It has been proposed that performance in the think – no think task represents a laboratory analogue of the voluntary form of memory repression. The central prediction of this repression hypothesis is that performance in the TNT task will be influenced by emotional characteristics of the material to be remembered. This prediction was tested in two experiments by asking participants to learn paired associates in which the first item was either emotionally positive or emotionally negative . The second word was (...) always emotionally neutral . Consistent with the repression hypothesis, significant memory suppression was observed in both experiments following ‘no think’ instructions for memories associated with emotionally negative material. No suppression was observed for memories associated with emotionally positive information. Implications of these findings for the relationship between performance in the TNT task and the controversial notion of memory repression are considered. (shrink)

The Good Place was a historical landmark in the field of pop culture as philosophy, as it was the first mainstream sitcom to explicitly tackle the works of philosophers in its content. In addition to exposing its viewers to the works of famous philosophers, The Good Place makes its own philosophical arguments. The show is ultimately about the concept of the afterlife – what it might look like, how it would operate, and if it is even desirable. The (...) show also explores the relationship between morality and the afterlife. Essentially, The Good Place explores three focal questions: (1) Are there reasons to be morally good, irrespective of how that plays out in an afterlife? (2) What would a fair system for gaining admission to a merit-based afterlife look like? And (3) is an eternal afterlife even desirable? Ultimately the show argues that yes, virtue is worthwhile for virtue’s own sake, irrespective of the consequences in an afterlife. Second, it argues that a fair merit-based system would allow people the chance to improve and get better, given the right circumstances. Third, it argues that an eternal afterlife, in which you maintain your identity and live forever, is not desirable. (shrink)

Dive into the moral philosophy at the heart of all four seasons of NBC’s The Good Place, guided by academic experts including the show’s philosophical consultants Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and featuring a foreword from creator and showrunner Michael Schur Explicitly dedicated to the philosophical concepts, questions, and fundamental ethical dilemmas at the heart of the thoughtful and ambitious NBC sitcom The Good Place Navigates the murky waters of moral philosophy in more conceptual depth to call into (...) question what Chidi’s ethics lessons—and the show—get right about learning to be a good person Features contributions from The Good Place’s philosophical consultants, Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and introduced by the show’s creator and showrunner Michael Schur Engages classic philosophical questions, including the clash between utilitarianism and deontological ethics in the “Trolley Problem,” Kant’s categorical imperative, Sartre’s nihilism, and T.M Scanlon's contractualism Explores themes such as death, love, moral heroism, free will, responsibility, artificial intelligence, fatalism, skepticism, virtue ethics, perception, and the nature of autonomy in the surreal heaven-like afterlife of the Good Place Led by Kimberly S. Engels, co-editor of Westworld and Philosophy. (shrink)

Rejecting an eternal, unchanging soul or essence, Jean Paul Sartre praises the beauty of the human experience and definitively declares his preference for a temporary life of change and transformation over an eternity of certainty. In The Good Place, Michael is an immortal demon called an architect, who takes on the ambitious task of designing a neighborhood that will prompt condemned humans Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason to unknowingly torture each other. Sartre's existentialism is characterized by his rejection of (...) a pre‐given human essence as well as his focus on the power of individual freedom. In Sartre's view, there is no divine creator, no final judge, and no supernatural moral fabric holding everything together. Throughout the course of four seasons of The Good Place, Michael decides that the project of an eternal certainty is less preferable than a possibly limited lifetime of risk, change, and transformation. (shrink)

In René Descartes’ correspondence with Elizabeth (mainly 1645-1647) as well as his Passions of the Soul (1649), Descartes says that regret is appropriate only when agents act irresolutely, regardless of whether or not their actions bring about good states-of-affairs. In this paper I set out to explain what Descartes views as a novel account of virtue: that being virtuous amounts to being resolute. I show how this account of virtue fits into Descartes’ larger world-view, and then examine his belief (...) that a person should not regret resolute misdeeds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Invisible HarmKimberly ZieselmanI’m a 48–year–old intersex woman born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) writing to share my personal experience as a patient affected by a Difference of Sex Development (DSD). Although I appear to be a DSD patient “success story”, in fact, I have suffered and am unsatisfied with the way I was treated as a young patient in the 1980’s, and the continued lack of appropriate care for (...) intersex people even today.As the Executive Director of the advocacy organization Advocates for Informed Choice and a board member of the AIS–DSD Support Group since 2012, I have heard doctors reference the “silent happy majority” of DSD patients all too often. They speak [End Page 122] of patients who were treated in childhood and went on to live (seemingly) contented lives. It appears however that doctors have drawn this conclusion from the fact that most of their patients have not returned to complain about their treatment. While there is little evidence to support the success doctors claim, there is quite a bit of evidence that suggests my suffering is the norm rather than the exception.Medical professionals would likely include me in that “silent majority,” only seeing a woman who identifies and appears typically female, graduated law school, married for over twenty years, with adopted children and a successful career. And while I have been fortunate in many ways, I no longer want my voice to be presumed buried within that silent majority. Instead, I am speaking out today to tell my story.My StoryAt age 15 I was diagnosed with amenorrhea and referred to a reproductive oncologist who told my parents I had a partially developed uterus and ovaries that would likely soon become cancerous. We were told my vagina was abnormally short and might require surgery in order to have heterosexual intercourse.Neither my parents nor I was ever told I had AIS and XY chromosomes, or that the gonads being removed were testes, not ovaries. I was told I needed a “full hysterectomy” to prevent cancer and hormone replacement therapy. That summer I spent my 16th birthday recuperating from surgery. I spent the next 25 years living a lie.A lie that has had a profound and harmful impact on me.At some level, I knew I was not being told the whole truth. My parents’ and the doctors’ actions signaled to me something more might be going on. But I was afraid to ask questions; my parents were distressed and I didn’t want to cause them any more pain. Over the years I have wondered just how much my parents knew but withheld from me (albeit with good intentions). I sensed something awful was being hidden from me, and I didn’t know whom I could trust.When I asked my doctor if I could meet someone else with my condition, I was told I was different, that there was “nobody” with my medical condition in the world, that my situation was “very rare.” I was told to get on with my life and not talk about my surgery because it wasn’t important; I was healthy and could adopt if I wanted to become a parent. I was told I must take a hormone pill each day for the rest of my life to stay healthy.But what I heard was, “you are not a real woman: you are a damaged freak, so go out and fake the rest of your life and be sure nobody knows your secret.” So that’s what I did. I was a “good girl” and took my pills, didn’t ask questions and did what the men in white coats asked me to do. There was no support provided for either my parents or me. No social workers, no therapists. Perhaps most shockingly, there was no true informed consent.A few years ago I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome caused by anxiety I had been harboring for over two decades about my past surgery and fear of getting cancer. I decided to obtain my medical records from the hospital and discover the truth.Covering several pages of... (shrink)

In The Myth of Ownership, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel argue that achieving fairness in taxation is principally a matter of distributive justice. Distributive justice can be understood as being concerned with what is owed to people as a matter of justice. For Nagel and Murphy, fairness in tax schemes is subsumed to the question of distributive justice: fairly allocated tax liabilities are just those that are compatible with the preferred theory of distributive justice. Subsuming assessments of tax fairness to (...) distributive justice, however, overlooks the following possibility: that the question of how we ought to divvy up tax liabilities, and the burdens associated with running a society more generally, requires different, non-distributive considerations of justice. These are considerations of justice that aren’t essentially about distributive justice at all. I argue here that the division of burdens in a society is specifically a matter of contributive justice. Contributive justice is concerned with what people owe as a matter of justice, rather than what is owed to them. It makes the division of burdens itself evaluative salient in assessments of fairness. Even a comprehensive specification of distributive justice leaves indeterminate how the burdens of running a society should be fairly divided up. Each of the chapters in this dissertation develops one part of an account of contributive justice. I first make conceptual space for an account of contributive justice. By taking Murphy and Nagel’s lead, and working within the post-distribution, a distinctive need for principles of justice in contribution can be shown. Murphy and Nagel decline to introduce non-distributive principles for guiding the provision of post-distributive public goods. Instead, they favor efficiency in determining the provision of post-distributive of public goods. I show that contributive justice is genuinely distinct from both efficiency and distributive justice. I also identify one respect in which principles of contributive justice should bear: that of determining the financing and delivery and civic cultural public goods. I then argue that a principle of contribution in accordance with ability (a principle of “ability-to-pay”, or “ability-to-contribute”, for short) stands out as a candidate principle of contributive justice. The version of ability-to-pay that I defend is, in particular, a deontic principle of ability-to-pay. I show that a deontic principle of ability-to-pay is more closely allied with a view of society as a cooperative enterprise than utilitarian versions of ability-to-pay. An account of ability to contribute is developed by grafting a notion of opportunity cost onto Amartya Sen’s capability theory. Lastly, I incorporate contributive justice in an account of contributive legitimacy. Contributive legitimacy gives us a set of conditions under which the state’s use of coercive force to extract tax contributions is legitimate, and hence justified. Drawing on empirical evidence from the development and fiscal sociology literature, I show that contributive legitimacy in a state’s tax extraction practices is essential to rule of law, and the avoidance of kleptocratic authoritarianism. Contributive legitimacy supplements our understanding of conventional notions of political legitimacy and helps us identify possible failures of political legitimacy. These are failures that might be overlooked were we to focus solely on distribution. (shrink)

Many of us think that we just aren't enough. Not good enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, and not happy enough. But just because we think something doesn't mean it's true. You are more than you think you are teaches you how to revise your belief system, fulfill your deepest dreams and desires, and create an epic, successful, and inspiring life. Unlocking your True Self is the key to new levels of joy, beauty, and peace. But what is (...) the True Self, and how can you realize its infinite potential? In this easy-to-read book, Kimberly Snyder answers these questions and shows you how to tap into this unstoppable force to transform every aspect of your life for the better. Drawing inspiration from the teachings of the great guru Paramahansa Yogananda along with personal stories and the latest scientific research, Kimberly offers simple exercises, potent ancient practices, and in-depth meditations to help you overcome negative beliefs and see yourself as you truly are--a goddess, a warrior, a lover, and a creator of your extraordinary destiny" -- Back cover. (shrink)

The paper traces the role of ‘women’ in Seyla Benhabib's work. It argues that this tracing helps to make clear the way that Benhabib's latest work relies on assuming distinctive political temporalities between the international (cosmopolitan and moral) and the domestic (democratic and political) spheres. The international is characterised by an unlocatable linear temporality of moral learning that draws on Habermas's reading of Kant's philosophy of history. In contrast, in the domestic, cosmopolitan temporality enters into a dialectical relation with an (...) Arendtian, republican temporality that is open and unpredictable and is clearly located within the (revisable) boundaries of political community. (shrink)

The philosophy of Josiah Royce has recently begun to regain attention; Griffin Trotter, in particular, has utilized Royce in questions concerning medical ethics. This resurgence in attention is for good reason—Royce's philosophies of loyalty and community provide both a descriptively accurate picture of the self and a prescriptively solid ethical system. Royce recognized, as do all pragmatic philosophers, that persons only exist socially, and this sociality will necessarily influence the individual ethically, but also epistemologically. What we know, how we (...) act, how we think we ought to act are not individual questions, but rather questions that arise for individuals only in the context of a larger community. (shrink)

When conducting research in an international setting, in a country different than that of the researcher, unpredictable circumstances can arise. A study conducted by a novice North American researcher with a vulnerable population in northern Ghana highlights these happenings with an emphasis placed on the ethical challenges encountered. An illustration from the research is used to highlight an ethical dilemma while in the field, and how utilizing a moral decision-making framework can assist in making choices about a participant's right to (...) autonomy, privacy, and confidentiality during the research process. Moral frameworks, however, can never be enough to solve a dilemma since guidelines only describe what to aim for and not how to interpret or use them. Researchers must therefore strive to move beyond these frameworks to employ practical wisdom or phronesis so to combine the right thing to do with the skill required to figure out what the right choice is. The skill of practical wisdom must be acquired because without it international researchers indecisively fumble around with good intentions, often leaving a situation in worse shape than they found it. (shrink)

To engage with Hegel's philosophy from a feminist perspective is necessarily to be confronted with questions about the politics of reading. Politics, that is, both in the obvious, traditional ideological sense and in the less obvious sense of the politics of the relation between reader and text. For some scholars this automatically places feminist readers in the category of a dubious scholarship which rests on a mistaken understanding of the meanings of both politics and truth.It seems to me a mistake (...) — and an inexcusable conceit — to say as some now do, that all scholarship is somehow ‘political’ or is itself politics practised by other means. That view demeans both politics and scholarship. Now this isnotto say that a scholar's motives must not be political, only that the methods and results of her researches must be judged according to scholarly standards and not political ones. The aim of scholarship is to seek and to tell the truth, as best one can discern it, and not to promote any particular partisan cause. Ball here confines the role of politics in the traditional sense to the Weberian category of ‘value’, which may motivate and orient scholarship but which cannot provide the criteria according to which scholarly work is carried out or its findings are judged. He dismisses the relevance of the category ‘politics’ to the understanding of the relation between reader and text as such and instead, argues that ‘truth’ is what that relation should be about. Yet, the work of interpretation and reflection in the reading of texts insofar as it involves a process of interaction between reader and text always problematises, I would argue, the distinction between politics and truth upon which Ball's analysis relies. There are various models on offer, both descriptive and prescriptive for what the process of textual interpretation does or should involve. One can contrast the notion of ‘scholarly standards’ as the route to the true meaning of a text with Skinner's new historicism, the virtuous circle of hermeneutics or the destabilising ambitions of deconstruction. These approaches elicit very different interpretive results but they also differ in their assumptions about what is or ought to be taken as authoritative for understanding and interpretation and in this sense they are characterised by a politics of the interplay between reader and text. This is a modest claim but one which disrupts the politics/truth distinction even if it doesn't necessarily imply the end of distinguishing between good and bad, valid and invalid understanding/interpretation. (shrink)

These inquiries into villainification offer powerful insights for teaching about historical wrongdoing in more nuanced ways. Includes topics related to U.S. politics, financial education, Holocaust education, difficult histories, apocalypse fiction, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, technology use, LGBTQ school experiences, rape culture, geographies of invasion, and the female body.

Rae Langton and Caroline West argue that pornography silences women by presupposing misogynistic attitudes, such as that women enjoy being raped. More precisely, they claim that a somewhat infamous pictorial, ‘Dirty Pool’, makes such presuppositions, and that it is typical in this respect. I argue for four claims. (1) There are empirical reasons to doubt that women are silenced in the way that Langton and West claim they are. (2) There is no evidence that very much pornography makes the sorts (...) of presuppositions that Langton and West's explanation of silencing requires it to make. (3) Even ‘Dirty Pool’, for all its other problems, does not make such presuppositions. (4) Langton and West misread ‘Dirty Pool’ because they do not take proper account of the fact that pornography often traffics in sexual fantasy. The broader lesson is that we need to read pornography more sensitively if we are to understand its capacity to shape socio‐sexual norms (for good or for ill). (shrink)

Grey’s Anatomy focuses on the personal and professional life of protagonist Meredith Grey. Throughout the long series, a consistent theme is that the audience is confronted with moral dilemmas in Meredith’s professional work with patients as well as in her personal life. Grey’s decision-making often breaks professional protocol in order to do what she believes is best for her patients and those close to her. We argue that Grey’s approach to morality is representative of Simone de Beauvoir’s approach in The (...) Ethics of Ambiguity. In this text, Beauvoir argues that an existentialist ethic must reject a childlike approach to morality in which moral rules are absolute and moral dilemmas have obvious answers. Instead, she argues for a rejection of universalist ethics in favor of acknowledging the ambiguity of the moral realm. By tracing Meredith’s decision-making throughout the course of different seasons of the show, we argue that Meredith exemplifies an existential authenticity compatible with Beauvoir’s existentialist approach to ethics. (shrink)

This chapter explores the comedy of George Carlin (1937–2008) as a powerful statement about the value of truth over ignorance. Carlin challenged his audience to confront the truth, regularly using clever rhetorical strategies to force viewers to grapple with inconvenient realities about the world in which they lived. This chapter examines historical and contemporary philosophical arguments for the importance of the pursuing truth over comforting fictions. I begin with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which argues it is preferable to know (...) reality as it truly is over appearances of the truth, even when it’s painful or difficult. I then discuss Nozick’s argument that humans would not want to plug into a pleasurable experience machine. Last, I examine contemporary arguments that there are distinctly moral reasons for pursuing the truth. I show how there are examples of all three arguments in Carlin’s comedic work, and suggest we can consider Carlin’s work a critical commentary that reveals multiple reasons for valuing truth over enticing fictions. (shrink)

Detroit Become Human (DBH) offers a stunningly visual gameplay experience that both tells a philosophical story and stimulates the moral reasoning process in players. The game features a futuristic world where highly intelligent androids are bought and sold as workers who take on menial labor tasks for humans. In this chapter, we explore three dimensions of moral reasoning: accounts of moral agency, ethical theories or frameworks, and accounts of moral patiency. We then explore how DBH addresses all of these philosophical (...) issues in its narrative and gameplay scenarios. Issues of moral agency are explored through some of the androids gaining consciousness and autonomy. Ethical theory is explored through various ethical dilemmas that emerge in the gameplay. Moral patiency is explored by questioning if the androids, conscious and unconscious, are worthy of moral concern and why. We then show how the gameplay structure offers a unique interactive opportunity for players to engage in the moral reasoning process. Additionally, through the questions it raises and scenarios it poses, DBH makes an implicit anti-speciesist argument regarding moral patiency. Additionally, it makes a secondary argument that suffering and struggle are necessary to develop the possibility of second-order desires and true freedom and agency. The interactive structure of the game, in which players’ choices have more weight than in many gameplay experiences, makes DBH a unique work of contemporary philosophical pop culture. (shrink)

Although it is not yet officially recognized as a clinical entity which is diagnosable, Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has been included in section III for further study in the DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013). This is important because there is increasing evidence that people of all ages, in particular teens and young adults, are facing very real and sometimes very severe consequences in daily life resulting from an addictive use of online games. This article summarizes general aspects (...) of IGD including diagnostic criteria and arguments for the classification as an addictive disorder including evidence from neurobiological studies. Based on previous theoretical considerations and empirical findings, this paper examines the use of one recently proposed model, the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model, for inspiring future research and for developing new treatment protocols for IGD. The I-PACE model is a theoretical framework that explains symptoms of Internet addiction by looking at interactions between predisposing factors, moderators, and mediators in combination with reduced executive functioning and diminished decision making. Finally, the paper discusses how current treatment protocols focusing on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Internet addiction (CBT-IA) fit with the processes hypothesized in the I-PACE model. (shrink)

This article investigates the role of shame in shaping the epistolary form and aesthetic structure of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. I argue that the epistolary framing presents a crisis in the development of Celie's shamed self‐consciousness. To explain the connection between shame and Celie's self‐consciousness, I build on Jean Paul Sartre's theory of existentialism and explore three phases of Celie's evolution as it is represented in three phrases that I identify as significant transitions in the text: “I am,” “But (...) I'm here,” and “It mine.” The first section examines how shame fractures Celie's self‐consciousness; the second focuses on how Celie positions and locates herself in the world; and the third explains how Celie mobilizes shame by connecting her self‐consciousness to a past that is shameful but also generative. I conclude by considering the novel's emergence in the Cosby/Reagan era in order to illuminate the mutual constitution of black familial pride and black racial shame. (shrink)

This article focuses on Sartre’s concept of the practicoinert in his major work A Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1. I first show the progression from Sartre’s previous conception of in-itself to his concept of practico-inert. I identify five different layers of the practico-inert: human-made objects, language, ideas, social objects and class being. I show how these practico-inert layers form the possibilities for our subjectivity and how this represents a change from Sartre’s view of in-itself in Being and Nothingness. I (...) then explore the relationship of freedom to the practico-inert and how Sartre argues that the practico-inert places limits on our freedom. Lastly, I argue that despite the pessimistic picture Sartre paints in CDR, the practico-inert has the potential to both limit and enhance our freedom. I appeal to Sartre’s post-CDR essay ‘A Plea for Intellectuals’ to argue that a Sartrean account of progress requires the utilisation of the practico-inert. (shrink)

In this article I present a comparative analysis of Schopenhauer’s concept of a human’s intelligible character and Sartre’s concept of a human’s fundamental project. My examination reveals that both Schopenhauer and Sartre posit a groundless, baseless choice of identity which unifies a human’s future conscious states into an integrated whole. I also identify the primary difference between the two accounts: Schopenhauer’s intelligible character is permanent, while Sartre’s theory of fundamental project is capable of being transformed or transcended. Last, I show (...) that the divergence on this point can be explained by the position the two philosophers hold with respect to the relationship of existence to essence. For Schopenhauer’s account, I use The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and his Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. For the analysis of Sartre, I rely on Being and Nothingness and his biography of French writer Jean Genet, titled Saint Genet. (shrink)

A Sartrean existentialist ethics of authenticity model can serve as an alternative to tradi­tional approaches to the issue of moral responsibilities to future generations. Traditional utilitarian and rights-based positions can fall short when addressing future-persons concern, both through technical problems and their failure to show our interconnectedness with other generations. Sartrean concepts of freedom, responsibility, and authenticity can offer an alternative approach which focuses on interpersonal adoption of the Other’s projects. There is bad faith present in the typical discussion about (...) future generations. We need to rid ourselves of this bad faith in order to engage in authentic relationships with humans of the past, present, and future. (shrink)

In Westworld, viewers learn that the timid and mild‐mannered William is the younger version of the violent, sinister, mission‐driven Man in Black. This chapter considers what it means for William to have, as Sartre calls it, an existential project. It shows how Sartre's theory explains quite cogently William's change in essence from his young self to the violent Man in Black. In a Sartrean framework, William did not discover himself in the park, rather, his experience in the park, or new (...) “situation”, led him to make a new choice of himself in the world and pursue a new set of ends. The chapter then examines Maeve's choice to leave the train at the end of the “The Bicameral Mind”. Although Maeve is a programmed android, she is able to resist her programming and formulate her own goal and, perhaps, start her own existential journey. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of conscience-based refusals in healthcare from a Sartrean view, with an emphasis on the tension between individual responsibility and professional role morality. Conscience-based refusals in healthcare involve healthcare workers refusing to perform actions based on core moral beliefs. Initially this appears in line with Sartrean authenticity, which requires acknowledgment that one is not identical with professional role. However, by appealing to Sartre’s later social thought, I show that professional role morality is authentic when one considers (...) common group practices, which Sartre refers to as pledged group praxis. I demonstrate that for healthcare providers, authenticity mandates putting the goals and generally accepted praxis of healthcare front and center in the workplace decision process. I conclude by strengthening Andrew West’s existentialist decision-making model with Sartre’s later social thought. With the updated model, I show that for healthcare workers most often the authentic decision is to perform generally accepted healthcare procedures in spite of individual moral qualms. This is because working in healthcare necessitates viewing one’s professional tasks in their broader social context—as unified, communal group praxis. (shrink)

This article utilizes the Foucauldian concepts of biopower and normalization to give an analysis of the debate surrounding the controversial administration of the HPV vaccine to adolescents. My intention is not to solve the problem, rather to utilize a Foucauldian framework to bring various facets of the issue to light, specifically the way the vaccine contributes to strategies of power in reference to how young adults develop within relationships of power. To begin, the article provides an overview of the Foucauldian (...) concepts of biopower and normalization, including how these two strategies of power were present in the administration of the smallpox vaccine in the 19th century. Next, information about HPV and the history of the current controversy in the United States is presented. Lastly, the article presents an analysis of the strategies of biopower and normalization present in the debate on HPV, including an emphasis on how the vaccination is similar to, and different from, 19th century smallpox vaccination. It also explores the way that mechanisms of disease control affect and are affected by individual subjects, in this case, adolescents. (shrink)

Saturday Night Live (SNL) has become a staple of each political season. In this chapter, the authors show how late night comedy programs such as SNL have joined traditional TV news programs as authorities of delimination for defining the boundaries of political truth in historical epoch. SNL is different from other comedy programs such as the The Daily Show because of its focus on parody. SNL featured many sketches focused on the election, which also contributed to the production of the (...) truth. As an authority of delimination for political truth, SNL emphasized the sexist double standard to which Hillary Clinton was held. In short, SNL will continue to play a role in the production of political truth and knowledge. Michel Foucault famously argued that truth and knowledge are neither static nor objective. Foucault shows that different historical epochs and different geographical locations have different frameworks of verification for something to be considered true. (shrink)

This article explores the patient experience of medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) from an existentialist standpoint. Drawing on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, I explore their concepts of existential situation, existential project, authenticity, and praxis. I then analyze the situation of MUS patients in the current cultural and institutional context, elucidating that a lack of explanation for their symptoms puts MUS patients in an existential bind. I illustrate the effects of the experience of MUS on patients’ existential (...) projects. Last, I develop an ethical response in the existentialist tradition from the perspective of patients, providers, and society at large. I argue that there is a collective responsibility to foster conditions more conducive to authentic patient well-being and to improve the experience of patients with medically unexplained symptoms. (shrink)

While a significant literature has appeared discussing theoretical ethical concerns regarding COVID-19, particularly regarding resource prioritization, as well as a number of personal reflections on providing patient care during the early stages of the pandemic, systematic analysis of the actual ethical issues involving patient care during this time is limited. This single-center retrospective cohort mixed methods study of ethics consultations during the first surge of the COVID 19 pandemic in Massachusetts between March 15, 2020 through June 15, 2020 aim to (...) fill this gap. Results indicate that there was no significant difference in the median number of monthly consultation cases during the first COVID-19 surge compared to the same period the year prior and that the characteristics of the ethics consults during the COVID-19 surge and same period the year prior were also similar. Through inductive analysis, we identified four themes related to ethics consults during the first COVID-19 surge including (1) prognostic difficulty for COVID-19 positive patients, (2) challenges related to visitor restrictions, (3) end of life scenarios, and (4) family members who were also positive for COVID-19. Cases were complex and often aligned with multiple themes. These patient case-related sources of ethical issues were managed against the backdrop of intense systemic ethical issues and a near lockdown of daily life. Healthcare ethics consultants can learn from this experience to enhance training to be ready for future disasters. (shrink)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is not an unknown name. The writer, actor, and producer has been a part of various comedy TV series and films. However, she has a pattern in her comedy writing and character creation that is obvious in the TV series – Fleabag (2016–2019) and Crashing (2016). In both these series, one cannot miss the obvious similarity between the characters she wrote and played – characters who knew what they wanted and did not hesitate to make attempts to achieve (...) it, even when it meant defying the conventional rules of social relationships and breaking out of the gender identities set by society for women. In fact, other characters created around these female characters seem to lack the same courage, which leads to the creation of comical situations but also often results in these characters facing emotional obstacles that they eventually overcome. The women in both shows not only choose to reject predefined gender identities, but also make choices and take risks while being aware of the consequences. Throughout their journeys of embracing their free consciousnesses, these characters illustrate Jean Paul Sartre’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s process of transcending their facticity, thus avoiding bad faith. Implicit in Waller-Bridge’s work is the argument that we could do better to be – and encourage other women to be – the types of women that her protagonists are. (shrink)

Many individuals have experienced a multitude of chronic stressors and diminished psychological functioning during COVID-19. The current study examined whether biases towards positive social media or positive autobiographical memories was related to increases in psychological functioning during COVID-19. Participants were 1071 adults (Mage = 46.31; 58% female; 78% White) recruited from MTurk. Participants reported on their social media consumption and autobiographical recall, positive and negative affect, and dysphoria symptoms. Results indicated that, at the first assessment collected in the spring and (...) summer of 2020, positively biased social media consumption was cross-sectionally related to higher levels of positive affect, and positively biased autobiographical recall was cross-sectionally related to lower levels of negative affect and dysphoria symptoms. Sensitivity analyses examined cross-sectional relations from a second assessment collected in fall 2020, and prospective cross-lagged analyses. The findings point to potential psychological benefits of positive biases during chronic stressors. (shrink)

This workshop introduced the concept of global business citizenship and explored several ways to use the model, its underlying theory, and cases representing it in classroom teaching. Links to peace studies, organizational change exercises, accountability resources, and the use of United Nations Global Compact case studies all received attention.

Affective variables have been shown to impact working memory and cognitive control. Theoretical arguments suggest that the functional impact of emotion on cognition might be mediated through shifting action dispositions related to changes in motivational orientation. The current study examined the effects of positive and negative affect on performance via direct manipulation of motivational state in tasks with high demands on cognitive control. Experiment 1 examined the effects of monetary reward on task-switching performance, while Experiment 2 examined the effects of (...) both rewards and punishments on working memory, using primary (liquid) reinforcers. In both experiments, dissociable trial-by-trial and contextual (block-related) enhancements of cognitive control during task performance were observed in relationship to motivational incentive value. Performance enhancements were equivalent in the reward and punishment conditions, but were differentially impacted by individual difference measures of trait reward and punishment sensitivity. Together, the results suggest both common and specific mechanisms by which approach and avoidance motivational states influence cognitive control, via activation of reward and punishment processing systems. (shrink)

Critical care society guidelines recommend that ethics committees mediate intractable conflict over potentially inappropriate treatment, including Do Not Resuscitate status. There are, however, limited data on cases and circumstances in which ethics consultants recommend not offering cardiopulmonary resuscitation despite patient or surrogate requests and whether physicians follow these recommendations. This was a retrospective cohort of all adult patients at a large academic medical center for whom an ethics consult was requested for disagreement over DNR status. Patient demographic predictors of ethics (...) consult outcomes were analyzed. In 42 of the 116 cases, the patient or surrogate agreed to the clinician recommended DNR order following ethics consultation. In 72 of 74 of the remaining cases, ethics consultants recommended not offering CPR. Physicians went on to write a DNR order without patient/surrogate consent in 57 of those cases. There were no significant differences in age, race/ethnicity, country of origin, or functional status between patients where a DNR order was and was not placed without consent. Physicians were more likely to place a DNR order for patients believed to be imminently dying. The median time from DNR order to death was 4 days with a 90-day mortality of 88.2%. In this single-center cohort study, there was no evidence that patient demographic factors affected ethics consultants’ recommendation to withhold CPR despite patient/surrogate requests. Physicians were most likely to place a DNR order without consent for imminently dying patients. (shrink)

Clinical ethics training programs are responsible for preparing their trainees to be competent ethics consultants worthy of the trust of patients, families, surrogates, and healthcare professionals. While the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) offers a certification examination for healthcare ethics consultants, no tools exist for the formal evaluation of ethics trainees to assess their progress toward competency. Medical specialties accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) use milestones to report trainees’ progress along a continuum of (...) professional development as a means of “operationalizing and implementing” medical competencies. Utilizing the Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation and the ACGME and American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Pediatric Milestones Project, we developed milestones for 17 subcompetencies in clinical ethics consultation and academic bioethics. As the field of clinical ethics becomes more standardized, such tools will be needed to promote the development of robust training programs and to certify that their graduates are competent practitioners. (shrink)

Numerous authors identify a white supremacist ideology that shapes the educational opportunities for racially diverse students. We contend that this ideology informs educational policy and hampers the likelihood that racially diverse populations can achieve success at levels similar to students of European descent. In this paper we define the white supremacist ideology as it informs education policy and practices. Three examples from the United States are then used to illustrate the influence of such an ideology. These examples include the creation (...) and protection of racially segregated schooling; desegregation policies; and the current uses of school report cards. We conclude with the relevance of this discussion to educational debates in Great Britain and South Africa, and recommendations to minimise the influence of this ideology on education policy and school reform efforts. (shrink)

The existence of free will has been both an enduring presumption of Western culture and a subject for debate across disciplines for millennia. However, little empirical evidence exists to support the almost unquestioned assumption that, in general, Westerners endorse the existence of free will. The few studies that measure belief in free will have methodological problems that likely resulted in underestimating the true extent of belief. Recently, Rakos et al. (Behavior and Social Issues 17:20–39, 2008 ) found a stronger endorsement (...) of free will when demand characteristics were eliminated. The current study builds on this work by sampling incarcerated adolescents and adults, whose freedom to act is externally constrained. Belief in free will as well as attitudes toward punishment, self-esteem, and locus of control were measured. The results indicate that free will is strongly endorsed in Western society even when freedom to act is severely restricted. However, incarcerated adolescents endorsed free will to a slightly lesser extent than their nonincarcerated counterparts from Rakos et al. (Behavior and Social Issues 17:20–39, 2008 ), while incarcerated and nonincarcerated adults offered equally strong endorsements. The comparable endorsement by adults is consistent with the hypothesis that the belief in agency is an evolutionary adaptation. The small decrease found for incarcerated adolescents may reflect the interaction between developmental factors and the expression of an evolutionary adaptation. Additionally, incarcerated adolescents and adults associated beliefs in free will with viewing punishment as a means of deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution. Incarcerated adults, but not incarcerated adolescents, associated beliefs in free will with greater self-esteem and with an external locus of control. Finally, though both incarcerated adults and adolescents endorsed free will strongly, the former manifested the belief by emphasizing free agentic choice whereas the latter focused on the personal responsibility that is interwoven with free choice. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of evolutionary, cultural, and developmental factors. (shrink)

A philosophically and historically influential section of the Critique of Judgement presents an ‘intuitive intellect’ as a mind whose representation is limited to what actually exists, and does not extend to mere possibilities. Kant’s paradigmatic instance of such an intellect is however also the divine mind. This combination threatens to rule out the reality of the mere possibilities presupposed by Kant’s theory of human freedom. Through an analysis of the relevant issues in metaphysical cosmology, modal metaphysics and philosophical theology, I (...) show that Kant in fact possesses the resources to reconcile the philosophical claims of §76 of the Critique of Judgement with his keystone commitment to the reality of human freedom. (shrink)

The use and abuse and critique of Kant has generated a huge literature among contemporary political theorists; his work has been surreptitiously kept by some critics of the Enlightenment to exeplify starndards of modernity. Kimberly Hutchings reevaluates Kant's work in terms of its significance in the writings of Habersmas, Arendt, Lyotard and Foucault. This is not an exercise in the history of ideas; through her extremely lucid presentation of Kant's critical philosophy, Hutchings reveals the critique to be a complex, (...) ambiguous political practice. The common Kantian heritage in the thought of the four contemporary theorists challenges orthodox distinctions between modernist and postmodernist theorizing. Kant, Critique and Kant addresses why Kant's legacy is inescapable for current debates about both "critique" and politics. This reading sheds a new light on continental and political philosophy, international relations theory and feminist theory. (shrink)

Kant's theory of the intuitive intellect has a broad and substantial role in the development and exposition of his critical philosophy. An emphasis on this theory's reception and appropriation on the part of the German idealists has tended to divert attention from Kant's own treatment of the topic. In this essay, I seek an adequate overview of the theory Kant advances in support of his critical enterprise. I examine the nature of the intuitive intellect's object; its epistemic relation to its (...) object; its mode of comprehension; the relationship between these cognitive elements; and I ask which minds Kant regards as intuitive intellects. (shrink)

A prefrontal control system that is less mature than the limbic reward system in adolescence is thought to impede self-regulatory abilities, which could contribute to poor dietary choices and obesity. We, therefore, aimed to examine whether structural morphology of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are associated with dietary decisions and obesity in children and adolescents. Seventy-one individuals between the ages of 8–22 years participated in this study; each participant completed a computer-based food choice task and a T1- and T2-weighted (...) structural brain scans. Two indices of obesity were assessed, including age- and sex-specific body mass index and waist-to-height ratio. The behavioral task included rating 60 food stimuli for tastiness, healthiness, and liking. Based on each participant’s self-ratings, 100 binary food choices were then made utilizing a computer mouse. Dietary “self-control” was calculated as the proportion of trials where the individual chose the healthier food item over the total number of trials. Cortical thickness and amygdala subnuclei volumes were quantified using FreeSurfer 6.0 and CIT168 atlas, respectively. We found that WHtR was negatively associated with the thickness of bilateral superior frontal, left superior temporal, right insula, and right inferior temporal regions. We also found WHtR to be positively associated with the volume of the central nucleus region of the amygdala, after adjusting for the hemisphere, age, sex, and intracranial volumes. A similar data pattern was observed when BMIz was used. Moreover, we found that across all participants, thinner right superior frontal cortex and larger left CEN volumes predicted lower dietary self-control. These results suggest that differential development of the PFC and amygdala relate to obesity and dietary self-control. Further longitudinal studies are merited to determine causal relationships among altered PFC to amygdala neural circuitry, dietary self-control, and obesity. (shrink)