"The impetus for this collection derives from a set of seminars given by various guest speakers to the Advanced and Honours class in Jurisprudence in the University of Glasgow in the Session 1973-4. The contributors include persons engaged primarily in the disciplines of civil law, medieval history, modern history, moral philosophy, political economy, politics and private law as well as in that of jurisprudence itself. While on a diversity of topics, the essays have in common the fact that they attempt, (...) in varying degree, either to illustrate the relationship between legal theory and law as an existing institution or to place legal theories in a wider philosophical or historical context. The contributors wish to dedicate the collection to Sir Charles Wilson not only as a mark of esteem on his retiral as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow but also as a tribute to his own scholarship in the field of jurisprudence"--Preface. (shrink)

To move from the realm of good intent to verifiable practice, ethics needs to be approached in the same way as any other desired outcome of the public relations process: that is, operationalized and evaluated at each stage of a public relations campaign. A pyramid model - the "ethics pyramid" - is useful for incorporating ethical reflection and evaluation processes into the standard structure of a typical public relations plan. Practitioners can use it to integrate and manage ethical intent, means, (...) and ends, by setting ethics objectives, considering the ethics of each campaign tactic, and reporting whether ethical outcomes have been attained. (shrink)

"Annual General Meeting Members Lunch." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (202), pp. 17.

The successful study of film combines criticism, theory and practice. This book covers all three areas and guides the student towards an engaged form of creative expression and an active role as reviewer and critic. Beautifully presented, this ground-breaking text offers all students an integrated understanding of film criticism and production"--Provided by publisher.

How are non-declarative sentences understood? How do they differ semantically from their declarative counterparts? Answers to these questions once made direct appeal to the notion of illocutionary force. When they proved unsatisfactory, the fault was diagnosed as a failure to distinguish properly between mood and force. For some years now, efforts have been under way to develop a satisfactory account of the semantics of mood. In this paper, we consider the current achievements and future prospects of the mood-based semantic programme.

Reading fiction for pleasurable is robustly correlated with improved cognitive attainment and other benefits. It is also in decline among young people in developed nations, in part because of competition from moving image fiction. We review existing research on the differences between reading/hearing verbal fiction and watching moving image fiction, as well as looking more broadly at research on image/text interactions and visual versus verbal processing. We conclude that verbal narrative generates more diverse responses than moving image narrative., We note (...) that reading and viewing narrative are different tasks, with different cognitive loads. Viewing moving image narrative mostly involves visual processing with some working memory engagement, whereas reading narrative involves verbal processing, visual imagery and personal memory (Xu et al 2005). but Attempts to compare the two by creating suggest that existing research is flawed by attempts to create equivalent stimuli and task demands face a number of challenges, and we discuss these difficulties in comparative approaches. We then investigate the possibility of identifying lower level processing mechanisms that might distinguish cognition of the two media, and propose a focus on internal scene construction and on working memory as foci for future research. Although many of the sources we draw on are focussed on English speaking participants in European or North American settings, we also cover material relating to speakers of Dutch, German, Hebrew and Japanese in their respective countries, and studies of a remote Turkish mountain community. (shrink)

New media have changed the parameters of public relations, multiplying audiences and altering the nature of relationships. Practitioners’ ethics approaches have been slower to adapt, frequently proving inadequate to the changes. McLuhan’s theory of technological determinism predicts this lag in conceptualizing and adapting to technological evolution; with awareness of the problem, however, practitioners have an opportunity to consciously shift to using the potential of new media proactively for ethical guidance, rather than continuing to allow ethics processes to lag behind technological (...) capacity. -/- In 1967 Marshall McLuhan wrote, “When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past” (74). His words referred to the gap he observed between the potentially innovative functionality of new media, and the predominately traditionalist approaches to their use. While McLuhan’s comments are now more than 40 years old, and a host of newer technologies has evolved from those he described, his point remains strikingly germane: This chapter demonstrates that there is still a chasm between the potential and the utilization of new media, and explores the implications of that chasm for the specific context of new media and ethics in the field of public relations. (shrink)

When people speak, their words never fully encode what they mean, and the context is always compatible with a variety of interpretations. How can comprehension ever be achieved? Wilson and Sperber argue that comprehension is an inference process guided by precise expectations of relevance. What are the relations between the linguistically encoded meanings studied in semantics and the thoughts that humans are capable of entertaining and conveying? How should we analyse literal meaning, approximations, metaphors and ironies? Is the ability (...) to understand speakers' meanings rooted in a more general human ability to understand other minds? How do these abilities interact in evolution and in cognitive development? MEANING AND RELEVANCE sets out to answer these and other questions, enriching and updating relevance theory and exploring its implications for linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science and literary studies. (shrink)

Why is there a new explosion of interest in authentic ethnic foods and exotic cooking shows, where macho chefs promote sensual adventures in the kitchen? Why do we watch TV ads that promise more sex if we serve the right breakfast cereal? Why is the hunger strike such a potent political tool? Food inevitably engages questions of sensuality and power, of our connections to our bodies and to our world. Carnal Appetites brilliantly uses the lens of food and eating to (...) ask how we eat into culture, eat into identities, indeed eat into ourselves. Drawing on interviews, theory, and her own war with anorexia, Probyn argues that food is replacing sex in our imagination and experience of bodily pleasure. Our culinary cravings and habits express the turmoil in gender roles, in families, and even in the world economy, where famine coexists with plenty. Probyn explores these dark interconnections to forge a new visceral ethics rooted in the language of hunger and satiety, disgust and pleasure, gluttonyand restraint. From the fat pride movement and diet fads to genetically altered grain and colonial cannibalism, Carnal Appetites looks at what we eat to tell us who we are. (shrink)

This article explores three ways in which physics may involve counterpossible reasoning. The first way arises when evaluating false theories: to say what the world would be like if the theory were true, we need to evaluate counterfactuals with physically impossible antecedents. The second way relates to the role of counterfactuals in characterizing causal structure: to say what causes what in physics, we need to make reference to physically impossible scenarios. The third way is novel: to model metaphysical dependence in (...) physics, we need to consider counterfactual consequences of metaphysical impossibilities. Physics accordingly bears substantial and surprising counterpossible commitments. (shrink)

Verbal narratives provide incomplete information and can be very long, yet readers and hearers often effortlessly fill in the gaps and make connections across long stretches of text, sometimes even finding this immersive. How is this done? In the last few decades, event-indexing situation modeling and complementary accounts of narrative emotion have suggested answers. Despite this progress, comparisons between real-life perception and narrative experience might underplay the way narrative processing modifies our world model, as well as the role of the (...) emotions that do not relate to characters. I reframe narrative experience in predictive processing and neural networks, capturing continuity between fiction, perception, and states like dreaming and imagination, enabled by the flexible instantiation of concepts. In this framework, narrative experience is more clearly revealed as a creative experience that can share some of the phenomenology of dreams. (shrink)

Outside Belongings argues against a psychological depth model of identity--one in which individuals possess an intrinsic quality that guarantees authentic belonging. Instead, Probyn proposes a model of identity that takes into account the desires of individuals, and groups of individuals, to belong. The main ideas she considers--"the outside", "the surface", and "belonging"--allow her to articulate, in concrete terms, her precise concerns about sexuality and nationality.

This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.

BackgroundThough sobriety in young people is on the rise, students who drink little or no alcohol may experience social exclusion at University, impacting well-being. We aim to understand the social experiences of United Kingdom undergraduate students who drink little or no alcohol.MethodsA mixed-methods study using semi-structured, one-to-one interviews and the 24-Item Social Provisions Scale and Flourishing Scale with 15 undergraduate students who drink little or no alcohol. Descriptive statistics are presented for quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative.ResultsEight main themes (...) and four subthemes were generated from thematic analysis summarised in two sections ‘views of drinkers from non-drinkers’ and ‘how peer pressure feels and how people deal with it.’ The initial transition to University represented a challenge, where participants struggled to find their ‘true’ friends. However, students generally had high levels of social provision, well-being and enjoyed close friendships with fewer casual acquaintances. All students experienced some kind of peer pressure and developed coping strategies when in social situations involving alcohol. Fear of missing out on the ‘typical’ University experience heightened self-imposed expectations to drink. Despite participants acknowledging their counter-normative behaviour, some felt they were subject to stigmatisation by drinkers, doubting their non-drinker status, causing feelings of exclusion or being ‘boring.’ Their desire to ‘be like everyone else’ exposed some insight into the negative stereotypes of sobriety, including frustration behind alcohol’s status elevation.ConclusionStudents adopt strategies to minimise peer pressure and to fit in. Future research should interrogate drinkers’ perceptions of their sober peers to deepen understanding, better break down ‘us and them,’ and mitigate future expectations within the University drinking culture. (shrink)

More official complaints about medical treatment in the UK relate to poor communications than to wrong diagnoses. This article, in considering the importance of communications training for clinicians, is structured into three sections. From use of a story that introduces the idea of miscommunication and trauma in the first section, the article moves, in the second, to a theorisation of trauma as a concept, addressing issues of intersubjectivity, the relationship between embodied and psychological being, and ethics. From this, the third (...) section engages directly with medical communications training, exemplifying a particular literary-studies approach to matters of communication. (shrink)

____Outside Belongings__ argues against a psychological depth model of identity--one in which individuals possess an intrinsic quality that guarantees authentic belonging. Instead, Probyn proposes a model of identity that takes into account the desires of individuals, and groups of individuals, to belong. The main ideas she considers--"the outside", "the surface", and "belonging"--allow her to articulate, in concrete terms, her precise concerns about sexuality and nationality.

The Making of British Bioethics provides the first in-depth study of how philosophers, lawyers and other 'outsiders' came to play a major role in discussing and helping to regulate issues that used to be left to doctors and scientists. It details how British bioethics emerged thanks to a dynamic interplay between sociopolitical concerns and the aims of specific professional groups and individuals who helped create the demand for outside involvement and transformed themselves into influential 'ethics experts'. Highlighting this interplay helps (...) us appreciate how issues such as embryo research and assisted dying became high-profile 'bioethical' concerns in the late twentieth century, and why different groups now play a critical role in developing regulatory standards and leading public debates. The book draws on a wide range of original sources and will be of interest to historians of medicine and science, general historians and bioethicists. (shrink)

Citizenship of the European Union is a status that is held by every person who is a national of a member state of the Union. This chapter examines the history of Union citizenship, where it came from and how it developed over time. It then discusses the rights and duties of citizenship of the Union, explaining what they are and how they can be accessed. The chapter also looks at what citizenship of the Union means and where the issues are (...) regarding its relationship with nationality of the member states. Article 20(1) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) contains the genesis and determination of the status of citizen of the European Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship. Finally, the chapter comments on some of the current political challenges for this citizenship. (shrink)

If we are to accurately gauge the validity of Lynn White, Jr.’s thesis as articulated in his article, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”, we must bring together recent research not only in the fields of environmental ethics and ecotheology but also in environmental history. We must also consider White’s work as a whole, including his Medieval Technology and Social Change, which has been ignored for the most part by non-medievalists. Environmental history provides a corrective to White by anchoring (...) medieval attitudes and practices in specific times and places and demonstrating that the medieval period was not monolithic or uniform with respect to attitudes toward nature. Recent work by medieval environmental historians confirms that while many of the broad claims made by White in “Roots” and Medieval Technology and Social Change must be strongly qualified, his central point that medieval agriculture was an important part of European environmental history has been largely sustained. (shrink)

Let us begin with the simple observation that applied mathematics can be very tough! It is a common occurrence that basic physical principle instructs us to construct some syntactically simple set of differential equations, but it then proves almost impossible to extract salient information from them. As Charles Peirce once remarked, you can’t get a set of such equations to divulge their secrets by simply tilting at them like Don Quixote. As a consequence, applied mathematicians are often forced to pursue (...) roundabout and shakily rationalized expedients if any useful progress is to be made. Often these provisional and quasi-empirical procedures within applied mathematics loom large in motivating the “anti-realist” or “anti-unificationist” conclusions of Nancy Cartwright and allied authors. (shrink)

How should physical entities be characterized? Physicalists, who have most to do with the notion, usually characterize the physical by reference to two components: 1. The physical entities are the entities treated by fundamental physics with the proviso that 2. Physical entities are not fundamentally mental (that is, do not individually possess or bestow mentality) Here I explore the extent to which the appeals to fundamental physics and to the NFM (“no fundamental mentality”) constraint are appropriate for characterizing the physical, (...) especially for purposes of formulating physicalism. Ultimately, I motivate and defend a version of an account incorporating both components: The physics-based NFM account: An entity existing at a world w is physical iff (i) it is treated, approximately accurately, by current or future (in the limit of inquiry, ideal) versions of fundamental physics at w, and (ii) it is not fundamentally mental (that is, does not individually either possess or bestow mentality). (shrink)

Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...) and critique, it remains underdeveloped and is often misrepresented by its critics (section 8). (shrink)

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. (...) Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

Transformation of the sparrow and the butterfly -- Meeting the gods of poverty in a dream -- The greatest joys of the cicada and its cast-off shell -- The owl's understanding -- The centipede questions the snake -- The toad's way of the gods -- The mysterious technique of the cat -- Afterword by William Scott Wilson.

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

Controversy about Lynn White’s thesis that medieval Christianity is to blame for our current environmental crisis has done little to challenge the basic structure of White’s argument and has taken little account of recent work done by medieval scholars. White’s ecotheological critics, in particular, have often failed to come to grips with White’s position. In this paper, I question White’s reading of history on both interpretative and factual grounds and argue that religious values cannot be treated independently of the political, (...) economic, and social conditions that sustain them. I conclude that medieval religious values were more complex than White suggests: rather than causing technological innovation, they more likely provided a justification for other activity taking place for other reasons. (shrink)

Everyone loves something or somebody, and most people are concerned with loving another person like themselves, all equal. This book is based on the belief that getting clear about the concept and meaning of love between equals is essential for success in our practical lives. For how can we love properly unless we have a fairly clear idea of what love is? The book is written in ordinary language and for the ordinary person, without jargon or philosophical technicalities. It aims (...) to show that love between equals involves a single basic disposition, though that disposition expresses itself in various ways. Thus, after an introduction explaining the need for analysis and clarification, the author then deals in order with love as desire or need; with intrinsic friendship and sharing the self; with basic difficulties concerning power, dependence, altruism and paranoia; with sex and erotic love; and finally with the value in human life of love between equals. The work as a whole gives clear, coherent and practical guidance for all who wish to grasp what such love is really like. (shrink)

Perception solves computationally demanding problems at lightning fast speed. It recovers sophisticated representations of the world from degraded inputs, often in a matter of milliseconds. Any theory of perception must be able to explain how this is possible; in other words, it must be able to explain perception's computational tractability. One of the few attempts to move toward such an explanation has been the information encapsulation hypothesis, which posits that perception can be fast because it keeps computational costs low by (...) forgoing access to information stored in cognition. I argue that we have no compelling reason to believe that encapsulation explains (or even contributes to an explanation of) perceptual tractability, and much reason to doubt it. This is because there exist much deeper computational challenges for perception than information access, and these threaten to make the costs of access irrelevant. If this is right, it undermines a core computational motivation for encapsulation and sends us back to the drawing board for explanations of perceptual tractability. (shrink)

The dual role of olfaction in both smelling and tasting, i.e. flavour perception, makes it an important test case for philosophical theories of sensory individuation. Indeed, the psychologist Paul Rozin claimed that olfaction is a “dual sense”, leading some scientists and philosophers to propose that we have not one, but two senses of smell: orthonasal and retronasal olfaction. In this paper I consider how best to understand Rozin’s claim, and upon what grounds one might judge there to be one or (...) two distinct olfactory modalities. I conclude that while Rozin may be right that humans have dual occurrences of an olfactory ‘sense’, the concept of a sense-modality, and hence the ‘sense’ of smell, is ambiguous between two different notions: a physiological sensory channel and an experiential modality, along the lines suggested by J. J. Gibson. Furthermore, recognising that these are complementary rather than competing conceptions of a sense-modality enables the formulation of a powerful ‘dual-concept’ framework for posing and addressing questions concerning the complex architecture of human multisensory experience. (shrink)

This article reintroduces notions of the experiential, lived body as crucial for teaching. It critiques some recent moves within women’s studies, and cultural studies more generally, to use ‘theory’ as a way of abstracting bodies from the classroom. Using the work of Silvan Tomkins on affects, and Deleuzian notions of the body, it argues for a more comprehensive account of the affects, politics and practices of pedagogy.

This article reintroduces notions of the experiential, lived body as crucial for teaching. It critiques some recent moves within women’s studies, and cultural studies more generally, to use ‘theory’ as a way of abstracting bodies from the classroom. Using the work of Silvan Tomkins on affects, and Deleuzian notions of the body, it argues for a more comprehensive account of the affects, politics and practices of pedagogy.

Nearly all writers on morality, including philosophers, have had something to sellóif only a partisan picture of what morality is. In this book the author sets out to examine and clarify the nature of morality from a strictly neutral standpoint and what kinds of virtues are required to do well in morality. As against those who associate morality primarily with action and will-power, he sees it more Platonically, as a matter of mental health and the ability to love. These notions (...) are explored with philosophical rigor and a proper regard for ordinary language, beginning with the meaning of "moral," considering the question of why we should care for others, and concluding with an account of the importance of love and personal relationships. (shrink)

In his preface Mr Wilson writes 'I feel that a great many adults … would do better to spend less time in simply accepting the concepts of others uncritically, and more time in learning how to analyse concepts in general'. Mr Wilson starts by describing the techniques of conceptual analysis. He then gives examples of them in action by composing answers to specific questions and by criticism of quoted passages of argument. Chapter 3 sums up the importance of (...) this kind of mental activity. Chapter 4 presents selections for the reader to analyse, followed by questions of university entrance/scholarship type. This is a book to be worked through, in a sense a text-book. (shrink)

Essays devoted to the work of the late Neil Wilson, Canadian philosopher and contributor to the field of semantic analysis that emerged from the fusion of logic, pragmatism, and ontology. Many of the essays in this volume take their initial inspiration from Wilson's seminal work Substances Without Substrata.

Acts of violence and murder have historically proved difficult to accommodate in standard accounts of the formula of universal law (FUL) version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI). In “Murder and Mayhem,” Barbara Herman offers a distinctive account of the status of these acts that is intended to be appropriately didactic in comparison to accounts like the practical contradiction model. I argue that while Herman’s account is a promising one, the distinction she makes between coercive and non-coercive violence and her response (...) to concerns with the classification of the latter as imperfect duties raise significant questions about the status of some duties. I suggest that we look, instead, to Kant’s treatment of suicide in The Metaphysics of Morals for an account of norms of non-violence and, in particular, to the connection between this duty and concerns with inner freedom and moral health. I argue that we can use this account to inform our general understanding of duties prohibiting killing and violence, and that the resulting account is a promising one. (shrink)

The infant mortality rate in Liberia is 50 times higher than it is in Sweden, whilst a child born in Japan has a life expectancy at birth of more than double that of one born in Zambia. 1 And within countries, we see differences which are nearly as great. For example, if you were in the USA and travelled the short journey from the poorer parts of Washington to Montgomery County Maryland, you would find that ‘for each mile travelled life (...) expectancy rises about a year and a half. There is a twenty-year gap between poor blacks at one end of the journey and rich whites at the other’. (Marmot, 2004, p.2). There are two types of questions which it is important to ask about inequalities in health such as these. The first are social scientific questions about the extent of inequalities in health and the factors which are causally responsible for these inequalities. Examples of social scientific questions to ask might be: how do infant mortality rates in the UK differ according to social class? What is the difference in life expectancy between Japanese who emigrate to the US and those who remain in Japan? Why do civil servants in higher ranked jobs tend to live longer than civil servants in lower ranked jobs? The second type are normative questions about the reasons we have to care about inequalities in health. Important normative questions to answer are: which inequalities in health should we care about (all inequalities or merely some of them)? When is an inequality in health unjust? How should we weigh our concern for equality in health against other factors such as maximising the.. (shrink)