The tensions between monarchy and republicanism are a dominant feature of Machiavelli’s political works, and both the so-called ‘monarchical’ work, The Prince, and the more overtly republican Discourses laud the benefits of republicanism and warn against relying on hereditary monarchy. This article compares Machiavelli’s proposals, advanced in 1520, for a mixed constitution for the city of Florence with those of his younger compatriot, Donato Giannotti, who became secretary to the Ten in the last Florentine republican government of 1527-30. As the (...) historical context changed, and Florence progressed from republic to absolutist duchy under the later Medici, Giannotti was exiled from the city and the article examines how his proposed reforms of 1528 and then his major work, Della republica fiorentina, drafted and redrafted between 1531 and 1538 as the politics of Florence changed, reinforce and expand Machiavelli’s views of politico vivere in a republican polity like Florence whose constitution was being dramatically rewritten. (shrink)

Several arguments have been put forward about the benefits of young people carrying out their own social science research in terms of empowering their voices and their participation. Much less attention has been paid to investigating the understandings young people develop about the research process itself. Seven twelve-year olds carried out self-directed social science research into a topic of their choice. Towards the end of their six months experience, we used a questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews to investigate, from a (...) sociocultural perspective, what the young people thought about being a researcher. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified three themes and eight subthemes suggesting that they were aware of: the need to demonstrate researcher/research integrity ; the need for good interpersonal skills and standards, and good self-management skills (be resilient, agentic, committed and go... (shrink)

Recent efforts to talk about the self in a postmodern dialect have created a dilemma: How can one conceptualize the human self as multiple, fluid, contextual, and radically relational while also maintaining that it is intentional, private, focused, and accountable? Creative Dwelling weaves elements of feminist psychology and process theology into a dynamic interdiscplinary dialogue about human subjectivity. The result brings a new coherence and vitality to our search for more inclusive and adequate ways of understanding our humanity. The theologicl (...) implications are profound: the dynamics of empathy and clarity impel the author to reframe characteristics of the divine nature, sin, salvation, and spirituality. The book culminates in a study of "dwelling" as a new, iconoclastic, and visionary metaphor for our experiences of the ever-emerging self. (shrink)

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card’s award-winning 1985 novel, has been discovered and rediscovered by generations of science fiction fans, even being adopted as reading by the U.S. Marine Corps. Ender's Game and its sequels explore rich themes — the violence and cruelty of children, the role of empathy in war, and the balance of individual dignity and the social good — with compelling elements of a coming-of-age story. Ender’s Game and Philosophy brings together over 30 philosophers to engage in wide-ranging (...) discussion on issues such as: the justifiability of pre-emptive strikes; how Ender’s disconnected and dispassionate violence is mirrored in today’s drone warfare; whether the end of saving the species can justify the most brutal means; the justifiability of lies and deception in wartime, and how military schools produce training in virtue. The authors of Ender’s Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront the challenges that Ender’s Game presents, bringing new insights to the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, and the serious work of playing games. (shrink)

Scholars of color have been instrumental in advancing nursing knowledge development but find limited spaces where one can authentically share their philosophical perspective. Although there is a call for antiracism in nursing and making way for more diverse and inclusive theories and philosophies, our voices remain at the margins of nursing theory and philosophy. In nursing philosophy, there continues to be a lack of racial diversity in those who are given the platform to share their scholarship. Five nurse scholars of (...) color attended the International Nursing Philosophy Conference in August 2022. We established a collective system of support by sharing our experiences as researchers, scholars, and educators with each other. The theory of emancipatory nursing praxis informed this process. In this dialogue, we reflected on what it is like to present at and attend predominantly white nursing conferences. We shared our experiences of how we exist as nurse scholars, our philosophical views, and our thoughts on how we create spaces where scholars of color can feel welcomed and acknowledged for their contributions to advancing nursing knowledge. (shrink)

Black women are 3–4 times more likely to die from a pregnancy‐related complication and twice as likely to experience severe maternal morbidity when compared to white women in the United States. The risks for pregnancy‐related maternal mortality are well documented, yet Black women's experiences of life‐threatening morbidity are essentially absent in the nursing literature. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of Black women who developed severe maternal morbidity. Face‐to‐face, one‐to‐one, in‐depth conversational interviews were conducted (...) with nine Black women who experienced life‐threatening complications during childbirth or postpartum. Five essential themes emerged (1) I Only Know What I Know; (2) How You Cared for Me; (3) Race Matters; (4) Faced with Uncertainty; and (5) Still Healing. These themes illuminate the complexity of Black women's subjective interpretations of severe maternal morbidity, and reveal ways in which racism, not race, places Black women at risk for poor maternal health outcomes. The author envisions greater equity for Black mothers entrusted to nursing care, guided by nursing theories informed by these study findings. (shrink)

From the early modern period to well into the eighteenth century, cattle plagues, murrains, or what were called “great cattle mortalities” were often analogized to bubonic plague; felling animals in devastating numbers, these catastrophes likewise afflicted living creatures on a grand scale. Three Enlightenment cattle pandemics (1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786) propelled governments across Europe to enact harsh regulatory measures, including widespread slaughters, quarantines, and major disruptions of trade. This article examines works by Theophilus Lobb, Richard Bradley, Nathaniel Hodges, and Daniel (...) Defoe, among other writers and physicians, who responded differently to the ways in which human and animal health were biophysically and imaginatively linked. (shrink)

From the early modern period to well into the eighteenth century, cattle plagues, murrains, or what were called “great cattle mortalities” were often analogized to bubonic plague; felling animals in devastating numbers, these catastrophes likewise afflicted living creatures on a grand scale. Three Enlightenment cattle pandemics (1709–1720, 1742–1760, and 1768–1786) propelled governments across Europe to enact harsh regulatory measures, including widespread slaughters, quarantines, and major disruptions of trade. This article examines works by Theophilus Lobb, Richard Bradley, Nathaniel Hodges, and Daniel (...) Defoe, among other writers and physicians, who responded differently to the ways in which human and animal health were biophysically and imaginatively linked. (shrink)

This article examines the operation of “reasonable steps” as a statutory standard for analysis of the availability of the defence of belief in consent in sexual assault cases and concludes that application of section 273.2(b) of the Criminal Code, as presently worded, often undermines the legal validity and correctness of decisions about whether the accused acted with mens rea, a guilty, blameworthy state of mind. When the conduct of an accused who is alleged to have made a mistake about whether (...) a complainant communicated consent is assessed by the hybrid subjective-objective reasonableness standard prescribed by s. 273.2, many decision-makers rely on extra-legal criteria and assumptions grounded on their personal experience and opinion about what is reasonable. In the midst of debate over what the accused knew and what steps were “reasonable” given what the accused knew, the legal definition of consent in section 273.1 is easily over-looked and decision-makers focus on facts that are legally irrelevant and prejudice rational deliberation. -/- That is precisely what we see here; the result is often failure to enforce the law. The author proposes: -/- (a) that section 273.2 be amended to reflect the significant developments achieved in sexual consent jurisprudence since enactment of the provision in 1992; and -/- (b) that, in the interim, the judiciary act with resolve to make full and proper use of the statutory and common law tools that are presently available to determine whether the accused acted with mens rea in relation to the absence of sexual consent. (shrink)

The availability of the defence of belief in consent under section 265(4) is a question of law, subject to review on appeal. The statutory provision is based on the common law rule that applies to all defences. Consideration of the defence when it is unavailable in law and failure to consider it when it is available are both incorrect. A judge is most likely to avoid error when ruling on availability of the defence if the ruling: (1) is grounded on (...) sound analysis of the substantive basis for the defence and its relationship to the principles of criminal responsibility; and (2) uses precise legal criteria to govern practical application of section 265(4) to the evidence in specific cases. The guidelines proposed in Part I are based on analyses of the substantive defence and culpable awareness and were developed to ensure that appropriate criteria are properly used when section 265(4) is applied. When a trial judge rules that the defence is available in law, the trier of fact must determine whether the defence is available on the facts as found, based on the evidence in the case. The model jury instructions proposed in Part II are designed to ensure that deliberations by the trier of fact are also guided and shaped by appropriate legal criteria. At both stages, the objective is to ground the deliberation process on fact, not fiction, and to regulate the exculpatory effect of the defence by using legal norms to exclude excuses based on extra-legal considerations such as sexual/racial fantasy, stereotype and myth, or community attitudes and custom. (shrink)

Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) has been recognized as one of the internationally most influential German authors of the Early Modern period. Even today, his writings continue to impact fields as diverse as literature, philosophy, religion and art. Yet Böhme and his reception remain understudied. As a lay author, his works were often suppressed and circulated underground. Borrowing Böhme’s idea of “three worlds” or planes of existence, this volume traces the transmission of his thought through three stations: from his first underground readers (...) in Central and Eastern Europe, to the Netherlands, where most of his writings were first published, to Britain, where early translations made him a popular author for generations to come. Drawing on the work of both established and younger researchers from around the world, this volume charts new territory. It fills many lacunae and reveals a number of exciting discoveries, especially regarding the production and diffusion of manuscripts and previously overlooked sites of engagement. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in the development of philosophical, religious, literary and artistic thought from the 17th century to the present day. (shrink)

In 1987, apprehension that “unreasonable mistakes of fact” might negative mens rea in sexual assault cases led the Canadian Parliament to enact “reasonable steps” requirements for mistakes of fact with respect to the age of complainants. The role and operation of the “reasonable steps” provisions in ss. 150.1(4) and (5) and, to a lesser extent, s. 273.2 of the Criminal Code, must be reassessed. Mistakes of fact are now largely addressed at common law by jurisprudence that has re-invigorated judicial awareness (...) of the evidentiary requirements for the availability of defences at common law and explicitly defines “honest belief” as a belief that is neither reckless nor willfully blind. As a consequence of these common law developments, the defence of mistake of fact with respect to age is rarely available as a matter of law. Properly used, these common law analytic tools afford minors and under-age sex-workers better legal protection from sexual exploitation than has often been achieved in practice over the last 25 years with the “reasonable steps” requirement under ss. 150.1(4) and (5). -/- Socio-economic inequalities ensure that aboriginal children and youth are disproportionately affected by the non-enforcement, under-enforcement, and selective enforcement of laws enacted to protect minors against sexual assault and participation in sex work. Continued reliance by prosecutors and judges on out-moded jurisprudence in the screening, prosecution, and disposition of these cases in the criminal justice system reinforces existing patterns of inequality and disadvantage and violates basic principles of human rights. (shrink)

Four experiments investigated the effects of probability manipulations on the indicative four card selection task (Wason, 1966, 1968). All looked at the effects of high and low probability antecedents (p) and consequents (q) on participants' data selections when determining the truth or falsity of a conditional rule, if p then q . Experiments 1 and 2 also manipulated believability. In Experiment 1, 128 participants performed the task using rules with varied contents pretested for probability of occurrence. Probabilistic effects were observed (...) which were partly consistent with some probabilistic accounts but not with non-probabilistic approaches to selection task performance. No effects of believability were observed, a finding replicated in Experiment 2 which used 80 participants with standardised and familiar contents. Some effects in this experiment appeared inconsistent with existing probabilistic approaches. To avoid possible effects of content, Experiments 3 (48 participants) and 4 (20 participants) used abstract material. Both experiments revealed probabilistic effects. In the Discussion we examine the compatibility of these results with the various models of selection task performance. (shrink)

In this ground-breaking article submitted for publication in mid-1986, Lucinda Vandervort creates a radically new and comprehensive theory of sexual consent as the unequivocal affirmative communication of voluntary agreement. She argues that consent is a social act of communication with normative effects. To consent is to waive a personal legal right to bodily integrity and relieve another person of a correlative legal duty. If the criminal law is to protect the individual’s right of sexual self-determination and physical autonomy, rather (...) than simply to regulate the type and degree of force that may be used to obtain compliance from a victim, the point of reference must be the individual complainant, as a person who makes choices, not social norms or objective tests based on the ordinary person. To determine whether consent is voluntary, attention must be directed to the presence or absence of factors that had a coercive impact on the individual complainant, a specific person with a collection of social, cultural, and psychological experiences, needs, fears, values, and priorities. Individuals have the right to exercise self-determination in accordance with their own values and perceptions, not those of a mythical victim. Accordingly, Vandervort argues that the prosecution may show either refusal, the absence of affirmative voluntary agreement (including passivity or the absence of consent due to unconsciousness), or circumstances that invalidate any apparent consent. Any of these prove the absence of consent for the purposes of establishing the actus reus of sexual assault. -/- The definition of consent as the affirmative communication of voluntary agreement is also shown to have a variety of implications for the interpretation and application of the law of sexual assault and the handling of evidentiary issues at trial in sexual assault cases. Key among these is the pivotal significance of the legal definition of consent as a tool to bar availability of the defence of “mistaken belief in consent.” Vandervort argues that in many cases the defence of “mistaken belief in consent” is based on ignorance of the law of consent, mistake about the legal definition of consent, or a failure to appreciate the legal significance of facts that are well-known, and not on a mistaken belief in an erroneous set of facts. The broad proposition asserted here is that a statutory criminal law is enforceable only if all defences based directly or indirectly on belief in the validity of extra-legal norms that authorize infringement of rights protected by the criminal law are barred. This proposition and the characterization of some mistakes about consent as legal, not factual, are also shown to be useful to exclude rape-myths and stereotypical assumptions---the stuff of which “social” definitions of consent have long been constructed---from the decision-making process at trial. -/- . (shrink)

Increasing numbers of news organizations have formal codes of ethics for their personnel. This paper looks at the content of media ethics codes, how these codes are written and what comprises a news organization's fixed value system. Results show that many written policies were devised in recent years, and a noticeable number of other news organizations said they have firmly established unwritten policies. The written codes represented in this survey clearly draw lines around certain activities and label them as acceptable (...) or unacceptable for journalists. Teaching, unpaid appearances (such as on a television talk show), and participation in charitable activities are outside interests more acceptable than political activities in behalf of another person, or holding elected or appointed office. Certain activities which remain as unfinished business include: uniformity of enforcement, management ethics, financial interests, and spouse or friend conflict of interest. (shrink)

Cyril Scott once described Percy Grainger as a `lovable eccentric'. The Australian-American pianist, composer, ethnologist, and aspiring `all-round man' was, however, more eccentric to his own age than to ours. His views on the environment, food, the body, participatory democracy, and sex all anticipated by several decades views more typical of the mid-late twentieth century. Prolific as a composer, performer, and recording artist, Grainger was an indefatigable writer. This selection of forty-six essays about the production, promotion, and propagation (...) of music is drawn from his over 150 public writings. Written between the turn of the century and the early 1950s, these essays reveal Grainger's youthful compositional plans, his ideas about piano technique, and his enduring high regard for the music of Edvard Grieg, Frederick Delius, and `Frankfurt Group' colleagues Cyril Scott, Roger Quilter, and Henry Balfour Gardiner. Grainger on Music also pursues his evolving thoughts about Nordic music, `Free Music', instrumental usage, and his occasional suggestions for musical development in Australia and the United States. (shrink)

In the United States, there is a long history of racial disparities in maternal health, with Black women disproportionately representing poor maternal health outcomes. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy‐related complication and twice as likely to experience severe maternal morbidity when compared to white women. Where are nurses in the development of knowledge to improve maternal health outcomes among Black birthing people? This dialogue discusses how decolonizing nursing can occur by examining the (...) history of Black maternal health in the United States and using the works of nursing scholars of color to inform nursing education, research, and clinical practice. (shrink)

In early visits to Lothlorien—which is a loosely Pagan community of environmentalists in Indiana—I was confounded by attempts to categorize either the place or the people. As one of the founders said, “I tend to run from labels so I don't know what I am. It's safer that way.” In this paper I explore four members’ narratives about the emotional high points in their lives, where they often cross the usual boundaries of self and other. At the same time the (...) subjectivity at the core of these experiences is something that is felt and that cannot be dismissed as a discursive construct. Through these narratives I attempt to understand selfhood as a process—experientially inescapable but essentially in flux. I see a strong case for anthropologists moving beyond an overly neat, overly dichotomized view of “Western” and “non-Western” senses of self. (shrink)

In three experiments, we examined priming effects where primes were formed by transposing the first and last phoneme of tri‐phonemic target words (e.g., /byt/ as a prime for /tyb/). Auditory lexical decisions were found not to be sensitive to this transposed‐phoneme priming manipulation in long‐term priming (Experiment 1), with primes and targets presented in two separated blocks of stimuli and with unrelated primes used as control condition (/mul/‐/tyb/), while a long‐term repetition priming effect was observed (/tyb/‐/tyb/). However, a clear transposed‐phoneme (...) priming effect was found in two short‐term priming experiments (Experiments 2 and 3), with primes and targets presented in close temporal succession. The transposed‐phoneme priming effect was found when unrelated prime‐target pairs (/mul/‐/tyb/) were used as control and more important when prime‐target pairs sharing the medial vowel (/pys/‐/tyb/) served as control condition, thus indicating that the effect is not due to vocalic overlap. Finally, in Experiment 3, a transposed‐phoneme priming effect was found when primes sharing the medial vowel plus one consonant in an incorrect position with the targets (/byl/‐/tyb/) served as control condition, and this condition did not differ significantly from the vowel‐only condition. Altogether, these results provide further evidence for a role for position‐independent phonemes in spoken word recognition, such that a phoneme at a given position in a word also provides evidence for the presence of words that contain that phoneme at a different position. (shrink)

Only rarely have feminist theorists addressed the adequacy of just -war theory, a set of principles developed over hundreds of years to assess the justice of going to war and the morality of conduct in war. Recently, a few feminist scholars have found just -war theory inadequate, yet their own counterproposals are also deficient. I assess feminist contributions to just -war theorizing and suggest ways of strengthening, rather than abandoning, this moral approach to war.

It has been recently argued that some machine learning techniques known as Kernel methods could be relevant for capturing cognitive and neural mechanisms (Jäkel, Schölkopf, & Wichmann, 2009). We point out that ‘‘String kernels,’’ initially designed for protein function prediction and spam detection, are virtually identical to one contending proposal for how the brain encodes orthographic information during reading. We suggest some reasons for this connection and we derive new ideas for visual word recognition that are successfully put to the (...) test. We argue that the versatility and performance of String kernels makes a compelling case for their implementation in the brain. (shrink)

MAURO BASAURE. — Cher Axel Honneth, au nom du Groupe international d’études sur la Théorie critique1, je voudrais vous remercier cordialement pour cet entretien. La préparation de cet échange a été pour nous l’occasion d’effectuer des lectures sur plusieurs semaines et de mener des discussions communes sur votre approche particulière de l’héritage intellectuel de La..