompetent as long as all legal criteria of due care are met. This may also hold for patients with advanced dementia. We investigated the differing opinions of physicians and members of the general public on the acceptability of euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.1 (2006) 174-189 [Access article in PDF] Sophie's Choice: Letting Chance Decide Suzanne Dovi University of Arizona When, if ever, should individuals facing a genuine moral dilemma adopt a random decision procedure to determine the outcome of that dilemma? Or to put the question more metaphorically, is it ever morally preferable to determine the outcome of a moral dilemma by flipping a coin? In this (...) paper, I will argue that sometimes it is. To make this argument, I consider a particularly agonizing moral dilemma—the one found in William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Drawing on this famous example of a moral dilemma, I identify three salient features of a moral dilemma that make it morally permissible, and even morally preferable, for an agent to adopt a random decision procedure to determine its outcome. By 'morally preferable,' I do not mean to imply that an agent is morally required to adopt a random decision procedure to determine the outcome of a moral dilemma. As will be seen, I disagree with the view that humans must always pursue the most morally preferable course of action. Nevertheless, I contend that agents should adopt a random decision procedure when faced with a moral dilemma that possesses three salient features. These three features are: (1) when there is clearly no "better" outcome from the range of choices available to the agent; (2) when particular kinds of moral burdens (guilt burdens) can be alleviated by that agent adopting a random decision procedure; and (3) when the alternatives were given to, and not made by, the agent. The first two salient features are necessary for it to be morally permissible [End Page 174] to decide a moral dilemma using a random decision procedure. The third feature is not necessary since a person could, due to her morally permissible decisions, face a moral dilemma whose outcome could be legitimately determined by a random decision procedure. However, I maintain that all three features are jointly sufficient for determining when it is morally preferable to adopt a random decision procedure to decide the outcome of a moral dilemma. I Hard choices are decisions that require us to choose among conflicting goals, purposes, values, or goods that are very important to us. Such choices pervade our lives. According to David Schmidtz, to face such a hard choice can be "the price of the richness and complexity of a life well-lived. To have both ideals and loved ones is to run the risk of having to make decisions under unresolved conflicts of value."1 Although hard choices are often ordinary, some hard choices can also be genuine moral dilemmas.2For my purposes, hard choices become genuine moral dilemmas when an agent cannot avoid violating his or her deeply held moral beliefs. Moreover, genuine moral dilemmas are dilemmas that have no "right" answer. So, for example, genuine moral dilemmas occur when an agent faces a decision between outcomes that are, as far as the agent can reasonably determine, equally bad or incommensurable. Indeed, some genuine moral dilemmas can involve choices between such horrible outcomes that it does not make sense to use moral language to justify their decisions—that is, to provide reasons for thinking that one outcome is preferable to another. In these cases, genuine moral dilemmas do not offer any possibility for moral redemption: the agent cannot morally justify choosing one outcome over another. Thus, genuine moral dilemmas can impose serious (and potentially devastating) moral costs on the decision-maker.William Styron's Sophie's Choice presents an example of such a genuine moral dilemma. Sophie Zawistowska has been asked to choose which of her two children, Eva or Jan, will be sent to the gas chamber in Auschwitz. An SS doctor, Fritz Jemand von Niemand, will grant a dispensation to only one of Sophie's children. If she does not choose which one should live, Dr. von Niemand will send both to their death. Sophie chooses her daughter Eva to go to the gas chamber. Her son, Jan, is sent to the Children's Camp and she... (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning literature on professionalism in other health professions, psychology lags behind in the level of attention given to this core competency. In this article, we review definitions from other health professions and how they address professionalism. Next, we review how this competency evolved within health service psychology (HSP), and we propose a definition. We offer an approach for assessing professionalism within HSP. Consideration is given to strategies and methods for providing effective education and training in this multifaceted competency. (...) Finally, recommendations are made for creating a culture of professionalism within HSP and honoring psychology’s social contract with multiple publics. (shrink)

We examined 11-month-olds’ tendency to generalize properties to category members, an ability that may contribute to the inductive reasoning abilities observed in later developmental periods. Across 3 experiments, we tested 11-month-olds’ (N= 113) generalization of properties within the cat and dog categories. In each experiment, infants were familiarized to animal-sound pairings (i.e., dog-barking; cat-meowing), and tested on this association and the generalization of the sound property to new members of the familiarized categories. After familiarization with a single exemplar, 11-month-olds generalized (...) the sound to new category members that were both highly similar and less similar to the familiarized animal (Expt. 1). When familiarized with mismatched animal-sound pairings (Expt. 2; i.e., dog-meowing; cat-barking), 11-month-olds did not learn or generalize the sound properties, suggesting that infants have pre-existing expectations about the links between the characteristic sound properties and the animal categories. When familiarized with unfamiliar sound-animal pairings (Expt. 3; i.e., dog-unfamiliar sound), 11-month-olds linked the animals with the novel sounds but did not generalize to new category members. Taken together, these findings highlight the conditions under which young infants generalize properties from one exemplar to other category members. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

Has exclusion of Darwin's views on evolution distorted 20c philosophy? Cunningham suggests a reappraisal.

Note: "Next to Godliness" (Apeiron) is an expanded version of this paper. -/- According to Plato's successors, assimilation to god (homoiosis theoi) was the end (telos) of the Platonic system. There is ample evidence to support this claim in dialogues ranging from the Symposium through the Timaeus. However, the Philebus poses a puzzle for this conception of the Platonic telos. On the one hand, Plato states that the gods are beings beyond pleasure while, on the other hand, he argues that (...) the best human life necessarily involves pleasure. In this paper, I argue that the solution to this puzzle lies in the fact that the processes by which we assimilate to god, learning and becoming virtuous, are restitutive and hence pleasant. Thus, the reason why the best human life necessarily involves pleasure is that we can never become fully divine and perfect, but must constantly strive to become like the divine, through pleasureful restitutive processes. In this paper, I also provide a close examination and taxonomy of the different models that Plato presents throughout his corpus of assimilation to god. (shrink)

Even in a society of meat-eaters such as the United States, when diet is addressed in school at all, it is widely treated as matter of personal choice, the consequences of which are borne by individual consumers. Overlooked are myriad connections involved in human diet and the implications of consumption for other entities. In the first part of this essay, Suzanne Rice discusses ways in which diet, particularly meat-eating, is connected to animal suffering, environmental harms including climate change and (...) pollution, and risks to the health of agricultural workers and consumers. In the second part, she discusses ways in which education might be “ecologized” in efforts to help students gain insight into such connections. There are many ways to ecologize education, but regardless of how teachers proceed, they are likely to encounter not only simple ignorance, relatively unproblematic gaps in students' knowledge linked to youth and inexperience, but also willful ignorance, more problematic gaps linked to avoidance, manipulation, or rejection of evidence perceived as threatening. (shrink)

This article explores the ethics of Samuel Beckett's humour. It takes issue with the dominant reading of Beckettian humour as the redemption of a negativity occasioned by humanity's finitude. The paradigmatic case in point is here taken to be Simon Critchley's account, wherein ethics is cast as a process of coming to terms with disappointment ensuing from the inaccessibility of the Kantian Thing-in-Itself. This article takes up a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective to recast Beckett's humour as, far from offering solace for (...) finitude, highlighting instead the excess or remainder that insists, and resists philosophy's attempts to sublate it into a version of the Good. As such, the ethical demand evoked by Beckettian humour is not the attenuation of the disappointing lack implied by finitude, but rather a coping with the egregious excess of inhuman infinitude. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical analysis of a putative right of the child to have their expressed views considered in matters that affect them. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 is an influential and interesting statement of that right. The article shows that the child’s ‘right to a voice’ is complex. Its complexity lies in the problem of contrasting an adult’s normative power of choice with a child’s weighted views, in the various (...) senses in which we might consider the child’s views, and in the questions of how to weight those views and how their weighting makes a practical difference in coming to a decision. In so doing we criticise other accounts that simply regard a child’s views as having consultative value. We also make better sense of how we might weight a child’s views. The philosophical issues addressed in the article carry implications for how we might understand Article 12 that are not satisfactorily identified and addressed in the voluminous literature on Article 12 within childhood studies. These issues also have implications for how we might understand the distinction between adults and children in respect of powers of personal choice. We conclude by emphasising the importance and value of the right that Article 12 seeks to formally identify. (shrink)

Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children is a birth cohort study within which the Project to Enhance ALSPAC through Record Linkage was established to enrich the ALSPAC resource through linkage between ALSPAC participants and routine sources of health and social data. PEARL incorporated qualitative research to seek the views of young people about data linkage, including their opinions about appropriate safeguards and research governance. In this paper we focus on views expressed about the purpose and composition of research ethics (...) committees. Digitally recorded interviews were conducted with 48 participants aged 17–19 years. Participants were asked about whether medical research should be monitored and controlled, their knowledge of research ethics committees, who should sit on these committees and what their role should be. Interview recordings were fully transcribed and anonymised. Thematic analysis was undertaken, assisted by the Framework approach to data management. The majority of interviewees had little or no specific knowledge of ethics committees. Once given basic information about research ethics committees, only three respondents suggested there was no need for such bodies to scrutinise research. The key tasks of ethics committees were identified as monitoring the research process and protecting research participants. The difficulty of balancing the potential to inhibit research against the need to protect research participants was acknowledged. The importance of relevant research and professional expertise was identified but it was also considered important to represent wider public opinion, and to counter the bias potentially associated with self-selection possibly through a selection process similar to ‘jury duty’. There is a need for more education and public awareness about the role and composition of research ethics committees. Despite an initial lack of knowledge, interviewees were able to contribute their ideas and balance the rights of individuals with the wider benefits from research. The suggestion that public opinion should be represented through random selection similar to jury duty may be worth pursuing in the light of the need to ensure diversity of opinion and establish trust amongst the general public about the use of ‘big data’ for the wider public good. (shrink)

Presents the major issues in Aristotle's writings on Friendship.

More widespread farming of species not typically used as livestock may be part of a sustainable approach for promoting human health and economic prosperity in a world with an increasing population; a current example is peccary farming in the Neotropics. Others have argued that species that are local to a region and which are usually not farmed should be considered for use as livestock. They may have a more desirable nutrient profile than species that are presently used as livestock. It (...) may also reduce the pressure from hunting on other wild species, and cause less environmental damage than exotic species. We propose a sentiocentric utilitarian framework that could be used to decide whether species that are local, but generally not used as livestock, should be farmed. To illustrate the use of our decision-making framework, we employ two contrasting neotropical case studies: the Spotted Paca (Cuniculus paca) and the Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). We argue that it may be acceptable to use non-sentient species that are typically not farmed as livestock. However, research should determine whether farming them offers human, environmental or sustainability benefits. In addition, we recommend that if invertebrate species are considered for farming, research should be conducted to determine the likelihood that they are sentient. Finally, given the ethical failings of current livestock farming practices, we argue that a high bar must be met if ‘new’ species that are sentient are to be farmed. (shrink)

This article goes beyond the debate over whether culture competes with politics in the women's movement to explore the complex relationship between cultural and political action. A case study of the local women's movement in Bloomington, Indiana, provides little evidence that cultural feminism led to a decline in political activity in the women's movement. Rather, the attractiveness of cultural and political activities changes with shifts in political opportunities. During periods of opportunity or threat that stimulate extensive action, activists are energized (...) for both cultural and political projects. During “slow” periods when there are few opportunities to make political gains, cultural projects are particularly attractive to feminists and may compete with political activities. However, cultural activities also help to maintain a feminist collective identity and provide networks to political groups. Ongoing political action is provoked by countermovement actions and other critical events and supported by “outsiders” who bring new ideas to a local community, national feminist organizations, and feminists within local institutions. (shrink)

This paper defends an intellectualist interpretation of Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium. I argue that Diotima’s purpose, in discussing the lower lovers, is to critique their erōs as aimed at a goal it can never secure, immortality, and as focused on an inferior object, themselves. By contrast, in loving the form of beauty, the philosopher gains a mortal sort of completion; in turning outside of himself, he also ceases to be preoccupied by his own incompleteness.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Finding a Pedagogical Framework for Dialogue about Nudity and Dance ArtSuzanne Jaeger (bio)"Nudity is like calling something 'Free Beer.' I always threaten to make people do stuff naked, and I'm all for it, but to me, it's usually more trouble than it's worth. If something is swinging around, that's all anybody looks at."—Mark Morris, choreographerIntroductionIn his article on nudity in theatre dance, philosopher Francis Sparshott observes that because we (...) live in a culture in which, for the most part, we remain clothed when in public, we wonder why the dancers in a particular performance of theatre dance are undressed.1 It can be at least a little shocking and often distracting. There are, of course, times when people are naked in public, for example, when seeing a physician, on a nude beach, when using a public change room, or when engaged in a sexual encounter. For the most part, however, we wear clothes in most social contexts. Even if we allow that performances are extraordinary public situations dissimilar from everyday social interactions, because nudity is not the usual condition even for theater dance, we may well wonder why a choreographer has chosen to have the dancers undressed. In other words, the question is fair enough.Certainly, creating some sense of shock or surprise in the audience is often what artists are seeking. Furthermore, they may also be playing on their own, the audience's, or their dancers' exhibitionism. These are all possible aspects of the experience of seeing theater dancers naked on stage. Exhibitionism is itself an interesting aesthetic value, about which much could be said. Exhibitionism is also, at times, tedious, such as when it comes as a [End Page 32] demand for attention that outweighs the interest that can be generated by what the exhibitionist is actually doing. We often expect artists to show us something that goes beyond them—something that focuses our attention and interests away from the artist and onto the work of art.In the following discussion I assume that choreographers sometimes choose to present their dancers undressed because they believe it contributes to the meanings of the dance as a work of art. It is this idea that nudity can be artistically meaningful that I wish to explore. If nudity is not used solely for commercial appeal, shock value, or exhibitionism but rather to contribute to meanings evoked by the dance as an artwork, what more can be said about how the audience has access to these meanings?I begin by defining "art dance" in relation to other kinds of dance practices and then consider a distinction between nudity and nakedness raised first by Kenneth Clark and John Berger in their analyses of meaning in oil paintings and other visual representations of the human form.2 I then introduce two ideas commonly discussed in some canonical literature in the philosophy of art: first, the claim that works of art express feelings; and second, the concept of form as it is used when talking about works of art. Although the discourses of philosophical aesthetics have since moved in new directions, and the notions of expression and aesthetic form are no longer central to the problems of the day, I return to these seminal ideas because they add to our understanding of how nudity can contribute meaning to a work of art dance.I also assume in the discussion that the success of using nudity in a dance work can only be judged on a case-by-case basis. The analyses of feeling and form are meant to provide a pedagogical framework for dialogue with students about the role of nudity in the aesthetics of art dance. The examples serve as illustrations of how one might interpret meanings in particular dance works that use nudity. The educational objective of my interpretations is to promote by example the capacity of art dance observers for experiencing, understanding, and becoming meaningfully involved with works of art dance that use nudity.Part One: Definition of Art DanceWhat I have to say about nudity is said with art or theater dance in mind rather than other forms of dance. This... (shrink)

Drawing extensively on her letters and published writings, this study synthesizes Hannah Arendt’s own perspectives on her Jewish identity and the views of others, and then offers a reconsideration. What emerges is that Arendt’s Jewishness is problematic and interesting to her only in relation to Germany and Israel, and not in the American context where she engages in a universalistic discourse transcending identity conflicts and perplexities.

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue (...) that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)