A leader in the modern commentary on ethics and philosophy, Mary Warnock casts a critical eye over her life and times.

This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. (...) A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

All religion and much philosophy has been concerned with the contrast between the ephemeral and the eternal. Human beings have always sought ways to overcome time, and to prove that death is not the end. This book consists then in an exploration of certain closely related ideas: personal identity, time, history and our commitment to the future, and the role of imagination in life.

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

En este libro, la autora desarrolla su concepción del juicio reflexionante inspirada en Emmanuel Kant y en Hannah Arendt para concentrarse en cómo cierto tipo de narraciones modelan nuestras nociones de lo que consideramos moral. Lara nos ofrece distintas concepciones sobre el mal en su formulación histórica mediante los ejemplos de las tragedias griegas, las diferentes concepciones sobre el mal en la obra de Shakespeare, el uso literario de la metáfora en la obra de Joseph Conrad y en narraciones fílmicas (...) que describen la crueldad humana. Lara sugiere que el aprendizaje moral es un proceso en el que intervienen las instituciones sociales, la voluntad de los individuos y de las sociedades para comprometerse a un debate abierto y con ello modelar los juicios colectivos sobre el pasado. Lara enfatiza que el juicio reflexionante se da entre un evento, una narración de dicho evento y la recepción pública de dicha narrativa. En este libro se aportan importantes métodos para la comprensión del fenómeno moral del mal, porque introducen nuevas verdades desvelatorias acerca de eventos particulares que no pueden ser simplemente captados por medio de categorías conceptuales. Lara utiliza como fuentes a Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben y Ariel Dorfman para probar la conclusión de este tipo de narraciones: la acción (de crueldad) ata de manera definitiva al perpetrador con su víctima. (shrink)

Nature and Mortality is a challenging look at some of the major public issues of our time through the eyes of one of our most influential and probing liberal humanists. It is a frank account on where we stand today on such controversial matters as human embryology, genetic engineering, euthanasia and abortion. Warnock's views may seem like a red rag to a bull to some, but her contribution to the debate is always stimulating. Enlivened by autobiographical anecdote and some delicious (...) side-swipes, Nature and Mortality is Mary Warnock at her most perceptive, wise and entertaining. (shrink)

This article analyses the concept of sufficiency in relation to sustainability and discusses ethical implications for sustainable organisation in time and place. We identify three foundational conceptualisations of sufficiency related to sustainability: (1) a limits model that starts with objective boundaries imposed by the biosphere and basic human needs; (2) a preference model that treats sufficiency as a subjective inclination for moderation defined situationally; and (3) a balancing model that seeks to integrate the objective limits and subjective preferences by focussing (...) on action embedded in the socio-ecological context. This includes balancing the needs of humans with those of non-humans. The limits model builds on universal duty, the preference model on preference utilitarianism and the balancing model on action-oriented virtue ethics. The balancing model of sufficiency is well suited to meeting the needs of present and future generations as well as delivering intra- and inter-generational justice not limited to humans. (shrink)

What makes insurance special among risk technologies is the particular way in which it links solidarity and technical rationality. On one hand, within insurance practices ‘risk’ is always defined in technical terms. It is related to monetary measurement of value and to statistical probability calculated for a limited population. On the other hand, and at the same time, insurance has an inherent connection to solidarity. When taking out an insurance, one participates in the risk pool within which each member is (...) reciprocally responsible for others’ risks. The combination of technical controllability and solidarity has made insurance a successful tool for governing welfare societies during the twentieth century. From the point of view of business ethics, it is interesting that, as we argue in this article, the connection between insurance and solidarity is not limited to social welfare assemblages, but is evident in relation to private insurance as well. At the same time, however, it is important to understand that insurance does not advance all forms of solidarity. Hence, this theoretical article analyzes the specific conceptions of solidarity that the different forms of insurance practice produce. Particular emphasis is put on the distinction between ‘chance solidarity’ and ‘subsidizing solidarity’. The main questions of the article are: What kinds of conceptions of solidarity are built in the insurance technology? And how are the limits of solidarity defined and justified in different forms of insurance? (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) ranged from the early _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ to _The Female Reader_, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft’s great work came out of an earlier (...) and much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft’s “other vindication.” It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

While Michel Serres’ work has become relatively well-known among social theoreticians in recent years, his explicit thematization of the foundations of human collectives has gained surprisingly little attention. This article claims that Serres’ approach to the theme of foundations can be clarified by scrutinizing the way in which he poses and answers the following three questions: How are we together? What and whom do we exclude from our togetherness and how? Who are we today? Instead of starting with a ready-made (...) order, be it in the form of individuals or society, Serres pushes social research to take up the challenge of examining the point at which order is about to emerge out of noise and chaos, but where the outcome of the process remains uncertain. Especially relevant to the discussion are Serres’ books Rome, Statues and Geometry, all three of which bear the subtitle Book of Foundations. (shrink)

The article presents two main arguments. First, we claim that in contemporary societies, insurance enacts peculiar kinds of solidarities as well as inequality and exclusion. Especially important in this respect are life, health, disability and old age pension insurance, both in compulsory and voluntary forms. Second, the article maintains that the ideas of solidarity, inequality and exclusion are transformed by the machinery of insurance. In other words, the concrete ways in which insurance relations are practically arranged have an effect on (...) the ways in which the related moral and political concepts are perceived. We elaborate on three different forms of insurance solidarity, which we call chance, risk and income solidarity. The existence of multiple forms of solidarity relevant to insurance is significant because practices of insurance require decisions concerning what kind of solidarity is emphasised, when it is emphasised, and on what grounds. Moreover, what is solidarity for some can entail exclusion and inequality for others. Showing these internal tensions within insurance practice underlines the inherently political and moral nature of insurance. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide an epistemological account of the concept of a point of view. The focus of the article is componential and therefore different variables in the concept of a point of view will be discussed. The article concludes that the concept of a point of view refers to mental viewing or rational consideration, which has many constituents, some of which relate to the observing subject, some to the tools of observing, and some to the (...) object of observation. Most components of points of view are related to the subject of the point of view and his or her interests. (shrink)

Western philosophical orthodoxy places many aspects of other people's lives outside the scope of our knowledge. Demonstrating an alternative to this view, however, this book argues that Jean-Paul Sartre's application of his unique psychoanalytic method to Gustave Flaubert is the culmination of his project to show that it is possible to know everything there is to know about another person. It examines how Sartre aims to revolutionize our way of thinking about others by presenting his existential psychoanalysis as the means (...) to knowledge of both ourselves and others. By so doing, it highlights how his determination to solve the longstanding philosophical conundrum about other minds drives him not only to incorporate insights from Descartes, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Marx, and Beauvoir into his philosophy, but also to supplement and enhance his philosophy through the development and application of a new form of psychoanalysis. -/- Sartre's Existential Psychoanalysis integrates, for the first time, Sartre's psychoanalysis into his overarching philosophical project. By offering a critical interrogation of the role his psychoanalytical studies played in the development of his existentialism, Mary Edwards uncovers the overlooked philosophical significance of his existential psychoanalysis and brings it into a new and productive dialogue with current research in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

The unity of aesthetic and teleological judgment, the third and earlier Critiques, is based on Kant′s discovery of a “heuristic method” for applying judgments regarding sense phenomena to abstract thought, a “second attention” which enables an “idea of the whole”. Synthetic judgment, basis for cognition and human action, depends on efficacy of non-empirical insights: the transcendental standpoint, “regulative” ideas, consciousness of “ought” and the reality of freedom, universality of natural mechanism, the principle of “fortuitous” purposiveness. The activity of reflective judgment (...) in the encounter with the beautiful, sublime, living, and two paradigmatic types of explanation, inspired by Spinoza′s distinction of extensio and cogitatio, permit Kant to bridge the gap between freedom and necessity, theoretical knowledge and morality. (shrink)

Cette étude vise à comprendre les spécificités sémantiques des lexèmes _manipuler_ et _modifier_ afin d’éclairer l’usage qui en est fait en bioéthique lorsque les actions désignées ont comme objet l’embryon, le cerveau, l’ADN, l’Homme, le vivant ou la procréation. En s’appuyant sur les définitions des dictionnaires et sur les réponses à un questionnaire soumis aux locuteurs, et en se servant de concepts de la sémantique combinatoire, de la sémantique argumentative, de la sémantique des cadres et de l’aspect sémantique, l’étude identifie (...) les éléments de signification propres à chacun des deux lexèmes. Ces éléments sont étroitement liés au potentiel de signification des lexèmes et aux traits aspectuels des procès qu’ils désignent. À l’issue de cette étude, un ensemble de traits sémantiques caractéristiques de chaque lexème est proposé, dans une perspective contrastive. (shrink)

For quite some time, reinsurance companies have been pricing the ongoing climate change using weather- and catastrophe-related instruments and thus have been able to make money through climate change. Yet, at the same time, for reinsurance companies it is crucial that the likelihood of the events they underwrite is diminished as much as possible. Consequently, while profiting from the situation, these key actors of global capitalism also work to prevent climate change from taking place, and support the kinds of measures, (...) on all political scales, that diminish the likelihood of severe climate change destruction. This article analyzes the materials that the reinsurance company Munich Re has distributed to stakeholders and asks how climate change is objectified by the reinsurance industry. How are weather-related catastrophes made into a financial risk and opportunity? The key conceptual tools for answering these questions are provided by Michel Serres’s work on world-objects. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, the work of Georg Simmel (1858–1918) has again become of interest. Its reception, however, has been fairly one-sided and selective, mostly because Simmel’s philosophy has been bypassed in favor of his sociological contributions. This article examines Simmel’s explicit reflections on the nature of philosophy. Simmel defines philosophy through three aspects which, according to him, are common to all philosophical schools. First, philosophical reasoning implies the effort to think without preconditions. Second, Simmel maintains that in contrast (...) to other sciences, only philosophy is oriented toward constructing a general view of the world. Third, Simmel claims that philosophical work worthy of the name creates a sphere of a typical way of being in relation to world, a third sphere that is between the personal and the objective. According to Simmel, what has made philosophy’s eminent figures great is that they have advanced a type of thinking and developed it into a particularly interesting form, and this type can still correspond with the way we experience the world. It is significant that these three aspects through which Simmel defines philosophical activity emphasize the forms of questioning, not the contents or objects of thought. Still, he thinks that an interaction with concrete examples is always required in order to make philosophy a meaningful activity. This stance is reflected in the wide variety of topics studied by Simmel himself. In his last works Simmel began to emphasize another aspect of philosophy, its nature as a living movement of thought related to fundamental human limitedness: just as life itself ceaselessly reaches beyond its present form, so philosophy constantly strives to overcome the preconditions of thinking. (shrink)

Determining optimal units of representing morphologically complex words in the mental lexicon is a central question in psycholinguistics. Here, we utilize advances in computational sciences to study human morphological processing using statistical models of morphology, particularly the unsupervised Morfessor model that works on the principle of optimization. The aim was to see what kind of model structure corresponds best to human word recognition costs for multimorphemic Finnish nouns: a model incorporating units resembling linguistically defined morphemes, a whole-word model, or a (...) model that seeks for an optimal balance between these two extremes. Our results showed that human word recognition was predicted best by a combination of two models: a model that decomposes words at some morpheme boundaries while keeping others unsegmented and a whole-word model. The results support dual-route models that assume that both decomposed and full-form representations are utilized to optimally process complex words within the mental lexicon. (shrink)

The prisoner’s dilemma is a fictional story that shows why individuals who seek only their personal benefit meet worse outcomes than those possible by cooperating with others. The dilemma provides an effective, albeit often overlooked, method for studying the Hindu principle of “desireless action” (niṣkāmakarma). In the context of the prisoner’s dilemma, a prisoner who wants to uphold the principle of “desireless action” may choose one of two decision-making strategies: to be indifferent and leave the decision to chance or to (...) either pursue the common good or the other person’s benefit instead of his or her own. Assuming that followers of niṣkāmakarma can be goal-oriented, the second strategy is more appropriate than the first, as long as one pursues unselfish goals and remains both indifferent and uncommitted to personal benefit. This interpretation is tested and further discussed in this article in light of the values of the modern environmental and anti-consumerist degrowth movement. (shrink)

The Bhagavadgītā, part of the sixth book of the Hindu epic The Mahābhārata, offers a practical approach to mokṣa, or liberation, and freedom from saṃsāra, or the cycle of death and rebirth. According to the approach, known as karmayoga, salvation results from attention to duty and the recognition of past acts that inform the present and will direct the future. In the Bhagavadgītā, Kṛṣṇa advocates selfless action as the ideal path to realizing the truth about oneself as well as the (...) ultimate reality. Kṛṣṇa proclaims that humans have rights only to actions and not to their results, whether good or bad. Therefore, humans should not desire any results whatsoever. The prisoner’s dilemma is a fictional story that shows why individuals who seek only their personal benefit meet worse outcomes than those possible by cooperating with others. The dilemma provides an effective, albeit often overlooked, method for studying the Hindu principle of niṣkāmakarma that is arguably the central teaching of the Bhagavadgītā. In the context of the prisoner’s dilemma, a prisoner who wants to uphold niṣkāmakarma may choose one of two decision-making strategies: to be indifferent and leave the decision to chance or to either pursue the common good or the other person’s benefit instead of his or her own. Assuming that followers of niṣkāmakarma can be goal-oriented, the second strategy is more appropriate than the first, as long as one pursues unselfish goals and remains both indifferent and uncommitted to personal benefit. (shrink)

There are uses of the term merit in Indian religions which also appear in secular contexts, but in addition there are other uses that are not encountered outside religion. Transfer of merit is a specific doctrine in whose connection the term merit is used with an intention which is not the same as that found in nonreligious contexts. Two main types of transfer of merit can be distinguished. First, the transfer of merit has been associated with certain ritual practices in (...) Hinduism and in Buddhism. Another main type of transfer of merit is connected with Mahāyāna belief in bodhisattvas' loving-kindness towards other beings. In the orthodox Hindu schools, in Hnayāna Buddhism and in Jainism, transfer of merit has been rejected on account of the doctrine of karma according to which the person can acquire karmic outcomes for only those actions he or she has performed by himself. (shrink)

The colic cry as a signal of undifferentiated vigour, and not a disease, is good news. This hypothesis also has neurobiological perspectives. Feeding increases the pain threshold of the infant and has an effect on its brain functions. These may contribute, by neurobiological mechanisms, to the gradual decline in the tendency for excessive crying during the first months of life.

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 488-490.

In this paper, I will introduce and argue for a new view on religious faith and language, a view that focuses on the use and context of use of religious expressions. I call this view implicaturism. As one may guess, ‘implicaturism’ comes from ‘implicature’, a term coined by Paul Grice. For Grice, implicature is a technical term for certain kinds of inferences that are drawn from statements without those inferences being logical implications or entailments. In the view of religious faith (...) and language, implicaturism denotes the claims about the existence of God or other supernatural beings as pragmatic conclusions of the expressions used in religious practice, not the ground or presupposition of religious practice. In other words, in religious context, the claims of the form “X exists” (e.g. “God exists”) or “there are Xs” (e.g. “There are angeles”) are inferences that are based on prayers and worship expressions and their relatedbackground assumptions. This pattern of reasoning is not deductive, but abductive, thus inference from consequences to a possible cause. This kind of inference is logically invalid, in that the conclusion “God exists” is not a logical consequence of the premises: the religious expressions. The existential claims in religion (”God exists” or “There are angels” as examples) are thus some sort of a posteriori reasons or explanations for religious behaviour and related expressions, not their prior presuppositions. (shrink)

In this paper, I will introduce and argue for a new view on religious faith and language, a view that focuses on the use and context of use of religious expressions. I call this view implicaturism. As one may guess, ‘implicaturism’ comes from ‘implicature’, a term coined by Paul Grice. For Grice, implicature is a technical term for certain kinds of inferences that are drawn from statements without those inferences being logical implications or entailments. In the view of religious faith (...) and language, implicaturism denotes the claims about the existence of God or other supernatural beings as pragmatic conclusions of the expressions used in religious practice, not the ground or presupposition of religious practice. In other words, in religious context, the claims of the form “X exists” (e.g. “God exists”) or “there are Xs” (e.g. “There are angeles”) are inferences that are based on prayers and worship expressions and their relatedbackground assumptions. This pattern of reasoning is not deductive, but abductive, thus inference from consequences to a possible cause. This kind of inference is logically invalid, in that the conclusion “God exists” is not a logical consequence of the premises: the religious expressions. The existential claims in religion (”God exists” or “There are angels” as examples) are thus some sort of a posteriori reasons or explanations for religious behaviour and related expressions, not their prior presuppositions. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake, a fictionalised account of experiences of the UK welfare system in conditions of austerity. We consider, firstly, the significant challenge the film poses to dominant figurations of welfare recipients under austerity, through a focus on vulnerability to state processes. We follow with a reading of some of the film’s interventions in relation to reciprocity, drawing on the important trajectories of care, community and resistance that the film renders (...) visible through the collective stories of the major characters. Finally, we conclude with reflections on citizenship, subject narratives and alternative imaginaries of ‘deservingness’. Our article offers an ‘against the grain’ reading (hooks, 1996; Wearing, 2013) of the film, highlighting some of the radical possibilities of the more minor moments, character arcs and subject positionalities within the film’s central narrative of Daniel’s experiences in the shadow of the steadily crumbling welfare state. (shrink)

Known as the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism” and the “Mother of Knowledge,” Yeshe Tsogyal built upon indigenous Bön philosophy and Mahāyāna Buddhism to bring about a Buddhism that is identifiably Tibetan. I report on her life, her works and teaching. Then summarize her significance as a philosopher of Tibetan Buddhist metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Lastly, I append portions of several writings attributed to her.

Recently, concerns have been raised about the phenomenon of 'overdiagnosis', the diagnosis of a condition that is not causing harm, and will not come to cause harm. Along with practical, ethical, and scientific questions, overdiagnosis raises questions about our concept of disease. In this paper, we analyse overdiagnosis as an epistemic problem and show how it challenges many existing accounts of disease. In particular, it raises questions about conceptual links drawn between disease and dysfunction, harm, and risk. We argue that (...) "disease" should be considered a vague concept with a nonclassical structure. On this view, overdiagnosed cases are 'borderline' cases of disease, falling in the zone between cases that are clearly disease, and cases that are clearly not disease. We then develop a précising definition of disease designed to provide practical help in preventing and limiting overdiagnosis. We argue that for this purpose, we can define disease as dysfunction that has a significant risk of causing severe harm to the patient. (shrink)

Neil Levy argues that while addicts who believe they are not addicts are self-deceived, addicts who believe they are addicts are just as self-deceived. Such persons accept a false belief that their addictive behaviour involves a loss of control. This paper examines two implications of Levy's discussion: that accurate self-knowledge may be particularly difficult for addicts; and that an addict's self-deceived belief that they cannot control themselves may aid their attempts at self-control. I argue that the self-deceived beliefs of addicts (...) in denial and of self-described addicts differ in kind. Unlike the self-deception of an addict in denial, that of the self-described addict allows them to acknowledge their behaviour. As such, it may aid an addict to develop more self-control. A paradoxical implication is that this self-deception may allow an addict more self-knowledge. (shrink)

Mary Anne Warren investigates a theoretical question that is at the centre of practical and professional ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? That is: what does it take to be an entity towards which people have moral considerations? Warren argues that no single property will do as a sole criterion, and puts forward seven basic principles which establish moral status. She then applies these principles to three controversial moral issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and the status of non-human (...) animals. (shrink)

First published in 1984, Cultural Analysis is a systematic examination of the theories of culture contained in the writings of four contemporary social theorists: Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. This study of their work clarifies their contributions to the analysis of culture and shows the converging assumptions that the authors believe are laying the foundation for a new approach to the study of culture. The focus is specifically on culture, a concept that remains subject to (...) ambiguities of treatment, and concentrates on questions concerning the definition and content of culture, its construction, its relations with social conditions, and the manner in which it may be changing. The books demonstrates how these writers have made strides towards defining culture as an objective element of social interaction which can be subjected to critical investigation. (shrink)

In 1909, a boy of fourteen years was designated the savior of our age by the mystic leader of the Theosophical Society. Sent from his native India to study at the finest school in Britain, the charismatic youth was groomed for the messianic role of World Teacher--a mantle he would ultimately cast off, unleashing a storm of controversy within the spiritual community. And through inner doubts and physical agony--through bitter trials of the mind, the body, and the soul--he would follow (...) his own path to enlightenment and become a shining beacon of joy and truth to millions the world over. (shrink)