Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection helps restore Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo (...) Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. Hardship and Happiness collects a range of essays intended to instruct, from consolations—works that offer comfort to someone who has suffered a personal loss—to pieces on how to achieve happiness or tranquility in the face of a difficult world. Expertly translated, the essays will be read and used by undergraduate philosophy students and experienced scholars alike. (shrink)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection helps restore Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to (...) his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. _Hardship and Happiness_ collects a range of essays intended to instruct, from consolations—works that offer comfort to someone who has suffered a personal loss—to pieces on how to achieve happiness or tranquility in the face of a difficult world. Expertly translated, the essays will be read and used by undergraduate philosophy students and experienced scholars alike. (shrink)

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies that characterize the functioning of the Italian national health system. Prisons have always mirrored the most radical expressions of these weaknesses. During the early stages of the pandemic, prison facilities across Italy underwent a series of changes dictated by the need to ensure the safety of the prisoners and staff. The adoption of these rules contributed to a total or partial redefinition of many central facets of life in prison, such as (...) intake procedures for new arrivals and the ways prisoners were allowed to communicate with their families.Objectives: The aim of this qualitative study was to analyze the testimony of penitentiary healthcare workers in prisons throughout Italy to determine the impact of COVID-19 on their professional and personal lives.Participants: Thirty-eight participants were contacted and 20 decided to participate in the interview. The sample was made up of 10 women and 10 men. All the participants were members of the healthcare staff of a penitentiary facility. All were recruited through an Italian association whose mission is the development, promotion, and implementation of social solidarity projects including prisoners' social and health care. This study was facilitated through representatives serving in nine different regions of Italy. The participants were divided according to their professional roles in prisons.Method: In-depth interviews were conducted by telephone or online using telecommunication platforms. The transcribed texts underwent thematic analysis using the Atlas.ti software to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset.Results: Four main themes emerged from the analysis: Interpersonal difficulties, management and operational difficulties, the personal distress and bereavement of healthcare workers, and the distress of inmates. The importance of relationship management skills when interacting with prisoners emerged as a key topic in many interviews, and the participants highlighted the need for adequate training. The increase in prisoners' anxiety made communication more difficult.Conclusions: The findings suggest that healthcare workers in jails need emergency-oriented training. Participants described their feeling of loneliness and quasi-abandonment when carrying out their duties during the pandemic. In particular, they underscored the need for psychological guidance to better manage altered reactions with prisoners and colleagues as a result of heightened death anxiety and isolation. (shrink)

Relief after Hardship: The Ottoman Turkish Model for The Thousand and One Days. By Ulrich Marzolph. Series in Fairy-Tale Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017. Pp. viii + 151. $39.99.

In this article, I argue that significant potential for psychological growth and self-learning exists in independent foreign travel characterized by long periods of movement under challenging conditions and combined with intense cross-cultural contact. I call this style of travel autonomous cross-cultural hardship travel (ACHT). A number of studies regarding the personal effects of travel and cross-cultural contact are reviewed. The relevance of humanistic psychology and transformative learning (TL) theory is also considered. I propose that the psychological benefits of ACHT (...) are found in its capacity to promote a “deepened sense of self” that is paradoxical, emergent, and universal. (shrink)

Islam prides itself on being "the religion of facility". Muslim sources are unanimous in assigning to Judaism the role of counterweight in this regard, pronouncing it a system of "burdens and shackles" by which the Jews "oppressed their souls". This neat polarity both fueled, and was the product of, a fascinating reciprocal process: at the same time that sharī'a was being created in the negative image of halakha, halakha was being retroactively re-imagined by Muslim jurists and exegetes as the antipode (...) of sharī'a. Although scholarly studies of the intertexture of Islam and Judaism abound, few have touched upon the Muslim tradition's perception and utilization of Jewish law, and none has done so in depth. This book aims to fill that lacuna and further our understanding of the age-old embrace and grapple between the two faiths. (shrink)

"At its core, Yoga invites practitioners to live fully in the midst of hardship while staying open to the possibility of being transformed by life experiences of all kinds. A seasoned Yoga teacher and writer, the author confronts the ways in which modern Yoga has strayed from its original purposes, challenging current perspectives of practice, balance and peace. Drawing on the foundations of Yoga philosophy, this book provides guideposts for living a resilient life through deepening the understanding and experience (...) of Yoga. To redefine the popular understanding of Yoga, chapters provide practical and applicable tools to reclaim practice as a way to be fully alive and aware, thereby unpacking the resistance, judgment and impatience that stand in the way of living a resilient life."-Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In the face of declining strength in the 1780s and grief over the death of his nearest relatives, his mother and his cousin Janet Douglas, Smith strove to leave behind him the works he had already published in the ‘best and most perfect state.’ It fell out that he completed the additions that went into the standard third edition of WN in a time of political distress. These included the rise and fall of Shelburne as the Prime Minister whose drive (...) to make peace with the Americans was based in part on Smith's free trade teaching; the subsequent collapse of the Fox–North coalition over efforts to reform the East India Company, which is severely criticized in the third edition of WN; and the onset of the administration of Pitt the Younger, who heeded WN's policy advice with regard to smuggling and trade with France. Smith also intensified his fight against the absurdity of the government's mercantile system of encouragements and prohibitions, which thwarted competition in the market place and favoured clamorous producers over consumers. (shrink)

A new translation of a selection of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, showing how philosophy can help us understand and endure personal misfortune.

The authors of this article apply systemic and comparative methods in order to discuss the key criteria of hardship as a legal institute, i.e. a fundamental alteration of the contractual equilibrium. The authors focus on modern regulations, such as those established in the Principles of International Commercial Contracts and other international contract restatements. The UNIDROIT Principles and other legal instruments usually quite abstractly define the criterion of fundamental alteration; thus further input is necessary in order to reveal the more (...) precise requirements of hardship. The authors of this article provide such an input by conducting a comparative research of the most prominent legal doctrine and case law. (shrink)

Self-regulation, or the ability to effectively manage emotions and behavior, is a critical skill to develop in early childhood. Children living in a context of economic hardship are at an increased risk for developing self-regulation difficulties. However, few studies have comprehensively examined how multiple aspects of the caregiving environment, including fathers’ parenting and coparenting quality, may contribute to child self-regulation. Thus, this study applied a family systems perspective to examine whether coparenting and resident and non-resident fathers’ reports of parenting (...) quantity and quality were associated with observations of children’s self-regulation. Participants were drawn from the Embedded Developmental Study of the Three-City Study, a longitudinal study of children and families facing economic hardship. At Wave 1, when children were 2–4 years old, reports of parenting and coparenting were obtained. At Wave 2, when children were 3–6 years old, children participated in a snack delay and gift wrap task, which assessed their self-regulation. Multi-group path analyses indicated that resident fathers’ harsh parenting at Wave 1 predicted decreased levels of self-regulation at Wave 2. Non-resident fathers’ reported hours of involvement at Wave 1 predicted greater levels of self-regulation at Wave 2. Additionally, supportive coparenting among families with a non-resident father predicted greater self-regulation. Supportive coparenting was not associated with child self-regulation in families with a resident father. The implications for research focused on facilitating positive father–child relationships in diverse family contexts are discussed. (shrink)

_Perennial wisdom from one of history’s most important but lesser-known Stoic teachers__ “He knew that all a philosopher could do was respond well—bravely, boldly, patiently—to what life threw at us. That's what we should be doing now.”—Ryan Holiday, Reading List email_ The Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus was one of the most influential teachers of his era, imperial Rome, and his message still resonates with startling clarity today. Alongside Stoics like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, he emphasized ethics in action, displayed (...) in all aspects of life. Merely learning philosophical doctrine and listening to lectures, they believed, will not do one any good unless one manages to interiorize the teachings and apply them to daily life. In Musonius Rufus’s words, “Philosophy is nothing else than to search out by reason what is right and proper and by deeds to put it into practice.” At a time of renewed interest in Stoicism, this collection of Musonius Rufus’s lectures and sayings, beautifully translated by Cora E. Lutz with an introduction by Gretchen Reydams-Schils, offers readers access to the thought of one of history’s most influential and remarkable Stoic thinkers. (shrink)

There is [that which is controlled by] Heaven, and there is [that which is within the power of] man, and each has its separate lot. Once one has examined the division between Heaven and man, one will know how to act.1Since the discovery of the Guodian 郭 店 manuscripts in 1993, the Qiongda yi shi 窮 達 以 時 has gathered much attention, mainly thanks to this opening line, which practically invalidates the previously widely held belief that the division between (...) Heaven and humanity was Xunzi's original idea.2 Consequently, much effort was spent on analyzing similarities and differences between the Xunzi and the QDYS, focusing on their concepts of Heaven.3 But... (shrink)

Human services planning for crews who go to Mars is in its earliest phase, but the modalities for service delivery are well worth anticipating because they could involve some of the first innovations that merge physical, biological, and digital capacities on the new planet. This chapter examines the constraints of the planet Mars, itself, on all humans. It anticipates how “exogenous stressors” might affect the psychological, social, and cultural capacities and conflicts of the earliest crews. Several types of service modalities (...) are explored: hibernation; medication management; traditional psychotherapy; long-distance modalities to approximate the “talking cure”; digitized, keyed psychology workbooks; robotics, or service delivery without verbal feedback; AI technologies, or service delivery with verbal feedback; problem-solving at the cultural level; digital bulletin boards to substitute for journaling; and a special section on the issue of privacy. The chapter rounds out with a section, on types of spiritual services that may be beneficial even for those who profess no faith. We focus on “sacred space,” and on death and burial ritual on Mars. Factors explored here reflect the backgrounds of the two authors: one, a cultural anthropologist and biologist, and the other, an astronomer who is also a Catholic priest. (shrink)

When one is going through a personal hardship, it is often comforting, or emotionally helpful, to hear from someone else who has gone through something similar. This is a common, familiar human phenomenon, but this chapter argues that it is philosophically puzzling. Unless one is in some sort of moment of vice, one would not want the other person to have suffered the hardship, and one should be pained to hear that they have. And yet the phenomenon is (...) that hearing about their similar hardship makes one feel better, rather than worse. Why is that? The chapter considers a range of intuitive replies. It argues that while each might be part of the story, none resolves the puzzle. There remains a question as to why the phenomenon does not reflect a vice of insufficient care or concern for others. It then considers two possible answers, drawing on ideas from Adams and Bommarito, but argues that neither are satisfactory. The aim of the chapter is to bring out the puzzle and show that it is difficult to resolve. But it ends with a suggestion for a resolution. (shrink)

Authors endure considerable hardship carrying out biomedical research, from generating ideas to completing their manuscripts and submitting their findings and data to a journal. When researchers submit to journals, they entrust their findings and ideas to editors and peer reviewers who are expected to respect the confidentiality of peer review. Inherent trust in peer review is built on the ethical conduct of authors, editors and reviewers, and on the respect of this confidentiality. If such confidentiality is breached by unethical (...) reviewers who might steal or plagiarize the authors’ ideas, researchers will lose trust in peer review and may resist submitting their findings to that journal. Science loses as a result, scientific and medical advances slow down, knowledge may become scarce, and it is unlikely that increasing bias in the literature will be detected or eliminated. In such a climate, society will ultimately be deprived from scientific and medical advances. Despite a rise in documented cases of abused peer review, there is still a relative lack of qualitative and quantitative studies on reviewer-related misconduct, most likely because evidence is difficult to come by. Our paper presents an assessment of editors’ and reviewers’ responsibilities in preserving the confidentiality of manuscripts during the peer review process, in response to a 2016 case of intellectual property theft by a reviewer. Our main objectives are to propose additional measures that would offer protection of authors’ intellectual ideas from predatory reviewers, and increase researchers’ awareness of the responsible reviewing of journal articles and reporting of biomedical research. (shrink)

What explains the continuing hardship of so many black Americans? A distinguished group of scholars analyzes the long, complex structural and environmental causes of discrimination and their effects on African-Americans. The authors examine the impact of poverty, poor health, poor schools, poor housing, poor neighborhoods, and few job opportunities—and demonstrate how multiple causes reinforce each other and condemn African-Americans to positions of inferiority and poverty. Some of the contributors examine policies designed to correct problems, while others look at the (...) changing racial and ethnic composition in America and its implications for African-Americans, as other minorities surpass them in numbers and claim political, economic, and social attention. The late James Tobin has contributed a foreword to this important collection. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhen faced with hardship, how do we emotionally appraise the situation? Although many factors contribute to our reasoning about hardships, in this article we focus on the role of linguistic metaphor in shaping how we cope. In five experiments, we find that framing a person’s cancer situation as a “battle” encourages people to believe that that person is more likely to feel guilty if they do not recover than framing the same situation as a “journey” does. Conversely, the “journey” (...) frame is more likely to encourage the inference that the person can make peace with their situation than the “battle” frame. We rule out lexical priming as an explanation for this effect and examine the generalizability of these findings to individual differences across participants and to a different type of hardship—namely, an experience with depression. Finally, we examine the language participants produced after encountering one of these metaphors, and we find tendencies to repeat and extend the metaphors encountered.... (shrink)

We respond in this paper to various counter arguments advanced against our stance on conscientious objection accommodation. Contra Maclure and Dumont, we show that it is impossible to develop reliable tests for conscientious objectors' claims with regard to the reasonableness of the ideological basis of their convictions, and, indeed, with regard to whether they actually hold they views they claim to hold. We demonstrate furthermore that, within the Canadian legal context, the refusal to accommodate conscientious objectors would not constitute undue (...) hardship for such objectors. We reject concerns that refusing to accommodate conscientious objectors would limit the equality of opportunity for budding professionals holding particular ideological positions. We also clarify various misrepresentations of our views by respondents Symons, Glick and Jotkowitz, and Lyus. (shrink)

The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism’s terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction. Azmanova’s new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns (...) of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form—precarity capitalism—marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism’s unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation. (shrink)

This article investigates using social entrepreneurship as a way of developing sustainable township economies, so that poverty can be eradicated from the townships of South Africa and township dwellers can begin to play a role in the economic development of the country. The author also thinks it is God's purpose for people to enjoy life, free from economic hardship. A reduction in poverty would also bring down the crime rate and other social ills. It starts by defining and clarifying (...) the concepts of 'entrepreneur' and 'social entrepreneurship'. It continues by looking in more depth into township life and its challenges. This is done through reviewing the literature and observations obtained through participant observation research. Post-foundationalist practical theology believes in interdisciplinary dialogue as a means of allowing the concept of social entrepreneurship to bring about a sustainable township economy. From the author's observations, it became apparent that to see the attainment of a sustainable township economy, training and development should start with a strong emphasis on personal identity and interpersonal and business skills. The author, therefore, proposes a holistic approach to social entrepreneurship. (shrink)

The mass movement of people across the globe constitutes a major feature of world politics today. -/- Whatever the cause of the movement - often war, famine, economic hardship, political repression or climate change - the governments of western capitalist states see this 'torrent of people in flight' as a serious threat to their stability and the scale of this migration indicates a need for a radical re-thinking of both political theory and practice, for the sake of political, social (...) and economic justice. -/- This book argues that there is at present a serious gap between the legal and social practices of immigration and naturalisation in liberal democratic states and any theoretical justification for such practices that can be made within the tradition of liberal political philosophy. How can liberal states develop institutions of democratic citizenship and at the same time justifiably exclude 'outsiders' from participating in those institutions? The book examines various responses to this contradiction within the liberal tradition, and finds none of them satisfactory - there are no consistently liberal justifications for immigration control and this has serious implications both for liberal practice and theory. (shrink)

In a thought-provoking paper, Schuklenk and Smalling argue that no right to conscientious objection should be granted to medical professionals. First, they hold that it is impossible to assess either the truth of conscience-based claims or the sincerity of the objectors. Second, even a fettered right to conscientious refusal inevitably has adverse effects on the rights of patients. We argue that the main problem with their position is that it is not derived from a broader reflection on the meaning and (...) implications of freedom of conscience and reasonable accommodation. We point out that they collapse two related but distinct questions, that is, the subjective conception of freedom of conscience and the sincerity test. We note that they do not successfully show that the standard norm according to which exemption claims should not impose undue hardship on others is unworkable. We suggest that the main reason why arguments such as no one is forced to be a medical professional are flawed is that public norms should not constrain citizens to choose between two of their basic rights unless it is necessary. In fine, Schuklenk and Smalling, who see conscience claims as arbitrary dislikes, sell freedom of conscience short and forego any attempts at balancing the competing rights involved. We maintain the authors neglect that most of legal reasoning is contextual and that the blanket restriction of healthcare professionals' freedom of conscience is disproportionate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Machiavelli’s Moses and Renaissance PoliticsJohn H. GeerkenWithin the almost Dantesque array of humanity that populates the pages of Machiavelli’s canon, Moses occupies a special place. He first appears in chapter six of The Prince concerning those who acquire new princedoms by dint of their own virtù and military self-sufficiency. He last appears in the Discourses as one who was forced to kill a host of envious opponents. There is (...) some irony in these representations: in The Prince, with its tyrannical overtones, Moses appears as God’s friend; but in the Discourses, with its republican associations, Moses is an executioner. Machiavelli captures some of the ambiguity that attends on Moses when he declares that “Moses should not be discussed, since he was a mere executor of things laid down for him by God, nevertheless he ought to be exalted, if only for the grace that made him worthy to speak with God.” 1 Are we to exalt Moses, but not discuss him? Then, too, why bother with either God or Moses? Why complicate the search for the effectual truth of things by invoking metaphysical elements or inimitable biblical figures? How are we to understand these references? Are these ironic as sometimes asserted?But what are the heuristic possibilities in a non-ironic approach? If Moses had so great a teacher, what was his curriculum? Since no other figure in the Machiavellian census is so associated with slavery, was Moses a vehicle for making an assertion about slavery and liberation, or about politics and religion, or about the morality of politics? Then, too, how did Machiavelli’s Moses compare to the Moses who was so prominent in Renaissance iconology? These are the questions which this study addresses.I. Of the several references to Moses, the most telling is the last one in the Discourses. Machiavelli writes: “He who reads the Bible intelligently [sensata-mente] [End Page 579] sees that if Moses was to put his laws and regulations into effect, he was forced to kill countless men who, moved by nothing else than envy, were opposed to his plans.” 2A great deal is compressed into this passage: the confrontation of Moses’ virtù with the necessity imposed by his opposition, the need to use violent means to achieve lawful ends, and the implied sanction of sacred Scripture. But the Bible, Machiavelli asserts pointedly, must be read intelligently—presumably not in a devotional, liturgical, or exegetical manner, but in effect politically. Machiavelli wrote that he himself read in order to learn the reasons for human actions. 3 Indeed, one of his reasons for writing history was to convey his conviction that “[i]f any reading is useful to citizens who govern republics, it is that which shows the causes of the hatreds and factional struggles within the city, in order that such citizens having grown wise through the sufferings of others, can keep themselves united.” 4In a word reading can be political. References to biblical figures in his works indicate that for Machiavelli the Bible was not exempt from a political reading; it, too, could yield the reasons for human actions and the causes of hatred and factionalism. 5 We can assume, therefore, that he read the Book of Exodus with these concerns in mind even as he invited his own readers to read the Bible. What, therefore, can the Book of Exodus show us?II. The Book of Exodus records at least forty-three conversations between God and Moses, thirty-three of which were initiated by God in order to instruct, command, announce, predict, threaten, remind, warn, and legislate. It records God’s determination to rescue his convenanted people despite pharaoh’s sustained resistance. 6 It records as well the instructional conversations dealing with the plagues, the sacrifices, the Passover, the plundering of Egypt, the escape routes and the encampments. 7 And of course there is the account of the crossing of the Red Sea which no Egyptian pursuer survived. 8Noteworthy, too, is the fact that, for his part, Moses initiated ten conversations with God, declaring his personal doubts and inadequacies, offering his excuses, complaining about the hardships of his mission, reporting on the grumbling... (shrink)

“[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—President Barack Obama Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when (...) America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace. “The supreme American theologian of the twentieth century.”—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Times “Niebuhr is important for the left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism. His thought offers a much better understanding of where the Bush administration went wrong in Iraq.”—Kevin Mattson, The Good Society “Irony provides the master key to understanding the myths and delusions that underpin American statecraft.... The most important book ever written on US foreign policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, from the Introduction. (shrink)

Can we understand what makes someone the same person without understanding what it is to be a person? Prereflectively we might not think so, but philosophers often accord these questions separate treatments, with personal-identity theorists claiming the first question and free-will theorists the second. Yet much of what is of interest to a person—the possibility of survival over time, compensation for past hardships, concern for future projects, or moral responsibility—is not obviously intelligible from the perspective of either question alone. Marya (...) Schechtman encourages us to adopt a more unified perspective. (shrink)

Courage is dangerous. If it is defined in traditional ways, as a set of dispositions to overcome fear, to oppose obstacles, to perform difficult or dangerous actions, its claim to be a virtue is questionable. Unlike the virtue of justice, or a sense of proportion, traditional courage does not itself determine what is to be done, let alone assure that it is worth doing. If we retain the traditional conception of courage and its military connotations–overcoming and combat–we should be suspicious (...) of it. Instead of automatically classifying it as a virtue, attempting to develop and exercise it, we should become alert to its dangers. And yet and yet. There is an aspect of traditional courage that serves us: we require the capacities and traits that enable us to persist in acting well under stress, to endure hardships when following our judgments about what is best is difficult or dangerous. If courage is checked, redefined as the virtue that enables virtue–the various sets of dispositions, whatever they may be, that make us resolute in worthy, difficult action–then we need not fear the dangers of courage. We need rather to reform it by diversifying it, as a heterogeneous variety of traits that enable us to act well under stress, against the natural movements of self-protection. (shrink)

While some philosophers believe disabilities constitute a “bad-difference,” others think they constitute a “mere-difference” (Barnes 2016). On this latter view, while disabilities may create certain hardships, having a disability is not bad in itself. I argue that chronic pain problematizes this disability-neutral view. In doing so, I first survey the literature on chronic pain (§1). Then, I argue that Barnes’s mere-difference view cannot adequately accommodate the lived experiences of many people who suffer from chronic pain (§2). Next, I consider two (...) ways Barnes might respond and I explain why these responses are not workable (§3). Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of disability variantism, the view that just as some disabilities can be neutral or even positive for some individuals, other disabilities like chronic pain can understandably make some people’s lives miserable not because society has failed them but simply because some conditions can openly conflict with well-being (§4). (shrink)

In this fascinating autobiography from the foremost genius of twentieth-century physics, Max Planck tells the story of his life, his aims, and his thinking. Published posthumously, the papers in this volume were written for the general reader and make accessible his scientific theories as well as his philosophical ideals, including his thoughts on ethics and morals. Max (Karl Ernst Ludwig) Planck was a German physicist and philosopher known for his quantum theory, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics (...) in 1918. Planck was born in Kiel, Germany, in 1858 to an academic family, and he valued education from a young age. He attended the Universities of Munich and Berlin to study physics under the great scientific leaders Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. His early work mainly focused on the study of thermodynamics, and in 1900 he published a paper on his quantum theory that would change the face of modern physics. Planck worked as a professor at Berlin University his entire life, and he also served as the president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Promotion of Science. During World War II, Planck experienced great hardships while he remained in Germany but openly opposed the Nazi regime. One of his two sons was executed during this time for an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life, and Planck's home in Berlin was eventually bombed. He continued to write on physics and philosophy until his death in 1947. (shrink)

What is the real crisis of the church? Very often, clergy, churches and congregations experience a ‘crisis’ only when membership is in decline, resulting in financial hardship. Crisis is limited to stress which the church as institution experiences when structures, finance and traditions are under pressure. In this contribution, the point is argued that the real crisis of the church is not to be found in institutional challenges, but in the inability of the church to be what it already (...) is. With reference to Karl Barth’s ecclesiology, this contribution departs from the assumption that the real crisis of the church is not only to be found in external circumstances and influences, but is primarily a question of the church not being able to ‘be church’. Continued reformation of the church is of utmost importance. (shrink)

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Benjamin ButtonHenry Alexander (bio)IBenjamin Button was born at the age of seventy and as the years accumulated, grew younger physically. There are in his life three separate lines or threads. His chronological age begins in September of 1860 and terminated seventy years later. His "bodily age" consists of those stages of physical changes and of the different ways that he looked to others and to himself. In (...) 1860, he was an old man; his hair was sparse, scraggly, and nearly white; he had "a long smoke-colored beard"; his eyes were faded, watery, and tired; his teeth were ancient; his skin wrinkled, his voice had a cracked quaver and he had an aged stoop, even though he was five feet eight inches tall. From that time on, he gradually and steadily lost these characteristics of old age and became younger looking both to others and to himself until that time in 1930 when, an infant in his white crib, everything "faded out altogether from his mind." Finally, the third thread in Button's life consists of various psychological stages, attitudes, and feelings: his querulousness, his compliancy, his inquisitiveness, his assertiveness, his love for his wife, his business ability, his generosity, his enthusiasm for pleasure, his discontent with home life, his love of military activity and excitement, his delight in the company [End Page 1] of young women, the pleasure he took in his youthful appearance, his ambition to succeed at Harvard, the humiliations he suffered, his childish cheerfulness. These three threads in Benjamin Button's life—his chronological age, his bodily age, and his psychological age are seldom congruent and frequently unharmoniously interwoven.There are times when in ordinary life we may distinguish one or another of these threads out of a person's life. We may on occasion comment that someone looks so much older than she is where physical hardship, unusual sickness, or emotional pressures have left their scars. We may remark that another is so very young for her age, where, for example, inexperience, callousness, naivete show themselves in a person whose age would not lead us to expect such traits. We may remark upon how well one has kept oneself in shape when one's physique, muscle tone, and endurance are those of a decidedly younger person. Sometimes, certain traits of character—crabbiness, bossiness, old womanishness, crankiness, arbitrariness—associated with the elderly, may unexpectedly emerge in young people. Sometimes, traits perhaps conventionally associated with youth may crop up at a later stage of life, for example, carelessness, daredeviltry, sensuality, self-absorption, etc. The theme comes out in cases where we are surprised or shocked by the discrepancies between age and appearance or by changes in appearance or by psychological shifts which strike one as dissonant with one's own or another's age. There must be numerous variations on such discrepancies and they crop up from time to time in the ordinary course of things.But Benjamin Button's life was not ordinary. Those three threads of a person's life which may on occasion be singled out or contrasted are in his case systematically independent of one another. His years bear little relation to his physical age. His psychological states reflect little, if anything, of his years. Except for his middle years (between thirty-five and forty, say), there was little congruence between his chronological age, on the one hand, and his physical appearance or his psychological life, on the other.This dissonance between physical and chronological age has its ironical twists. For instance, when Benjamin was about twenty (in years), he met Hildegarde Moncrief (to whom he was later married). During their first meeting, she mistook him for his father's brother and she told Benjamin that fifty is "the mellow age" and that she "loves fifty." Of course, he appears to be a man of fifty, but he has forgotten how he appears [End Page 2] to others. He even "longed passionately to be fifty" (p. 73).1 The irony is that to Hildegarde and to everyone else, he was fifty.One anomaly that runs through much of Benjamin Button's life is his unawareness as to how... (shrink)

Policy decisions during and after the New Deal tied the U.S. social contract to the employment contract, by conditioning eligibility and benefit levels for core welfare-state programs on work status and performance. The resulting system of social provision, however, embodied a set of assumptions about labor-market conditions that began to unravel with the structural economic shifts that began in the mid-1970s. Work was expected to provide open doors to employment, stable floors of security and stability over time, income ladders promising (...) adequate and rising earnings, and safety nets providing public and/or private protections against unforeseen or unavoidable hardships. Each of these assumptions was undermined by fundamental changes in the market, and this, in turn, has redefined patterns of social provision. As a result, core welfare-state programs have become less effective at meeting their own objectives of providing adequate social protections for rising numbers of working Americans. These trends preceded the recent recession and weak recovery, and cannot be reversed by the return of robust growth or pre-recession employment levels, in the absence of more fundamental change in the social contract. The roots of the current dilemma lie in the 1930s-40s, when politically mobilized employers fought alongside conservative policymakers to constrain the scope of the original system of social protections during and after the New Deal. In recent decades, they have battled to keep even this limited system from reaching those it was intended to assist, by blocking or limiting reform initiatives in areas such as employment policy, the minimum wage, health and pension insurance and modernization of the unemployment compensation system. (shrink)

Portraits of Integrity depicts more than 20 historical, fictional and contemporary figures whose character or life raises questions about what integrity is and how it is perceived. Integrity might be culturally bound, but this diverse set of portraits demonstrates that it is not the special preserve of any one culture. Portraits of Socrates, Mencius, Rama and Job, alongside the aspirational 16th-century couple John and Dorothy Kaye, civil rights activist Ella Baker and an anonymous banker, highlight the persisting – sometimes conflicting (...) – features of a life lived with integrity. An introduction identifies and discusses the key questions and themes raised by the case studies, encouraging the reader to determine for themselves the weight and significance of the recurring topics integrity brings up - truth, awkwardness, goodness, and charisma. For anyone looking to learn more about this elusive virtue, Portraits of Integrity is an essential collection. It uncovers the manifold aspects of integrity, illustrates the various possibilities for its expression in a life and asks whether living a life of integrity means living a life of isolation and hardship, or if it is possible to live with integrity without jeopardising all else. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers often construe mercy as a supererogatory notion or a matter of punitive leniency. Yet it is false that no merciful actions are obligatory. Further, it is questionable whether mercy is really about punitive leniency, either exclusively or primarily. As an alternative to these accounts, I consider the view offered by St. Thomas Aquinas. He rejects the claim that we are never obligated to be merciful. Also, his view of mercy is not restricted to legal contexts. For him, mercy's (...) scope is considerably broader, as it concerns a wide range of needs and hardships to which human beings are vulnerable. Such a view, I submit, affords a kind of normative depth lacking in many contemporary accounts. Unlike those views that construe mercy as either a supererogatory or legal concept, Aquinas's account illuminates mercy's obligatory nature and encourages us to make mercy a more salient fixture of our moral lives. (shrink)

Nostalgic music is defined as that which evokes feelings of nostalgia through reminders of certain periods of life, places or people. Feelings of nostalgia are said to occur during times of hardship and difficult transitionary periods, such as the first COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom in 2020. Here, the reassurance of the past might have held certainty that could sustain a sense of meaning and purpose in life and influence wellbeing. The aims of the presented study were to (...) explore the nature of music-induced nostalgia during the lockdown, by analysing participants’ narratives conjured by the music and their emotional responses to them, and to determinethe extent that using nostalgic music listening as an emotion regulation strategy had an impact on wellbeing. Data was collected by means of an online questionnaire, which retrospectively investigated nostalgic music during the lockdown. Participants listened to a self-selected piece of music that they had listened to 3 months prior whichinduced feelings of nostalgia, reported their resulting emotion and the content of memories associated with their nostalgia, and completed a questionnaire rating their experienced effect of nostalgia in relation to their piece of music. Following this, we investigated the functions that nostalgic music tends to have in regulating emotions through means of a pre-validated scale. 570 participants were recruited. Concurrent with existing research, the findings suggest that there are significant differences in the affective and narrative content of nostalgicmusic listening in relation to which emotion regulation strategy was used, and that employing nostalgic music listening as a form of approaching difficult emotions can have a positive impact on wellbeing. (shrink)