Exploring the dynamics of power: A Foucauldian analysis of care planning in learning disabilities services This paper draws upon a study completed in 2000 that focused upon health and welfare provision for people with learning disabilities in one English county. This study drew upon the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault to provide an analysis of the micro politics of care planning. This involved the analysis of text from two sources: the academic literature and interview material gained from a number of (...) professionals working in health and welfare services for people with learning disabilities. Drawing upon this research material, the first part of this paper briefly explores the relationship between policy, professional practice and the people who are the subjects of that practice. The discussion then moves on to consider Foucault's five methodological precautions and the way power produces a localised web of activity that identifies specific targets for management. In this process power draws into the web a range of informal and formal practices that initially lie outside of the web. The discourse produced through the activity surrounding care planning provides the evidence of this flow of power. This discourse then takes on the status of science (truth), which reproduces this activity. (shrink)

"Trust" and Professional Power: Towards a Social Theory of Self This paper sets out to delve into the relationship trust and professional authority in the context of health care. Understood in its micro-political terms and conceived as impacting on individualorganisational levels and the socio-political; this relationship stands at the interface of competingpressures working to produce the increasing complexity of social life. “Trust” is inextricably linked withuncertainty and complexity while professional authority rests on the specialist knowledge claimed bythe range of experts (...) and technologists that inhabit the spaces through which social life is governed andcomplexity managed. (shrink)

The call for family and medical leave reform in the United States was largely the result of sweeping demographic shifts that occurred in the workforce after the 1950s, coupled with an ever-increasing life expectancy and changing social norms concerning the role of women as caretakers. By the early 1990s, the number of women in the workforce had nearly tripled from 1950. During that same period, life expectancy increased by six years for males and seven for females. Meanwhile, the first wave (...) of the Depression-era generation began to reach the age of retirement. In short, the parents of American workers were living longer and retiring in greater numbers while more women, who were more likely to be informal caregivers, decided to join the workforce. As a result, many families with ill or elder parents began to turn to institutional long-term care. (shrink)

Gilbert Harman claims that we would be better off if we abandoned appeal to character in order to explain action. He argues that the idea of character is a hangover from folk psychology and conflicts with the more reliable evidence of experimental psychology. The cash value of abandoning any appeal to character is given in the following terms: appeals to character reinforce our stereotyping and general misunderstanding of others, abandoning it will help to improve the quality of our understanding (...) of others. What follows will be part contrast and part argument. My concern will be to reject Harman’s character scepticism by resisting his account of what it is to have a character trait. He fails to give desire its due. To set out a contrasting desire-centred view I will draw upon Iris Murdoch. The paper concludes by challenging Harman’s treatment of the experimental evidence. (shrink)

Meilaender suggests that the development bioethics as a discipline in its own right has not been entirely benign. He argues that an increasing focus on public policy has obscured the importance of background beliefs about human nature and destiny, and that without drawing attention to those beliefs one cannot fully see what is at stake in many bioethical debates. Rather than seeking a minimalist consensus, Meilaender explores ethical problems surrounding the end and beginning of life in order to uncover the (...) "soul"--That is, some of the deeper issues within bioethics that need our attention. Abortion, the issue that so often lurks just beneath the surface of bioethical argument, is discussed in the final chapter. Throughout the book Meilaender emphasizes the "soul" of all these issues - questions about who we are and what we may become, and suggests that recapturing that soul will lead us to a new appreciation of the living body as the locus of personal presence. (shrink)

This paper begins the development of a pragmatics of emotion based on the pragma-dialectical programme, Externalization, Socialization, Functionalization, and Dialectification, applied to the emotional mode of argumentation. The first step points out a systematic equivocation within pragma-dialectics between the notion of argument and that of 'dialectics.' With this cleared, it is shown that each of the first three main assumptions can be altered to accommodate a non-logical mode of communication. However, dialectification, insofar as it is actually defining of the dialectical (...) mode, must be created anew. A defining assumption for emotionality is presented as a replacement for dialectification. (shrink)

L'Action de Blondel, malgré son centenaire, n'est pas encore un texte très connu. Sa rigueur philosophique a souftert de nombreuses incompréhensions, dûes à des lectures partiales. L'intelligence philosophique tente cependant. aujoud'hui comme hier, de méditer sur le sens de l'existence et sur ce qui uniile nos vies sans les étouffer sous des formes uniformisantes. Cet article montre comment Blondel entreprend une telle méditation, en assumant la structure essentielle du "symbole". /// L'Action de Blondel, apesar do seu centenário, ainda não é (...) urn texto muito conhecido. O seu rigor filosófico sofreu numerosas incompreensões, devidas a leituras parciais. A inteligência filosófica tenta, contudo, hoje como ontem, meditar sobre o sentido da existência e sobre o que unifica as nossas vidas sem as sufocar sob formas uniformizantes. Este artigo mostra como Blondel empreende uma tal meditação, tirando dela a estrutura essencial do "símbolo". Despite the fact that it is a centenary work, Blondel's L'Action is not yet very well known. Its philosophical accuracy was misundestood through partial readings. However, now as before, philosophical intelligence attempts to meditate on the meaning of human existence, on what unifies our lives without suffocating them through uniforming forms. This paper shows how Blondel undertakes such a meditation, assuming the essential structure of "symbol". (shrink)

Signs and things -- How Shall a Sign be Called? -- Peirce -- Modes of Representation -- Medium Matters -- The Mute Poem -- Rhetoric of the image.

The automatic detection of implicitly offensive language is a challenge for NLP, as such language is subtle, contextual, and plausibly deniable, but it is becoming increasingly important with the wider use of large language models to generate human-quality texts. This study argues that current difficulties in detecting implicit offence are exacerbated by multiple factors: (a) inadequate definitions of implicit and explicit offense; (b) an insufficient typology of implicit offence; and (c) a dearth of detailed analysis of implicitly offensive linguistic data. (...) In this study, based on a qualitative analysis of an implicitly offensive dataset, a new typology of implicitly offensive language is proposed along with a detailed, example-led account of the new typology, an operational definition of implicitly offensive language, and a thorough analysis of the role of figurative language and humour in each type. Our analyses identify three main issues with previous datasets and typologies used in NLP approaches: (a) conflating content and form in the annotation; (b) treating figurativeness, particularly metaphor, as the main device of implicitness, while ignoring its equally important role in the explicit offence; and (c) an over-focus on form-specific datasets (e.g. focusing only on offensive comparisons), which fails to reflect the full complexity of offensive language use. (shrink)

This article discusses the concept of epistemic authority in the context of English law relating to expert testimony. It distinguishes between two conceptions of epistemic authority, one strong and one weak, and argues that only the weak conception is appropriate in a legal context, or in any other setting where reliance on experts can be publicly justified. It critically examines Linda Zagzebski's defence of a stronger conception of epistemic authority and questions whether epistemic authority is as closely analogous to practical (...) authority as she maintains. Zagzebski elucidates a kind of deference that courts generally, and rightly, try to avoid. Her concept of ‘first person reasons’, however, does capture an important aspect of the deliberations of conscientious legal actors. (shrink)

In its most fundamental, constructive parts devoted to descriptive theory, The Wealth of Nations is first and foremost an account of the causes of economic growth and development. Smith’s theory of economic development gives primary place, at least as the proximate determinants of development, to labour productivity growth and capital accumulation. This chapter examines successively, under six heads, the key dimensions of Smith’s treatment of labour and capital, and the relations between the two, both in The Wealth of Nations and (...) other writings: division of labour, the concept of capital, capital accumulation and economic development, productive versus unproductive labour, the theory of real wages and of profit rates, and economic policy in relation to labour and capital. There are some concluding reflections on Smith’s legacy in relation to these matters. (shrink)

Space exploration and off-world commercial activity engage both skeptics and its enthusiasts. What does seem clear, however, is that such activity has increased and is set to expand further during the present century. This book explores some of the emerging ethical issues of the space frontier and evaluates the prospects for the medium-range future.

Evolutionary analysis focuses on how genes build organisms with different strategies for engaging and solving life’s challenges of survival and reproduction. One of those challenges is competing with conspecifics for limited resources including reproductive opportunities. This article suggests that there is now good evidence for considering two dimensions of social competition. The first, has been labeled as antisocial strategies, to the extent that they tend to be self-focused, threat sensitive and aggressive, and use tactics of bulling, threatening, and intimidating subordinates, (...) or even injuring/killing competitors. Such strategies can inhibit care and affiliative social interactions and motivation. The social signals emitted stimulate threat processing in recipients and can create stressed and highly stratified groups with a range of detrimental psychological and physiological effects. Second, in contrast, prosocial strategies seek to create relaxed and secure social interactions that enable sharing, cooperative, mutually supportive and beneficial relationships. The friendly and low/no threat social signals emitted in friendly cooperative and affiliative relationships stimulate physiological systems (e.g., oxytocin, the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system) that downregulates threat processing, enhances the immune system, and facilitates frontal cortical processes and general wellbeing. This article reviews the literature pertaining to the evidence for these two dimensions of social engagement. (shrink)

This paper inquires the systematical consequences in the Nietzschean critics of the biological determination of life. We proposed an analysis about central topics of this determination: the finalism, the life and chaos. This approach allows us to relieve a systematical conception of what Nietzsche understands by “necessity”. This conception of necessity is not metaphysic in the traditional sense, but implies a subversion of all special metaphysic. Beyond this, it entails a critical to the transcendental and normative version, own of Kantian (...) thought, about the question of life. These confrontations seek to clarify the gnoseological and ontological areas put in check, on the status of the concept of life. (shrink)

The shape of the moral life is determined for Christians at least in part by beliefs peculiar to Christians, and a perennial problem for Christian ethics is relating that peculiar understanding to more general claims about moral knowledge. Since the problem is perennial, I propose not to solve it but to think about it. I do so by considering first the sense in which Christian ethics may be a kind of "insider's" ethic-the shared language of believers. Despite the strengths of (...) such a view, it may too greatly restrict both human and divine freedom. Having considered its difficulties from both those angles, I return to the sense of Christian life as a tradition of conduct in order to illustrate the importance of such a vision in our cultural setting. (shrink)

In this letter we focus on the cognitive science of consciousness. The general message is that, while this interdisciplinary area has made much progress in recent years, there is a tendency of downplaying conceptual issues, and therefore underestimating the difficulties of various problems. We briefly focus on a few prominent examples only, due to the space limit, but the general message should be clear: this recent tendency can be problematic for the progress of the consciousness branch of cognitive sciences.

Drawing on earlier work of the author that is both clarified and amplified here, this article explores the question: what is it for two or more people to intend to do something in the future? In short, what is it for people to share an intention? It argues for three criteria of adequacy for an account of shared intention (the disjunction, concurrence, and obligation criteria) and offers an account that satisfies them. According to this account, in technical terms explained in (...) the paper, people share an intention when and only when they are jointly committed to intend as a body to do such-and-such in the future. This account is compared and contrasted with the common approach that treats shared intention as a matter of the correlative personal intentions, with particular reference to the work of Michael Bratman. (shrink)

Expressing views not easily placed within any one school of opinion, this collection of the papers of Tony Honore reflects the author's contribution, as both critic and participant in debate, to the study of legal philosophy over the last twenty-five years. His wide-ranging essays cover such topics as motivation to conform to the law, norms and obligations, and rights and justice, and conclude with an essay supporting the use of law to encourage or reinforce morality.

We might be convinced that the goal of relieving suffering offers a straightforward justification of sacrificing embryos in research. Or we might hold that although embryos merit our respect, the greater the good to be achieved by destroying them, the more respect must give way to research. Or, if we take the notion of respect seriously, we might find that relieving suffering is a real but not supreme imperative.

Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab, discusses his vision for a “new economy” where business is a “force for good.” In this interview, Coen Gilbert provides an overview of how B Lab’s various initiatives—Certified B Corporations, the B Impact Assessment, B Analytics, GIIRS, and Benefit Corporations—function interdependently to accelerate a culture shift to redefine success in business. Coen Gilbert then focuses on the role of benefit corporations in this larger movement. The benefit corporation is a new (...) legal form of business that requires a corporate purpose dedicated to “general public benefit” and the delivery of demonstrable “material positive impact on society and the environment.” Novel fiduciary and reporting requirements differentiate the benefit corporation from the traditional corporation founded on shareholder primacy. Coen Gilbert explains how the benefit corporation is better suited to create long-term shareholder value as well as sustainable value for society, the environment, and other stakeholders. He addresses critiques of and challenges to the benefit corporation as an agent of change for business. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to contribute to the development of a paradigmatic shift in how design is understood, transformed and practiced in the Global South. It does this by establishing the case for building a strong contextual relation between design, colonialism, and the mobilised counter-agency of decoloniality. Thereafter, design for/by the Global South is presented within a critical epistemological reframing subordinate to a situated imperative of the ‘Sustainment’.

Out of this book comes a clear definition of knowledge and insights into the strength and limitations of the mind.

There is an ongoing debate as to whether there is a major difference between Hume's accounts of morality in the Treatise and the second Enquiry. This has tended to focus on the role of sympathy in each case, but more recently the greater emphasis on humanity in the Enquiry as compared with the Treatise has been used to support a non-reconciliation view of the relation between these accounts. So far as humanity's role in relation to the moral sentiments is concerned, (...) I question whether it can provide the moral point of view associated with moral approval and disapproval. Considered as a motive to action, I question whether humanity always results in the kinds of action which would meet with general approbation. I also stress the limitations of humanity when viewed from the impartial perspective associated with the moral point of view. I further attempt to show that there is no real contradiction between Hume's claim in the Treatise that sympathy is ‘the chief source of moral distinctions’ and his claim in the Enquiry that the sentiments dependent on humanity ‘are the origin of morals’. I therefore conclude in favour of a reconciliatory view of the two accounts. (shrink)