The main title of this work is a little misleading. Hobbs does not begin to consider in any detail Plato’s relation to traditional Greek models of the hero until chapter 6, nearly two-thirds of the way through the book. In fact, Hobbs’s treatment of Plato’s re-working of the hero-figure is embedded in a nexus of themes revolving round the Greek virtue of andreia and its psychological basis in that part of the soul that Plato in the Republic calls the thumos. (...) Commonly translated ‘spirit’, the term is notoriously hard to render by a single English equivalent. Plato’s conception of this human drive can be captured, according to Hobbs’s succinct phrase, as “the need to believe that one counts for something”. (shrink)

Y a-t-il une psychanalyse chrétienne? Cette question a-t-elle un sens? Un croyant souffrant doit-il ou non s'assurer que son psychanalyste est lui-même croyant pour protéger sa foi? Autrement dit, comment l'analyse intègre-t-elle ou modifie-t-elle une donnée religieuse? Faire une analyse, c'est accepter de traverser le tragique de sa propre vie. En raison du dévoilement de la vérité que ce processus met en œuvre, le patient voit se dégager devant lui la perspective d'un désir dont la nouvelle mesure est infinie. Ce (...) désir avait été comblé par des objets qui, jusque-là, semblaient le satisfaire. Puis, le symptôme surgit, déstabilise, perturbe les petits arrangements que le patient s'était autorisés. Première ou dernière scène de son tragique? Dans le huis clos théâtral qu'est la séance analytique, le patient-acteur reprend et parle toute son histoire. Comme à son insu, il se voit contraint de redéfinir ce qui donne sens à sa vie : sens religieux? sens éthique? Bref, tout ce qui échappe à l'analyse et que, paradoxe imprévisible, elle évoque et convoque... Pourtant, un point restera toujours aveugle pour lui, à l'instar d'Œdipe qui, les yeux crevés, poursuit son chemin. C'est peut-être en ce même point - tragique-aveugle - que l'homme reconnaît sous une lumière nouvelle que son histoire personnelle rejoint la détresse commune et ordinaire de toute l'humanité. (shrink)

The tale of Gyges' ring narrated by Cicero atDe officiis3.38 is of course originally found, and acknowledged as such by Cicero, in Plato (Resp.359c–360b). I would like in this paper to address two questions about Cicero's handling of the tale – one historical, one philosophical. The purpose of the historical question is to evaluate, with respect to the Gyges narration, Cicero's quality as a reader of Plato. How well does Cicero understand the role of the story in its original Platonic (...) context? The motivation for the question is that, at first blush, Cicero seems to have badly misunderstood it. I shall argue that the appearance is illusory, and that Cicero understands the tale's Platonic provenance perfectly well. Now it should be noted that the question of Cicero's grasp of the tale's purpose in Plato is distinct from the question whether Cicero himself puts the story to the same or a different use than Plato did. I shall suggest that while there are striking points of contact between the two treatments, on one crucial feature – namely the tale's ostentatiously far-fetched nature – Cicero is instructively more explicit than Plato. (shrink)

Ao introduzir o estudo da substância em Metafísica Z1, Aristóteles apresenta um argumento cujo ponto inicial corresponde a uma questão acerca do estatuto ontológico de certos itens não-substanciais. Normalmente, entende-se que o objetivo desse argumento é estabelecer a compreensão da substância como ser primeiro. Pretende-se, aqui, propor uma interpretação alternativa para tal argumento. A questão acerca do estatuto ontológico de certos itens não-substanciais não teria o papel de estabelecer a compreensão da substância como ser primeiro, mas dirigir a investigação para (...) a razão pela qual a substância é tomada como ser primeiro. (shrink)

Noel Malcolm, one of the world's leading experts on Thomas Hobbes, presents a set of extended essays on a wide variety of aspects of the life and work of this giant of early modern thought. Malcolm offers a succinct introduction to Hobbes's life and thought, as a foundation for his discussion of such topics as his political philosophy, his theory of international relations, the development of his mechanistic world-view, and his subversive Biblical criticism. Several of the essays pay special attention (...) to the European dimensions of Hobbes's life, his sources and his influence; the longest surveys the entire European reception of his work from the 1640s to the 1750s. All the essays are based on a deep knowledge of primary sources, and many present striking new discoveries about Hobbes's life, his manuscripts, and the printing history of his works. Aspects of Hobbes will be essential reading not only for Hobbes specialists, but also for all those interested in seventeenth-century intellectual history more generally, both British and European. (shrink)

No início de Ética Eudêmia I 5, Aristóteles pretende mostrar que a questão “o que é a felicidade?” não é tão facilmente respondida como se crê usualmente. O modo como ele procura fazê-lo, no entanto, é intrigante, uma vez que ele recorre ao exame de diferentes situações nas quais não viver seria mais vantajoso do que viver. Não é claro como ele espera que estejam relacionadas entre si as diferentes situações que levam a essa conclusão nem como ele pretende que (...) essa linha de argumentação esclareça a dificuldade que é normalmente ignorada com relação à questão “o que é a felicidade?”. Neste artigo, discutimos esses pontos com o objetivo de determinar a contribuição da porção inicial de EE I 5 para a investigação eudêmia da felicidade. (shrink)

There is converging evidence that high doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce significant alterations of self-experience, described as the dissolution of the sense of self and the loss of boundaries between self and world. This article discusses the relevance of this phenomenon, known as “drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED)”, for cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. Data from self-report questionnaires suggest that three neuropharmacological classes of drugs can induce ego dissolution: classical psychedelics, dissociative anesthetics and agonists of the kappa opioid (...) receptor (KOR). While these substances act on different neurotransmitter receptors, they all produce strong subjective effects that can be compared to the symptoms of acute psychosis, including ego dissolution. It has been suggested that neuroimaging of DIED can indirectly shed light on the neural correlates of the self. While this line of inquiry is promising, its results must be interpreted with caution. First, neural correlates of ego dissolution might reveal the necessary neurophysiological conditions for the maintenance of the sense of self, but it is more doubtful that this method can reveal its minimally sufficient conditions. Second, it is necessary to define the relevant notion of self at play in the phenomenon of DIED. This article suggests that DIED consists in the disruption of subpersonal processes underlying the “minimal” or “embodied” self, i.e., the basic experience of being a self rooted in multimodal integration of self-related stimuli. This hypothesis is consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood, according to which the subjective structure of conscious experience ultimately results from the optimization of predictions in perception and action. Finally, it is argued that DIED is also of particular interest for philosophy of mind. On the one hand, it challenges theories according to which consciousness always involves self-awareness. On the other hand, it suggests that ordinary conscious experience might involve a minimal kind of self-awareness rooted in multisensory processing, which is what appears to fade away during DIED. (shrink)

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made (...) at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution. In this article, we discuss available evidence regarding convergences and differences between phenomenological and neurophysiological data on meditation practice and psychedelic drug-induced states, with a particular emphasis on alterations of self-experience. While both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, we emphasize that neither meditation nor psychedelic states can be conceived as simple, uniform categories. Moreover, we suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. As a result, we propose that self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms. Indeed, various aspects of self-consciousness, including narrative aspects linked to autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and embodied aspects rooted in multisensory processes, may be differently affected by psychedelics and meditation practices. Finally, we consider long-term outcomes of experiences of self-loss induced by meditation and psychedelics on individual traits and prosocial behavior. We call for caution regarding the problematic conflation of temporary states of self-loss with “selflessness” as a behavioral or social trait, although there is preliminary evidence that correlations between short-term experiences of self-loss and long-term trait alterations may exist. (shrink)

Many authors argue that conscious experience involves a sense of self or self-consciousness. According to the strongest version of this claim, there can be no selfless states of consciousness, namely states of consciousness that lack self-consciousness altogether. Disagreements about this claim are likely to remain merely verbal as long as the target notion of self-consciousness is not adequately specified. After distinguishing six notions of self-consciousness commonly discussed in the literature, I argue that none of the corresponding features is necessary for (...) consciousness, because there are states of consciousness in which each of them is plausibly missing. Such states can be said to be at least partially selfless, since they lack at least one of the ways in which one could be self-conscious. Furthermore, I argue that there is also preliminary empirical evidence that some states of consciousness lack all of these six putative forms of self-consciousness. Such states might be totally selfless, insofar as they lack all the ways in which one could be self-conscious. I conclude by addressing four objections to the possibility and reportability of totally selfless states of consciousness. (shrink)

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total childcare is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is 'on the cards'. We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, (...) robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care. (shrink)

This special issue is about something most of us might find very hard to conceive: states of consciousness in which self-consciousness is radically disrupted or altogether missing.

According to spacetime state realism, the fundamental ontology of a quantum mechanical world consists of a state-valued field evolving in four-dimensional spacetime. One chief advantage it claims over rival wave-function realist views is its natural compatibility with relativistic quantum field theory. I argue that the original density operator formulation of SSR cannot be extended to QFTs where the local observables form type III von Neumann algebras. Instead, I propose a new formulation of SSR in terms of a presheaf of local (...) state spaces dual to the net of local observables studied by algebraic QFT. 1Introduction2Spacetime State Realism in Quantum Field Theory 2.1Equivalence thesis3Entanglement and the Type III Property 3.1No-Go Lemma 13.2No-Go Lemma 24State Space Axioms for Quantum Field Theory 4.1Revised equivalence thesis5Discussion. (shrink)

Assesses the European reception of Hobbes's thought from c.1640 to c.1750. It begins by discussing the publishing history of his works on the Continent, and the various attempts to edit or translate them. Then it considers the reception of his writings, dividing the European writers into three categories: the defenders of orthodoxy, who reacted against Hobbes's ideas because they regarded them as extreme; the radicals, who celebrated and developed his ideas—also because they regarded them as extreme; and a broader third (...) category, consisting of those who engaged in more or less positive ways with Hobbesian theories, not to shake the foundations of orthodoxy, but to develop arguments and positions within the intellectual mainstream. It suggests that this third category was larger and more significant than has hitherto been recognized. Finally, the essay considers Hobbes's own relationship to the ‘Republic of Letters’ of his time. (shrink)

Many authors claim that being conscious constitutively involves being self-conscious, or conscious of oneself. This claim appears to be threatened by reports of `selfless' episodes, or conscious episodes lacking self-consciousness, recently described in a number of pathological and nonpathological conditions. However, the credibility of these reports has in turn been challenged on the following grounds: remembering and reporting a past conscious episode as an episode that one went through is only possible if one was conscious of oneself while undergoing it. (...) Call this the Memory Challenge. This paper argues that the Memory Challenge fails to undermine the credibility to reports of selfless episodes, because it rests on problematic assumptions about episodic memory. The paper further argues that we should distinguish between several kinds of self-representation that may be involved in the process of episodic remembering, and that once we do so, it is no longer mysterious how one could accurately remember and report a selfless episode as an episode that one went through. Thus, we should take reports of this kind seriously, and view them as credible counter-examples to the claim that consciousness constitutively involves self-consciousness. (shrink)

This study provides a comparison of the ethical perceptions of managers and non-managers, including professionals, teachers, sales persons and clerks, as well as technical and plant workers. Data of working individuals were collected in Hong Kong in the form of questionnaires which contain vignettes of questionable ethical issues. Factor analysis was used to identify the major ethical dimensions which were then used as the basis of comparison. Regression analyses were used to study the effect of various variables on ethical perceptions (...) in terms of the identified dimensions. Our study reviews that managers tend to possess deontological views that are more ethical than that found in other occupations. The gap between managers and professionals in perceiving unethical behavior is narrower compared to that between the former and individuals in other occupations. The acceptability of unethical behavior tends to decline with income. Besides, there are indications that people working in non-profit organizations tend to have higher ethical standards. Based on our results, recommendations are made to improve the ethical culture of organizations. (shrink)

P. M. Asaro: What should We Want from a Robot Ethic? G. Tamburrini: Robot Ethics: A View from the Philosophy of Science B. Becker: Social Robots - Emotional Agents: Some Remarks on Naturalizing Man-machine Interaction E. Datteri, G. Tamburrini: Ethical Reflections on Health Care Robotics P. Lin, G. Bekey, K. Abney: Robots in War: Issues of Risk and Ethics J. Altmann: Preventive Arms Control for Uninhabited Military Vehicles J. Weber: Robotic warfare, Human Rights & The Rhetorics of Ethical Machines T. (...) Nishida: Towards Robots with Good Will R. Capurro: Ethics and Robotics. (shrink)

Prescriptive rules guide human behavior across various domains of community life, including law, morality, and etiquette. What, specifically, are rules in the eyes of their subjects, i.e., those who are expected to abide by them? Over the last sixty years, theorists in the philosophy of law have offered a useful framework with which to consider this question. Some, following H. L. A. Hart, argue that a rule’s text at least sometimes suffices to determine whether the rule itself covers a case. (...) Others, in the spirit of Lon Fuller, believe that there is no way to understand a rule without invoking its purpose — the benevolent ends which it is meant to advance. In this paper we ask whether people associate rules with their textual formulation or their underlying purpose. We find that both text and purpose guide people’s reasoning about the scope of a rule. Overall, a rule’s text more strongly contributed to rule infraction decisions than did its purpose. The balance of these considerations, however, varied across experimental conditions: In conditions favoring a spontaneous judgment, rule interpretation was affected by moral purposes, whereas analytic conditions resulted in a greater adherence to textual interpretations. In sum, our findings suggest that the philosophical debate between textualism and purposivism partly reflects two broader approaches to normative reasoning that vary within and across individuals. Keywords: , the concept of law, rules, legal psychology, Hart, Fuller. (shrink)

Standard approaches to ontological simplicity focus either on the number of things or types a theory posits or on the number of fundamental things or types a theory posits. In this paper, I suggest a ground-theoretic approach that focuses on the number of something else. After getting clear on what this approach amounts to, I motivate it, defend it, and complete it.

Examines the nature and origins of Hobbes's Biblical criticism, concentrating on what has always seemed his most radical claim—the argument that the Pentateuch was written not by Moses but by a much later figure, Ezra the Scribe. It traces the origins of this theory, showing how some key elements of Hobbes's biblical criticism were already present in the mainstream tradition; but it argues that Hobbes's insistence on the grounding of the authority of the text in political authority did give a (...) radical new edge to his theory. Finally, it considers whether it is correct to describe Hobbes as having founded modern biblical criticism. (shrink)

The claim that consciousness constitutively involves self-consciousness has a long philosophical history, and has received renewed support in recent years. My aim in this paper is to argue that this surprisingly enduring idea is misleading at best, and insufficiently supported at worst. I start by offering an elucidatory account of consciousness, and outlining a number of foundational claims that plausibly follow from it. I subsequently distinguish two notions of self-consciousness: consciousness of oneself and consciousness of one’s experience. While “self-consciousness” is (...) often taken to refer to the former notion, the most common variant of the constitutive claim, on which I focus here, targets the latter. This claim can be further interpreted in two ways: on a deflationary reading, it falls within the scope of foundational claims about consciousness, while on an inflationary reading, it points to determinate aspects of phenomenology that are not acknowledged by the foundational claims as being aspects of all conscious mental states. I argue that the deflationary reading of the constitutive claim is plausible, but should be formulated without using a term as polysemous and suggestive as “self-consciousness”; by contrast, the inflationary reading is not adequately supported, and ultimately rests on contentious intuitions about phenomenology. I conclude that we should abandon the idea that self-consciousness is constitutive of consciousness. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes concepts created by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari with worlds imagined by Ursula Le Guin in a performance of ‘rhizosemiotic play’ that explores some possible ways of generating and sustaining what William Pinar calls ‘complicated conversation’ within the regime of signs that constitutes an increasingly internationalized curriculum field. Deleuze and Guattari analyze thinking as flows or movements across space. They argue, for example, that every mode of intellectual inquiry needs to account for the plane of immanence upon (...) which it operates—the preconceptual field presupposed by the concepts that inquiry creates. Curriculum inquiry currently operates on numerous nationally distinctive planes of immanence. I argue that the internationalization of curriculum studies should not presume a singular transnational plane of immanence but, rather, envisage a process performed by curriculum scholars with the capacities and competencies to change planes—to move between one plane of immanence and another and/or to transform their own planes. My essay is a ‘narrative experiment’ that takes seriously Deleuze’s argument that a work of philosophy should be, in part, a kind of science fiction, and also takes inspiration from Le Guin’s science fictional stories of ‘changing planes’ to generate productive and disruptive transnational agendas in curriculum inquiry. (shrink)

Plans to automate killing by using robots armed with lethal weapons have been a prominent feature of most US military forces? roadmaps since 2004. The idea is to have a staged move from ?man-in-the-loop? to ?man-on-the-loop? to full autonomy. While this may result in considerable military advantages, the policy raises ethical concerns with regard to potential breaches of International Humanitarian Law, including the Principle of Distinction and the Principle of Proportionality. Current applications of remote piloted robot planes or drones offer (...) lessons about how automated weapons platforms could be misused by extending the range of legally questionable, targeted killings by security and intelligence forces. Moreover, the alleged moral disengagement by remote pilots will only be exacerbated by the use of autonomous robots. Leaders in the international community need to address the difficult legal and moral issues now, before the current mass proliferation of development reaches fruition. (shrink)

Jill North argues that Hamiltonian mechanics provides the most spare -- and hence most accurate -- account of the structure of a classical world. We point out some difficulties for her argument, and raise some general points about attempts to minimize structural commitments.

Deep learning algorithms are rapidly changing the way in which audiovisual media can be produced. Synthetic audiovisual media generated with deep learning—often subsumed colloquially under the label “deepfakes”—have a number of impressive characteristics; they are increasingly trivial to produce, and can be indistinguishable from real sounds and images recorded with a sensor. Much attention has been dedicated to ethical concerns raised by this technological development. Here, I focus instead on a set of issues related to the notion of synthetic audiovisual (...) media, its place within a broader taxonomy of audiovisual media, and how deep learning techniques differ from more traditional approaches to media synthesis. After reviewing important etiological features of deep learning pipelines for media manipulation and generation, I argue that “deepfakes” and related synthetic media produced with such pipelines do not merely offer incremental improvements over previous methods, but challenge traditional taxonomical distinctions, and pave the way for genuinely novel kinds of audiovisual media. (shrink)

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term aim of creating surrogate carers. While total childcare is not yet being promoted, there are indications that it is ‘on the cards’. We examine recent research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, privacy, (...) robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We set these in the context of the child development literature on the pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on the protection of children from the overuse of robot care. (shrink)

The statue and the lump of clay that constitutes it fail to share all of their kind and modal properties. Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue is not the lump. Question: What grounds the kind and modal differences between the statue and the lump? In virtue of what is it that the lump of clay, but not the statue, can survive being smashed? This is the grounding problem. Now a number of solutions to the grounding problem require that we substantially (...) revise our view of reality. In this paper, I provide a solution to this problem that does not require such a revision. I then show how my solution to the grounding problem can solve a related problem and answer a related question. The upshot is that the solution I offer is not only non-revisionary, but also fruitful. (shrink)

A cost analysis of the utilization of new expensive vascular grafts is performed, applying the methodology of decision analysis to the theoretical case of a sixty year old male patient undergoing femoropopliteal grafting for limb threatening ischemia. The problem is presented graphically as a decision tree, uncertainties are quantified in terms of probabilities and end outcomes are evaluated in monetary terms. This informations is then utilized to calculate cost values associated with alternative actions.Based on initial cumulative patency figures of the (...) new more expensive grafts and the known performance of the older grafts, the initial high expense for the new grafts is justified economically, if the saphenous vein is not available. This analysis, apart from giving an answer to a specific clinical problem, can be viewed as a general model for cost analysis of surgical procedures. (shrink)

This book is an enquiry into the concept of the 'self', transcending the barriers of 'non-self' and realizing the non-dual Consciousness within and without.

Understanding Ethics introduces the frameworks of moral philosophy to analyse contemporary moral issues and perennial human dilemmas.While the early chapters ...

Challenges the traditional portrayal of Hobbes as an extreme ‘Realist’ in international relations theory—i.e. as someone who regarded the international arena as a pure anarchy in which law could have no meaning and aggression could always be justified by the dictates of self‐interest. It argues that his theory did have a place for international law, and did supply reasons for international cooperation of various kinds. In many ways his theory was closer to the ameliorism of the ‘Rationalist’ tradition than to (...) the changeless pessimism of the Realists; but, on the other hand, the peculiar nature of his natural law theory did set him apart from the Rationalist tradition. (shrink)

This volume collects reflections on the role of philosophy in case studies in the history of science. Case studies have played a prominent role in recent history and philosophy of science. They have been used to illustrate, question, explore, or explicate philosophical points of view. Even if not explicitly so, historical narratives are always guided by philosophical background assumptions. But what happens if different philosophies lead to different narratives of the same historical episodes? Can historical case studies decide between competing (...) philosophical viewpoints? What are the criteria that a case study has to fulfill in order to be philosophically relevant? Bringing together leading practitioners in the fields of history and philosophy of the physical and the life sciences, this volume addresses this methodological problem and proposes ways of rendering explicit philosophical assumptions of historical work. (shrink)

Cicero's philosophical works introduced Latin audiences to the ideas of the Stoics, Epicureans and other schools and figures of the post-Aristotelian period, thus influencing the transmission of those ideas through later history. While Cicero's value as documentary evidence for the Hellenistic schools is unquestioned, Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic explores his writings as works of philosophy that do more than simply synthesize the thought of others, but instead offer a unique viewpoint of their own. In this volume Raphael (...) Woolf describes and evaluates Cicero's philosophical achievements, paying particular attention to his relation to those philosophers he draws upon in his works, his Romanizing of Greek philosophy, and his own sceptical and dialectical outlook. The volume aims, using the best tools of philosophical, philological and historical analysis, to do Cicero justice as a distinctive philosophical voice. Situating Cicero's work in its historical and political context, this volume provides a detailed analysis of the thought of one of the finest orators and writers of the Roman period. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic is a key resource for those interested in Cicero's role in shaping Classical philosophy. (shrink)

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is (...) able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused. (shrink)

We created Justice: The Game, an educational, role-immersion game designed to be used in philosophy courses. We seek to describe Justice in sufficent detail so that it is understandable to readers not already familiar with role-immersion pedagogy. We hope some instructors will be sufficiently interested in using the game. In addition to describing the game we also evaluate it, thereby highlighting the pedagogical potential of role-immersion games designed to teach political philosophy. We analyze the game by drawing on our observations (...) as designers and playtesters of Justice, along with feedback from students obtained in focus-groups conducted shortly after playtesting ended. We present evidence that Justice, compared to conventional instructional methods alone, plausibly enhances student learning of philosophical skills and content by requiring them to practice those skills and put their content-area knowledge to use in a highly-motivating and engaging context. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Considering AnimalsKheel's Nature Ethics and Animal Debates in EcofeminismNoël Sturgeon (bio)How we treat the use of animals by humans for sport, experimentation or food has been controversial within ecofeminism. While it is fair to say that all ecofeminists agree that factory farming and cruel treatment of animals is morally wrong, universal arguments for vegetarianism or veganism have been, if one forgives the metaphor, a bone of contention. Attached to (...) these disagreements are important philosophical and political debates about ecological holism, individualistic frameworks, cultural difference, social privilege and ethics of care, which are consequential above and beyond evaluating our treatment of animals. Thus, ecofeminist discussions of animal issues have been formative for environmental ethics and politics, while remaining a delicate matter when disagreement occurs among a relatively small group of thinkers, activists and scholars who tend towards solidarity.Val Plumwood, the important Australian philosopher whose work and life are celebrated in this volume, was especially cognizant of all of this. In April 1998, Plumwood presented an early version of what became two articles on animal/human relationships (Plumwood 1999, 2000) at the Ecofeminist Perspectives Conference at the University of Montana. [End Page 153] The presentation, which occurred early in the conference, was, typical of Plumwood, straightforwardly contentious, a bold challenge to the position of some ecofeminists at the time that veganism was the only morally acceptable diet. In it, she suggested that what she called "ontological veganism" was a position that was both culturally ethnocentric and dualistic, two accusations guaranteed to deeply disturb this particular audience. The conference, organized by Deborah Slicer (whose 1996 article, "Your Daughter or Your Dog?" argued against animal experimentation), was also attended by Marti Kheel (who, along with Carol Adams, was an early proponent of "ontological veganism"). Present also were thinkers with more nuanced positions on the issue, such as Lori Gruen, Greta Gaard, and Karen Warren. Thus, Plumwood's provocation felt personal, and produced lively debate at the conference, and an even livelier argument on email afterwards.1 Stung by being portrayed as racist, several ecofeminists reacted with anger at Plumwood, with the result that she publicly rejected the label "ecofeminist," and from then until her untimely death, preferred the category "critical feminist eco-socialism" to describe her framework.Despite the hurt feelings, this debate (and Plumwood's subsequent articles and sections in her 2002 book, Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason), moved ecofeminist treatment of the issues of animals and morally sound eating practices considerably forward. Plumwood argued that to avoid the dualism of human/nature, humans should recognize themselves as prey as well as predator, an approach she brilliantly portrayed in her article on the experience of surviving a crocodile attack. (Plumwood 1995) In her view, any position that eliminated the possibility of using some animals as food necessarily relied upon a rights-based, individualistic approach that retained the status of some living beings as excluded from moral consideration. Yet, Plumwood argued, from a contextualized moral position, which respected both continuity and difference between different groups of living beings, one could make ethical claims about the moral problems of eating animals. She was particularly interested, both philosophically and from a politically strategic perspective, in arguing against the practice of factory farming. Karen Warren, in her book Ecofeminist Philosophy (2000), also followed and expanded Plumwood's discussion by emphasizing the advantages of a contextualized ethic of care in the treatment of animals as food, arguing (and as such agreeing with Plumwood's conference presentation), that it was ethnocentric [End Page 154] to insist on universal standards in evaluating whether some cultural groups, such as the Inuit, could morally refrain from eating animals. Greta Gaard's thoughtful article on the indigenous Makah whale hunt (2001) took on the charge of ethnocentrism directly, as in some ways an answer to Plumwood's provocation.Given this background, it is interesting to read Marti Kheel's important new book and see how her promotion of veganism as a moral position is articulated. A longtime feminist, vegan, and animal advocate, Kheel is a co-founder of the activist group Feminists for Animal Rights, and the author of an important early critique of deep... (shrink)