Teaching competency in bioethics has been a concern of the field since its start. In 1976, The Hastings Center published the first report on the teaching of contemporary bioethics. Graduate programs culminating in an MA or PhD were not needed at the time, concluded the report. “In the future, however,” the report speculated, “the development and/or changing social priorities may at some point allow, or even require, the creation of new academic structures for graduate education in bioethics.” Although that future (...) might be upon us, the creation of a terminal degree in bioethics has its detractors. Scholars have debated whether bioethics is a discipline with its own methods and theoretical grounding, a multidisciplinary field bringing various professional perspectives to bear on particular types of problems, a set of problem-solving skills to resolve moral disagreements, or something else entirely. Whether or not efforts to develop the methods and theory of bioethics have matured to the point that it is now a discipline in the strictest sense, new bioethics training programs have appeared at all postsecondary levels. In this essay, we examine the number and types of U.S. programs and degrees in this growing field. (shrink)

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental fnd-ings in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are fndings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers (...) have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed. (shrink)

Between the Psyche and the Social is the first collection that specifically features the field of psychoanalytic social theory emerging in and between psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, and across the disciplines of philosophy, literary, film, and cultural studies. This collection of essays takes the psychoanalytic study of social oppression in some new directions by engaging—indeed, stirring up—unconscious fantasies and ethical tensions at the heart of social subjectivity.

This collection charts the rise of French ideas as they have influenced British culture. It offers a guide to the history of structuralist and post-structuralist concepts in philosophy, literature, marxism, feminism, history and psychoanalysis. The book grew out of a discussion series and conference held at London's ICA following the death of Michel Foucault. The contributors assess the current state of cultural theory in France and its influence in Britain.

Sylviane Agacinski has never shied away from controversy. Vilified by some -- including many feminists -- and celebrated by others as a pioneer of gender equality, she has galvanized the French political scene. Her articulation of the theory of "parity" helped inspire a law that went into effect in May 2000 requiring the country's political parties to fill 50 percent of the candidacies in every race with women. Sylviane Agacinski, according to _The New Yorker,_ "is sometimes credited with making _parité_ (...) respectable." Agacinski begins with the notion that sexual difference should be affirmed rather than denied. Sex, Agacinski points out, is not a social, cultural, or ethnic characteristic -- it is a universal human trait. In her argument for the necessary recognition of sexual difference, she enters into today's most controversial social territory. Agacinski's model of parity does not strive for the nebulous ideal of "equality" between the sexes; instead, it demands a concrete formula for political contests: an equal number of female and male candidates in every election. It is a theory that has sparked impassioned debate across France: Are female politicians necessarily different from male politicians? Is parity democratic? Is it truly feminist? Agacinski's sophisticated polemic will stimulate debate on American shores as it has in France. _Parity of the Sexes_ sheds light on one of the crucial spheres of public life in which earlier French feminists left their work unfinished -- the realm of political power. (shrink)

Based upon flyers and advertisements for the contraceptive pill from 1961 until 2005, this paper discusses the ways in which the drug and its female users were represented in the marketing of two West European countries, France and the German Federal Republic. As my analysis suggests, national differences are only discernible in the marketing until the end of the 1970s. In West Germany, the pill was depicted from early on as a contraceptive, whereas, due to the restrictive legal situation, (...) in France the pill was marketed as a multi-purpose drug. Nevertheless, the sources in both countries emphasized the safety of the drug. Likewise the representations of women changed from the notion of the married mother to a more diverse image, including young, modern and active women. From the early 1980s on, French and German materials conformed to one another. Now more classification systems were developed, emphasizing the differences between types of pills and types of women. Lifestyle, leisure and fun became increasingly central topics. Correspondingly, the female user was often portrayed in a sexualized way and represented as an active consumer with individual needs and wishes. (shrink)

This article offers a comparative examination of the status of ‘interdisciplinarity’, ‘cultural studies’ and ‘queer’ in the discipline of French studies in the Anglophone world and in France. It is argued that, while the intellectual origins of both interdisciplinarity and queer theory are French, a series of disavowals and appropriations has de-gallicized them. On the one hand, the cultural hegemony of English studies in the USA and the UK has led to a colonization and anglicization of continental thought. On (...) the other, the resistance to cultural studies within the Hexagone has meant that work done in critical sexuality studies within the Anglo-American world over the past forty years is only now beginning to be felt within French-speaking contexts. In tracing this double history of dislocation, the article contextualizes the difficulty of thinking queer in properly French terms — and the importance of doing so. (shrink)

I explore some early modern philosophical thought about the relation of beauty and wisdom, a theme first expressed in Plato's Symposium. The thinkers I consider most centrally are two women, Lucrezia Marinella and Mary Astell, though I also consider the writers Aphra Behn and Sarah Scott. While women in particular might have a special interest in appropriating the Platonic image of the ladder of desire, this ought not to be conceived as a 'women's issue'. Rather, I suggest, this strand of (...) thought is connected with a central philosophical question of the early modern period, the nature of thought and consciousness. J'étudie ici quelques réflexions philosophiques de l'âge moderne portant sur la relation entre beauté et sagesse, thème d'abord développé dans Le Banquet de Platon. Les penseurs auxquels je m'intéresse principalement sont Lucrecia Marinella et Mary Astell, même si je m'appuie aussi sur les écrivaines Aphra Behn et Sarah Scott. Bien que les femmes en particulier puissent avoir un intérêt spécifique à s'approprier l'image platonicienne de l'échelle désir, cela n'autorise pas à concevoir cette question comme un « problème de femmes ». Je suggère, au contraire, que ce courant de pensée est relié à une question philosophique centrale à l'époque moderne, celle de la nature de la pensée et de la conscience. (shrink)

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is _On the Spiritual in Art_, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's _Aesthetics_, in which art had similarly been presented as (...) a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit. In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century. (shrink)

I explore some early modern philosophical thought about the relation of beauty and wisdom, a theme first expressed in Plato's Symposium. The thinkers I consider most centrally are two women, Lucrezia Marinella and Mary Astell, though I also consider the writers Aphra Behn and Sarah Scott. While women in particular might have a special interest in appropriating the Platonic image of the ladder of desire, this ought not to be conceived as a 'women's issue'. Rather, I suggest, this strand of (...) thought is connected with a central philosophical question of the early modern period, the nature of thought and consciousness. J'étudie ici quelques réflexions philosophiques de l'âge moderne portant sur la relation entre beauté et sagesse, thème d'abord développé dans Le Banquet de Platon. Les penseurs auxquels je m'intéresse principalement sont Lucrecia Marinella et Mary Astell, même si je m'appuie aussi sur les écrivaines Aphra Behn et Sarah Scott. Bien que les femmes en particulier puissent avoir un intérêt spécifique à s'approprier l'image platonicienne de l'échelle désir, cela n'autorise pas à concevoir cette question comme un « problème de femmes ». Je suggère, au contraire, que ce courant de pensée est relié à une question philosophique centrale à l'époque moderne, celle de la nature de la pensée et de la conscience. (shrink)

Ma recherche artistique et théorique se concentre sur une série d’œuvres dans laquelle je me sers exclusivement de l’image publicitaire de viande crue que je détourne pour construire des corps féminins. Je découpe ces images des prospectus de supermarchés qui arrivent dans ma boîte aux lettres, là où je réside dans le centre de la France. Le mélange femme-viande-crue-publicitaire s’avère troublant pour le spectateur. Ma recherche sonde les raisons pour lesquelles nous sommes affectés par l’image de la viande crue, (...) et surtout, lorsque celle-ci se combine – ou fusionne – avec le corps de la femme. Cet article concernant la problématique viande-femme propose deux clés de lecture : le sacrifice et le sang. Le tabou ancestral du sang est associé à la fois au corps animal et humain. La recherche soulève nos liens les plus profonds avec la chair animale et ses pratiques liées aux sociétés archaïques, et veut démontrer comment les mythes, les rites, et les interdits issus de la préhistoire continuent à influer sur notre perception contemporaine. Je soutiens l’hypothèse du dévoilement, de l’image violente (de la femme), et observe comment les différents mécanismes à l’œuvre dans la représentation de la femme, à l’instar de la série « Raw Meat », permettent une multitude d’interprétations de la chair, dont les sens embrassent les époques les plus reculées de l’humanité jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Mon éloge de cette polysémie est celle de la nécessité de cette « véritable » image de femme, à l’image de son émancipation. (shrink)

From one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, a rousing defense of the role of science in our lives The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven’s Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science. There could be no better guide than (...) class='Hi'>Lisa Randall. The bestselling author of Warped Passages is an expert in both particle physics (the study of the smallest objects we know of) and cosmology (the study of the largest). In Knocking on Heaven’s Door, she explores how we decide which scientific questions to study and how we go about answering them. She examines the role of risk, creativity, uncertainty, beauty, and truth in scientific thinking through provocative conversations with leading figures in other fields (such as the chef David Chang, the forecaster Nate Silver, and the screenwriter Scott Derrickson), and she explains with wit and clarity the latest ideas in physics and cosmology. Randall describes the nature and goals of the largest machine ever built: the Large Hadron Collider, the enormous particle accelerator below the border of France and Switzerland—as well as recent ideas underlying cosmology and current dark matter experiments. The most sweeping and exciting science book in years, Knocking on Heaven’s Door makes clear the biggest scientific questions we face and reveals how answering them could ultimately tell us who we are and where we came from. (shrink)

The implementation of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as a new tool for prevention against HIV raised particular ethical concerns regarding the individuals’ and the collective's best interests in France. It was questioned whether the beneficence of taking or prescribing PrEP regarding its high efficacy to protect people from HIV is always more important than the maleficence represented by the risks involved, such as healthy people taking a pill with side effects, the growth of sexually transmitted infections or the potential generalization (...) of risk-taking sexual behaviour. The main objective of this study was to explore patients’ and health professionals’ ethical questioning on PrEP. Sixty-nine qualitative interviews were conducted with 45 users and 24 healthcare professionals. Overall, this study shows that those primarily concerned by PrEP tend to dismiss ethical questions regarding PrEP itself in the name of its efficacy and the empowerment it allows, but they would rather stress the impact PrEP can have on individuals’ sexual behaviour and how it can affect their autonomy if it is prescribed blindly without taking into consideration the specific living context and life history of each PrEP user. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a treatment of “the clinic” in which the clinic—as concept and space—is que(e)ried, that is, both questioned and made queer. I present two historical case studies that queer clinical thought and practices in the period before AIDS and before the full-blown arrival of queer theory on the western theoretical landscape. These two cases—the practice of self-help developed in the women’s health movement in the United States and the practice of tranversality developed out of and beyond (...) the Institutional Psychiatry movement in France—challenge the practice of medicine in the prehistory of both AIDS and queer theory, yet, they are not generally seen as precursors, or related in any way, to AIDS activism. In a sense, then, I also want to question and make queer the history of AIDS as we conventionally know it today by extending that history backwards and outwards to earlier queer critical and clinical practices like self-help and transversality. (shrink)

This article aims to present how paper-folding activities were integrated into recreational mathematics during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Recreational mathematics was conceived during these centuries as a way not only to pique one’s curiosity, but also to communicate mathematical knowledge to the literate classes of the population. Starting with Leurechon’s 1624 Récréation mathématique, which did not contain any exercise concerning paper folding, we show how two other traditions—Dürer’s folded nets on the one hand and napkin folding on the (...) other hand—prompted and influenced the integration of folding within subsequent books and manuscripts, especially those of Georg Philipp Harsdörffer and Daniel Schwenter. In Germany, but also to a lesser extent in France, folding was henceforth re-conceptualised within recreational mathematics as a way to transmit geometrical knowledge. Following Harsdörffer, the paper will claim that practising folding activities enabled the acquiring of a geometrical knowledge, which was haptic rather than symbolical or merely visual. This tactility reflects the Baconian conception of science and scientific experiment; and the paper will try to illuminate how folding, by advancing practice and tactility via experiments, was representing these traditions and conceptions. (shrink)

This article looks at riots that consumed Paris and much of France for three consecutive weeks in November 2005. The author argues that the uprisings were not instigated by radical Muslims, children of African polygamists, or despairing youth suffering from high unemployment. First and foremost, they were provoked by a terrible incident of police brutality, a tragedy among a litany of similar tragedies. Black and Arab youth were already frustrated: decades of violent enforcement of France's categorical boundaries—both racial (...) and geographic—had filled many with rage. When Minister of Interior Nicholas Sarkozy responded to the violent death of three teenage boys on October 25, 2005, by condemning the boys rather than the police officers who had killed them, he merely reaffirmed what many young blacks and Arabs already believed: that their lives have no value in France. (shrink)

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read it. Historians (...) of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

This paper argues that a priori justification is, in principle, compatible with naturalism—if the a priori is understood in a way that is free of the inessential properties that, historically, have been associated with the concept. I argue that empirical indefeasibility is essential to the primary notion of the a priori ; however, the indefeasibility requirement should be interpreted in such a way that we can be fallibilist about apriori-justified claims. This fallibilist notion of the a priori accords with the (...) naturalist’s commitment to scientific methodology in that it allows for apriori-justified claims to be sensitive to further conceptual developments and the expansion of evidence. The fallibilist apriorist allows that an a priori claim is revisable in only a purely epistemic sense. This modal claim is weaker than what is required for a revisability thesis to establish empiricism, so fallibilist apriorism represents a distinct position. (shrink)

I argue that epistemic failings are a significant and underappreciated moral hazard in the financial services industry. I argue further that an analysis of these epistemic failings and their means of redress is best developed by identifying policies and procedures that are likely to facilitate good judgment. These policies and procedures are “best epistemic practices.” I explain how best epistemic practices support good reasoning, thereby facilitating accurate judgments about risk and reward. Failures to promote and adhere to best epistemic practices (...) contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. I identify and discuss some of the ways in which best epistemic practices were violated in the events that led to the crisis, with a focus on the role of the credit rating agencies. I go on to discuss some of the ways in which these failings have been redressed. I conclude by observing how proactive regulation for best epistemic practices might help us to anticipate and avoid future crises. (shrink)

Selon Spinoza, les idées appartiennent à la nature au même titre que les corps. Et pourtant ce ne sont pas des corps : seule une physique spéciale, nullement métaphorique, peut rendre compte de l'étrange univers qu'elles composent.

Au détour de l'ordre géométrique, dans un scolie de la Quatrième partie de l'Éthique faisant suite à l'énoncé de la règle fondamentale qui associe l'utilité du corps humain, et par conséquent le bien de l'individu, à la recherche d'une constance fondamentale dans le rapport de ses parties, surgit un scolie baroque, où passe l'ombre de la mort et qui débouche sur d'inquiétantes possibilités de mutation, voire de transmutation de l'identité : « Il arrive qu'un homme subit de tels changements, que (...) je ne dirai pas aisément qu'il est le même. C'est ce que j'ai entendu raconter de certain poète espagnol qui avait été atteint de maladie et qui, bien qu'il en fût guéri, demeura cependant dans un tel oubli de sa vie passée, qu'il ne croyait pas que les nouvelles et les tragédies qu'il avait faites fussent de lui ; et certes on eût pu le tenir pour un nourrisson adulte, s'il eût oublié aussi sa langue maternelle... » De ce texte perturbateur et de sa « contradiction » centrale, qui ont semé le trouble chez les commentateurs, François Zourabichvili qui en propose une explication systématique fait le fil conducteur d'une relecture complète des relations qui associent la métaphysique spinozienne à son anthropologie et à sa politique, centrée sur la question de la transformation comme « oubli », voire amnésie d'une forme antérieure, et « imagination », chimérique ou non, d'une nouvelle aptitude du corps. Il démontre ainsi la rigoureuse correspondance qui, d'un bout à l'autre de l'œuvre, associe la question d'une sortie de l'enfance à celle d'une émancipation de l'imaginaire monarchique. A l'encontre d'une lecture naïvement « révolutionnaire » du spinozisme, surgit alors ce qu'on peut appeler un conservatisme : mais dont le paradoxe est éclatant, car il tend moins à préserver l'état de choses existant qu'à inventer les conditions d'une vraie conservation de soi (neutralisation de la mort et de la servitude). Pages de début Avertissement Introduction Première étude. Envelopper une autre nature / envelopper la nature Introduction 1. La transition éthique dans le Court traité 2. La transition éthique dans le Traité de la réforme de l'entendement Deuxième étude. L'image rectifiée de l'enfance Introduction 3. La figure de l'infans adultus 4. Enfance et philosophie 5. Enfance et mémoire Conclusion sur le rapport à l'enfance Troisième étude. Puissance de Dieu et puissance des rois Introduction 6. La confusion des deux puissances et la dérive baroque du cartésianisme 7. Le rêve transformiste de la monarchie absolue 8. Qu'est-cequ'une multitude libre? Guerre et civilisation Bibliographie Index. (shrink)

Essays discuss euthanasia and the medical, legal, and ethical controversies surrounding it.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Broadly speaking, a naturalistic approach to epistemology seeks to explain human knowledge – and justification in particular – as a phenomenon in the natural world, in keeping with the tenets of naturalism. Naturalism is typically defined, in part, by a commitment to scientific method as the only legitimate means of attaining knowledge of the natural world. Naturalism is often thought to entail empiricism by virtue of this methodological commitment. However, scientific methods themselves may incorporate a priori elements, so empiricism does (...) not follow from the methodological commitments of naturalism alone. And given a suitably-naturalistic conception of the a priori, a priori forms of justification may be compatible with naturalism generally. A priori justification is, in principle, compatible with naturalism – and hence naturalistic epistemologies – if the a priori is understood in a way that is free of some of the inessential properties that have been associated with the concept. I argue that some of the more prominent strategies for accommodating normative notions within a naturalistic framework allow for the possibility of a priori justification. These include reliabilism, instrumental rationality, and nonfactualism about justification. A priori justification thus need not be seen as standing in opposition to all naturalistic epistemologies. It is only with nonnormative naturalistic epistemologies that a priori justification per se is incompatible, and this only because the notion of justification itself has no role to play within a nonnormative approach to epistemology. (shrink)

L'ordre matériel du savoir Comment les savants travaillent | XVIe-XXIe siècles L'article, le graphique, la fiche, le poster, le cahier de laboratoire sont quelques-uns des nombreux outils du travail scientifique étudiés dans cet ouvrage qui offre une histoire matérielle de la culture savante entre le XVIe et le XXIe siècle. Il rend manifeste, de la médecine à l'archéologie, de la géographie à la chirurgie, ce que l'on ne voit pas ou plus dans les résultats : la masse imposante de l'outillage (...) à disposition, sa grande diversité, son accroissement constant. S'y ajoutent les ressources des savants eux-mêmes, celles de leurs sens éduqués ou amplifiés par de multiples instruments. Les configurations fascinantes que ces outils et leur emploi créent entre écrit, image, parole, regard et geste révèlent le caractère composite, multimédia et multisensoriel, de l'ordre raisonné du savoir. Explorer la science dans sa matérialité éclaire d'un jour nouveau des pans entiers de l'histoire intellectuelle. Les outils de travail ne sont pas de simples à-côtés des idées. Ils participent étroitement à la connaissance, entre objectivité scientifique et éléments empruntés à l'expérience des sens. Un essai d'anthropologie des savoirs qui porte un regard original sur l'ordinaire de la science. (shrink)

A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, law enforcement, and our understanding of the human mind Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology--and (...) this paradigm shift has far-reaching implications for us all. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose theory of emotion is driving a deeper understanding of the mind and brain, and shedding new light on what it means to be human. Her research overturns the widely held belief that emotions are housed in different parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning. This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you ever thought. Its repercussions are already shaking the foundations not only of psychology but also of medicine, the legal system, child-rearing, meditation, and even airport security. Why do emotions feel automatic? Does rational thought really control emotion? How does emotion affect disease? How can you make your children more emotionally intelligent? How Emotions Are Made answers these questions and many more, revealing the latest research and intriguing practical applications of the new science of emotion, mind, and brain. (shrink)

Frances Yates, leading Renaissance scholar of her time, revolutionised the study of art, science and ideas. She was a pioneer in her emphasis on visual culture, Fellow of the British Academy, and a remarkable twentieth century philosopher. This set provides immediate access to the work of this very important late twentieth century philosopher.

Epistemic practices are an important but underappreciated component of business ethics; good conduct requires making epistemically sound as well as morally principled judgments. Well-founded judgments are promoted by epistemic virtues, and for organizations, epistemic virtues are arguably achieved through organizational good epistemic practices. But how are such practices to be developed? This paper addresses this normative and practical challenge. The first half of the paper explains what organizational good epistemic practices are and outlines a means for their construction. The second (...) half of the paper demonstrates how specific good epistemic practices could be developed by considering a case of corporate epistemic failings: JPMorgan’s notorious 2012 ‘London Whale’ trading losses. Following this, the paper briefly surveys the institutional epistemic failings of the 2008 global financial crisis and the remedial actions that they suggest. Although the discussion is focused on the banking industry, the main ideas, and some of the epistemic practices, generalize to organizations in other industries. (shrink)

Lisa Tessman's Burdened Virtues is a deeply original and provocative work that engages questions central to feminist theory and practice, from the perspective of Aristotelian ethics. Focused primarily on selves who endure and resist oppression, she addresses the ways in which devastating conditions confronted by these selves both limit and burden their moral goodness, and affect their possibilities of flourishing. She describes two different forms of "moral trouble" prevalent under oppression. The first is that the oppressed self may be (...) morally damaged, prevented from developing or exercising some of the virtues; the second is that the very conditions of oppression require the oppressed to develop a set of virtues that carry a moral cost to those who practice them--traits that Tessman refers to as "burdened virtues." These virtues have the unusual feature of being disjoined from their bearer's own well being. Tessman's work focuses on issues that have been missed by many feminist moral theories, and her use of the virtue ethics framework brings feminist concerns more closely into contact with mainstream ethical theory. This book will appeal to feminist theorists in philosophy and women's studies, but also more broadly, ethicists and social theorists. (shrink)

I argue against traditional virtue epistemology on which knowledge is a success due to a competence to believe truly, by revealing an in-principle problem with the traditional virtue epistemologist’s explanation of Gettier cases. The argument eliminates one of the last plausible explanation of Gettier cases, and so of knowledge, in terms of non-factive mental states and non-mental conditions. I then I develop and defend a different kind of virtue epistemology, on which knowledge is an exercise of a competence to know. (...) I show how the account, while circular, is not viciously so. It explains both how knowledge is a mental state, as well as the relationship between knowledge and justification, including justified false beliefs and Gettier cases. Moreover, although direct virtue epistemology is compatible with many views on the nature of belief, it can explain how knowledge might be metaphysically more fundamental than belief as well. (shrink)

Good epistemic practices are essential to the well-functioning of organizations. Epistemic practices are adopted norms, policies, procedures, and general methodologies that further our epistemic aims or realize our epistemic values. This chapter argues for the importance of organizational good epistemic practices through an analysis of the failures of risk management implicated in JPMorgan’s notorious ‘London Whale’ trading losses, which roiled the financial markets in 2012. A number of these failures of risk management exemplified ways in which we, as fallible reasoners, (...) may be prone to error individually and collectively. Good epistemic practices inter alia anticipate and endeavor to correct for erroneous patterns of reasoning. They help guard against future epistemic failings, and they support good reasoning within and on the part of organizations. In so doing, they constitute some of the key structural elements of organizational epistemic virtues. (shrink)

It is often thought that the numerous contradictory perspectives in Margaret Cavendish's writings demonstrate her inability to reconcile her feminism with her conservative, royalist politics. In this book Lisa Walters challenges this view and demonstrates that Cavendish's ideas more closely resemble republican thought, and that her methodology is the foundation for subversive political, scientific and gender theories. With an interdisciplinary focus Walters closely examines Cavendish's work and its context, providing the reader with an enriched understanding of women's contribution to (...) early modern scientific theory, political philosophy, culture and folklore. Considering also Cavendish's ideas in relation to Hobbes and Paracelsus, this volume is of great interest to scholars and students of literature, philosophy, history of ideas, political theory, gender studies and history of science. (shrink)

Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality asks what happens when the sense that "I must" collides with the realization that "I can't." Bringing together philosophical and empirical work in moral psychology, Lisa Tessman here examines moral requirements that are non-negotiable and that contravene the principle that "ought implies can.".

This paper investigates how deans and directors at the top 50 global MBA programs (as rated by the "Financial Times" in their 2006 Global MBA rankings) respond to questions about the inclusion and coverage of the topics of ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability at their respective institutions. This work purposely investigates each of the three topics separately. Our findings reveal that: (1) a majority of the schools require that one or more of these topics be covered in their MBA (...) curriculum and one-third of the schools require coverage of all three topics as part of the MBA curriculum, (2) there is a trend toward the inclusion of sustainability-related courses, (3) there is a higher percentage of student interest in these topics (as measured by the presence of a Net Impact club) in the top 10 schools, and (4) several schools are teaching these topics using experiential learning and immersion techniques. We note a fivefold increase in the number of stand-alone ethics courses since a 1988 investigation on ethics, and we include other findings about institutional support of centers or special programs; as well as a discussion of integration, teaching techniques, and notable practices in relation to all three topics. (shrink)

A central feature of ordinary moral thought is that moral judgment is mind-independent in the following sense: judging something to be morally wrong does not thereby make it morally wrong. To deny this would be to accept a form of subjectivism. Neil Sinclair (2008) makes a novel attempt to show how expressivism is simultaneously committed to (1) an understanding of moral judgments as expressions of attitudes and (2) the rejection of subjectivism. In this paper, I discuss Sinclair’s defense of anti-subjectivist (...) moral mind-independence on behalf of the expressivist, and I argue that the account does not fully succeed. An examination of why it does not is instructive, and it reveals a fundamental dilemma for the expressivist. I offer a suggestion for how the expressivist might respond to the dilemma and so uphold Sinclair’s defense. (shrink)

Dispositional Essentialism, as commonly conceived, consists in the claims that at least some of the fundamental properties essentially confer certain causal-nomological roles on their bearers, and that these properties give rise to the natural modalities. As such, the view is generally taken to be committed to a realist conception of properties as either universals or tropes, and to be thus incompatible with nominalism as understood in the strict sense. Pace this common assumption of the ontological import of Dispositional Essentialism, the (...) aim of this paper is to explore a nominalist version of the view, Austere Nominalist Dispositional Essentialism. The core features of the proposed account are that it eschews all kinds of properties, takes certain predicative truths as fundamental, and employs the so-called generic notion of essence. As I will argue, the account is significantly closer to the core idea behind Dispositional Essentialism than the only nominalist account in the vicinity of Dispositional Essentialism that has been offered so far—Ann Whittle’s Causal Nominalism—and is immune to crucial problems that affect this view. (shrink)

Epistemology needs to account for the success of science. In True Enough, Catherine Elgin argues that a veritist epistemology is inadequate to this task. She advocates shifting epistemology’s focus away from true belief and toward understanding, and further, jettisoning truth from its privileged place in epistemological theorizing. Pace Elgin, I argue that epistemology’s accommodation of science does not require rejecting truth as the central epistemic value. Instead, it requires understanding veritism in an ecumenical way that acknowledges a rich array of (...) truth-oriented values. ¶ In place of veritism, Elgin offers a holistic epistemology that takes epistemic norms to have their genesis in our collective practice of deliberation. The acceptability of epistemic norms turns on epistemic responsibility, as opposed to reliability, and truth-conduciveness is rejected as the standard of evaluation for arguments and methods of inquiry. I argue, by way of an extended discussion of a high-profile and controversial criminal case, that this leaves epistemic practices and their products inadequately grounded. I offer an alternative, veritistic account of epistemic norms that retains a modified version of truth-conduciveness as a standard of evaluation. However, my alternative account of epistemic norms is congenial to Elgin’s holistic epistemology, and, I suggest, could be incorporated within it. (shrink)

Such an absence seems ultimately fatal. Yet as this volume amply demonstrates, the richness of his social theory can be opened up by contemporary feminism.

Dr Jardine finds a unifying principle in Bacon's preoccupation with 'method', the evaluation and organisation of information as a procedure of investigation or ...

I motivate and develop a novel account of the epistemic assessability of suspension as a development of my knowledge-first, virtue-epistemological research program. First, I extend an argument of Ernest Sosa's for the claim that evidentialism cannot adequately account for the epistemic assessability of suspension. This includes a kind of knowledge-first evidentialism of the sort advocated by Timothy Williamson. I agree with Sosa that the reasons why evidentialism fails motivate a virtue-epistemological approach, but argue that my knowledge-first account is preferable to (...) his view. According to my account, rational belief is belief that manifests proper practical respect for what it takes to know. Beliefs are the only primary bearers of epistemic evaluation since they are the only candidates for knowledge. However, suspension can manifest a derivative kind of practical respect for what it takes to know. Thus, we can explain why the same sort of assessment is applicable to both belief and suspension, and why belief has a privileged claim to these properties. Lastly, I'll look at Sosa's and Williamson's treatments of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which treats a certain kind of suspension as the epistemically superior practice, and argue that my account provides a better anti-skeptical response than either of their approaches. (shrink)

In this accessible yet throught-provoking work, Lisa Tessman takes us through gripping examples of the impossible demands of morality -- some epic, and others quotidian -- whose central predicament is: How do we make decisions when morality demands we do something that we cannot?