Previous work in the agri-food tradition has framed food auditing as a novelty characteristic of a shift to neoliberal governance in agri-food systems and has tackled the analysis of food “quality” in the same light. This article argues that agri-food scholars’ recent interest in the contested qualities of food needs to be situated alongside a much longer history of contested cultural attributions of trust in food relations. It builds on an earlier discussion suggesting that, although neoliberalism has undoubtedly opened up (...) new spaces for audit activity, older political and social dynamics operating around food audits were established long before the neoliberal historical moment. Breaking new ground (as far as is known) by looking further back than the early history of the organic social movement, it examines intersections of religious food auditing, migrant food culture, and commercial dynamics in food systems. Based on secondary sources, two contrasting case studies are presented to illustrate the flux and complexity for: New World Diaspora migrants to New York City of assuring food was kosher; and more recent Maghrebi migrants to southwest France of assuring food is halal. The article concludes by noting that the neoliberal moment stands not as the unique progenitor of a new style of food authority, but rather as the latest response to a wider rupture in the historically contingent arbitration of new forms of trust in food. (shrink)

Philip Reed argues that laws that grant people access to euthanasia on the basis of terminal illness are discriminatory. In support of this claim, he offers an argument by analogy: it would be discriminatory to offer a person access to euthanasia because they are women or because they are disabled, as such restricted access would send the message ‘that life as a woman or as a disabled person is (very often) not worth living’.1 And so it must also be discriminatory (...) to offer people access to euthanasia because they are terminally ill. Arguments by analogies are only as good as the analogies on which they are built. Having a terminal illness, I’m going to suggest, is not relevantly similar enough to either being disabled or being a member of an oppressed social group to make Reed’s claim compelling. Let’s explore each branch of the analogy in turn. Why think that terminal illness is relevantly unlike disability, in a way that makes offering access to euthanasia in the latter case discriminatory, but not the former? For one thing, terminal illness is necessarily time-limited. When my father was dying, he found himself in constant …. (shrink)

David Papineau’s _The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience_ is deep, insightful, refreshingly brisk, and very readable. In it, Papineau argues that sensory experiences are intrinsic and non-relational states of subjects; that they do not essentially involve relations to worldly facts, properties, or other items (though they do happen to correlate with worldly items); and that they do not have truth conditions simply in virtue of their conscious (i.e., phenomenal) features. I am in enthusiastic agreement with the picture as described so far. (...) But Papineau also argues that sensory experiences are in no interesting sense essentially representational and that what is responsible for their truth conditions is their correlations with the environment. Here, I disagree. Indeed, I think Papineau does not follow his arguments to their proper conclusions. For if sensory experiences are intrinsic, non-relational, and only contingently correlated with worldly conditions (as Papineau and I agree they are), then the phenomenal features of sensory states are representational in an important sense: they constitute what we think, perceptually experience, or otherwise entertain, making up how things seem to us from a first-person perspective. Because of this, the truth conditions of perceptual experiences cannot be entirely independent of their phenomenal features. They cannot merely be a matter of environmental correlations. If we follow Papineau’s arguments to their proper conclusions, we end up with a view much closer to a version of representationalism that Papineau dismisses, a view he calls “pure phenomenal intentionalism”. (shrink)

Bioethicists who seek to defend commercial transactions that intuitively seem exploitative, such as organ sales and commercial surrogacy, typically pair a liberal analysis of exploitation with a libertarian analysis of autonomy. In this paper, I argue that the liberal analysis of exploitation, which focuses primarily on two party transactions between individuals, occludes the structural dimensions of exploitation. This occlusion then paves the way for the transaction to be understood in terms of libertarian autonomy. I propose that a vulnerability analysis paired (...) with a multidimensional and relational theory of autonomy highlights the structural dimensions of exploitation and exposes the myth-making that underlies claims that these forms of exploitation are autonomy-enhancing. (shrink)

This paper compares tracking and phenomenal intentionality theories of intentionality with respect to the issue of naturalism. Tracking theories explicitly aim to naturalize intentionality, while phenomenal intentionality theories generally do not. It might seem that considerations of naturalism count in favor of tracking theories. We survey key considerations relevant to this claim, including some motivations for and objections to the two kinds of theories. We conclude by suggesting that naturalistic considerations may in fact support phenomenal intentionality theories over tracking theories.

We often feel survivor guilt when the very circumstances that harm others leave us unscathed. Although survivor guilt is both commonplace and intelligible, it raises a puzzle for the standard philosophical account of guilt, according to which people feel guilt only when they take themselves to be morally blameworthy. The standard account implies that survivor guilt is uniformly unfitting, as people are not blameworthy simply for having fared better than others. In this paper, we offer a rival account of guilt, (...) the relational account of guilt, which makes sense of survivor guilt and other forms of guilt without self-blame while preserving the intelligibility of guilt about culpable wrongdoing. According to this account, guilt involves the feeling of being unable to justify ourselves to others, and we lack self-justification when we (however blamelessly) stand on the positive side of an undesirable asymmetry with them. When someone survives something that those around her do not, the disparity in outcome constitutes an asymmetry that is often undesirable, because it arises from luck or violates a requirement of solidarity. Thus, survivor guilt is often fitting. (shrink)

Moods and emotions are sometimes thought to be counterexamples to intentionalism, the view that a mental state's phenomenal features are exhausted by its representational features. The problem is that moods and emotions are accompanied by phenomenal experiences that do not seem to be adequately accounted for by any of their plausibly represented contents. This paper develops and defends an intentionalist view of the phenomenal character of moods and emotions on which emotions and some moods represent intentional objects as having sui (...) generis affective properties, which happen to be uninstantiated, and at least some moods represent affective properties not bound to any objects. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, the dominant approach to explaining intentionality has been a naturalistic approach, one appealing only to non-mental ingredients condoned by the natural sciences. Karen Neander’s A Mark of the Mental (2017) is the latest installment in the naturalist project, proposing a detailed and systematic theory of intentionality that combines aspects of several naturalistic approaches, invoking causal relations, teleological functions, and relations of second-order similarity. In this paper, we consider the case of perceptual representations of colors, which (...) is a challenging case for Neander’s theory. This case will brings out a general methodological concern with Neander’s and other naturalistic theories: these theories generally rest on the assumption that the mental intentionality we are acquainted with in everyday life—the phenomenon exhibited by desires for cups of coffee, perceptual experiences of dogs playing in yards, and thoughts about the weather—is the very same kind of phenomenon that cognitive science studies under labels such as “mental representation” and, in some cases, “information processing.” This assumption is dubious, as the case of Neander’s theory illustrates. (shrink)

Propositionalism is the view that all intentional states are propositional states, which are states with a propositional content, while objectualism is the view that at least some intentional states are objectual states, which are states with objectual contents, such as objects, properties, and kinds. This paper argues that there are two distinct ways of understanding propositionalism and objectualism: (1) as views about the deep nature of the contents of intentional states, and (2) as views about the superficial character of the (...) contents of intentional states. I argue that we should understand the views in the second way. I also argue that the propositionalism debate is fairly independent from debates over the deep nature of intentionality, and that this has implications for arguments for propositionalism and objectualism from claims about the nature of intentional content. I close with a short discussion of how related points apply to the debate over singular content. (shrink)

Debate about cognitive science explanations has been formulated in terms of identifying the proper level(s) of explanation. Views range from reductionist, favoring only neuroscience explanations, to mechanist, favoring the integration of multiple levels, to pluralist, favoring the preservation of even the most general, high-level explanations, such as those provided by embodied or dynamical approaches. In this paper, we challenge this framing. We suggest that these are not different levels of explanation at all but, rather, different styles of explanation that capture (...) different, cross-cutting patterns in cognitive phenomena. Which pattern is explanatory depends on both the cognitive phenomenon under investigation and the research interests occasioning the explanation. This reframing changes how we should answer the basic questions of which cognitive science approaches explain and how these explanations relate to one another. On this view, we should expect different approaches to offer independent explanations in terms of their different focal patterns and the value of those explanations to partly derive from the broad patterns they feature. (shrink)

The most pressing worry for panpsychism is arguably the combination problem, the problem of intelligibly explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macrophysical entities such as ourselves. This chapter argues that the combination problem is similar in kind to other problems of mental combination that are problems for everyone: the problem of phenomenal unity, the problem of mental structure, and the problem of new quality spaces. The ubiquity of combination problems suggests the ignorance hypothesis, (...) the hypothesis that we are ignorant of certain key facts about mental combination, which allows the panpsychist to avoid certain objections based on the combination problem. (shrink)

Levels of organization and their use in science have received increased philosophical attention of late, including challenges to the well-foundedness or widespread usefulness of levels concepts. One kind of response to these challenges has been to advocate a more precise and specific levels concept that is coherent and useful. Another kind of response has been to argue that the levels concept should be taken as a heuristic, to embrace its ambiguity and the possibility of exceptions as acceptable consequences of its (...) usefulness. In this chapter, I suggest that each of these strategies faces its own attendant downsides, and that pursuit of both strategies (by different thinkers) compounds the difficulties. That both kinds of approaches are advocated is, I think, illustrative of the problems plaguing the concept of levels of organization. I end by suggesting that the invocation of levels may mislead scientific and philosophical investigations more than it informs them, so our use of the levels concept should be updated accordingly. (shrink)

When our nearest and dearest experience medical crises, we may need to step into caregiving roles. But in doing so, we may find that our new caregiving relationship is actually in tension with the loving relationship that motivated us towards care. What we owe and are entitled to as friends, spouses, and family members, can be different from what we owe and are entitled to as caregivers. For this reason, caregiving carries with it the risk of a type of moral (...) distress that I call “role conflict distress.” Rather than view role conflict distress as a sign that we are falling short, I suggest that it actually speaks to the commitment that we have to the loving relationship that grounds our duty of care. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are two distinct kinds of senses, immediate senses and reflective senses. Immediate senses are what we are immediately aware of when we are in an intentional mental state, while reflective senses are what we understand of an intentional mental state's (putative) referent upon reflection. I suggest an account of immediate and reflective senses that is based on the phenomenal intentionality theory, a theory of intentionality in terms of phenomenal consciousness. My focus is on the immediate (...) and reflective senses of thoughts and the concepts they involve, but it also applies to other mental instances of intentionality. (shrink)

Descartes with his sharp separation of the mental and the physical set the stage for the philosophy of mind for the next 350 years. Philosopher Patrick T. Mackenzie finds in the later writings of Wittgenstein the suggestion that Descartes got off on the wrong foot. Following Wittgenstein's lead, Mackenzie argues that instead of analyzing our human nature as a composite of mind and body, we should view ourselves as whole persons. One of the dividends of this approach to (...) the mind-body problem is that it provides us with a resolution to the problem of human freedom—i.e., how can a human being be free if his or her body (including the brain) belongs to a deterministic world? Mackenzie here argues that the person is largely free even though the movements of the body are determined by neurophysiological events. He takes the same approach to the philosophy of mind as that taken by M.R.Bennett and P.M.S.Hacker in their recent and controversial book, The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Mackenzie's approach is, however, much more accessible. Students of philosophy and philosophers interested in the problem of human freedom will welcome Mackenzie's fresh approach, especially those disenchanted by the present list of mind-body "isms.". (shrink)

According to Lynne Rudder Baker’s Practical Realism, we know that we have beliefs, desires, and other propositional attitudes independent of any scientific investigation. Propositional attitudes are an indispensable part of our everyday conception of the world and not in need of scientific validation. This paper asks what is the nature of the attitudes such that we may know them so well from a commonsense perspective. I argue for a self-ascriptivist view, on which we have propositional attitudes in virtue of ascribing (...) them to ourselves. On this view, propositional attitudes are derived representational states, deriving their contents and their attitude types from our self-ascriptions. (shrink)

The descriptions and examples of unethical behaviors in sport in this book will challenge readers to rethink how they view sport and question whether participating in sport builds character--especially at the youth and amateur levels. * Describes and analyzes key ethical issues, such as cheating, fair play, violence, discriminatory actions, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs, in a single volume * Identifies how ethical problems in sport affect sport in the United States and internationally but also significantly impact society overall (...) * Examines significant events and influential individuals to provide a historical and sociological context for understanding how and why individuals behave unethically in sport * Provides a wealth of information and resources that describe how poor behaviors of athletes, coaches, and parents in sport can be changed through educational interventions and a reemphasis on values like integrity. (shrink)

Crime pays, says Polus at Gorgias 473. Socrates, on the other hand, maintains two propositions in the face of universal opinion.

In The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized, Owen Flanagan undertakes a project of what he calls ‘cosmopolitan philosophy’, with an aim to develop and interrogate a naturalized Buddhism. A project of naturalization requires a conception of naturalism that can serve as a hermeneutic and philosophical standard against which certain things may be judged naturalistically acceptable or unacceptable. On Flanagan’s account, Buddhism ‘naturalized’ is primarily a Buddhism, “without the mind-numbing and wishful hocus-pocus.” Instead, he sets out to sketch a version of Buddhism (...) (or a new view inspired by it) that is consistent with neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and scientific materialism, including ‘neurophysicalism’ or the view that “mental events are brain events.” However, classical Buddhist philosophers rejected materialism on philosophical, not merely dogmatic, grounds. In contemporary terms, Buddhist philosophers saw that phenomenal consciousness, intentionality, and mental causation present serious problems for materialism. So, rather than dismissing Buddhist anti-materialist accounts of mind as simply ‘hocus-pocus’, in this chapter takes up the question of whether and how these views might inform a naturalistic Buddhist philosophy. The question, then, is whether a naturalistic Buddhism requires some form of neurophysicalism. It is argued that it does not, by way of examining two distinct versions of naturalistic, but non-physicalist accounts of consciousness reconstructed from the Indian Buddhist tradition. The first, drawing on the work of Dharmakīrti, is a form of trope dualism. The second, drawing on the work of Śāntarakṣita, is a form of pragmatic pluralism that gives a central place to consciousness. And while these two accounts are distinct, and in some important respects incompatible, what they have in common is the idea that consciousness is both non-physical and fully natural. (shrink)

Do the meanings of the innumerable fetish-signs appearing in recent artworks depend on the senders' intentions? Is the meaning of postfeminist glamour the celebration of femininity that its practitioners tout to counter ersatz macho posturing? To fully examine and clarify these and other issues involving gender, postcolonial, and artistic otherness, this book argues for a more adequate view of performativity than presently available from speech-act theory and certain strains of linguistic pragmatics. In drawing simultaneously on Charles Sander Peirce’s pragmatic analysis (...) of signs, Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalytic inquiry, and radical feminist thought, the concern of Beyond Fetishism is with the ethical and aesthetic import of the psychopragmatics resulting from this intermingling. (shrink)

Il testo si apre con una breve descrizione divulgativa della biologia della visione, dalla percezione delle linee complesse ai colori, e di come questa si sia evoluta nel corso dei millenni, da meccanismo pro-sopravvivenza legato all'analisi dell’ambiente naturale e dei propri simili, a strumento di valutazione e apprezzamento della composizione artistica. Indaga le analogie tra lo sviluppo del cervello nei bambini affetti da disturbi dello spettro affettivo e relazionale (autismo) e le rappresentazioni iconografiche degli uomini primitivi, dal paleolitico al neolitico. (...) Un’ampia sezione descrive dinamiche cerebrali dovute ai cosiddetti neuroni specchio e di come questi influiscono sull’espressione e la fruizione dell’opera d’arte, analizzando le produzioni di due degli artisti contemporanei più famosi: Damien Hirst e Jeff Koons, collegati da una complementarità culturale ancestrale, quella tra eros e thanatos, che affonda le radici nell’arte funeraria etrusca. Il testo continua con l’analisi neuroestetica della visione e i suoi effetti sull’organismo umano, seguendo l’evoluzione che ha subito il punto di visuale. Dal basso verso l’alto nel barocco, dal basso a “volo d’uccello” nell’arte futurista e dall’alto verso il basso nella produzione pittorica dell’archistar anglo-irachena Zaha Hadid. Lo stesso punto di vista che fugge i confini della rappresentazione pittorica, fino ad abbandonare totalmente i confini del corpo e le dinamiche cerebrali nell’arte riferita al metaumanesimo e transumanesimo. (shrink)

Als Charles Darwin im Jahr 1859 seine Theorie einer Evolution der Arten durch natürliche Auslese veröffentlichte, sah er bereits eine grosse Debatte voraus, jedoch nicht deren Ausstrahlungskraft und Langlebigkeit. Zu Beginn standen die Folgen für die Wissenschaften, den Glauben an Gott und die Moralvorstellungen im Vordergrund. Bald kamen Überlegungen über Gesellschaft, Politik, internationale Beziehungen und über Eingriffe bis hinunter auf die Ebene des Individuums und seines Erbmaterials, seiner Gene hinzu. Sozialdarwinismus, Eugenik, Rassismus galten zeitweise als wissenschaftlich legitime Diskussions- und Politikfelder. (...) Befürchtungen vor einem vermeintlichen Niedergang lassen sich bis heute angesichts der Biologisierung des Denkens scheinbar wissenschaftlich-objektiv untermauern. Gegenwärtig sind die Kontroversen noch vielfältiger, beziehen weit mehr Menschen ein als im späten 19. Jahrhundert, haben weit gravierendere Auswirkungen. Die aus elf Ländern stammenden Autorinnen und Autoren zeichnen aus unterschiedlichen disziplinären Perspektiven die Facetten einer spannenden und bis in die Gegenwart hochaktuellen Debatte nach und fragen nach der Zukunft des "Streitfalls Evolution". (shrink)

This chapter argues that olfactory experiences represent either everyday objects or ad hoc olfactory objects as having primitive olfactory properties, which happen to be uninstantiated. On this picture, olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent: they falsely represent everyday objects or ad hoc objects as having properties they do not have, and they misrepresent in the same way on multiple occasions. One might worry that this view is incompatible with the plausible claim that olfactory experiences at least sometimes justify true beliefs about the (...) world. This chapter argues that there is no such incompatibility. Since olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent, they can lead to true and justified beliefs about putatively smelly objects. (shrink)

FEATURED IN EVENTAL AESTHETICS RETROSPECTIVE 1. LOOKING BACK AT 10 ISSUES OF EVENTAL AESTHETICS. In this article I ask: how to rescue “magical thinking” (a notion I inherit from Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno) in and from Hegel and imagine its possibilities for posthuman society, ethics, and aesthetics? To address this question, I read Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit through Horkheimer and Adorno, who argue that Enlightenment’s program is “the disenchantment of the world”: with the end of magical thinking and the (...) beginning of enlightened thinking came chasm and disparity between subject and object and, for Horkheimer and Adorno, the onset of barbarism. Hegel himself speaks directly to the danger of failed recognition between two consciousnesses, a failure followed by a duel to the death, in which the two figures leave each other indifferently, like things. After reading a distinctly “magical thinking” into the shape of Hegel’s dialectic, I show how contemporary posthumanism and ecopoetics make use of Hegel’s thought in order to reimagine subject-object relations in and as response to ecological crisis. I discuss how Donna Haraway, following in the traditions of Hegel and Adorno, magically thinks her way toward new models for relating more ethically (to borrow Haraway’s own terminology) to human and other-than-human others in the new century. Then, I look at how such models are being adapted in and by aesthetic practice — specifically, in the experimental ecopoetics of contemporary poet Brenda Hillman. In the end, I argue that contemporary posthumanisms and ecopoetics in fact need magical thinking in order to begin reimagining the social and the ecological and resuscitate a devastatingly enlightened world. (shrink)

Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to (...) explain how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

Previous literature has documented the general issues psychologists often face while balancing their personal and professional lives. The struggle stems from attempting to satisfy the need to maintain a life outside of work while having the professional obligation to follow the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code) to prevent their personal lives from interfering with their professional roles and relationships. The present article analyzes the subject of psychologists taking a public position on (...) controversial public issues. Although the APA Ethics Code does not restrict how psychologists conduct themselves during their personal time, taking a public stance on a controversial issue could potentially strain professional relationships and inadvertently reflect negatively on the profession. The present article examines ethical issues that (a) should be taken into account before psychologists take a public position on a controversial issue and (b) are in conflict with APA’s Ethics Code or current research. (shrink)

Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...) cannot be settled independently of the choice of a particular resolution to the measurement problem. Specifically, we consider how three standard putative solutions to the measurement problem inform our under- standing of a molecule in isolation, as well as of chemistry’s relation to quantum physics. (shrink)

In his recent book Reflective Democracy, Robert Goodin argues that 'external-collaborative' models of democratic deliberation procedures need to be supplemented by 'internal-reflective' deliberation. The exercise of the moral imagination plays a central role in Goodin's account of 'democratic deliberation within'. By imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of a range of others, he argues, including those who maybe not be able to represent their own interests, we can make their points of view 'communicatively present' in deliberation. Goodin's argument emphasizes the (...) role of art and other forms of cultural representation in helping to bring about this expansion of moral imagination. Drawing on debates in philosophy of mind concerning the scope and limits of our capacities to simulate other minds, I argue that Goodin's analysis of 'democratic deliberation within' conflates different kinds of imaginative project. In doing so, it underestimates both the difficulties of imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of others and the political risks in doing so. I argue, alternatively, that moral engagement with others involves the capacity for sympathy and that art and other forms of cultural representation can enlarge the scope of our sympathies, by assisting us to overcome imaginative resistance to alien points of view. In developing this argument, I provide a qualified defense of Iris Young's claim that respect for others involves 'asymmetrical reciprocity'. (shrink)

Introduction The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart The essays in this volume address aesthetic forms and ...

Scientific literacy is an essential aspect of an undergraduate education. Recipes for Science responds to this need by providing an accessible introduction to the nature of science and scientific methods appropriate for any beginning college student. The book is adaptable to a wide variety of different courses, such as introductions to scientific reasoning, methods courses in scientific disciplines, science education, and philosophy of science. -/- Recipes for Science ​​was first published in 2018, and a thoroughly revised second edition was published (...) in 2024. Special features include contemporary and historical case studies from many fields of physical, life, and social sciences; visual aids to clarify and illustrate ideas; text boxes to explore related topics; plenty of exercises to support student recall and application of concepts; suggestions for further readings at the end of each chapter; a glossary with helpful definitions of key terms; and a companion website with course syllabi, PowerPoint presentations, additional exercises, and original short videos on key topics. (shrink)

This article asks how one can rescue magical thinking in and from Hegel and imagines its possibilities for posthuman society, ethics, and aesthetics.

Exploring some of the dialogic models for Yehudah’s work as well as the influence of the Biblical commentaries by his father Isaac, this book re-reads the Dialogues in the light of medieval interpretations of the Song of Songs and ...

Nurses are responsible for the well-being and quality of life of many people, and therefore must meet high standards of technical and ethical competence. The most common form of ethical guidance is a code of ethics/professional practice; however, little research on how codes are viewed or used in practice has been undertaken. This study, carried out in six European countries, explored nurses’ opinions of the content and function of codes and their use in nursing practice. A total of 49 focus (...) groups involving 311 nurses were held. Purposive sampling ensured a mix of participants from a range of specialisms. Qualitative analysis enabled emerging themes to be identified on both national and comparative bases. Most participants had a poor understanding of their codes. They were unfamiliar with the content and believed they have little practical value because of extensive barriers to their effective use. In many countries nursing codes appear to be ‘paper tigers’ with little or no impact; changes are needed in the way they are developed and written, introduced in nurse education, and reinforced/implemented in clinical practice. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently argued that we should interpret the debate over moral responsibility as a debate over the conditions under which it would be “fair” to blame a person for her attitudes or conduct. What is distinctive about these accounts is that they begin with the stance of the moral judge, rather than that of the agent who is judged, and make attributions of responsibility dependent upon whether it would be fair or appropriate for a moral judge (...) to react to the agent in various (negative) ways. This is problematic, I argue, because our intuitions about whether and when it would be fair to react negatively to another are sensitive to a host of considerations that appear to have little or nothing to do with an agent’s responsibility or culpability for her attitudes or behavior. If this is correct, then theories which make attributions of responsibility dependent upon the appropriateness of our reactions as moral judges will turn out to be fundamentally misguided. (shrink)