Providing a theory of moral practice for a contemporary sociological audience, Owen Abbott shows that morality is a relational practice achieved by people in their everyday lives. He moves beyond old dualisms—society versus the individual, social structure versus agency, body versus mind—to offer a sociologically rigorous and coherent theory of the relational constitution of the self and moral practice, which is both shared and yet enacted from an individualized perspective. In so doing, The Self, Relational Sociology, and Morality (...) in Practice not only offers an urgently needed account of moral practice and its integral role in the emergence of the self, but also examines morality itself within and through social relations and practices. Abbott’s conclusions will be of interest to social scientists and philosophers of morality, those working with pragmatic and interactionist approaches, and those involved with relational sociology and social theory. (shrink)

Noting that Benhabib’s ethical theory has seldom been engaged with by sociologists of morality, this paper introduces and interrogates Benhabib’s ethical theory from a sociological perspective. It is argued that Benhabib’s critiques of Enlightenment conceptions of morality complement sociological theories of morality. Her concepts of the ‘concrete’ and ‘generalized’ other and ‘interactive universalism’ can potentially inform recurrent debates in the sociology of morality about the extent to which cultural plurality precludes the possibility of sociologists providing normative judgements, and the extent (...) to which certain features of moral experiences can be taken to be universal. However, Benhabib’s argument that discourse ethics can provide a procedural means to judge between competing moral claims leads her to prioritise the perspective of ‘postconventional’ Western modernism as the means to adjudicate between the moral tolerability of cultural beliefs and practices. This leads her to characterise ‘conventional’ moral systems as subordinate, which succumbs to postcolonial critiques of the role of processes of domination in organising the validity of moral claims. (shrink)

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients (...) than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients (...) than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

Schulman (Entropy 7(4):221–233, 2005) has argued that Boltzmann’s intuition, that the psychological arrow of time is necessarily aligned with the thermodynamic arrow, is correct. Schulman gives an explicit physical mechanism for this connection, based on the brain being representable as a computer, together with certain thermodynamic properties of computational processes. Hawking (Physical Origins of Time Asymmetry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994) presents similar, if briefer, arguments. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the support for the link between (...) thermodynamics and an arrow of time for computers. The principal arguments put forward by Schulman and Hawking will be shown to fail. It will be shown that any computational process that can take place in an entropy increasing universe, can equally take place in an entropy decreasing universe. This conclusion does not automatically imply a psychological arrow can run counter to the thermodynamic arrow. Some alternative possible explanations for the alignment of the two arrows will be briefly discussed. (shrink)

Organoids and specifically human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are one of the most relevant novelties in the field of biomedical research. Grown either from embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, HCOs can be used as in vitro three-dimensional models, mimicking the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. Based on that, and despite their current limitations, it cannot be assumed that they will never at any stage of development manifest some rudimentary form of consciousness. In the absence of behavioral (...) indicators of consciousness, the theoretical neurobiology of consciousness being applied to unresponsive brain-injured patients can be considered with respect to HCOs. In clinical neurology, it is difficult to discern a capacity for consciousness in unresponsive brain-injured patients who provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. In such scenarios, a validated neurobiological theory of consciousness, which tells us what the neural mechanisms of consciousness are, could be used to identify a capacity for consciousness. Like the unresponsive patients that provide a diagnostic difficulty for neurologists, HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. Therefore, this article discusses how three prominent neurobiological theories of consciousness apply to human cerebral organoids. From the perspective of the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory, we discuss what neuronal structures and functions might indicate that cerebral organoids have a neurobiological capacity to be conscious. (shrink)

We report on an interview-based study of decision-making capacity in two classes of patients suffering from depression. Developing a method of second-person hermeneutic phenomenology, we articulate the distinctive combination of temporal agility and temporal inability characteristic of the experience of severely depressed patients. We argue that a cluster of decision-specific temporal abilities is a critical element of decision-making capacity, and we show that loss of these abilities is a risk factor distinguishing severely depressed patients from mildly/moderately depressed patients. We explore (...) the legal and clinical consequences of this result. (shrink)

It is now nearly axiomatic among Platonic scholars that the Timaeus and its unfinished sequel the Critias belong to the last stage of Plato's writings. The Laws is generally held to be wholly or partly a later production. So, by many, is the Philebus, but that is all. Perhaps the privileged status of the Timaeus in the Middle Ages helped to fix the conviction that it embodies Plato's maturest theories.

Listening comprehension input is necessary for language learning and acculturation. One approach to developing listening comprehension skills is through exposure to massive amounts of naturally occurring spoken language input. But exposure to this input is not enough; learners also need to make the comprehension corpus meaningful to their learning experience.

ABSTRACT This article explores the theorization of (in)visibility in Honneth, Ranciere, Cavell and Tully. It situates the work of Honneth and Ranciere against the background of Wittgenstein's account of continuous aspect perception and aspect change in order to draw out their accounts of invisibility and the aesthetic character of transitions to visibility. In order to develop a critical standpoint on these theoretical positions, it turns to Cavell's concept of soul-blindness and investigates the form of invisibility through the example of racism (...) as addressed by Gaita, Fanon and Memmi. This analysis provides the basis for a critical evaluation of the strengths and limitations of Ranciere's and Honneth's approaches and leads to the proposal that Tully's public philosophy provides a more adequate way of addressing the issues of struggle and uptake that are central to the transition from invisibility to visibility. (shrink)

This article addresses two central topics in normative debates on transnational citizenship: the inclusion of resident non-citizens and of non-resident citizens within the demos. Through a critical review of the social membership (Carens, Rubio-Marin) and stakeholder (Baubock) principles, it identifies two problems within these debates. The first is the antinomy of incorporation, namely, the point that there are compelling arguments both for the mandatory naturalization of permanent residents and for making naturalization a voluntary process. The second is the arbitrary demos (...) problem and concerns who determines whether expatriate voting rights are granted (and on what terms). The argument developed provides a way of dissolving the first problem (and defending the proposed solution against possible objections) and resolving the second problem. In doing so it provides a defensible normative basis for the political theory of transnational citizenship. (shrink)

Flanagan (1991) was the first contemporary philosopher to suggest that a modularity of morals hypothesis (MMH) was worth consideration by cognitive science. There is now a serious empirically informed proposal that moral competence is best explained in terms of moral modules-evolutionarily ancient, fast-acting, automatic reactions to particular sociomoral experiences (Haidt & Joseph, 2007). MMH fleshes out an idea nascent in Aristotle, Mencius, and Darwin. We discuss the evidence for MMH, specifically an ancient version, “Mencian Moral Modularity,” which claims four innate (...) modules, and “Social Intuitionist Modularity,” which claims five innate modules. We compare these two moral modularity models, discuss whether the postulated modules are best conceived as perceptual/Fodorian or emotional/Darwinian, and consider whether assuming MMH true has any normative ethical consequences whatsoever. The discussion of MMH reconnects cognitive science with normative ethics in a way that involves the reassertion of the “is-ought” problem. We explain in a new way what this problem is and why it would not yield. The reason does not involve the logic of “ought,” but rather the plasticity of human nature and the realistic options to “grow” and “do” human nature in multifarious legitimate ways. (shrink)

This article draws on ethnographic data from a field leading university licensing office to document and explain a key step in the process of institutionalization, the abstraction of standardized rules and procedures from idiosyncratic efforts to collectively resolve pressing problems. I present and analyze cases where solutions to complicated quandaries become abstract bits of professional knowledge and demonstrate that in some circumstances institutionalized practices can contribute to the flexibility of expert reasoning and decision-making. In this setting, expertise is rationalized in (...) response to institutional tensions between academic and business approaches to deal making and professional tensions between relational and legal approaches to negotiation. Abstraction and formalization contribute both to the convergence and stability of routines and to their improvisational use in professional work. Close attention to these processes in a strategic research setting sheds new light on an interesting tension in sociological theories of the professions while contributing to the development of a micro-level, social constructivist institutional theory. (shrink)

Lucia Rafanelli’s book opens up an important space for reflection on the ethics of ‘reform intervention’. Her purpose is both to demonstrate that the field of foreign influence and its modes is considerably more diverse than often appreciated and to propose a set of ethical guidelines for addressing it. The principles she proposes are cogent and well-supported. My reflections focus on two issues concerning the duty of reform intervention. The first topic that I address concerns the scope of the duty (...) and the distinction between the duty of members to promote justice in their home society and the duty of non-members to reform intervention in foreign societies. The second issue concerns the topic of legitimacy in relation to the character of the duty of reform intervention and whether we are, as Rafanelli proposes, all bound by this duty if we accept a natural duty of justice. (shrink)

The ethical authority carried in the conventions of fairness and human well-being has been widely adopted under the idea of “moral economy,” forming an eclectic and interdisciplinary debate. Significant, though external to this debate, is a corpus of medieval thought which exhibits a fundamental interest in legitimate market protocols, and the political rights and obligations of agents in relation to the common good of the community. This article asserts the imperative status of a customary basis for understanding not just the (...) analytic version of moral economy but the legacy contained in what might be termed the “the moral economy of Aquinas.”. (shrink)

This paper deploys Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory to examine the dispute over intellectual property protection and global HIV/aids medicines access. Over the 1980s and 1990s, major pharmaceutical companies and minority world governments successfully crafted a strong patent protection regime, institutionalized in the World Trade Organization's intellectual property rules. In the early 2000s, a transnational civil society campaign challenged this regime, positioning patents at the centre of a highly publicized dispute. This dispute has been retrospectively identified as a turning point (...) in medicines access discourse, with the 2001–2003 period dubbed the ‘golden window’ for expanded global HIV/aids medicines access. However, this ‘window’ has also been critiqued as an unsustainable aberration to a continuing hegemonic regime that prioritizes patent protection, to the detriment of equitable global medicines access. This paper draws on both political economy analyses and discourse theoretical concepts to examine the processes of rupture and suture in HIV/aids medicines access discourse. (shrink)

In this article I argue that a critical theory of whiteness is necessary, though not sufficient, to the formulation of an adequate explanatory account of the mechanisms of racial oppression in the modern world. In order to explain how whiteness underwrites systems of racial oppression and how it is reproduced, the central functional properties of whiteness are identified. I propose that understanding whiteness as a structuring property of racialized social systems best explains these functional properties. Given the variety of conceptions (...) of whiteness in the literature, the several uses of the term are analysed and it is shown that there is a unifying concept underlying these various senses of whiteness. Lastly, some of the implications of this account of whiteness for anti-racist engagement are considered. Key Words: critical theory • Anthony Giddens • Jürgen Habermas • race • racial contract • racism • social structure • white supremacy • whiteness. (shrink)

Volume 34, Issue 8, December 2020, Page 1746-1752.

Although many iterations of the mammy in the last two centuries have received analytical attention, the construction of this figure as asexual or undesiring and undesirable remains to be interrogated. This essay attends to this under-theorised dimension of her image. Resisting a reading of the mammy as fixed in silence, I assert that she might instead ‘say nothing’, and bring into focus a black asexual agency that I call a declarative silence. This strategy of ‘saying nothing’ is then explored in (...) a reading of the withholdings of the character of Mama in Gayl Jones's neo-slave narrative, Corregidora (1975). (shrink)

This introduction provides a very brief sketch of the fundamental claims of Arthur Ripstein's Force and Freedom before locating the criticisms of his interlocutors in relation to those claims. Valentini and Sangiovanni are situated as critics of the Kantian frame, while Ronzoni and Williams are critics situated within that frame.

In this article, I describe an approach to teaching ancient practical ethics that encourages learners to engage actively with the ideas under consideration. Students are encouraged to apply a range of practical exercises to their own lives and to reflect both independently and in collaboration with others on how the experience impacts their understanding of the theories upon which such exercises are built. I describe how such an approach is both in keeping with the methods advocated by the philosophers of (...) ancient Greece and Rome, and also well supported by a wide range of contemporary educational research. I suggest that such active learning strategies encourage students towards a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the philosophical theories under consideration. Practical recommendations for incorporating such an approach into the teaching of applied philosophy are given. I finish by considering the impact such an approach may have on student motivation. (shrink)

We develop here the general treatment of the Bethe—Salpeter equation for the bound state of two spin-l particles interacting through an electromagnetic interaction. The treatment here, which can be generalized to strong interactions, combines the two-component approach utilized previously by the author in conjunction with spontaneous symmetry breaking. This is done by using a Lagrangian having SU(2)×U(1) symmetry (without fermions) and then choosing the ′t Hooft gauge. In this way, a renormalizable theory for the interaction of two spin-l particles via (...) an electromagnetic interaction is ensured. (shrink)

In recent years scholars working in the area of Religious Studies have increasingly been obliged to acknowledge that the level of methodological rigour displayed in many studies on religious phenomena is unsatisfactory, perhaps particularly when compared to that of some academics operating in related subject areas. Arguably one of the principal areas in which an apparent reticence to engage with contemporary developments in method is evident is that of ‘religious ethnography’. The purpose of this short study is to assess the (...) extent to which ethnographic practices in the study of Tibetan Buddhism have historically responded to methodological developments in ethnography and anthropology, and to briefly suggest ways in which studies in this area may progress in the future. (shrink)

Recently developed super‐resolution microscopy techniques are changing our understanding of lipid rafts and membrane organisation in general. The lipid raft hypothesis postulates that cholesterol can drive the formation of ordered domains within the plasma membrane of cells, which may serve as platforms for cell signalling and membrane trafficking. There is now a wealth of evidence for these domains. However, their study has hitherto been hampered by the resolution limit of optical microscopy, making the definition of their properties problematic and contentious. (...) New microscopy techniques circumvent the resolution limit and, for the first time, allow the fluorescence imaging of structures on length scales below 200 nm. This review describes such techniques, particularly as applied to the study of membrane organisation, synthesising newly emerging facets of lipid raft biology into a state‐of‐the art model.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Super‐resolution imaging prompts re‐thinking of cell biology mechanisms Abstract and Quantitative analysis of photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) datasets using pair‐correlation analysis Abstract. (shrink)