Th is paper explores the perception of urban landscapes through sound, using two case studies of cities where bells played a significant role in the city, where a particular dramatic event silenced these bells, and where the act of remaking broken or tuneless bells re-creates an engagement with the lived places of the past. At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, newly cast bells recreate the melodious peal last heard before the French Revolution, and ChristChurch Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, bells (...) damaged by destructive earthquakes of 2011 will eventually ring out their familiar tones in an urban landscape that is physically almost unrecognisable. Both case studies demonstrate the ways that the inadvertent and the deliberate transformation of soundscapes continually interacts with ideas of place and meaning within the constantly changing city. (shrink)

The literature on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises concerns that these technologies may affect personality, mood, and behavior. We conducted semi-structured interviews with researchers (n = 23) involved in developing next-generation DBS systems, exploring their perspectives on ethics and policy topics including whether DBS/aDBS can cause such changes. The majority of researchers reported being aware of personality, mood, or behavioral (PMB) changes in recipients of DBS/aDBS. Researchers offered varying estimates of the frequency of PMB changes. A (...) smaller majority reported changes in personality specifically. Some expressed reservations about the scientific status of the term ‘personality,’ while others used it freely. Most researchers discussed negative PMB changes, but a majority said that DBS/aDBS can also result in positive changes. Several researchers viewed positive PMB changes as part of the therapeutic goal in psychiatric applications of DBS/aDBS. Finally, several discussed potential causes of PMB changes other than the device itself. (shrink)

The expansion of research on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises important neuroethics and policy questions related to data sharing. However, there has been little empirical research on the perspectives of experts developing these technologies. We conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with aDBS researchers regarding their data sharing practices and their perspectives on ethical and policy issues related to sharing. Researchers expressed support for and a commitment to sharing, with most saying that they were either sharing their data (...) or would share in the future and that doing so was important for advancing the field. However, those who are sharing reported a variety of sharing partners, suggesting heterogeneity in sharing practices and lack of the broad sharing that would reflect principles of open science. Researchers described several concerns and barriers related to sharing, including privacy and confidentiality, the usability of shared data by others, ownership and control of data (including potential commercialization), and limited resources for sharing. They also suggested potential solutions to these challenges, including additional safeguards to address privacy issues, standardization and transparency in analysis to address issues of data usability, professional norms and heightened cooperation to address issues of ownership and control, and streamlining of data transmission to address resource limitations. Researchers also offered a range of views on the sensitivity of neural activity data (NAD) and data related to mental health in the context of sharing. These findings are an important input to deliberations by researchers, policymakers, neuroethicists, and other stakeholders as they navigate ethics and policy questions related to aDBS research. (shrink)

The capacity of next-generation closed-loop or adaptive deep brain stimulation devices to read and write shows great potential to effectively manage movement, seizure, and psychiatric disorders, and also raises the possibility of using aDBS to electively modulate mood, cognition, and prosociality. What separates aDBS from most neurotechnologies currently used for enhancement is that aDBS remains an invasive, surgically-implanted technology with a risk-benefit ratio significantly different when applied to diseased versus non-diseased individuals. Despite a large discourse about the ethics of enhancement, (...) no empirical studies yet examine perspectives on enhancement from within the aDBS research community. We interviewed 23 aDBS researchers about their attitudes toward expanding aDBS use for enhancement. A thematic content analysis revealed that researchers share ethical concerns related to safety and security; enhancement as unnecessary, unnatural or aberrant; and fairness, equality, and distributive justice. Most researchers felt that enhancement applications for DBS will eventually be technically feasible and that attempts to develop such applications for DBS are already happening. However, researchers unanimously felt that DBS ideally should not be considered for enhancement until researchers better understand brain target localization and functioning. While many researchers acknowledged controversies highlighted by scholars and ethicists, such as potential impacts on personhood, authenticity, autonomy and privacy, their ethical concerns reflect considerations of both gravity and perceived near-term likelihood. (shrink)

"What is required if men and women are to feel at home in society and are to recover their vitality? Into wrestling with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like ninepins, and she is as fertile and forthright in her positive suggestions . . . she can be relied upon to toss aside the superficial and to come to grips with the (...) essential and the profound." -- Time Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Simone Weil is one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century. Her writings encompass an extraordinary breadth of subjects, including philosophy, religion, sociology, and politics. A political activist and resistance fighter, her accomplishments are even more astonishing in light of her death in 1943 at the age of thirty-four. Whilst Weil was concerned with deep philosophical questions - the nature of human thought and human faculties, the limits of language, and thought's contact with reality through mediation, science and (...) beauty - the full significance of her work has frequently been obscured by her categorization as a purely religious writer or Christian mystic. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an expertly edited anthology of her most important writings, presenting Weil's philosophy as it relates to politics, the nature of work, human nature in its duality, necessity, beauty and goodness. D. K. Levy and Marina Barabas have translated all the extracts anew, including translations of important notes and references missing from existing English language editions of Weil's work. Following an extensive introduction by D. K. Levy which places Weil's life and thought in context, each section opens with a short introduction situating the chosen passages within Weil's oeuvre. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an outstanding starting point for anyone seeking an introduction to Weil's philosophy, and also essential reading for students and scholars of Weil's thought in related disciplines. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a defining figure of the twentieth century; a philosopher, Christian, resistance fighter, anarchist, feminist, labor activist and teacher. She was described by T. S. Eliot as "a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints," and by Albert Camus as "the only great spirit of our time." Originally published posthumously in two volumes, these newly reissued notebooks, are among the very few unedited personal writings of Weil's that still survive today. (...) Containing her thoughts on art, love, science, God and the meaning of life, they give context and meaning to Weil's famous works, revealing a unique philosophy in development and offering a rare private glimpse of her singular personality. (shrink)

Simone Weil's Leçons de Philosophie are derived from a course she taught at the lyce;e for girls at Roanne in 1933-4. Anne Reynaud-Gue;rithault was a pupil in the class; her notes are not a verbatim record but are a very full and, as far as one can judge, faithful rendering, often catching the unmistakable tone of Simone Weil's voice as well as the force and the directness of her thought. The lectures form a good general introduction to philosophy, ranging widely (...) over problems about perception, mind, language, reasoning and problems in moral and political philosophy too. Her method of presentation is a characteristic combination of abstract argument, personal experience and literary or historical reference. Peter Winch points out in his introduction to the book some of the more systematic connections in her philosophical work (and between this philosophical work and her other concerns), and makes a number of suggestive comparisons between Simone Weil and Wittgenstein. The translation is by Hugh Price from the Plon edition of 1959. Dr Price has added some notes to explain references in the text that might be unfamiliar to English speaking students beginning philosophy. (shrink)

Stephen Morse seems to have adopted a controversial position regarding the mindbody relationship: John Searle’s non-reductivism, which claims that conscious mental states are causal yet not reducible to their underlying brain states. Searle’s position has been roundly criticized, with some arguing the theory taken as a whole is incoherent. In this paper I review these criticisms and add my own, concluding that Searle’s position is indeed contradictory, both internally and with regard to Morse's other views. Thus I argue that Morse (...) ought to abandon Searle’s non-reductive theory. Instead, I claim Morse ought to adopt a non-eliminative reductive account that can more easily support his realism about folk psychological states, and the existence of causally effective mental states in a purely physical world. (shrink)

Gravity and Grace was the first ever publication by the remarkable thinker and activist, Simone Weil. In it Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals.

This thesis defends egalitarianism about knowledge and belief, on which neither is understood in terms of the other, from what I call the abductive argument. This argument is meant to favour views opposed to egalitarianism: doxasticism, on which knowledge is understood in terms of belief, and epistemicism, on which belief is understood in terms of knowledge. The abductive argument turns on the idea that doxasticism and epistemicism, by contrast with egalitarianism, explain certain data about knowledge and belief. I argue, however, (...) that no versions of doxasticism and epistemicism currently on offer are preferable to egalitarianism on abductive grounds. As part of my argument, I also defend the claim that knowledge, by contrast with belief, is an attitude to a fact and explore the implications of this claim for doxasticism and epistemicism. (shrink)

In this first-ever history of contemporary liberal theory, Forrester shows how liberal egalitarianism--a set of ideas about justice, equality, obligation, and the state--became dominant, and traces its emergence from the political and ideological context of the postwar United States and Britain.d Britain.

In Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks , Simone Weil discusses precursors to Christian religious ideas which can be found in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy. She looks at evidence of "Christian" feelings in Greek literature, notably in Electra, Orestes, and Antigone , and in the Iliad , going on to examine God in Plato, and divine love in creation, as seen by the ancient Greeks.

Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical (in)dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...) The directions of causal/explanatory relations in our world seem not to depend on the statistical (in)dependence relations in our world (conceived of either as frequency patterns or as relations among chances). Thus, we doubt that statistical (in)dependence relations are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. (shrink)

自史蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking) 的暢銷科普著作《時間簡史》(以下簡稱《簡史》) 在上世紀八十年代末問世以來，至今天二十一世紀，華人基督教界就他宇宙無起點的論述仍有相當之評論，但可惜對評論未有綜合分析。評論者因寫作目的，也甚少交代霍金宇宙學的來龍去脈。故本文嘗試略述霍金宇宙學的歷史 背景及發展經過，繼而舉出華人基督教界的評論，帶出其獨特性，並提出商確的地方，以反省未來可行路向。.

The paper distinguishes between weak and strong epistemic possibility and argues that the notion of strong epistemic possibility is the key to solving some of the most vexing puzzles about the semantics of epistemic modality.

The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of leadership and promotion regulatory focus on employees’ willingness to engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior . Building from a person–situation interactionist perspective, we investigate the interaction of leadership style and how leaders frame messages, as well as test a three-way interaction with promotion focus. Using an experimental design, we found that inspirational and charismatic transformational leaders elicited higher levels of UPB than transactional leaders when the leaders used loss framing, but (...) not gain framing. Furthermore, followers’ promotion regulatory focus moderated this relationship such that the effect held for followers with low promotion focus, but not for individuals with high promotion focus. Our findings extend the understanding of UPB, offer theoretical mechanisms to explain when this behavior occurs, and contribute to leadership theory and research on ethical decision making. (shrink)

A synchronic probability is the probability at a time that an outcome occurs at that very time. Common sense invokes synchronic probabilities with values between 0 and 1, as do scientific theories such as classical statistical mechanics. Recently, philosophers have argued about whether any synchronic probabilities are best interpreted as objective chances. I add to this debate an underappreciated reason we might have to believe in synchronic chance; it might turn out that the best interpretation of our common sense and (...) scientific theories is one in which the macrophysical properties of physical systems are partly determined by synchronic chance distributions over microphysical properties of those systems. Additionally, I argue against the common charge that synchronic probability fails to satisfy various platitudes about chance—most notably Lewis’s Principal Principle. (shrink)

Professional sport in the United States has widely adopted biometric technologies, dramatically expanding the monitoring of players’ biodata. These technologies have the potential to prevent injuries, improve performance, and extend athletes’ careers; they also risk compromising players’ privacy and autonomy, the confidentiality of their data, and their careers. The use of these technologies in professional sport and the consumer sector remains largely unregulated and unexamined. We seek to provide guidance for their adoption by examining five areas of concern: validity and (...) interpretation of data; increased surveillance and threats to privacy; risks to confidentiality and concerns regarding data security; conflicts of interest; and coercion. Our analysis uses professional sport as a case study; however, these concerns extend to other domains where their use is expanding, including the consumer sector, collegiate and high school sport, the military, and commercial sectors where monitori... (shrink)

To fight climate change, firms must adopt effective and feasible carbon management practices that promote collaboration within supply chains. Engaging suppliers and customers on carbon management reduces vulnerability to climate-related risks and increases resilience and adaptability in supply chains. Therefore, it is important to understand the motives and preconditions for pursuing supply chain engagement from companies that actively engage with supply chain members in carbon management. In this study, a relational view is applied to operationalize the supply chain engagement concept (...) to reflect the different levels of supplier and customer engagement. Based on a sample of 345 companies from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s supply chain program, the determinants of engagement were hypothesized and tested using multinomial and ordinal logistic estimation methods. The results indicate that companies that integrate climate change into their strategies and are involved in developing environmental public policy are driven by moral motives to engage their suppliers and customers in carbon management. All these factors make a stronger impact on supplier engagement than on customer engagement. Moreover, companies operating in greenhouse gas-intensive industries are driven by instrumental motives to engage their suppliers and customers because increasing greenhouse gas intensity positively influences engagement level. Company profitability appears to increase supplier engagement, but not customer engagement. Interestingly, operating in a country with stringent environmental regulations does not appear to influence supply chain engagement. By utilizing relational capabilities and collaboration, buyers can increase their suppliers’ engagement to disclose emissions, which ultimately will lead to better results in carbon management. (shrink)

The practice of mortuary archaeology often relies upon the examination of funerary assemblages in order to reconstruct socio-cultural changes among a group of people. This paper takes a closer look at the grave goods from two pairs of Iron-Age elite Lucanian tombs at the settlement of Roccagloriosa in order to detect how funerary ideology changed over time. From the evidence I argue that there was an evolution of aristocratic gentilician identity alongside the establishment of the newly formed Lucanian ethnos in (...) Southern Italy between the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (shrink)

The practice of mortuary archaeology often relies upon the examination of funerary assemblages in order to reconstruct socio-cultural changes among a group of people. This paper takes a closer look at the grave goods from two pairs of Iron-Age elite Lucanian tombs at the settlement of Roccagloriosa in order to detect how funerary ideology changed over time. From the evidence I argue that there was an evolution of aristocratic gentilician identity alongside the establishment of the newly formed Lucanian ethnos in (...) Southern Italy between the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (shrink)

In light of recent interest among political theorists in the idea of political realism, Judith Shklar’s liberalism of fear has come to be associated with anti-Rawlsian thought. This paper seeks to show that, on the contrary, Shklar’s specific formulation of political realism, unlike more recent variations, was not motivated by a critique of Rawls. This paper will address three concerns: first, it will show what exactly Shklar’s initial realism was responding to; second, it will consider the implications of this realism (...) for thinking about liberal democracies; third, it will attempt, briefly, in light of this, to make sense of her relationship with Rawls and, in turn, through a comparison with Bernard Williams’s thought, her relationship to anti-Rawlsian political realism. (shrink)

Dystonia is a movement disorder that can have a debilitating impact on motor functions and quality of life. There are 250,000 cases in the United States, most with childhood onset. Due to the limited effectiveness and side effects of available treatments, pediatric deep brain stimulation has emerged as an intervention for refractory dystonia. However, there is limited clinical and neuroethics research in this area of clinical practice. This paper examines whether it is ethically justified to offer pDBS to children with (...) refractory dystonia. Given the favorable risk-benefit profile, it is concluded that offering pDBS is ethically justified for certain etiologies of dystonia, but it is less clear for others. In addition, various ethical and policy concerns are discussed, which need to be addressed to optimize the practice of offering pDBS for dystonia. Strategies are proposed to help address these concerns as pDBS continues to expand. (shrink)

Worldwide there are currently over 1200 research studies being performed on the topic of COVID-19. Many of these involve children and adults over age 65 years. There are also numerous studies testing investigational vaccines on healthy volunteers. No research team is exempt from the pressures and speed at which COVID-19 research is occurring. And this can increase the risk of honest error as well as misconduct. To date, 33 papers have been identified as unsuitable for public use and either retracted, (...) withdrawn, or noted with concern. Asia is the source of most of these manuscripts (n=19; 57.6%) with China the largest Asian subgroup (n=11; 57.9%). This paper explores these findings and offers guidance for responsible research practice during pandemics. (shrink)

Agricultural industries in developed countries may need to consider transformative change if they are to respond effectively to contemporary challenges, including a changing climate. In this paper we apply a resilience lens to analyze a deliberate attempt by Australian governments to restructure the dairy industry, and then utilize this analysis to assess the usefulness of resilience thinking for contemporary agricultural transformations. Our analysis draws on findings from a case study of market deregulation in the subtropical dairy industry. Semi-structured interviews were (...) conducted with dairy producers, their service providers, and industry and government staff. We found the adaptive cycle concept contributed to understanding how deregulation changed industry structures and working practices, how those changes led to feedbacks within the production system and supply chain, and how the industry following deregulation has experienced periods of stability and instability. Regime shifts were associated with an increase in demand for human capital, a degradation of cognitive social capital and a reduction in farm income. Findings identified that were not readily explained by the resilience thinking conceptual framework include a producer’s ability to anticipate and make choices and the change in social and power relationships in the industry. (shrink)

Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...) The directions of causal/explanatory relations in our world seem not to depend on the statistical dependence relations in our world. Thus, we doubt that statistical dependence relations are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. (shrink)

There is considerable concern that climate change will displace many people in developing countries from their homes. This article examines whether developed countries are morally obligated to assist people displaced by climate change in developing countries. The article argues that there may not be a moral duty to assist climate change migrants as a category. Nonetheless, developed countries may have duties to assist vulnerable people elsewhere and may be obligated to assist climate change migrants along with other vulnerable people. In (...) addition, there likely is a duty to assist a particular subset of climate change migrants, specifically the citizens of small island countries existentially threatened by climate change. The article concludes by assessing the implications of its moral analysis for the focus of law and policy. Instead of developing new treaties to assist climate change migrants as a number of academics and practitioners have recently proposed, law and policy should be concerned with assisting migrants at risk generally, and/or the citizens of small island countries existentially threatened by climate change. (shrink)

Does neo-Rawlsian political philosophy offer an adequate account of the social conditions of capitalism? In this paper, I present two arguments for thinking that it does not. First, I develop a historicist critique of liberal egalitarianism, arguing that it provides a vision of social reality that is intimately connected to the historical and ideological constellation that I call postwar liberalism, and as such cannot account for social reality since the neoliberal revolutions of the late twentieth century. Second, I explore arguments (...) in Marxist and critical social theory that cast liberal egalitarianism as partial, on account of its inadequate portrait of capitalist society. In surveying responses to these critiques, I argue that merely extending liberal egalitarianism into new domains to account for how contemporary circumstances have changed since the mid-twentieth century cannot address the problem of its partial view of the social world. Taking seriously the insights of critical social theory and the study of capitalism should lead to a challenge to liberal egalitarianism, not an extension of it. (shrink)

Not all probability ascriptions that appear in scientific theories describe chances. There is a question about whether probability ascriptions in non-fundamental sciences, such as those found in evolutionary biology and statistical mechanics, describe chances in deterministic worlds and about whether there could be any chances in deterministic worlds. Recent debate over whether chance is compatible with determinism has unearthed two strategies for arguing about whether a probability ascription describes chance—that is, to speak metaphorically, two different strategies for figuring out where (...) the chances are: find the chances by focusing on chance’s explanatory role or find the chances by focusing on chance’s predictive role. These two strategies tend to yield conflicting results about where the chances are, and debate over which strategy is appropriate tends to end in stalemate. After discussing these two strategies, I consider a new view of chance’s explanatory role. I argue that one theoretical advantage of this new view is that allows us to make progress on the question of where the chances are by providing a principled way of determining which probability ascriptions describe chances. From the vantage of this new view, the correct application of both strategies involves figuring out where the chances are by figuring out where the probabilistic scientific explanations are and what those explanations are like. (shrink)

The Peterloo Massacre was more than just a Manchester event. The attendees, on whom Manchester industry depended, came from a large spread of the wider textile regions. The large demonstrations that followed in the autumn of 1819, protesting against the actions of the authorities, were pan-regional and national. The reaction to Peterloo established the massacre as firmly part of the radical canon of martyrdom in the story of popular protest for democracy. This article argues for the significance of Peterloo in (...) fostering a sense of regional and northern identities in England. Demonstrators expressed an alternative patriotism to the anti-radical loyalism as defined by the authorities and other opponents of mass collective action. (shrink)

Background: The current study was designed to examine whether ethnic-racial identity moderated the relationship between disordered eating and primary ethnic identification.Methods: Three hundred and ninety-eight undergraduate women were recruited from a large university in Hawai‘i. Participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the ERI measure, and reported their primary ethnicity as an index of ethnicity.Results: There was a significant correlation between eating concerns and centrality, r = 0.127, p < 0.05. Moderation analyses indicated that only ERI centrality moderated the predictive (...) effect of ethnicity on the importance of eating concerns, b = 0.05, t = 2.37, p = 0.018.Conclusions: The results suggest that the relationship between self-reported primary ethnicity and EDEQ scores is greater when ethnicity is more central to the individual's identity or when the in-group affect is important to an individual. Findings underscore the need for further research on the underlying mechanisms that account for the differing ways that ERI may affect eating concerns. (shrink)

In May 2011, more than a decade after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) abandoned sex testing, they devised new policies in response to the IAAF's treatment of Caster Semenya, the South African runner whose sex was challenged because of her spectacular win and powerful physique that fueled an international frenzy questioning her sex and legitimacy to compete as female. These policies claim that atypically high levels of endogenous testosterone in women (caused by (...) various medical conditions) create an unfair advantage and must be regulated. Against the backdrop of Semenya's case and the scientific and historical complexity of ?gender verification? in elite sports, we question the new policies on three grounds: (1) the underlying scientific assumptions; (2) the policymaking process; and (3) the potential to achieve fairness for female athletes. We find the policies in each of these domains significantly flawed and therefore argue they should be withdrawn. (shrink)

Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...) The directions of causal/explanatory relations in our world seem not to depend on the statistical dependence relations in our world. Thus, we doubt that statistical dependence relations are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. (shrink)

Philosophe politique et intellectuel engage dans la vie des idées aux Etats-Unis comme dans le monde, Michael Walzer est l'un des penseurs de la société parmi les plus stimulants a l'époque contemporaine. Son oeuvre défriche des pistes nouvelles de réflexion dans les domaines du politique, de la justice sociale, de la morale ou de l'identité culturelle. En même temps, Walzer, dont la pensée s'est forgée lors des luttes pour l'égalité des droits civiques aux USA et contre la guerre du Vietnam (...) dans les années 1960, poursuit une activité féconde d'animation du débat public à travers sa revue Dissent. Dans cet essai, Simon Wuhl a souhaité éclairer une autre dimension de la pensée de Michael Walzer : la relation étroite avec la pensée juive, dont les potentialités d'universalisation sont une référence majeure dans la plupart de ses écrits. Qu'elle s'exprime ouvertement comme dans son article emblématique sur " Les deux universalismes ", ou en arrière-fond comme dans son livre plus théorique sur les Sphères de justice, l'empreinte du judaïsme est toujours présente dans son oeuvre pour éclairer les grandes questions de société. Faisant par ailleurs retour, dans certains de ses travaux, sur les textes de base du judaïsme, Walzer mobilise les ressources méthodologiques des sciences humaines pour les soumettre à une relecture critique. (shrink)

Virtue theory provides a unique perspective to critique certain contemporary punishment practices. To be a moral agent one must be able to act such that his or her actions deserve praise or blame; virtue theory thus demands that moral agents engage in rational choice-making as a means to develop and exercise the character traits from which culpable action issues. With respect to criminal offenders, virtue theory indicates the state is obligated to recognize offenders’ right to form their own moral character (...) via rational choice-making, even while under state supervision. Punishment practices should limit choice-making only to the extent necessary to achieve the functions of punishment: whenever possible, punishment should preserve opportunities for the rational exercise of character and development of virtue. (shrink)

Despite its place in the humanities, the career prospects and numbers of women in philosophy much more closely resemble those found in the sciences and engineering. This book collects a series of critical essays by female philosophers pursuing the question of why philosophy continues to be inhospitable to women and what can be done to change it. By examining the social and institutional conditions of contemporary academic philosophy in the Anglophone world as well as its methods, culture, and characteristic commitments, (...) the volume provides a case study in interpretation of one academic discipline in which women's progress seems to have stalled since initial gains made in the 1980s. Some contributors make use of concepts developed in other contexts to explain women's under-representation, including the effects of unconscious biases, stereotype threat, and micro-inequities. Other chapters draw on the resources of feminist philosophy to challenge everyday understandings of time, communication, authority and merit, as these shape effective but often unrecognized forms of discrimination and exclusion. Often it is assumed that women need to change to fit existing institutions. This book instead offers concrete reflections on the way in which philosophy needs to change, in order to accommodate and benefit from the important contribution women's full participation makes to the discipline. (shrink)

Nietzsche employs the concept of pregnancy metaphorically at various points in his writings; discussing the pregnancy of philosophers (GM III 8, BGE 292), spiritual pregnancy (EH, Clever 3; GS 72) and being pregnant with thoughts or deeds (D 552). I explore how Nietzsche uses the notion of pregnancy in Dawn, arguing that it connects to the theme of self-cultivation. I employ the various associations that Nietzsche makes with pregnancy, including the unknown, selfishness, strangeness, and solitude, to elucidate Nietzsche’s understanding of (...) self-cultivation. I show how the metaphor of pregnancy, in which we do not control what we give birth to, both expresses and helps us explore the problem of what, if the self is made up of and directed by many competing drives, shapes and directs self-cultivation. I argue that Nietzsche’s deliberate references to the context of Plato’s discussion of pregnancy involve a self-conscious challenge to Plato’s concept of the philosopher, and of philosophy, and a reimagining of what they will give birth to. The appropriation of Plato’s famous metaphor thus underscores how Nietzsche’s concept and method of self-cultivation contrasts to Plato’s care for the soul and is rooted in attentiveness to the body and its drives. (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 170-188, December 2021.

Current interpretations of the political theory of Judith Shklar focus to a disabling extent on her short, late article (1989); commentators take this late essay as representative of her work as a whole and thus characterize her as an anti-totalitarian, Cold War liberal. Other interpretations situate her political thought alongside followers of John Rawls and liberal political philosophy. Challenging the centrality of fear in Shklar's thought, this essay examines her writings on utopian and normative thought, the role of history in (...) political thinking and her notions of ordinary cruelty and injustice. In particular, it shifts emphasis away from an exclusive focus on her late writings in order to consider works published throughout her long career at Harvard University, from 1950 until her death in 1992. By surveying the range of Shklar's critical standpoints and concerns, it suggests that postwar American liberalism was not as monolithic as many interpreters have assumed. Through an examination of her attitudes towards her forebears and contemporaries, it shows why the dominant interpretations of Shklarmigrare flawed. In fact, Shklar moved restlessly between these two categories, and drew from each tradition. By thinking about both hope and memory, she bridged the gap between two distinct strands of postwar American liberalism. (shrink)

The psychological literature now differentiates between two types of psychopath:successful (with little or no criminal record) and unsuccessful (with a criminal record). Recent research indicates that earlier findings of reduced autonomic activity, reduced prefrontal grey matter, and compromised executive activity may only be true of unsuccessful psychopaths. In contrast, successful psychopaths actually show autonomic and executive function that exceeds that of normals, while having no difference in prefrontal volume from normals. We argue that many successful psychopaths are legally responsible for (...) their actions, as they have the executive capacity to choose not to harm (and thus are legally rational). However, many unsuccessful psychopaths have a lack of executive function that should at least partially excuse them from criminal culpability. Although a successful psychopath's increased executive function may occur in conflict with, rather than in consonance with their increased autonomic activity - producing a cognitive style characterized by self deception and articulate-sounding, but unsound reasoning - they may be capable of recognizing and correcting their lack of autonomic data, and thus can be held responsible. (shrink)

In this chapter we explore the ethical justifications for criminal detentions prior to adjudication. Because defending pretrial detentions cannot be justified on purely forward-looking grounds, any plausible justification for pre-conviction detention must be partly backward-looking. Reflecting on the aims of the criminal law more broadly suggests that pretrial detentions, like post-conviction detentions, may be justified on “hybrid” grounds—but only if certain backward-looking retributive criteria and forward-looking instrumental criteria are met. We conclude that while it is possible in principle to justify (...) pretrial detention, there is reason to think that much of the pretrial detention in the U.S. is not, in fact, justified. We then argue that as a result, current pretrial detention practices in the U.S. unjustifiably diminish a special sort of moral agency that is necessary for holding persons responsible in the first place. (shrink)