We conducted in-depth interviews to investigate maternal- fetal medicine (MFM) physicians’ feelings about their moral thoughts and dilemmas related to providing feticide for lateterm abortion in Israel. We interviewed 14 MFM physicians (who constitute approximately 40 percent of MFM physicians who perform feticide in the countr y) from five hospitals in Israel during 2018 and 2019. They were recruited via personal acquaintance and snowball sampling. Findings reveal that despite their clear recognition that feticide is a necessary procedure, all describe themselves (...) as suffering from some features of moral distress related to the process. The reasons for these difficulties are rooted in the Israeli law regarding late abortions, as well as in some of the organizational procedures for making this kind of medical decision. They also come from professional and emotional dilemmas that the physicians encounter. The findings reveal a strong need for more open discussions and sharing of doubts with colleagues regarding each case of feticide. These findings build on existing knowledge and may be useful in developing strategies to support clinicians who provide these essential but sometimes difficult services. (shrink)

Recent financial fraud legislation such as the Dodd–Frank Act and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (U.S. House of Representatives, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, [H.R. 4173], 2010 ; U.S. House of Representatives, The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, Public Law 107-204 [H.R. 3763], 2002 ) relies heavily on whistleblowers for enforcement, and offers protection and incentives for whistleblowers. However, little is known about many aspects of the whistleblowing decision, especially the effects of contextual and wrongdoing attributes on organizational (...) members’ willingness to report fraud. We extend the ethics literature by experimentally investigating how the nature of the wrongdoing and the awareness of those surrounding the whistleblower can influence whistleblowing. As predicted, we find that employees are less likely to report: (1) financial statement fraud than theft; (2) immaterial than material financial statement fraud; (3) when the wrongdoer is aware that the potential whistleblower has knowledge of the fraud; and (4) when others in addition to the wrongdoer are not aware of the fraud. Our findings extend whistleblowing research in several ways. For instance, prior research provides little evidence concerning the effects of fraud type, wrongdoer awareness, and others’ awareness on whistleblowing intentions. We also provide evidence that whistleblowing settings represent an exception to the well-accepted theory of diffusion of responsibility. Our participants are professionals who represent the likely pool of potential whistleblowers in organizations. (shrink)

The thrust of the present paper is that contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness are in the grip of a distorted perspective on the nature of their subject. They are absorbed in an understanding of consciousness which overemphasizes its role in grasping intentional objects, while undervaluing its functioning as the receptive ground to whom things are given and in whom they are disclosed. I first make the distinction more precise, discerning two complementary modes of consciousness: the accusative mode and the dative (...) mode, respectively. Taking Locke as a primary representative of the disregard for the dative mode, I proceed to show that this negligence leads to a fundamentally incomplete, and therefore ultimately incoherent, picture regarding the nature of consciousness. This is further demonstrated with regard to some contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness: higher-order monitoring theories and self-representational theories. I then move on to enquire, can the dative mode hypothesis receive support from significant trends in contemporary neuroscience? While interesting connections are drawn in relation to affective neuroscience and to spontaneous background activity, I argue that in order to do full justice to the receptive side of consciousness we must ultimately resort to the more radical concept of pure consciousness, developed primarily within Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

This paper introduces cosmopsychism as a holistic alternative to atomistic panpsychism, and as a general perspective on the metaphysics of consciousness. I begin with some necessary background details concerning contemporary panpsychism and the problems it faces, and then proceed to the theory itself. The starting point of the theory is the assumption that an all pervading cosmic consciousness is the single ontological ultimate. From this assumption, a panpsychist ontology of mind with distinct holistic overtones is developed. In particular, I argue (...) that such universal consciousness serves as the ground for the emergence of individual conscious creatures. The result is a theory with significant conceptual resources which presents novel means for confronting some of the most recalcitrant problems facing contemporary panpsychism: in particular, the subject combination problem, and the problem of entailment associated with it. In so doing, cosmopsychism places itself as an viable alternative to atomi... (shrink)

We offer philosophical motivations for a method we call Virtual World Cognitive Science (VW CogSci), in which researchers use virtual embodied agents that are embedded in virtual worlds to explore questions in the field of Cognitive Science. We focus on questions about mental and linguistic representation and the ways that such computational modeling can add rigor to philosophical thought experiments, as well as the terminology used in the scientific study of such representations. We find that this method forces researchers to (...) take a god’s-eye view when describing dynamical relationships between entities in minds and entities in an environment in a way that eliminates the need for problematic talk of belief and concept types, such as the belief that cats are silly, and the concept CAT, while preserving belief and concept tokens in individual cognizers’ minds. We conclude with some further key advantages of VW CogSci for the scientific study of mental and linguistic representation and for Cognitive Science more broadly. (shrink)

In this classic work of feminist political thought, Iris Marion Young challenges the prevailing reduction of social justice to distributive justice.

This paper explores cosmopsychism’s explanatory aspirations from a programmatic perspective. The bulk of the text consists of an argument in favor of the conclusion that cosmopsychism suffers from no insurmountable individuation problem. I argue that the widespread tendency to view IND as a mirror-image of micropsychism’s combination problem is mistaken. In particular, what renders CP insolvable, namely, the commitment to the coupling of phenomenal constitution with phenomenal inclusion, is, from the standpoint of cosmopsychism, an entirely nonmandatory assumption. I proceed to (...) show that severing this unhappy coupling is the key for defending cosmopsychism against the charge of theoretical incoherence. Moreover, I argue that successful defense against such accusation could be mounted regardless of whether or not we assume cosmic consciousness to be perspectival in nature. In addition, the paper touches upon another foundational issue: cautioning against the popular tendency to identify cosmopsychism’s monism with a mereological unity-in-diversity, and motivating an alternative conception which I call generative monism. Finally, as befitting this volume, I pause to reflect upon the question of which schools of Hindu philosophy might tally best, and connect most fruitfully, with cosmopsychism as I understand it. (shrink)

The novelist blends philosophy and metaphysics to examine the nature and origin of Plato's hostile views toward art and its role in life.

The idea of perfection.--On God and Good.--The sovereignty of good over other concepts.

In the marketplace of opinions concerning the metaphysics of mind and consciousness panqualityism (PQ) occupies an interesting position. It is a distinct variant of neutral monism, as well as of protophenomenalism, and as such it strives to carve out a conceptual niche midway between physicalism and mentalism. It is also a brand of Russellian monism, advocated by its supporters as a less costly and less extravagant alternative to panpsychism. Being clearly articulated and relatively well-developed it constitutes an intriguing view. Nonetheless, (...) the present paper takes a decisively critical stance towards PQ. In particular, it challenges it on two principal grounds. First, I argue that PQ's analysis of experience, and of the qualities tasked with constituting the phenomenal character of experience, is fundamentally flawed. Second, I argue that PQ's attempt to explain phenomenal consciousness as a function of reflective awareness is equally misguided. Along the way, the paper also points the shortcomings of previously established critiques of PQ. All in all, the discussion identifies some difficulties that are likely to generalize beyond PQ's specific circumstances, raising concerns regarding the viability of a "middle of the road" solution to the mind–body problem. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, our purpose is to propose and motivate a novel and scientifically informed variant of cosmopsychism, namely, the view that the experiences of ordinary subjects are ultimately grounded in an all-pervading cosmic consciousness. Second, we will demonstrate that this approach generates promising avenues for addressing familiar problems of phenomenal constitution. We use stochastic electrodynamics (SED) as the physical bedrock of our approach, supplementing it with key insights about the nature of consciousness long emphasized (...) in eastern philosophy and other wisdom traditions. We proceed to show that our approach substantiates an intriguing way of thinking about the dynamical emergence of ordinary consciousness from cosmic consciousness, identifying the latter with the vacuum state of quantum field theory. Finally, we argue that the present approach is well suited to address problems of phenomenal constitution, in particular as they pertain to the qualities and structure of experience and to the generation of subjects. (shrink)

Chronic stroke survivors with severe contralesional arm paresis face numerous challenges to performing activities of daily living, which largely rely on the use of the less-affected ipsilesional arm. While use of the ipsilesional arm is often encouraged as a compensatory strategy in rehabilitation, substantial evidence indicates that motor control deficits in this arm can be functionally limiting, suggesting a role for remediation of this arm. Previous research has indicated that the nature of ipsilesional motor control deficits vary with hemisphere of (...) damage and with the severity of contralesional paresis. Thus, in order to design rehabilitation that accounts for these deficits in promoting function, it is critical to understand the relative contributions of both ipsilesional and contralesional arm motor deficits to functional independence in stroke survivors with severe contralesional paresis. We now examine motor deficits in each arm of severely paretic chronic stroke survivors with unilateral damage to determine whether hemisphere-dependent deficits are correlated with functional independence. Clinical evaluation of contralesional, paretic arm impairment was conducted with the upper extremity portion of the Fugl-Meyer assessment. Ipsilesional arm motor performance was evaluated using the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test, grip strength, and ipsilesional high-resolution kinematic analysis during a visually targeted reaching task. Functional independence was measured with the Barthel Index. Functional independence was better correlated with ipsilesional than contralesional arm motor performance in the left hemisphere damage group [JTHFT: [r = −0.73, p = 0.017]; grip strength: [r = 0.64, p = 0.047]], and by contralesional arm impairment in the right hemisphere damage group [UEFM: [r = 0.66, p = 0.040]]. Ipsilesional arm kinematics were correlated with functional independence in the left hemisphere damage group only. Examination of hemisphere-dependent motor correlates of functional independence showed that ipsilesional arm deficits were important in determining functional outcomes in individuals with left hemisphere damage only, suggesting that functional independence in right hemisphere damaged participants was affected by other factors. (shrink)

Job performance and job stress are widely studied phenomena in occupational research. However, most of the literature on the relationship between work stress and job performance conceptualizes job stress as an antecedent of performance, in line with the stress-performance framework, and does not examine what happens to the well-being of the employees after the performance was appraised as poor. In the current theoretical paper, I argue that task underperformance is a source of stress (i.e., stressor) for the employee, and as (...) such can affect a wide range of employee outcomes. Task underperformance is conceptualized as comprised of two main types: acute/episodic underperformance such as a mistake or an accident (e.g., medical error, service failure), and chronic task underperformance such as not achieving the expected work products over time, with an interplay between these types. The source of the appraisal (objective, supervisor-rated, and self-rated underperformance) is also considered. Several disjoint literatures are then integrated in order to explain how underperformance is expected to result in subsequent decrements to employee well-being. At the chronic underperformance level, the following literatures are included: self-efficacy, negative effects of performance feedback, stress experienced when the basic need for competency is frustrated or when underperformance presents a threat to the self-image. At the acute/episodic level, affective and cognitive outcomes are explored and examples are drawn from several industries including service failures and medical errors. The interplay between the two types of underperformance, acute/episodic and chronic, is discussed, and then relevant moderators are offered. One notable moderator is the occupation-level consequences of error which likely affects most if not all outcomes. Finally, the discussion includes potential theoretical and practical implications for this conceptualization, as well as some methodological considerations for future research in this area. (shrink)

The acclaimed author of The Good Apprentice draws on the entire history of philosophy--and particularly on Plato and Kant--to formulate her own model of morality and demonstrate how thoroughly it is bound up with our daily lives. "An utterly absorbing book".--The Wall Street Journal.

Panpsychism is now a bona fide potential solution to the metaphysical quandary of consciousness. Much of the debate concerning the viability of panpsychism is centered on the combination problem. Intriguingly, the literature analyzing this problem displays two competing interpretations which differ in their modal force. According to the first, which we call the ‘no-necessitation view', CP consists in the absence of a priori necessitation of macro-level phenomenal facts from micro-level phenomenal facts. In contrast, the second interpretation, which we label the (...) ‘incoherence charge’, goes further by insisting that it can be positively demonstrated that micro-experiences cannot combine to yield integral macro-experiences. While conceivability arguments are vulnerable to debates over conflicting intuitions, as well as to the claim that a more complete picture will grant the desired necessitation, IC has the advantage that, if true, it removes these concerns and approaches a more final verdict. Nevertheless, while conceivability arguments are widely discussed IC has not been equally well understood or recognized. In this paper we conduct a systematic investigation and reevaluation of IC, as it applies to constitutive micropsychism. We argue that the problem is real and therefore that constitutive micropsychism is a blind alley. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch was one of the great philosophers and novelists of the twentieth century and The Sovereignty of Good is her most important and enduring philosophical work. She argues that philosophy has focused, mistakenly, on what it is right to do rather than good to be and that only by restoring the notion of ‘vision’ to moral thinking can this distortion be corrected. This brilliant work shows why Iris Murdoch remains essential reading: a vivid and uncompromising style, a (...) commitment to forceful argument, and a courage to go against the grain. With a foreword by Mary Midgley. (shrink)

The neo-Kohlbergian approach to moral reasoning development maintains that intermediate concepts lie between bedrock moral schemas and professional codes of ethics and deal with issues of confidentiality, competence, informed consent, allocation of resources and professional autonomy (Rest et. al, 1999b Rest, J., Narvaez, D., Bebeau, M., & Thoma, S. J. (1999b). Postconventional moral thinking: A neo-Kohlbergian approach. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.[Crossref], [Google Scholar]). Intermediate concepts provide concrete guides for behavior, they contrast general moral schemas that are concerned with issues of fairness, (...) justice and equality. This paper outlines the development and testing of a prototype Intermediate Concept Measure for teachers (TICM). Results indicate that the TICM has respectable psychometric properties and assesses a construct in the moral domain. (shrink)

This latest work from one of the world's leading political philosophers will appeal to audiences from a variety of fields, including philosophy, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and communications studies.

In her long-awaited Responsibility for Justice, Young discusses our responsibilities to address "structural" injustices in which we among many are implicated, often by virtue of participating in a market, such as buying goods produced in sweatshops, or participating in booming housing markets that leave many homeless.

Iris Murdoch was one of the great philosophers and novelists of the twentieth century and The Sovereignty of Good is her most important and enduring philosophical work. She argues that philosophy has focused, mistakenly, on what it is right to do rather than good to be and that only by restoring the notion of ‘vision’ to moral thinking can this distortion be corrected. This brilliant work shows why Iris Murdoch remains essential reading: a vivid and uncompromising style, a (...) commitment to forceful argument, and a courage to go against the grain. With a foreword by Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

Kit Fine and Robert Adams have independently introduced a distinction between two ways in which a proposition might be true with respect to a world. A proposition is true at a world if it correctly represents the world. A proposition is true in a world, if it exists in that world and correctly represents it. In this paper, I clarify this distinction between outer and inner truth, defend it against recent charges of unintelligibly and argue that outer truth tracks counterfactual (...) possibility while inner truth tracks counter-actual possibility. This connection allows us to clarify the relationship between possibility, possible actuality and the thesis of serious actualism, which is the thesis that nothing could have had a property without existing. I show that this undermines serious actualists' scruples against reading sentences like `Even if Socrates had not existed, he might have' as expressing true and genuinely de re propositions about Socrates. More generally, the connection I draw provides the serious actualist with a justification for treating actually existing but contingent objects differently from how he treats merely possible objects. (shrink)

This paper engages the extended cognition controversy by advancing a theory which fits nicely into an attractive and surprisingly unoccupied conceptual niche situated comfortably between traditional individualism and the radical externalism espoused by the majority of supporters of the extended mind hypothesis. I call this theory moderate active externalism, or MAE. In alliance with other externalist theories of cognition, MAE is committed to the view that certain cognitive processes extend across brain, body, and world—a conclusion which follows from a theory (...) I develop in “Synergic Coordination: an argument for cognitive process externalism.” Yet, in contradistinction with radical externalism, and in agreement with the internalist orthodoxy, MAE defends the view that mental states are situated invariably inside our heads. This is done, inter alia, by developing a novel hypothesis regarding the vehicles of content (in “Extended cognition without externalized mental states”, and by criticizing arguments in support of mental states externalism (in “Reflections and objections”). The result, I believe, is a coherent theoretical alternative worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

In a recent paper, Andy Clark (2008) has argued that the literature on embodied cognition reveals a tension between two prominent strands within this movement. On the one hand, there are those who endorse what Clark refers to as body-centrism, a view which emphasizes the special contribution made by the body to a creature’s mental life. Among other things, body centrism implies that significant differences in embodiment translate into significant differences in cognition and consciousness. On the other hand, there are (...) those who endorse what Clark calls extended functionalism, a view which sees the mind as the joint product of the computational resources presented by (i) intracranial processing, (ii) bodily input, and (iii) environmental scaffolding. As such, extended functionalism allows for the possibility that any contribution of the body to cognition and consciousness can be compensated for by the other two contributing factors. While Clark’s sympathies lie with the latter approach, we argue in favour of the former. In particular, we focus on consciousness and argue that the unique contribution the body makes to a creature’s manifold of phenomenal experience cannot be compensated for, in the manner, and on the scale, that Clark envisages. (shrink)

A collection of the author's most influential essays and short works includes her critique of existentialism, her two dialogues on art and religion, key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, the concept of love, and more.

The essay theorizes the responsibilities moral agents may be said to have in relation to global structural social processes that have unjust consequences. How ought moral agents, whether individual or institutional, conceptualize their responsibilities in relation to global injustice? I propose a model of responsibility from social connection as an interpretation of obligations of justice arising from structural social processes. I use the example of justice in transnational processes of production, distribution and marketing of clothing to illustrate operations of structural (...) social processes that extend widely across regions of the world. The social connection model of responsibility says that all agents who contribute by their actions to the structural processes that produce injustice have responsibilities to work to remedy these injustices. I distinguish this model from a more standard model of responsibility, which I call a liability model. I specify five features of the social connection model of responsibility that distinguish it from the liability model: it does not isolate perpetrators; it judges background conditions of action; it is more forward looking than backward looking; its responsibility is essentially shared; and it can be discharged only through collective action. The final section of the essay begins to articulate parameters of reasoning that agents can use for thinking about their own action in relation to structural injustice. a Footnotesa Thanks to David Alexander, Daniel Drezner, David Owen, and Ellen Frankel Paul for comments on an earlier version of this essay. Thanks to David Newstone for research assistance. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy has long influenced contemporary ethics, yet it has not, in general, received the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. "Existentialists and Mystics" and "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals" provide new access to most of Murdoch's philosophical writings and make possible a deeper appreciation of her contribution to current thought. After assessing the recent critical reception of Murdoch's thought, this review places her moral philosophy in the context of contemporary trends in ethics by (...) tracing her influence on the work of Charles Taylor, highlights the distinctive features of her moral philosophy, and suggests future directions for Murdochian ethics. (shrink)

Despite the progress made in studying the observable exteriors of conscious processes, which are reflected in the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), there are still no satisfactory answers to two closely related core questions. These are the question of the origin of the subjective, phenomenal aspects of consciousness, and the question of the causal mechanisms underlying the generation of specific phenomenal states. In this article, we address these questions using a novel variant of cosmopsychism, a holistic form of panpsychism relying (...) on the central idea that the universe is imbued with a ubiquitous field of consciousness (UFC). This field is understood as a foundational dual-aspect component of the cosmos, the extrinsic appearance of which is physical in nature and the intrinsic manifestation of which is phenomenological in nature. We argue that this approach brings a new perspective into play, according to which the organizational characteristics of the NCC are indicative of the brain’s interaction with and modulation of the UFC. Key insights from modern physics suggest that the modulation mechanism is identical with the fundamental mechanism underlying quantum systems, resulting in the conclusion that a coherently oscillating neural cell assembly acquires phenomenal properties by tapping into the universal pool of phenomenal nuances predetermined by the UFC, or more specifically, by entering into a temporary liaison with the UFC and extracting a subset of phenomenal tones from the phenomenal color palette inherent in the basic structure of the UFC. This hypothesis is supported by a substantial body of empirical evidence. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the causal efficacy of consciousness against two specters of epiphenomenalism. We argue that these challenges are best met, on the one hand, by rejecting all forms of consciousness-body dualism, and on the other, by adopting a dynamical systems approach to understanding the causal efficacy of conscious experience. We argue that this non-reductive identity theory provides the theoretical resources for reconciling the reality and efficacy of consciousness with the neurophysiology of the brain and (...) body. (shrink)

Many cognitive scientists, having discovered that some computational-level characterization f of a cognitive capacity φ is intractable, invoke heuristics as algorithmic-level explanations of how cognizers compute f. We argue that such explanations are actually dysfunctional, and rebut five possible objections. We then propose computational-level theory revision as a principled and workable alternative.

Feminist social theory and female body experience are the twin themes of Iris Marion Young's twelve outstanding essays written over the past decade and brought together here. Her contributions to social theory raise critical questions about women and citizenship, the relations of capitalism and women's oppression, and the differences between a feminist theory that emphasizes women's difference and one that assumes a gender-neutral humanity. Loosely following a phenomenological method of description, Young's essays on female embodiment discuss female movement, pregnancy, (...) clothing, and the breasted body. In an introduction that situates her work in the context of shifts in feminist theory and politics over the past decade, Young emphasizes the rootedness of her theorizing in a dedicated and seasoned political activism. (shrink)