This essay investigates the representation of lesbian, gay and bisexual people during the debate over whether they should serve openly in the United States military. Many studies on this topic have focused on the question of whether this debate ‘militarized’ LGB people. This study takes a broader view, tracking five rhetorical archetypes through two US Congressional Hearings. I identify and track these archetypes using a coding procedure that draws on concepts from Membership Categorization Analysis, rhetorical theory, discourse analysis and elsewhere. (...) The result is a holistic picture of how LGB people were represented across the hearings. While they were increasingly associated with military values in the later hearing, they were also less often represented as victims, spoilers or activists in a negative sense. These findings offer additional insights into how the meanings-in-use of identity categories are changed in discourse. (shrink)

It is common to think of medical and ethical modes of thought as different in kind. In such terms, some clinical situations are made more complicated by an additional ethical component. Against this picture, we propose that medical and ethical modes of thought are not different in kind, but merely different aspects of what it means to be human. We further propose that clinicians are uniquely positioned to synthesise these two aspects without prior knowledge of philosophical ethics.

The kin selection hypothesis posits that male androphilia (male sexual attraction to adult males) evolved because androphilic males invest more in kin, thereby enhancing inclusive fitness. Increased kin-directed altruism has been repeatedly documented among a population of transgendered androphilic males, but never among androphilic males in other cultures who adopt gender identities as men. Thus, the kin selection hypothesis may be viable if male androphilia was expressed in the transgendered form in the ancestral past. Using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS), (...) we examined 46 societies in which male androphilia was expressed in the transgendered form (transgendered societies) and 146 comparison societies (non-transgendered societies). We analyzed SCCS variables pertaining to ancestral sociocultural conditions, access to kin, and societal reactions to homosexuality. Our results show that ancestral sociocultural conditions and bilateral and double descent systems were more common in transgendered than in non-transgendered societies. Across the entire sample, descent systems and residence patterns that would presumably facilitate increased access to kin were associated with the presence of ancestral sociocultural conditions. Among transgendered societies, negative societal attitudes toward homosexuality were unlikely. We conclude that the ancestral human sociocultural environment was likely conducive to the expression of the transgendered form of male androphilia. Descent systems, residence patterns, and societal reactions to homosexuality likely facilitated investments in kin by transgendered males. Given that contemporary transgendered male androphiles appear to exhibit elevated kin-directed altruism, these findings further indicate the viability of the kin selection hypothesis. (shrink)

Healthcare systems around the world are struggling to maintain a sufficient workforce to provide adequate care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staffing problems have been exacerbated by healthcare workers refusing to work out of concern for their families. I sketch a deontological framework for assessing when it is morally permissible for HCWs to abstain from work to protect their families from infection and when it is a dereliction of duty to patients. I argue that it is morally permissible for HCWs to (...) abstain from work when their duty to treat is outweighed by the combined risks and burdens of that work. For HCWs who live with their families, the obligation to protect one’s family from infection contributes significantly to those burdens. There are, however, a range of complicating factors including the strength of duty to treat which varies according to the HCW’s role, the vulnerability of family members to the disease, the willingness of family members to risk infection and the resources available to the HCW to protect their family. In many cases, HCWs in ‘frontline’ roles with a weak duty to treat and families at home will be morally permitted to abstain from work given the risks posed by COVID-19; therefore, society should provide additional incentives to maintain sufficient staff in these roles. (shrink)

Robert Card’s “Reasonability View” is a significant contribution to the debate over the place of conscientious objection in health care. In his view, conscientious objections can only be accommodated if the grounds for the objection meet a reasonability standard. I identify inconsistencies in Card’s description of the reasonability standard and argue that each version he specifies is unsatisfactory. The criteria for reasonability that Card sets out most frequently have no clear underpinning principle and are too permissive of immoral objections. Card (...) has also claimed that petitioners must justify their positions with Rawlsian public reason. I argue that, although the resulting reasonability standard is principled, it is overly restrictive. I also show that a reasonability standard built on Rawls’ more lenient conception of reasonableness would be overly permissive of objections at odds with professional healthcare standards. Finally, I argue for my favored solution, which bases the reasonability standard on minimal professional standards. (shrink)

Current mainstream approaches to conscientious objection either uphold the standards of public health care by preventing objections or protect the consciences of health‐care professionals by accommodating objections. Public justification approaches are a compromise position that accommodate conscientious objections only when objectors can publicly justify the grounds of their objections. Public justification approaches require objectors and assessors to speak a common normative language and to this end it has been suggested that objectors should be required to cast their objection in terms (...) of public reason. We provide critical support for such a public reason condition and argue that it would be neither too demanding nor too permissive. We also respond to objections that it unfairly favours secular over religious objectors and that public reasons cannot be held with the kind of sincerity thought to characterize conscientious objections. (shrink)

In the United States today, the use or possession of many drugs is a criminal offense. Can these criminal laws be justified? What are the best reasons to punish or not to punish drug users? These are the fundamental issues debated in this book by two prominent philosophers of law. Douglas Husak argues in favor of drug decriminalization, by clarifying the meaning of crucial terms, such as legalize, decriminalize, and drugs; and by identifying the standards by which alternative drug policies (...) should be assessed. He critically examines the reasons typically offered in favor of our current approach and explains why decriminalization is preferable. Peter de Marneffe argues against drug legalization, demonstrating why drug prohibition, especially the prohibition of heroin, is necessary to protect young people from self-destructive drug use. If the empirical assumptions of this argument are sound, he reasons, drug prohibition is perfectly compatible with our rights to liberty. (shrink)

In this paper, we explicate the method of Investigative Ordinary Language Philosophy (IOLP). The term was coined by John Cook to describe the unique philosophical approach of Frank Ebersole. We argue that (i) IOLP is an overlooked yet valuable philosophical method grounded in our everyday experiences and concerns; and (ii) as such, Frank Ebersole is an important but neglected figure in the history of ordinary language philosophy.

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 4, Page 414-429, October 2022.

On one hand, it is commonly accepted that clinicians should not deceive their patients, yet on the other there are many instances in which deception could be in a patient’s best interest. In this paper, I propose that this conflict is in part driven by a narrow conception of deception as contingent on belief. I argue that we cannot equate non-deceptive care solely with introducing or sustaining a patient’s true belief about their condition or treatment, because there are many instances (...) of clinical care which are non-doxastic and non-deceptive. Inasmuch as this is true, better understanding of non-doxastic attitudes, such as hope and pretence, could improve our understanding of deception in clinical practice. (shrink)

Why do some addicted people chronically fail in their goal to recover, while others succeed? On one established view, recovery depends, in part, on efforts of intentional planning agency. This seems right, however, firsthand accounts of addiction suggest that the agent’s self-narrative also has an influence. This paper presents arguments for the view that self-narratives have independent, self-fulfilling momentum that can support or undermine self-governance. The self-narrative structures of addicted persons can entrench addiction and alienate the agent from practically feasible (...) recovery plans. Strategic re-narration can redirect narrative momentum and therefore support recovery in ways that intentional planning alone cannot. (shrink)

The 2023 doctors’ strikes in the UK have elicited a familiar moral outcry that such strikes are morally wrong. We consider five arguments that might be thought to show doctors’ strikes are morally impermissible but show that they all fail. The most we can conclude from such arguments is that doctors’ strikes are morally permissible in a narrower range of circumstances than strikes in other sectors.We then outline two independent but compatible justifications for doctors’ strikes, one that appeals to doctors’ (...) interests in fair pay and working conditions and one that appeals to doctors’ duty to protect public health. We also suggest that doctors’ strikes can be supererogatory when they aim to correct a government failing in its own duty to protect public health. Finally, we assess the 2023 UK doctors’ strikes. We conclude that they are justified and there is a case for considering them supererogatory. (shrink)

Harold Shapiro, the former president of Princeton, ventured to say that theology had been divorced from the liberal. Professor Doug Dix's book is about arranging a remarriage. His analysis suggests the divorce goes deeper than Shapiro may have realized. Love has been divorced from learning because money has replaced truth as the object of affection. Now students learn to earn. Natural Literacy strives to motivate students and faculty to instead learn to love.

I argue that Aristotle believes that virtue comes in degrees. After dispatching with initial concerns for the view, I argue that we should accept it because Aristotle conceives of heroic virtue as the highest degree of virtue. I support this interpretation of heroic virtue by considering and rejecting alternative readings, then showing that heroic virtue characterized as the highest degree of virtue is consistent with the doctrine of the mean.

In this essay, I investigate the longstanding philosophical problem of whether we have control over our actions in a deterministic world. In working through a range of everyday situations in which this problem could arise, I come to the realisation that determinism has no bearing on whether we have control over our actions, because having control over our actions and determinism only make sense under different aspects.

ABSTRACT‘Self-ambiguity’, we suggest, is best understood as an uncertainty about how strongly a given feature reflects who one truly is. When this understanding of self-ambiguity is applied to a view of the self as having both essential and shapable components, self-ambiguity can be seen to have two aspects: (1) uncertainty about one's essential or relatively unchangeable characteristics, e.g. one's sexuality, and (2) uncertainty about how to shape oneself, e.g. which values to commit to, actions to pursue, or essential features to (...) identify with. We explain how a narrative account of agency can accommodate these forms of self-ambiguity and argue that such an account also reveals another kind of self-ambiguity, namely, (3) uncertainty about whether one's established self-narrative represents who one really is. We illustrate this third form of self-ambiguity in the context of addiction where people's established addiction self-narratives make it difficult to identify with recovery. We argue that recovery will require embracing, especially, our third form of self-ambiguity as a chance for positive self-transformation. Treatment for addiction should, therefore, support people in going through and ultimately narratively resolving the inevitable self-ambiguities of the recovery process. (shrink)

For Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences Theory (MI) constitutes “a new understanding of human nature,” on a par with those proffered by Socrates and Freud. While the educational community in general has responded enthusiastically to MI, because it enables them to deal with students more holistically, MI embeds a significant dualism that is detrimental to truly holistic education. I will argue that: values are pervasive; intelligence requires the exercise of judgment, which no computational system can emulate; domains in which intelligence functions (...) are contested, as much as in the realm of “values,” judgments about “values” are “intelligent” in seeking to determine what conditions will promote flourishing, and the more appropriate distinction to draw is not between two structural domains of “empirical fact” and “subjective value,” but between structural conditions and directional responses to these conditions. (shrink)

RésuméDans ce dialogue, deux personnages principaux, Philopolis et Éleuthérios, proposent la position communautarienne et la position contractualiste libérale comme fondements de la théorie politique. Le débat se déroule, comme tout bon débat devrait lefaire, autour d'une bouteille de Chardonnay.

This ten chapter text is designed to be used as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a set of primary readings in a twelve week course on modern social theory or the second half of a full-year course on sociological theory. It examines the most important theoretical approaches of the 20th and 21st centuries, balancing concise coverage with appropriate depth of analysis. It avoids rehashing classical theory while still placing recent theorists in a historical context. It takes into account (...) developments in social theory over the last twenty years and highlights Canadian theorists (such as Innis, McLuhan, and Grant) and context (for example, communications, technology, and nature). It includes sometimes overlooked subject areas such as situationism and postmodernism, as well as European theorists not covered by many texts. (shrink)

This chapter interrogates Hollywood film as a powerful public pedagogical machine and as an influential component of the broader media culture, that serves as a primary terrain where the authority of violence and the violence of authority expresses, justifies, and legitimates itself in the U.S. Allegiances to, identifications with, beliefs in, desires for, and attitudes about violence, authority, militarism, and power are largely constructed, imbued, directed and shaped through dominant media formations as they create images and spectacles of violence, either (...) real or fabricated. During a time of continuing imperial aggression, expanding Pentagon budgets, increased international violence, growing authoritarian tendencies, and when an “imperially ambitious” United States has embarked on what Anatole Lieven calls a policy of “unilateral global domination through absolute military superiority,” the inculcation into the mass consciousness of the justification for, identification with, acceptance and pursuit of mass violence through military aggression becomes all the more crucial. (shrink)

Résumé: Dans ce dialogue, deux personnages principaux, Philopolis et Éleuthérios, proposent la position communautarienne et la position contractualiste libérale comme fondements de la théorie politique. Le débat se déroule, comme tout bon débat devrait le faire, autour d’une bouteille de Chardonnay.

We conducted and analyzed qualitative interviews with 12 persons working on the Healthy Public Housing Initiative in Boston, Massachusetts in 2001. Our goal was to generate ideas and themes related to the ethics of the community-based participatory research in which they were engaged. Specifically, we wanted to see if we found themes that differed from conventional research that is based on an individualistic ethics. There were clearly distinct ethical issues raised with respect to projects and individuals who engage in community-based (...) collaborations. The differences that arose from the interviews were seeking equality between the partners, the need for the community partner to defend the community, dealing with unflattering data, meeting community expectations and producing tangible benefits to the community. (shrink)

All people are vulnerable to having their self-concepts shaped by others. This article investigates that vulnerability using a theory of narrative self-constitution. According to narrative self-constitution, people depend on others to develop and maintain skills of self-narration and they are vulnerable to having the content of their self-narratives co-authored by others. This theoretical framework highlights how vulnerability to co-authoring is essential to developing a self-narrative and, thus, the possibility of autonomy. However, this vulnerability equally entails that co-authors can undermine autonomy (...) by contributing disvalued content to the agent’s self-narrative and undermining her authorial skills. I illustrate these processes with the first-hand reports of several women who survived sexual abuse as children. Their narratives of survival and healing reveal the challenges involved in developing the skills required to manage vulnerability to co-authoring and how others can help in this process. Finally, I discuss some of the implications of co-authoring for the healthcare professional and the therapeutic relationship. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the kinds of dependence relation that philosophers have argued may obtain between neural events and conscious events; between Ns and Cs. Three major candidate relations are constitution, realization, and identity. There are other candidates for the mind/body relation, but these will serve as the major options. Indeed, these are already more than three options, because philosophers do not agree on the best way to understand constitution; still less to understand realization. I argue that dispute is (...) not merely "metaphysical": each candidate has distinct empirical consequences. (shrink)

This essay explores the process and issues related to community collaborative research that involves Native Americans generally, and specifically examines the Navajo Nation’s efforts to regulate research within its jurisdiction. Researchers need to account for both the experience of Native Americans and their own preconceptions about Native Americans when conducting research about Native Americans. The Navajo Nation institutionalized an approach to protecting members of the nation when it took over Institutional Review Board (IRB) responsibilities from the US Indian Health Service (...) (IHS) in 1996. While written regulations for the Navajo Nation IRB are not dissimilar, and in some ways are less detailed than those of the IHS IRB, in practice the Navajo Nation allows less flexibility. Primary examples of this include not allowing expedited review and requiring prepublication review of all manuscripts. Because of its broad mandate, the Navajo Nation IRB may also require review of some projects that would not normally be subject to IRB approval, including investigative journalism and secondary research about Navajo People that does not involve direct data collection from human subjects. (shrink)

In this nationwide study of American and Canadian journalists, I found that their moral and ethical values are solidly connected to the Judeo-Christian tradition, even among those who do not claim to be religiously oriented. This study shows that religious values are imbedded deeply, if not always consciously, in the moral and ethical values of journalists and that journalists of varying religious orientations tend to endorse a core group of moral and ethical principles at the heart of the religious heritage (...) of the United States and Canada. However, journalists have expanded their definition of what religion coverage means in an increasingly diverse and secular society, and few want to connect their professional values only with Christian teaching. (shrink)

Plato seems to have been pessimistic about how most people stand with regard to virtue. However, unlike the Stoics, he did not conclude that most people are vicious. Rather, as we know from discussions across several dialogues, he countenanced decent ethical conditions that fall short of genuine virtue, which he limited to the philosopher. Despite Plato's obvious interest in this issue, commentators rarely follow his lead by investigating in detail such conditions in the dialogues. When scholars do investigate what kind (...) of virtue, if any, Plato thinks is open to non-philosophers, they typically look to the Republic. But in the Republic Plato sets out an ideal city; therefore, the virtue available to non-philosophers there is likely different from what he thinks is available to them in the real world. If we want to determine Plato's thoughts about the virtue of actual non-philosophers, we must look elsewhere. In this paper, I set my sights on the Phaedo. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unusually challenging and dangerous workplace conditions for key workers. This has prompted calls for key workers to receive a variety of special benefits over and above their normal pay. Here, we consider whether two such benefits are justified: a no-fault compensation scheme for harm caused by an epidemic and hazard pay for the risks and burdens of working during an epidemic. Both forms of benefit are often made available to members of the armed forces for (...) the harms, risks and burdens that come with military service. We argue from analogy that these benefits also ought to be provided to key workers during an epidemic because, like the military, key workers face unavoidable harms, risks and burdens in providing essential public good. The amount of compensation should be proportional to the harm suffered and the amount of hazard pay should be proportional to the risk and burden endured. Therefore, key workers should receive the same amount of compensation and hazard pay as the military where the harms, risks and burdens are equivalent. In the UK, a form of no-fault compensation has recently been made available to the surviving families of key workers who suffer fatal COVID-19 infections. According to our argument, however, it is insufficient because it offers less to key workers than is made available to the families of armed services personnel killed on duty. (shrink)

The theory of sexual selection suggests several possible explanations for the development of standards of physical attractiveness in humans. Asymmetry and departures from average proportions may be markers of the breakdown of developmental stability. Supernormal traits may present age- and sex-typical features in exaggerated form. Evidence from social psychology suggests that both average proportions and (in females) “neotenous” facial traits are indeed more attractive. Using facial photographs from three populations (United States, Brazil, Paraguayan Indians), rated by members of the same (...) three populations, plus Russians and Venezuelan Indians, we show that age, average features, and (in females) feminine/neotenous features all play a role in facial attractiveness. (shrink)

The placebo effect is now generally defined widely as an individual’s response to the psychosocial context of a clinical treatment, as distinct from the treatment’s characteristic physiological effects. Some researchers, however, argue that such a wide definition leads to confusion and misleading implications. In response, they propose a narrow definition restricted to the therapeutic effects of deliberate placebo treatments. Within the framework of modern medicine, such a scope currently leaves one viable placebo treatment paradigm: the non-deceptive and non-concealed administration of (...) “placebo pills” or open-label placebo (OLP) treatment. In this paper, I consider how the placebo effect occurs in OLP. I argue that a traditional, belief-based account of OLP is paradoxical. Instead, I propose an account based on the non-doxastic attitude of pretence, understood within a fictionalist framework. (shrink)

Addiction involves a chronic deficit in self-governance that treatment aims to restore. We draw on our interviews with addicted people to argue that addiction is, in part, a problem of self-narrative change. Over time, agents come to strongly identify with the aspects of their self-narratives that are consistently verified by others. When addiction self-narratives become established, they shape the addicted person’s experience, plans, and expectations so that pathways to recovery appear implausible and feel alien. Therefore, the agent may prefer to (...) enact her disvalued self-narrative because at least it represents who she takes herself to be. To recover, the agent needs to conduct narrative work, adjusting her existing self-narrative so that it better supports recovery-directed narrative projections. Reducing cravings, managing withdrawals, increasing self-control, and developing goals are all important for recovery but those approaches will often be in vain if the influence of self-narrative is ignored. If our analysis is correct, addiction treatment will typically be more effective if it incorporates support for self-narrative change. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 7, July 2022.

Daniel Sulmasy has recently argued that good medicine depends on physicians having a wide discretionary space in which they can act on their consciences. The only constraints Sulmasy believes we should place on physicians’ discretionary space are those defined by a form of tolerance he derives from Locke whereby people can publicly act in accordance with their personal religious and moral beliefs as long as their actions are not destructive to society. Sulmasy also claims that those who would reject physicians’ (...) right to conscientious objection eliminate discretionary space thus undermining good medicine and unnecessarily limiting religious freedom. I argue that, although Sulmasy is correct that some discretionary space is necessary for good medicine, he is wrong in thinking that proscribing conscientious objection entails eliminating discretionary space. I illustrate this using Julian Savulescu and Udo Schuklenk’s system for restricting conscientious objections as a counter-example. I then argue that a narrow discretionary space constrained by professional ideals will promote good medicine better than Sulmasy’s wider discretionary space constrained by his conception of tolerance. Sulmasy’s version of discretionary space would have us tolerate actions that are at odds with aspects of good medicine, including aspects that Sulmasy himself explicitly values, such as fiduciary duty. Therefore, if we want the degree of religious freedom in the public sphere that Sulmasy favours then we must decide whether it is worth the cost to the healthcare system. (shrink)