"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

BackgroundMany of the important elements of a valid informed consent – comprehension, voluntariness, and capacity – can be compromised or unmet in the context of psychiatric research. The inability to protect their own interests puts mentally ill subjects at an increased likelihood of being wronged or harmed and makes them particularly vulnerable in the context of clinical research. Therefore, they are due extra protection. Sometimes, these additional safeguards can significantly limit the possibilities for research involving subjects deemed unable to consent (...) due to their mental illness. Montenegro, a middle-income country in Southern-Eastern Europe, goes so far in their policy to protect these subjects from harms of research, as to ban all biomedical research on mentally ill persons who are unable to provide consent.Main bodyMental health research is often neglected and very low on the list of health research priorities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Despite the fact that mental health disorders are among leading causes of disability, the need for evidence-based services and interventions for those affected remains unmet.To exclude all members of a certain group of subjects seems extremely restrictive and unnecessary. Such a policy is discriminatory and unethical, because it inflicts further harms and exclusion of those patients from participation in society. This unjust exclusion policy obstructs research of certain psychiatric disorders and implies that new treatments for conditions that directly affect these incapacitated subjects will not be developed.ConclusionsScientific and clinical development must not be precluded by overly restrictive, discriminatory and unjust practices, such as the normative ban on research on decisionally-impaired mentally ill subjects. Rather, there should be a regulative framework that ensures that those who cannot consent for themselves are respected and protected in research, the anticipated benefits maximized, risks minimized, their autonomy recognized and extended. These patient-subjects must be appropriately included unless there is a clear and compelling rationale and justification that inclusion is inappropriate with respect to the health of the participants or the purpose of the research. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

In a modern society arguably disenchanted with religion, numerous Western women are transfixing their reality by making God in their own image. This compelling phenomenon is known as ‘the Goddess Movement’: a non-centralised religious current of neo-pagan origin that reveres the Divine as feminine. The revival of Goddess worship in a vastly secular age which appears not to favour religious devotion is a peculiar occurrence and leads to the following question: Why are women returning to a previously defunct spiritual practice? (...) Building on the research scholars Paul Reid-Bowen and Janet L. Jacobs conducted on Western Goddess worship, as well as drawing on testimonies of Goddess followers, this article aims to elucidate the appeal the Goddess Movement holds for women. It argues that it represents a notable turn in female spirituality which demonstrates that images of feminine divinity offer women the opportunity to find meaningfulness, empowerment, and sexual or psychological healing. (shrink)

For many, the idea that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they deserve is the very essence of distributive justice. However, while the notion of moral desert is otherwise widely accepted, Rawls rejects it entirely in his A Theory of Justice. Many authors have argued that Rawls’s claims about desert have serious and unappealing consequences for his conception of justice as fairness, and also that they deny the possibility of autonomous choice to the very agents whose decisions are (...) supposed to underlie Rawls’s approach to justice. In this paper, I analyze the arguments of those who believe that Rawls can be interpreted in a way that doesn’t in fact deny either desert or the possibility of autonomous action. I conclude by allowing for the interpretation that Rawls does not necessarily deny autonomous action, but I contend that he nevertheless finds the idea of preinstitutional desert entirely off the mark. (shrink)

The relation between aisthesis and interiority manifests in Wittgenstein’s account of the subject and his private language argument. But it is also an overlooked leitmotif in Dostoevsky’s novels—one of Wittgenstein’s favorite authors, and in W.G. Sebald’s work—who was inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This book reflects on the role literature can play in answering the philosophical question of an adequate presentation of intention and pain.

A paradigm for peace discovered in the cosmopolitan neighborhoods of poor urban immigrants.

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

This is part of a complete set of Jane Austen's novels collating the editions published during the author's lifetime and previously unpublished manuscripts. The books are illustrated with 19th century plates and incorporate revisions by experts in the light of subsequent research.

A century ago, John Dewey remarked that when home changes radically, school must change as well. With home, family, and gender roles dramatically altered in recent years, we are faced with a difficult problem: in the lives of more and more American children, no one is home. The Schoolhome proposes a solution. Drawing selectively from reform movements of the past and relating them to the unique needs of today's parents and children, Jane Martin presents a philosophy of education that (...) is responsive to America's changed and changing realities. As more and more parents enter the workforce, the historic role of the domestic sphere in the education and development of children is drastically reduced. Consequently, Martin advocates removing the barriers between the school and the home--making school a metaphorical "home," a safe and nuturant environment that provides children with the experience of affection and connection otherwise missing or inconsistent in their lives. In this proposition, the traditional schoolhouse where children are drilled in the three Rs is transformed into a "schoolhome" where learning is animated by an ethic of social awareness. At a time when many school reformers are calling for a return to basics and lobbying for skills education and quick-fix initiatives, Martin urges us to reconsider the distinctive legacies of Dewey and Montessori and to conceive of a school that integrates the values of the home with those of social responsibility. With cultural diversity and gender equality among its explicit goals, the schoolhome expands upon Dewey's edict to educate the "whole child," seeking instead to educate all children in the culture's whole heritage. Martin eloquently challenges reformers to reclaim the founding fathers' vision of the nation as a domestic realm, and to imagine a learning environment whose curriculum and classroom practice reflect not merely an economic but a moral investment in the future of our children. More than a summons to action, this remarkable book is a call to rethink the assumptions we bring to the educational enterprise, and so, to act wisely. (shrink)

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes (...) are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcile the Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

A discussion of Christine Korsgaard's The Sources of Normativity.

Intermediate labour markets provide fixed-term work opportunities and coaching for people in disadvantaged positions in labour markets. We study 46 sequences from six audio-recorded recruitment interviews for an ILM job targetted at people who have been unemployed for a prolonged period. Using an ethnomethodological approach to identity, membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis, we study how interviewers and candidates construct and negotiate who is fit for the ILM job. We present interactional moves through which the participants jointly construct the ‘fit (...) for the ILM job’ category and treat the candidate’s membership in it as a positive matter. Further, we demonstrate how the candidates are put in an interactionally difficult position in the interview as there are contradictory and ambiguous expectations about the ideal candidate. We discuss the results in relation to the interactional and institutional logics of a recruitment interview and suggest that enhancing the transparency might reinforce ethics of recruitment in ILMs. (shrink)

A longstanding problem in the teacher workforce, internationally and in the UK, is the continuing and substantial numbers of qualified teachers who leave the profession within five years. This paper uses data collected from a survey to the last five years of teacher education graduates of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London, to explore what originally motivated them to teach, and the reasons why they have left or may consider leaving in the future. We discovered that despite claiming to (...) be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future. The data spoke to the reality of teaching being worse than expected, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, linked to notions of performativity and accountability, being a crucial factor. This paper draws on a substantial new source of data and explores reasons for leaving in the context of reported initial motivation of individuals who have left teaching, individuals who are planning to leave and individuals who are planning to stay in teaching. (shrink)

The tales they shared with Addams in the wake of the Devil Baby were more personal and revealing than any they had previously told her: stories of abusive mates ...

In _influx & efflux_ Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book _Vibrant Matter_: how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? “Influx _& _efflux”—a phrase borrowed from Whitman's "Song of Myself"—refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of “I” and “we” (...) can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we “write up” influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky both ridicule a hypostasizing and fetishizing picture of interiority: viewing sensations and intentions like discrete material objects. The symbols for this misleading view in their respective works are a beetle and a sachet containing thousand five hundred roubles. The beetle in the box passage in the Philosophical Investigations discredits a Cartesian picture of pain as akin to a thing-like entity. The sachet in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov represents Dmitry’s intention to be honourable. Dostoevsky achieves a perspicuous view (...) of entangled webs of intentions, as opposed to labelling them like object-like entities. I show that Wittgenstein’ account of first-personal thought, including intentions, is not based on the Cartesian dualism of the inner and the outer, the mind and the body. To underscore my argumentation, I refer to The Brothers Karamazov, one of Wittgenstein’s favourite novels. I especially focus on Dmitry’s sachet, which inspired Wittgenstein’s beetle in the box example. I show parallels both in content and in form of Wittgenstein’s and Dostoevsky’s approach to intention as a species of first-personal thought. (shrink)

In an increasingly globalizing world, the aesthetics of Dubai have become potentially available even for impoverished, peripheral cities such as Belgrade. With the explicit rhetoric of finally achi...

The genealogy of ethics starts in the polis. Plato and Aristotle had an optimistic view of polis life, even though Plato was born shortly after the plague of Athens, an experience that left a deep imprint in his society, and interestingly not a very good opinion of democracy. The idea of the polis as the ideal locus for human flourishing can be contested because we do not share the same face-to-face form of life with the ancient polis-dwellers. Contemporary megacities do (...) not harbor an agora in which citizens debate current affairs. Such debates have shifted to social media. It is worth investigating the value of face-to-face interaction even today. Despite the risk of spreading airborne lung diseases like the Corona virus, the possibility of face-to-face interactions allows the cultivation of attention necessary for ethics. Knowing your neighbor by acquaintance, seeing her face every day can make pedestrians better attuned to the need to protect her in times of the pandemic, by maintaining distance and wearing a mask. If this is indeed the case, then it has implications for urban design: urban density can be designed in a way that affords functional proximity and more humane neighborhoods. (shrink)

Technology extends human perception and it intervenes in relations to the environment. Life in cities is particularly affected by newest technological developments, and city dwellers are most shielded and disconnected from the natural world by these very same technologies. The term technology stems from the Greek techne, and it refers to an instrumental relation to the world—a manipulation and adaptation of the environment to human needs. However, by intervening in everyday life and modifying relations to the environment, technology also produces (...) new forms of life and is therefore also poetic in the sense of poiesis. It is clearly distinguished from literary works because it opens worlds of possibilities that are not fictional. This makes a reflection on its poeticity all the more urgent, because the large-scale advent of new technologies such as the industrialization or the digitization radically changes the modes of perception and relations to urban environments. Art works like literature absorb and articulate these changes and are therefore useful “strange tools” for putting on display the changing modes of experiencing cities. For instance, industrialization, explosive urban growth and the rapid modernization of cities overwhelmed the senses. In its very form and rhythm, modernist literature performs the fragmented and brisk-paced experience of modernity. The digital age ostensibly promises intelligibility and order, for digital technologies can survey and manage vast amounts of information. Smart cities are designed for this purpose and for offering tailored solutions to the inhabitants’ individual needs. However, data analytics cannot capture the phenomenological quality of lived experience. Art works can, and contemporary literary works put on display urban life-forms characterized by disembodiment and by exhaustive information on any subject that on its own does not translate into any sense of meaning or belonging. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcilethe Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

A comforting, gentle introduction to the concept of God for young children.