In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer proposed to introduce a new geological era, the Anthropocene, they could not have foreseen the remarkable career of the new term. Within a few years, the geological community began to investigate the scientific evidence for the concept and established the Anthropocene Working Group. While the Working Group has started to examine possible markers and periodizations of the new epoch, scholars from numerous other disciplines have taken up the (...) Anthropocene as a cultural concept. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the Anthropocene’s broader societal ramifications. The article sheds light on the controversial debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its inextricably linked dual careers, first as a geological term and second as a cultural term. Third, it argues that the debate about the “Age of Humans” is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now. Specifically, it examines both the heuristic and analytical power of the concept. It discusses new histories, new ideas to understand historical change, and new temporalities shaped by scholars who have taken up the challenge of the Anthropocene as a cultural concept that has the ability to question established stories and narratives. Fourth, it ends by stressing the potential of the Anthropocene concept to blur established epistemological boundaries and to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborations between the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

In 2000, when atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen and limnologist Eugene F. Stoermer proposed to introduce a new geological era, the Anthropocene, they could not have foreseen the remarkable career of the new term. Within a few years, the geological community began to investigate the scientific evidence for the concept and established the Anthropocene Working Group. While the Working Group has started to examine possible markers and periodizations of the new epoch, scholars from numerous other disciplines have taken up the (...) Anthropocene as a cultural concept. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the Anthropocene’s broader societal ramifications. The article sheds light on the controversial debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its inextricably linked dual careers, first as a geological term and second as a cultural term. Third, it argues that the debate about the “Age of Humans” is a timely opportunity both to rethink the nature-culture relation and to re-assess the narratives that historians of science, technology, and the environment have written until now. Specifically, it examines both the heuristic and analytical power of the concept. It discusses new histories, new ideas to understand historical change, and new temporalities shaped by scholars who have taken up the challenge of the Anthropocene as a cultural concept that has the ability to question established stories and narratives. Fourth, it ends by stressing the potential of the Anthropocene concept to blur established epistemological boundaries and to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborations between the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

Historians of Science and Technology as Time‐eaters. Historians for long mainly focussed on the last couple of millenia. Recently, they have reached out to colonize different temporal worlds. While Deep History seeks to get a better understanding of the development of anatomically modern humans and their culture, Big History integrates cosmological, geological and human temporalities to develop new narratives on the big picture. Hence, historians are time‐eaters. They share their foremost prey, however, with other disciplines such as anthropology and archaeology, (...) paleontology and primatology, linguistics and molecular genetics, with which they collaborate and at the same time compete when reaching out for new temporal concepts such as the Anthropocene. This article understands the both rich and controversial debate on the Anthropocene, the epoch of the humans, as a positive provocation. For historians of science and technology, it offers a welcome opportunity to critically re‐assess their established sets of narratives by interlinking geological and human time‐scales. Newly developed terms such as the “technosphere” and the “technocene” force them to (1) re‐think their concept of technology, (2) better integrate history of technology and environmental history, and (3) replace linear temporalities by layered models of historical change. (shrink)

Beyond Weimar Culture – The Significance of the Forman Thesis for a Cultural Approach to the History of Science. The famous ‘Forman thesis’, published in 1971, argued for a historical linkage among the intellectual atmosphere of Weimar Germany, popular revolts against determinism and materialism, and the creation of the revolutionary new theory of quantum mechanics. Paul Forman's long essay on “Weimar Culture” has shaped research agendas in numerous fields, from the history and philosophy of physics to German history to the (...) sociology of scientific knowledge. Despite its status as a classic and its transformative effect, Weimar Culture has always inspired as much critique as assent. In particular in the history of science, cohorts of students and two generations of scholars have debated the Forman thesis as a conceptual tool for linking scientific change with cultural processes. The Forman thesis raises critical questions for both the ongoing debates over cultural approaches to the history of science and the burgeoning newer scholarship on physics in and beyond Weimar Germany. Exploring these implications has been the aim of a transnational project of the three authors of this article which sheds some light on these debates and briefly introduces the following papers of this special issue devoted to Paul Forman and his seminal works in the history of science. (shrink)

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. A novel and restrictive account of public reason is defended. Then it is argued that political liberalism's core commitments restrict reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups.

This chapter examines the engagement between seventeenth-century Quaker scholars, twentieth-century Quaker theologian Rufus Jones, and the twelfth-century allegorical text Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān. It argues that HIY was purposely excised from the history of Quaker theological engagement due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the text, which resulted in a complete ignoring of the text by subsequent Quaker theologians, including Rufus Jones. HIY provides an invaluable dialogue partner with Quaker mysticism, which can offer exciting new ways of examining core premises of Quaker (...) mystical theology and practice—human/divine interdependence and the concomitant Quaker balance between contemplative and active mysticism and religious practice—and create opportunities for bringing the different generations of Quaker theology by Robert Barclay and Rufus Jones back into fruitful dialogue. (shrink)

This target article focuses on dynamics that arise in three typical ethically complex cases in which psychiatric consultations are requested by physicians: a dying patient refuses life-prolonging treatment, an uncooperative patient demands to be allowed to go outside and smoke, and an angry patient demands to be admitted to the hospital. The discussion canvasses what is at stake morally and clinically in each of these cases and explores clinician–patient interactions, dynamics in relationships between consulting physicians and consultant psychiatrists, patient transference, (...) and physician countertransference. The article defines legalism and countertransference and argues that an ethically and clinically important consequence of these phenomena for patients is distortion of clinicians' perceptions of patients' decisions and vulnerabilities. The discussion also describes how legalism and countertransference adversely affect how clinicians treat their psychiatrist colleagues. Finally, the article suggests how the effects of legalism and countertransference can be mitigated. (shrink)

There are several important conceptual issues and questions about the practice of healthcare ethics that can, and should, inform the development of any practice standards. This paper provides a relatively short overview of seven of these issues, with the invitation for further critical reflection and examination of their relevance to and implications for practice standards. The seven issues described include: diversity (from the perspective of training and experience); moral expertise and authority/influence; being an insider or outsider; flexibility and adaptability (for (...) local contexts of practice); the relative weighting of procedural and normative aspects of ethics practice; making mistakes or errors; and conflicts of interest in practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When hope is discussed in bioethics’ literature, it is most often in the context of ‘false hopes’ and/or how to maintain hope while breaking bad news to patients. Little or no time is generally devoted to the description of hope that supports these analyses. In this paper, I present a detailed description of hope, one designed primarily for the healthcare context. Noting that hope is an emotional attitude, four key aspects are explored. In particular, the function of imagination in (...) hope is discussed in depth. Through an examination of the relationship between hope and vulnerability, I demonstrate how adequately describing hope can broaden the normative inquiry into the role of hope in healthcare. Three ways in which persons with hope can be vulnerable are illustrated, and the challenge of how healthcare providers can attend in moral ways to the hopes of patients is identified. (shrink)

Is a feminist political liberalism possible? Political liberalism’s regard for a wide range of comprehensive doctrines as reasonable makes some feminists skeptical of its ability to address sex inequality. Indeed, some feminists claim that political liberalism maintains its position as a political liberalism at the expense of securing substantive equality for women. We claim that political liberalism’s core commitments actually restrict all reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine substantive equality for all, including women and other marginalized (...) groups. In particular, we argue that political liberalism’s criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that eliminate social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to reasonable democratic deliberation among equal citizens and that the criterion of reciprocity requires the social conditions necessary for recognition respect among persons as equal citizens. As a result, we maintain that the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship. (shrink)

Generating group interaction is a necessary part of teaching philosophy, but there are many obstacles to creating it in a traditional classroom. We propose that philosophy courses can be improved by turning to hybrid models that integrate classroom discussion with online message boards, or forums. Using anecdotes and a comprehensive survey, we argue that using forums helps instructors overcome time constraints in the classroom, helps some students overcome anxiety over contributing, improves discussion, reduces the need to review, and gives instructors (...) a better view of how their students encounter philosophy. We also provide examples of how to use forums and forum assignments. (shrink)

The idea of public reason is central to political liberalism's aim to provide an account of the possibility of a just and stable democratic society comprised of free and equal citizens who nonetheless are deeply divided over fundamental values. This commitment to the idea of public reason reflects the normative core of political liberalism which is rooted in the principle of democratic legitimacy and the idea of reciprocity among citizens. Yet both critics and defenders of political liberalism disagree over whether (...) or not the idea of public reason permits citizens to appeal to their comprehensive conceptions of the good in public deliberation over matters of basic justice. Our aim in this paper is to provide a defense of an exclusive idea of public reason, and at the same time we aim to dispel the underlying concerns of two prominent criticisms of the idea of public reason—the concern of alienation from the political process, as expressed by religiously oriented critics, and the concern over women's equality, as expressed by feminist critics. We argue that inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason are not consistent with political liberalism's core commitments. Further, we claim, inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason deepen feminist concerns. We think that, properly understood, an exclusive account of the idea of public reason can address feminist concerns about political liberalism and avoid alienating (reasonable) religious persons in an unacceptable way. Thus, we conclude that an exclusive account of the idea of public reason is our best hope for reconciliation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When hope is discussed in bioethics’ literature, it is most often in the context of ‘false hopes’ and/or how to maintain hope while breaking bad news to patients. Little or no time is generally devoted to the description of hope that supports these analyses. In this paper, I present a detailed description of hope, one designed primarily for the healthcare context. Noting that hope is an emotional attitude, four key aspects are explored. In particular, the function of imagination in (...) hope is discussed in depth. Through an examination of the relationship between hope and vulnerability, I demonstrate how adequately describing hope can broaden the normative inquiry into the role of hope in healthcare. Three ways in which persons with hope can be vulnerable are illustrated, and the challenge of how healthcare providers can attend in moral ways to the hopes of patients is identified. (shrink)

Philosopher Kings? The Adjudication of Conflicting Human Rights and Social Values, by George C. Christie, examines the attempts by courts to sort out conflicts involving freedom of expression, including religious expression, on the one hand, and rights to privacy and other important social values on the other. It approaches the subject from a comparative perspective, using principally cases decided by European and United States courts. A significant part of this book analyzes conflicts between freedom of expression and the right to (...) privacy. In a world in which, freedom of expression and privacy are said to be of equal value, the book explores whether it is possible to develop, through case-by-case adjudication, a legal regime which can give clear direction as to what expression is or is not permitted. Otherwise, if such a regime proves impossible, in the guise of recognizing the equal value of expression and privacy, privacy may become de facto the preferred value. (shrink)

Zeitgeist Literature is offered here as a term with great potential as a conceptual tool for analyzing literature that responds to the moment in which it was written. Such literature chronicles the social and political life of the current moment, its trends and moods, and the mysterious forces that dictate tastes, manners, feelings, and actions of the collective.

This groundbreaking book is the first to provide a critical overview of the relationship between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice in museum culture. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections, with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. In recent years museums have provided the impetus for cutting-edge artistic practice, either as a response to particular collections, or as part of exhibitions. But the question of how museums have (...) staged contemporary ceramics and how ceramic artists respond to museum collections has not been the subject of published research to date. This book examines how ceramic artists have, over the last decade, begun to animate museum collections in new ways, and reflects on the impact that these new initiatives have had in the broad context of visual culture. Ceramics in the Expanded Field is the culmination of a three-year AHRC funded project, and reflects its major findings. It brings together leading international voices in the field of ceramics, research undertaken throughout the project and papers delivered at the concluding conference. By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions and the dialogue between ceramics and museological practice, this book will bring focus to an area of museology that has not yet been theorized, and will contribute to policy debates and art practice. (shrink)

Roots are good to think with indeed most of us use them as a metaphor every day. A root can signify the hiddenness of our beginnings, or, in its bifurcating structure, the various possibilities in the life of an individual or a collective. This book looks at rootedness as a metaphor for the genealogical origins of people and their attachment to place and how this metaphor transformed so rapidly in twentieth-century Europe. Christy Wampole s case study is France, with its (...) contradictory legacies of Enlightenment universalism, anti-Semitism, and colonialism. At one time, French nationalist rhetoric portrayed the Jews as unrooted and thus unrighteous people. After the two world wars, the root metaphor figured in the new French philosophy (notably Deleuze and Guattari). And recently, Caribbean thinkers in Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique have debated whether their roots were in Africa, France, the Caribbean, or in some pan-national network that could not be identified on a map. Walpole argues that while the metaphor was perhaps once useful in the establishment of communities and identities, that usefulness has expired. The longer we remain attached to the figure of rootedness, the more discord it sows. Giving up on the metaphor of rootedness, Wampole urges, allows us to see at last that we are in fact unbound by the land we inhabit.". (shrink)

Social cooperation based on reciprocity is the cornerstone of many theories of justice. However, what is central to social cooperation based on reciprocity? How does basing social cooperation on reciprocity structure and constrain theories of justice? In this paper, I consider what is central to reciprocity. I argue that the purpose of reciprocal exchange among persons is important for determining the appropriateness of reciprocal exchanges and that sustaining mutually advantageous relations is not always the point or the only point of (...) reciprocity. This has important implications for theorizing about justice. I show this by outlining two conceptions of justice as reciprocity. (shrink)

The term "callous" has not, to this point, been studied empirically or considered philosophically in the context of healthcare professionalism. It should be, however, because its uses seem peculiar. Sometimes "callous" is used to suggest that becoming callous confers a benefit of some protection against emotional distress, which might be considered expedient in the healthcare work environment. But, "callous" also refers to a person's unappealing demeanor of hardened insensitivity. The tension between these different moral connotations of "callous" prompts several empirical, (...) psychological, and moral questions; I introduce and entertain a few here. I also suggest a distinction between callousness and inurement and argue for why this distinction is important to appreciate and uphold in health professions education. (shrink)

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency (...) across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency (USA). This cultural difference in cognitive representation was fully mediated by individual differences in cross-situational consistency levels. (shrink)

This article explores attitudes underscoring arguments I believe are located in Professor Armour’s address in the present special issue. I first show how Armour’s arguments are intertwined with a resolute belief in the existence of a unique form of knowledge, one particularly attuned to the work of humanities scholars, and then go on to argue this certainty is linked to an antecedent attitude, one of exceptionalism. Spelling out what I find to be troubling about this species of argument leads into (...) thoughts around how a world-humanities might unfold. Such a field must develop as a conscious attempt on the part of scholars to bring about dialogue around how humans can find an appropriate place in the natural world. (shrink)

Este artículo examina una etapa poco explorada de la historia del afiche chileno y que coincide cronológicamente con la denominada edad dorada del cartelismo europeo. Interesa descubrir indicios de influencia del trabajo del francés Jules Chéret en afiches originales o en aquellos reproducidos en las revistas ilustradas locales, en el contexto del nacimiento del afiche artístico en el país.

In 1941 Fritz Saxl and Rudolf Wittkower of the Warburg Institute organized an exhibition on English Art and the Mediterranean. The photographic exhibition showed the long history of artistic and cultural ties between English art and the classical tradition, employing Aby Warburg's method. The project was an attempt by Saxl, as director, to show the relevance of the Warburg Institute's work in England, the new home of the Library since 1933. Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery, actively promoted the (...) work of the Institute, including by supporting the naturalization process for many of the Warburg scholars. The popular belief in the cultural ties between England and Italy fed into the positive reception for the exhibition and into acceptance of the work of the Warburg Institute. The exhibition was published in a large format catalog in 1948, further adding to the popularity of the exhibition with a diverse British public. Although the motivation for the exhibition emerged from political conditions and institutional circumstance, it had a lasting effect on the history of the study of English art and architecture. Wittkower and others turned to research on the classical tradition in English art, even though the method had limited relevance beyond the “neoclassical” period. (shrink)

"Essays on Philosophy, Politics, & Economics" offers a critical examination of economic, philosophical, and political notions, with an eye towards working ...

Historically, philosophers have had little to say about justice and disability. However, in recent years and in response to disability rights movements, philosophers have started to consider the claims to justice of persons with mental and physical impairments. Importantly, some have charged that without extensive revision, social contract accounts of justice – which enjoy immense popularity among political philosophers – cannot address the needs and interests of persons with disabilities. In this article, I explain why social contract accounts are thought (...) to flounder when it comes to justice for persons with disabilities. Then I assess the merits of recent attempts to construct theories of justice inclusive of persons with disabilities. In particular, I consider Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, Kittay’s justice as caring, and various restatements of the social contract. (shrink)

Can and should political liberals recognize and otherwise support legal marriage as a matter of basic justice? In this article, we offer a general account of how political liberals should evaluate the issue of whether the legal recognition of marriage is a matter of basic justice. And, we develop and examine some public reason arguments that, given the fundamental interests of citizens, could justify various forms of legal marriage in some contexts. In particular, in certain conditions, the recognition of some (...) form of legal marriage may be the best way to protect the fundamental interests of women as citizens in freely chosen associations. Or, it may be that, in certain conditions, to secure the social conditions necessary for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to be free and equal citizens, some form of legal marriage can or should be recognized. (shrink)

In writing Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, we aimed to show that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. To that end, we develop and defend a particular understanding of the commitments of political liberalism. Then, we argue that certain laws and policies are needed to protect and secure the interests of persons as free and equal citizens. We focus on the laws and policies that we think are necessary for gender justice. In particular, we apply our view to the contexts (...) of prostitution law, family and marriage law, state support for caregivers, and religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. In this article, we consider some of the challenges made by the thoughtful critics who are part of this symposium. In particular, we address: why the collective enterprise view of liberal democracy requires shared reasons for the justification of certain laws and policies; how we understand substantive equality and why our understanding of substantive equality does not commit us to a comprehensive doctrine; how we avoid defending a particular political conception of justice in showing that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism; and how it is that, given justice pluralism, public reasons can provide stability for the right reasons. (shrink)

Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede's cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive (...) MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede's Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed. (shrink)

In their article “The Rise of Citizen Science in Health and Biomedical Research,” Wiggins and Wilbanks (2019) present a new typology for understanding the complex landscape of health and biomedical...

Background Citizen science is increasingly prevalent in the biomedical sciences, including the field of human genomics. Genomic citizen science initiatives present new opportunities to engage individuals in scientific discovery, but they also are provoking new questions regarding who owns the outputs of the research, including intangible ideas and discoveries and tangible writings, tools, technologies, and products. The legal and ethical claims of participants to research outputs become stronger—and also more likely to conflict with those of institution-based researchers and other stakeholders—as (...) participants become more involved, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the research process. It is not yet known, however, how genomic citizen science initiatives are managing the interests of their participants in accessing and controlling research outputs in practice. To help fill this gap, we conducted an in-depth review of relevant policies and practices of U.S.-based genomic citizen science initiatives. Methods We queried the peer-reviewed literature and grey literature to identify 22 genomic citizen science initiatives that satisfied six inclusion criteria. A data collection form was used to capture initiative features, policies, and practices relevant to participants’ access to and control over research outputs. Results This analysis revealed that the genomic citizen science landscape is diverse and includes many initiatives that do not have institutional affiliations. Two trends that are in apparent tension were identified: commercialization and operationalization of a philosophy of openness. While most initiatives supported participants’ access to research outputs, including datasets and published findings, none supported participants’ control over results via intellectual property, licensing, or commercialization rights. However, several initiatives disclaimed their own rights to profit from outputs. Conclusions There are opportunities for citizen science initiatives to incorporate more features that support participants’ access to and control over research outputs, consistent with their specific objectives, operations, and technical capabilities. (shrink)