The prevailing opinion in our culture is that bribery is in principle wrong. I challenge that view and offer an analysis that suggests that bribery is a morally neutral concept. The analysis closely parallels the legal notions, suggesting that this analysis may have a firm grounding in our own tradition in spite of the prevailing views. To bribe someone is to offer something of value to another with the intent of inducing an action that is contrary to the positional duties (...) of the office or role of that other person. Whether offering or accepting a bribe is morally correct or incorrect, then, depends entirely upon whether the relevant positional duties have moral backing, all things considered. One virtue of the analysis is that it provides a definition that allows for a cross-cultural comparison that does not impose the standards of one society on those of another but allows for moral judgment. To determine whether a Japanese official has accepted a bribe, for example, one must determine the positional duties of the official as defined in that culture. The analysis also reveals why most believe bribery to be prima facie wrong. This is explained historically by the fact that the concept originally applied exclusively to positional duties in the judicial system, where all believed it to be morally unjustified to transgress duties of impartiality, etc. Finally, the analysis suggests that beliefs about the immorality of commercial bribery rest on the assumption that the positional duties of corporate managers and agents are to abide by the fictitious free-market rules and that the rules of the free market are morally justified. (shrink)

This book raises many moral, legal, social, and political, questions related to possible development, in the near future, of an artificial womb for human use. Is ectogenesis ever morally permissible? If so, under what circumstances? Will ectogenesis enhance or diminish women's reproductive rights and/or their economic opportunities? These are some of the difficult and crucial questions this anthology addresses and attempts to answer.

As Louisiana and Cuba emerged from slavery in the late nineteenth century, each faced the question of what rights former slaves could claim. Degrees of Freedom compares and contrasts these two societies in which slavery was destroyed by war, and citizenship was redefined through social and political upheaval. Both Louisiana and Cuba were rich in sugar plantations that depended on an enslaved labor force. After abolition, on both sides of the Gulf of Mexico, ordinary people-cane cutters and cigar workers, laundresses (...) and labor organizers-forged alliances to protect and expand the freedoms they had won. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, Louisiana and Cuba diverged sharply in the meanings attributed to race and color in public life, and in the boundaries placed on citizenship. Louisiana had taken the path of disenfranchisement and state-mandated racial segregation; Cuba had enacted universal manhood suffrage and had seen the emergence of a transracial conception of the nation. What might explain these differences? Moving through the cane fields, small farms, and cities of Louisiana and Cuba, Rebecca Scott skillfully observes the people, places, legislation, and leadership that shaped how these societies adjusted to the abolition of slavery. The two distinctive worlds also come together, as Cuban exiles take refuge in New Orleans in the 1880s, and black soldiers from Louisiana garrison small towns in eastern Cuba during the 1899 U.S. military occupation. Crafting her narrative from the words and deeds of the actors themselves, Scott brings to life the historical drama of race and citizenship in postemancipation societies. (shrink)

If educators are to educate they must be accorded some level of trust. Anthony Giddens claims that because trust is not easily created, it is now being replaced with ‘confidence’ because this latter disposition is much easier to give and is more convenient. It is argued in this paper that this shift from trust to confidence stifles education because emphasis is placed solely upon qualifications and competence, and is neglectful of disclosing one’s motives and desires—which are considered to be essential (...) elements for relationships and communities which depend upon trust. Therefore, educators ought to seek to become more trustworthy by going beyond evidence-based practices and codes of ethics, towards articulating a developed personal philosophy of education outlining the ultimate end-purposes to which they aspire. Through such a philosophy, educators identify their ultimate desires and commitments and this self-disclosure can make trust-giving more likely. Demonstrated evidence of achievements and qualifications encourage confidence and this has some value. In addition to these artefacts of evidence, it is argued here that educators must also articulate what they actually desire. This can be understood as John Dewey’s virtue of ‘genuine interest’ which he characterises as being wholehearted, persistent and impartial. For educators, this is often represented in our personal philosophy of education and because it is personal, it is also existential in the sense that it pertains to giving sense, meaning and purpose to all of our activities and way of life for which we are individually responsible and passionately committed to as professionals. As a consequence of being existential, our philosophy and our commitment to it has an intellectual and moral aspect and because it reaches to the very depths of our raison d’être, it pertains to our passion as described by Søren Kierkegaard. This paper shall draw upon Dewey’s notion of wholeheartedness and Kierkegaard’s notion of purity of heart, to make the case that if educators embrace these in their practices, we may become more trustworthy. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

John Dewey has been portrayed as a sort of villain in Rosenow's (1997) article which appeared in this journal, apparently because he was unfairly opposed to God and to religion, and also because he deliberately usurped religious language to 'camouflage' his secular ideas. By drawing mainly upon similar sources but with some important additions, I wish to challenge the four major concerns raised in Rosenow's article and in doing so aim to offer an alternative interpretation. It is understood here (...) that Dewey's approach to religion was not so much religious as it was 'spiritual' and while developing and changing throughout his writings, his ideas on spirituality nevertheless were thoroughly entwined with his other views, especially those dealing with education, science and democracy. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an evaluation of Australia's National Framework for Values Education in terms of its educative value. The criteria to be employed in this evaluation shall be drawn primarily from the works of UNESCO and John Dewey. In addition to a re-evaluation of values, consideration will also be given to how individual learners are being prepared to participate democratically in the quest for world peace. It will therefore be necessary to determine whether the Australian framework promotes (...) the potential for democratic participation through inquiry or whether through schooling its overtly nationalistic agenda actually stifles the capacity of persons to participate in a pursuit for global understandings and world peace. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an evaluation of Australia's National Framework for Values Education in terms of its educative value. The criteria to be employed in this evaluation shall be drawn primarily from the works of UNESCO and John Dewey. In addition to a re‐evaluation of values, consideration will also be given to how individual learners are being prepared to participate democratically in the quest for world peace. It will therefore be necessary to determine whether the Australian framework promotes (...) the potential for democratic participation through inquiry or whether through schooling its overtly nationalistic agenda actually stifles the capacity of persons to participate in a pursuit for global understandings and world peace. (shrink)

Amongst the many aims of education, surely the pursuit of global peace must be one of the most significant. The mandate of UNESCO is to pursue world peace through education by primarily promoting collaboration. The sort of collaboration that UNESCO endorses involves democratic dialogue, where various persons from differing backgrounds can come together, listen, negotiate and discuss possible ways in which peace might be pursued. While this sort of democratic dialogue with its associated free intellectual inquiry is more readily acceptable (...) for issues dealing with problems in the realm of physical nature, it is not so easily tolerated in the realm of ethics and values. Indeed inquiry into the realm of ethics by Kierkegaard has been described by Levinas to be a form of violence. Similarly John Dewey's work has been included in a list of the ten most harmful books by some conservatives in the United States because he promoted inquiry into morals and religion. Dewey argued against the assumption that there are two-realms—one physical and one moral. He and Kierkegaard both encouraged democratic inquiry into ethics, which is the sort of collaboration recognised by UNESCO as being necessary if we are to pursue world peace. Yet such investigations can be considered by some to be violent and harmful. It is argued here that pursuing inquiries into ethics and aims of education, while appearing to challenge the status quo, should not be construed as being violent but rather should be understood as democratic and educative. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

We evaluate here the performance of four models of cross-situational word learning: two global models, which extract and retain multiple referential alternatives from each word occurrence; and two local models, which extract just a single referent from each occurrence. One of these local models, dubbed Pursuit, uses an associative learning mechanism to estimate word-referent probability but pursues and tests the best referent-meaning at any given time. Pursuit is found to perform as well as global models under many conditions extracted from (...) naturalistic corpora of parent-child interactions, even though the model maintains far less information than global models. Moreover, Pursuit is found to best capture human experimental findings from several relevant cross-situational word-learning experiments, including those of Yu and Smith (), the paradigm example of a finding believed to support fully global cross-situational models. Implications and limitations of these results are discussed, most notably that the model characterizes only the earliest stages of word learning, when reliance on the co-occurring referent world is at its greatest. (shrink)

while many have explored the international reception of Dewey’s thought—for instance, by Hu Shih in the Chinese context—little has been said about the fate of pragmatism in India. Yet there is a line of discernable influence to Indian politics and civil rights movements in the person of Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar was a famous Indian statesman and anti-caste activist, but he was also a formidable intellectual and philosopher whose collected works span over twenty volumes. He also was highly educated in the (...) West, earning degrees from universities in America and England. Importantly for the fate of pragmatism in India, one of the academic mentors that made a significant impact on Ambedkar during his... (shrink)

"Examines the relationship between art and morality discussed in the writings of American pragmatist John Dewey.

American democracy, while no stranger to internal conflict, has seemingly reached a boiling point regarding political partisanship. Things have gotten so bad that parties rarely talk to each other on important issues, and shutting down the government over ideological disagreements has become a more or less accepted move. Tom Allen, a former U.S. representative from Maine, paints this provocative picture of how the warring political parties in the U.S. government see each other: “Democrats see Republicans as inattentive to evidence and (...) expertise, unconcerned about Americans struggling to get by, and reflexively opposed to government action to deal with our collective challenges. On the other hand, Republicans see.. (shrink)

Bhimrao Ambedkar is well-known as the architect of the Indian constitution, the document that created the world's largest democracy when it came into effect in 1950. Ambedkar is also famous, or infamous according to some religious partisans, in the Indian political context for his unflagging and often bombastic advocacy on behalf of India's so-called "untouchables." Being a Mahar, an untouchable caste in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar knew of the struggles and the religiously underwritten violence that was foisted upon (...) these swaths of Indian society. His struggles in and against the caste system, and the Hindu religious-philosophical system that frequently enabled it, are well documented by... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John Dewey and the Question of Artful CommunicationScott R. StroudThe American pragmatist John Dewey included tantalizing sections of praise of the power of communication in his important work on community, experience, and their improvement, noting in 1925 that "of all aff airs, communication is the most wonderful" (1988a, LW 1:132) and in 1927 that communication plays an important part in the individual's attempt "to learn to become (...) human" (1984, LW 2:332).1 Some in the field of communication have sensed the important, but undeveloped, role that communication plays in his thought and have attempted to use Dewey's work in analyzing rhetorical practice, cultural studies, and the role of journalism in society.2 While such studies strive to clarify the value and process of communication in Dewey's thought, they fall short of explaining one seemingly simple thing that is implied in these passages—that communication can be experienced as aesthetic or artful. Nathan Crick identifies such a lacuna in the literature and notes that "beyond its utility as an argument against elite forms of academic criticism, the value of Dewey's aesthetic theory for communication studies remained underdeveloped" (2004, 303). Although he does an admirable job of tracing the relation of aesthetics to communication in Dewey's evolving thought, Crick comes no closer than others in answering the fundamental question of how communication can be artful or aesthetic—he merely argues for the general point that " communication, [End Page 153] whether it occurs in an oration, a conversation, or a television, is best understood as a form of art that has the potential to bring about aesthetic experience in its participants and open their eyes to the world of possibility embodied within each of us" (2004, 314). How exactly does this aesthetization of communication occur? Crick ends his article with the interesting claim that "in its aesthetic form communication becomes rhetorical. It turns communication into an art whose goal is a presentation that unites form and rhythm in a manner that can reach down into the experiences of the audience and literally transform them into something new" (2004, 317). How exactly does communication meet such standards? Does such a "high" art of communication as rhetoric fit everyday communication, the vast majority of human communicative practices?3 Although Crick's study is an important inquiry into the overall role of communication in Dewey's aesthetics, it still leaves open the fundamental question—How exactly can any given act of communication (beyond the eloquent and poetic oration) be rendered aesthetic or artful?This question was vitally important for Dewey, as he places artistic and aesthetic aspects of communicative practice at the very heart of his social and political philosophy. In describing the "Great Community," he announces that it will take place when two conditions hold: "The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and breathe life into it.... Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of free and enriching communion.... It will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication" (1984, LW 2:350). This is a vital passage for understanding Dewey's aims, as it clearly links a scientific method of thinking (his preferred method of "inquiry") with a form of communication that can be taken as an art.Yet scholars of communication systematically miss this part of the Deweyan equation. For instance, take Lary Belman's early study of Dewey's view of communication. He concludes by analyzing this same passage from Dewey on the two conditions of the Great Community and states, "The basic conditions for the creation of a Great Community... were, Dewey postulated, the presence of (a) vigorous, systematic, and continuous social inquiry to reveal the influential agencies at work in society and their mode of operation, and (b) widespread and rapid distribution of the findings of this inquiry in a form readily understood by those for whom these findings [End Page 154] have significance" (1977, 36–37). It is remarkable that the... (shrink)

Lists of species underpin many fields of human endeavour, but there are currently no universally accepted principles for deciding which biological species should be accepted when there are alternative taxonomic treatments (and, by extension, which scientific names should be applied to those species). As improvements in information technology make it easier to communicate, access, and aggregate biodiversity information, there is a need for a framework that helps taxonomists and the users of taxonomy decide which taxa and names should be used (...) by society whilst continuing to encourage taxonomic research that leads to new species discoveries, new knowledge of species relationships, and the refinement of existing species concepts. Here, we present 10 principles that can underpin such a governance framework, namely (i) the species list must be based on science and free from nontaxonomic considerations and interference, (ii) governance of the species list must aim for community support and use, (iii) all decisions about list composition must be transparent, (iv) the governance of validated lists of species is separate from the governance of the names of taxa, (v) governance of lists of accepted species must not constrain academic freedom, (vi) the set of criteria considered sufficient to recognise species boundaries may appropriately vary between different taxonomic groups but should be consistent when possible, (vii) a global list must balance conflicting needs for currency and stability by having archived versions, (viii) contributors need appropriate recognition, (ix) list content should be traceable, and (x) a global listing process needs both to encompass global diversity and to accommodate local knowledge of that diversity. We conclude by outlining issues that must be resolved if such a system of taxonomic list governance and a unified list of accepted scientific names generated are to be universally adopted. (shrink)

Defining “criticism” is a simple—but bedeviling—task. No less a critic and theorist than Edwin Black begins with the simple statement that “criticism is what critics do.” While he admits that this seems like an empty definition, Black does note that it has one redeeming feature—“It compels us to focus on the critic” (1978, 4). Criticism and those who engage in it are integrally connected, and any account of critical activity must deal with both the activity and its actor. In this (...) way, it is much like art—one could easily utter that “art is what artists do.” Criticism is often tied to art and its products, so this appears to be a fair way to proceed in an investigation of criticism. Yet I would argue .. (shrink)

The American pragmatist John Dewey was no stranger to the problems of economics and their effects on the quality of work experience. Indeed, in his Democracy and Education (1916/1985), he remarks that “the greatest evil of the present regime is not found in poverty and in the suffering which it entails, but in the fact that so many persons have callings which make no appeal to them, which are pursued simply for the money reward that accrues” (MW 9:326–27). This (...) was not a uniquely American problem, as he continued to discuss the “problem of labor” in his lectures in China from 1919 to 1921. There his analysis of education and what it has to contribute to capitalistic economies takes on a more comparative shade .. (shrink)

This study explores the pragmatist thought of the Indian politician and “untouchable” rights activity, Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar’s connection to the pragmatist tradition through John Dewey is discussed, as well as the various lines of influence that Dewey had upon his work once back in India. Beyond this general appraisal, this chapter exhaustively charts the echoes of Dewey’s words, phrases, and ideas in Ambedkar’s vital “Annihilation of Caste” text, showing that pragmatism influence his as both a source of ideas as (...) well as a method of rhetorical practice. Ambedkar’s pragmatist appropriations lead to his grafting of Deweyan ideas of democracy onto his battle against Indian caste oppression, as well as general reconstructive rhetorical method. (shrink)

In his work on aesthetics, John Dewey provocatively (and enigmatically) called art the "most universal and freest form of communication," and tied his reading of aesthetic experience to such an employment. I will explore how art, a seemingly obscure and indirect means of communication, can be used as the most effective and moving means of communication in certain circumstances. Dewey's theory of art will be shown to hold that art can be purposively employed to communicatively evoke a certain experience (...) through an auditor's experience of an art object. Such a use is shown to be an extension of Dewey's conceptions of scientific method and the role of experience in criticism and communication, and is discussed in light of examples drawn from contemporary film, sculpture, and classical Japanese poetry. (shrink)

This article proposes "equality" as a topic for interactionist research. By drawing on the perspectives of Herbert Blumer, Alfred Schutz, and Harold Garfinkel, an attempt is made to lay the theoretical groundwork for studying the interpretive and experiential aspects of equality. Blumer's fundamental premises of symbolic interactionism, Schutz's analysis of relevance and typification, and Garfinkel's treatment of reflexivity and indexicality are explicated and applied to the subject of equality. I then draw upon the moral theory of John Dewey to (...) suggest the positive role that interactionist theory and research might play in the resolution of problematic situations that are framed in terms of equality. Collectively, the complementary aspects of Blumer's, Schutz's, Garfinkel's, and Dewey's thought are used to justify and launch a program of research on a neglected yet important topic: the social construction of equality in everyday life. (shrink)

In the present work, I constructively engage the thought of the American pragmatist John Dewey and the Zen Buddhist Dōmgen on moral cultivation. I argue that Dewey presents a useful notion of moral development and growth with a focus on attentiveness to one's situation, but I also note that he leaves out extended analysis of how one is to foster such an orientation. Turning to the writings of Dōmgen, I argue that Deweyan moral theory can be supplemented by the (...) methods that Zen Buddhism prescribes to bring attentiveness back to one's experience of activity. This analysis is placed in the context of my overall project of orientational meliorism, or the alteration of one's orientation toward self, world, and activity with the goal of improving the quality of one's future experience. (shrink)

This study seeks to understand and critique the growing online trend of “revenge porn,” or the intentional embarrassment of identifiable individuals through the posting of nude images online. This posting of intimate pictures, often done out of motives of revenge for perceived relational scorn, is enhanced by the varying levels of online anonymity. Using the theoretical framework of John Dewey's pragmatism, this study both analyzes this understudied but complex new problem precipitated by the conditions of the online self and (...) establishes the groundwork for the use of pragmatist ethics in other areas of communication ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of RhetoricScott R. StroudPragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric by Robert Danisch Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 190. $39.95, cloth.The classical pragmatists are an infuriating bunch for those in rhetorical studies. For instance, the commitment of William James and John Dewey to uncertainty and change in politics and epistemology stands to position them with those studying (...) rhetoric as a necessary tool in the uncertain situation that humans find themselves in—be it in nature or in society. But the pragmatists steadfastly avoid engaging (or even using) the concepts of rhetorical theory or practice. Even the commentary of James and Dewey on "communication" is vague and often perfunctory. Thus, contemporary rhetorical scholars find themselves at an impasse—Do they talk about the pragmatists, even though the pragmatists do not engage the rhetorical tradition in a sustained fashion, or do they simply ignore this important and fairly original strain of American thought (perhaps in favor of European lines of philosophical thought)? I believe that the more interesting choice is to pursue the former option and to engage the pragmatists in terms of what they have to offer communication studies and the study of rhetoric. This, of course, will necessitate acknowledging their compatibility and relative lack of engagement with the rhetorical tradition. The rewards of such a constructive engagement, however, could be great for the study of communication and rhetoric.This is the path that Robert Danisch's recent book, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric, sets out to traverse. The stated project [End Page 96] of this work is to show the compatibility of the classical rhetorical tradition and the pragmatist tradition. Beyond this, Danisch attempts to show that rhetoric is essential to the pragmatist project and that a variety of rhetorics can be identified in the actual work or practices of important American pragmatists. As he clearly puts it in his concluding chapter, "This is precisely the purpose of pragmatism—it was designed as a philosophy that would ultimately extend beyond itself to invent tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments of change that it alone could not imagine. It is my contention that rhetorics and rhetorical theories are just those tools, techniques, ideas, and instruments" (144). I believe that Danisch goes an admirable distance in making this case and in furthering the still-nascent work that strives to connect rhetoric and pragmatism.Danisch begins his case for connecting rhetoric and pragmatism by addressing the two traditions in general terms. First, he limits his inquiry to classical rhetoric, although his concluding chapter features issues and figures within more recent rhetorical scholarship. This is a defensible strategy, as "rhetoric" is almost as ambiguous and inexact as "pragmatism." What connects both classical rhetoric and pragmatism, according to Danisch's way of setting up the analysis, is that both traditions represent approaches or orientations toward the world and society. Both see the world as fundamentally uncertain, and both see human action as playing a vital role in creating what actually "is" the case, whether it is in terms of scientific knowledge or political institutions. He clarifies this in terms of how rhetoric and pragmatism focus on action—"The question for both pragmatism and rhetoric concerns method. Active human agents employ tools and techniques designed to order and influence human affairs; pragmatism and rhetoric share this concern" (39). Thus, both focus on methods of guiding and directing human action such that it results in the sort of world that we want to instantiate or create. Danisch attempts to explore the connection of these two traditions, and he promises that beyond being possible, it will be rewarding in three ways. First, pragmatism seems to offer the resources and opportunities to develop "rhetorics based on its principles and fit to the problems of contemporary democracy" (15). Second, such an engagement of pragmatism with the concepts of classical rhetoric will reaffirm the importance of these classical concepts in today's circumstances. Third, both pragmatism and rhetoric will be improved, since "philosophies are improved by exploring their relationships to rhetoric, and rhetorics are improved by exploring their intellectual justifications" (15). Some may be uneasy... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores what the contours of a pragmatist theory of rhetoric would be like in its democratic instantiation. The threat of partisan thought and dogmatism in argument is examined as a threat to the sort of democratic community pragmatists such as John Dewey desired to create. Partisans fail to realize not only their own limitations in pursuing the true and the good but also the fact that solving problems through overly partisan forms of reasoning or argument only (...) creates future obstacles to community life. This provides an extended reading of what Dewey meant by free communication: communication not only free from legal constraints and censorship but also free from the binding habits of thought and interaction that can be identified as “partisan perfect reasoning.”. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

This article constructs a theory of moral cultivation from the writings of John Dewey. Examining his early work in ethics, I argue that the goal of moral cultivation for such a Deweyan scheme is an individual who is attentive and engaged with the particulars of her situation. I then sketch an account of art's moral value and its connection to attentiveness, intimating a way to dissolve longstanding problems in the philosophy of art.

We typically explain human action teleologically, by citing the action's goal or purpose. However, a broad class of naturalistic projects within the philosophy of mind presuppose that teleological explanation is reducible to causal explanation. In this paper I argue that two recently suggested strategies - one suggested by Al Mele and the other proposed by John Bishop and Christopher Peacocke - fail to provide a successful causal analysis of teleological explanation. The persistent troubles encountered by the reductive project suggest (...) that teleological explanations are irreducible and that the naturalistic accounts of mind and agency should be called into question. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Democracy proposes the impossible: that each citizen makes community with those they consider opponents or foes. In the increasingly embittered partisan environment animating so many democracies, this paradoxical demand justifies more attention. This article explores the challenges of democracy among polarized and divided groups by engaging the political theory of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Navayana pragmatism. Ambedkar, an Indian political figure and thinker who felt the crushing oppression of caste discrimination, reshapes the pragmatism of John Dewey to better encapsulate the (...) importance of overcoming divisions and injustices while forging a community of shared interests. Using Ambedkar’s merging of the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity into a pragmatist vision of democracy as a habit or way of life, this article demonstrates that justice can be usefully taken as a balancing of values among agreeing and disagreeing citizens. This also leads to a recognition of the tragedy of democracy, or the fact that attending to the end and means of fraternity places limits on what one group can do to their opponents in the pursuit of freedom or equality. (shrink)

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex moral decision-making have a deep connection? What are the moral responsibilities of the artist, critic, and reader? What can religious perspectives—from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon—contribute to literary criticism? Thirty well known contributors reflect on these questions, including iterary theorists Marshall Gregory, James Phelan, (...) and Wayne Booth; philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Richard Hart, and Nina Rosenstand; and authors John Updike, Charles Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, and Bernard Malamud. Divided into four sections, with introductory matter and questions for discussion, this accessible anthology represents the most crucial work today exploring the interdisciplinary connections between literature, religion and philosophy. (shrink)

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.