I would first like to congratulate Dr Seale for producing a thought-provoking piece of research that has captured the imagination of the nation's media. 1 I would also like to point out an interesting discordance that I have noted with regard to the findings of this important research, which ought to stimulate further discussion. Although religious doctors were significantly less likely than their non-religious colleagues to provide continuous or deep sedation until death or to provide treatment with at least ….

Early in the first volume of his Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomeno logie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie, Edmund Husserl stated concisely the significance and scope of the problem with which this present study is concerned. When we reflect on how it is that consciousness, which is itself absolute in relation to the world, can yet take on the character of transcendence, how it can become mundanized, We see straightaway that it can do that only by means of a certain participation in (...) transcendence in the first, originary sense, which is manifestly the transcendence of material Nature. Only by means of the experiential relation to the animate organism does consciousness become really human and animal (tierischen), and only thereby does it achieve a place in the space and in the time of Nature. l Consciousness can become "worldly" only by being embodied within the world as part of it. In so far as the world is material Nature, consciousness must partake of the transcendence of material Nature. That is to say, its transcendence is manifestly an embodiment in a material, corporeal body. Consciousness, thus, takes on the characteristic of being "here and now" (ecceity) by means of experiential (or, more accurately, its intentive) relation to that corporeal being which embodies it. Accordingly, that there is a world for consciousness is a conse quence in the first instance of its embodiment by 2 that corporeal body which is for it its own animate organism. (shrink)

Contemporary culture increasingly suffers from problems of attention, over-stimulation, and stress, and a variety of personal and social discontents generated by deceptive body images. This book argues that improved body consciousness can relieve these problems and enhance one's knowledge, performance, and pleasure. The body is our basic medium of perception and action, but focused attention to its feelings and movements has long been criticised as a damaging distraction that also ethically corrupts through self-absorption. In Body Consciousness, (...) Richard Shusterman refutes such charges by engaging the most influential twentieth-century somatic philosophers and incorporating insights from both Western and Asian disciplines of body-mind awareness. Rather than rehashing intractable ontological debates on the mind-body relation, Shusterman reorients study of this crucial nexus towards a more fruitful, pragmatic direction that reinforces important but neglected connections between philosophy of mind, ethics, politics, and the pervasive aesthetic dimensions of everyday life. (shrink)

CURRENT CONTROVERSIES about the Mind-Body Identity Theory form a case-study for the investigation of the methods practiced by linguistic philosophers. Recent criticisms of these methods question that philosophers can discern lines of demarcation between "categories" of entities, and thereby diagnose "conceptual confusions" in "reductionist" philosophical theories. Such doubts arise once we see that it is very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to draw a firm line between the "conceptual" and the "empirical," and thus to differentiate between a statement embodying a (...) conceptual confusion and one that expresses a surprising empirical result. The proponent of the Identity Theory are identical with certain brain-processes) holds that his opponents' arguments to the effect that empirical inquiry could not identify brain-processes and sensations are admirable illustrations of this difficulty. For, he argues, the classifications of linguistic expressions that are the ground of his opponents' criticism are classifications of a language which is as it is because it is the language spoken at a given stage of empirical inquiry. But the sort of empirical results that would show brain processes and sensations to be identical would also bring about changes in our ways of speaking. These changes would make these classifications out of date. To argue against the Identity Theory on the basis of the way we talk now is like arguing against an assertion that supernatural phenomena are identical with certain natural phenomena on the basis of the way in which superstitious people talk. There is simply no such thing as a method of classifying linguistic expressions that has results guaranteed to remain intact despite the results of future empirical inquiry. Thus in this area there is no method which will have the sort of magisterial neutrality of which linguistic philosophers fondly dream. (shrink)

Early in the first volume of his Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomeno logie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie, Edmund Husserl stated concisely the significance and scope of the problem with which this present study is concerned. When we reflect on how it is that consciousness, which is itself absolute in relation to the world, can yet take on the character of transcendence, how it can become mundanized, We see straightaway that it can do that only by means of a certain participation in (...) transcendence in the first, originary sense, which is manifestly the transcendence of material Nature. Only by means of the experiential relation to the animate organism does consciousness become really human and animal (tierischen), and only thereby does it achieve a place in the space and in the time of Nature. l Consciousness can become "worldly" only by being embodied within the world as part of it. In so far as the world is material Nature, consciousness must partake of the transcendence of material Nature. That is to say, its transcendence is manifestly an embodiment in a material, corporeal body. Consciousness, thus, takes on the characteristic of being "here and now" (ecceity) by means of experiential (or, more accurately, its intentive) relation to that corporeal being which embodies it. Accordingly, that there is a world for consciousness is a conse quence in the first instance of its embodiment by 2 that corporeal body which is for it its own animate organism. (shrink)

Interventions are medically necessary when they are vital in achieving the goal of medicine. However, with varying perspectives comes varying views on what interventions are (un)necessary and, thus, what potential treatment options are available for those suffering from the myriad of conditions, pathologies and disorders afflicting humanity. Medical necessity's teleological nature is perhaps best illustrated in cases where there is debate over using contentious medical interventions as a last resort. For example, whether it is appropriate for those suffering from (...) class='Hi'>body integrity dysphoria to receive healthy limb amputations. This paper explores how one's perception of medicine's goal underpins whether interventions are necessary or unnecessary, using the controversial topic of therapeutic amputation as an example. By contrasting ‘classical’ amputations with their more contentious counterparts, it highlights how the idea of medical necessity influences and restrains clinical decision-making. The paper starts by giving an account of body integrity dysphoria, focusing on the debate concerning elective amputation's justifiability. It then introduces Georges Canguilhem's vitalist theory of health, paying particular attention to his emphasis on adaptability. Then, this paper uses his theory as a lens through which to evaluate the appropriateness of therapeutic amputation as a medically necessary procedure. Ultimately, the paper highlights how the label of medical necessity is withheld from potential therapeutic interventions because they fail to conform to pre-established ideas of medicine's purpose and that by doing so, potential harm befalls those who are left with no effective treatments and must look for solutions in the non-clinical world. (shrink)

Thinking through the body: educating for the humanities -- The body as background -- Self-knowledge and its discontents: from Socrates to somaesthetics -- Muscle memory and the somaesthetic pathologies of everyday life -- Somaesthetics in the philosophy classroom: a practical approach -- Somaesthetics and the limits of aesthetics -- Somaesthetics and Burke's sublime -- Pragmatism and cultural politics: from textualism to somaesthetics -- Body consciousness and performance -- Somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option -- Photography as performative (...) process -- Asian ars erotica and the question of sexual aesthetics -- Philosophy as awakened life : everyday aesthetics of embodiment in American transcendentalism and Japanese Zen practice -- Somatic style. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Breakdown of C i M phy " artes an eta sacs RICHARD A. WATSON WITHIN CARTESIANISMthere arose many problems deriving from conflicts between Cartesian principles. Inadequate attempts to solve these problems were crucial reasons for the breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The major difficulties derived from the acceptance of a dualism of substances seated in a system which included epistemological (...) and causal likeness principles plus an ontological framework in which the categories of substance and modification were exhaustive. The major solutions involved either denying the likeness principles or altering the ontological framework. The first led to unintelligibility ; the second, culminating in Hume, opened the way to non-Cartesian metaphysics. The first section of this study contains a characterization of late seventeenth -century Cartesian metaphysics. The second is an exposition of Foucher 's four major criticisms of this system. In the third section, monistic solutions suggested in Descartes and by Spinoza, Foucher, Leibniz, and Locke are considered; in the fourth, the dualistic solutions of the orthodox Cartesians Rohault, R~gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Le Grand, and Arnauld; and in the fifth, the occasionalist solution of Malebranche. The sixth section is an analysis of these orthodox and occasionalist solutions, showing how each ultimately fails because of dependence upon the ontology of substance and modification. The seventh section is a consideration of Berkeley and Hume in the Cartesian context. A consideration of their systems as offering solutions to Cartesian problems illuminates in new light both the systems and the problems. In broad terms, this study moves from a consideration of problems arising from an ontology of two substances, to a consideration of problems arising from the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The Cartesians were concerned with relationships between two substances, but they saw no difficulties connected with the relationship between a substance and its modifications (or properties). Berkeley's treatment (deriving from Male- [177] 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY branche) of the relationships between mind and idea, and between mind and notion, is illuminated by a consideration of the extent to which he took these relationships for granted in the Cartesian way, and of the extent to which he saw difficulties in the relationship between substance and modification. The Berkeleian solution to Cartesian problems, like that of Malebranche before him, was not successful; Malebranche belittled, and Berkeley denied the dualism of substances, but neither philosopher could break entirely with the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The final breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics came with Hume, who, in providing the culmination of a most important trend in modern philosophy, opened the way to new metaphysics and became the father of contemporary philosophy. I A model late seventeenth-century Cartesian metaphysical system. The last grand expositor of the Cartesian philosophy was Antoine Le Grand who in 1694 published An Entire Body of Philosophy. The characterization of the late seventeenth-century Cartesian system given below follows Le Grand's exposition more closely than others, but it also incorporates elements from those of Rohault, R6gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Malebranche, and Arnauld.1 None of these philosophers professed a system of exactly the sort this characterization pictures, nor is it implied here that they do. The guide and rationale for drawing from them such a model Cartesianism is the polemical writing of Simon Foucher. Foucher's series of attacks upon Cartesianism (of which the second is his criticism of Malebranche of 1675, Critique de la Rdcherche de la veritd) give clearly the most important objections against Cartesian metaphysics.2The system outlined below, while more com1Le Grand, Antoine, An Entire Body of Philosophy According to the Principles of the Famous Renate des Cartes (London, 1694); Rohault, Jacques, Traitd de physique (Paris, 1671); R6gis, Pierre-Sylvain, Syst~me de philosophie, contenant la logique, la mdtaphysique, la physique et la morale (Lyon, 1690); Desgabets, Robert, Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la veritd, oCt l'on decouvre le chemin qui conduit aux connoissances solides. Pour servir de rdsponse gtla Lettre d'un academicien (Paris, 1675); La Forge, Louis de, Traitd de l'dme humaine, de ses facultds et fonctions et de son union avec le corps, d'apr~s les principes de... (shrink)

What makes us human? Richard Swinburne presents new philosophical arguments, supported by modern neuroscience, for the view that we are immaterial souls sustained in existence by our brains.

Individuals with body integrity identity disorder seek to address a non-delusional incongruity between their body image and their physical embodiment, sometimes via the surgical amputation of healthy body parts. Opponents to the provision of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation in cases of BIID make appeals to the envisioned harms that such an intervention would cause, harms such as the creation of a lifelong physical disability where none existed before. However, this concept of harm is often based on a normative (...) biomedical model of health and disability, a model which conflates amputation with impairment, and impairment with a disability. This article challenges the prima facie harms assumed to be inherent in limb amputation and argues in favour of a potential treatment option for those with BIID. To do this, it employs the social model of disability as a means to separate the concept of impairment and disability and thereby separate the acute and chronic harms of the practice of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation. It will then argue that provided sufficient measures are put in place to ensure that those with atypical bodily constructions are not disadvantaged, the chronic harms of elective amputation would cease to be. (shrink)

Individuals with body integrity identity disorder seek to address a non-delusional incongruity between their body image and their physical embodiment, sometimes via the surgical amputation of healthy body parts. Opponents to the provision of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation in cases of BIID make appeals to the envisioned harms that such an intervention would cause, harms such as the creation of a lifelong physical disability where none existed before. However, this concept of harm is often based on a normative (...) biomedical model of health and disability, a model which conflates amputation with impairment, and impairment with a disability. This article challenges the prima facie harms assumed to be inherent in limb amputation and argues in favour of a potential treatment option for those with BIID. To do this, it employs the social model of disability as a means to separate the concept of impairment and disability and thereby separate the acute and chronic harms of the practice of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation. It will then argue that provided sufficient measures are put in place to ensure that those with atypical bodily constructions are not disadvantaged, the chronic harms of elective amputation would cease to be. (shrink)

Individuals with body integrity identity disorder seek to address a non-delusional incongruity between their body image and their physical embodiment, sometimes via the surgical amputation of healthy body parts. Opponents to the provision of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation in cases of BIID make appeals to the envisioned harms that such an intervention would cause, harms such as the creation of a lifelong physical disability where none existed before. However, this concept of harm is often based on a normative (...) biomedical model of health and disability, a model which conflates amputation with impairment, and impairment with a disability. This article challenges the prima facie harms assumed to be inherent in limb amputation and argues in favour of a potential treatment option for those with BIID. To do this, it employs the social model of disability as a means to separate the concept of impairment and disability and thereby separate the acute and chronic harms of the practice of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation. It will then argue that provided sufficient measures are put in place to ensure that those with atypical bodily constructions are not disadvantaged, the chronic harms of elective amputation would cease to be. (shrink)

Individuals with body integrity identity disorder seek to address a non-delusional incongruity between their body image and their physical embodiment, sometimes via the surgical amputation of healthy body parts. Opponents to the provision of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation in cases of BIID make appeals to the envisioned harms that such an intervention would cause, harms such as the creation of a lifelong physical disability where none existed before. However, this concept of harm is often based on a normative (...) biomedical model of health and disability, a model which conflates amputation with impairment, and impairment with a disability. This article challenges the prima facie harms assumed to be inherent in limb amputation and argues in favour of a potential treatment option for those with BIID. To do this, it employs the social model of disability as a means to separate the concept of impairment and disability and thereby separate the acute and chronic harms of the practice of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation. It will then argue that provided sufficient measures are put in place to ensure that those with atypical bodily constructions are not disadvantaged, the chronic harms of elective amputation would cease to be. (shrink)

Opponents of the provision of therapeutic, healthy limb amputation in Body Integrity Identity Disorder cases argue that such surgeries stand in contrast to the goal of medical practice – that of health restoration and maintenance. This paper refutes such a conclusion via an appeal to the nuanced and reflective model of health proposed by Georges Canguilhem. The paper examines the conceptual entanglement of the statistically common with the normatively desirable, arguing that a healthy body can take multiple forms, (...) including that of an amputee, provided that such a form enables the continuing ability to initiate new norms of existence. It concludes that the practice of healthy limb amputation in cases of Body Integrity Identity Disorder is not only compatible with the goal of medicine but is potentially the only method of achieving this goal in the face of a complex and often mischaracterized disorder. (shrink)

Interpretations of Aristotle's account of the relation between body and soul have been widely divergent. At one extreme, Thomas Slakey has said that in the De Anima ‘Aristotle tries to explain perception simply as an event in the sense-organs’. Wallace Matson has generalized the point. Of the Greeks in general he says, ‘Mind–body identity was taken for granted.… Indeed, in the whole classical corpus there exists no denial of the view that sensing is a bodily process throughout’. At (...) the opposite extreme, Friedrich Solmsen has said of Aristotle's theory, ‘it is doubtful whether the movement or the actualization occurring when the eye sees or the ear hears has any physical or physiological aspect.’ Similarly, Jonathan Barnes has described Aristotle as leaning hesitantly towards the view that desire and thought are wholly non-physical. But on the emotions and sense-perception, Barnes takes an intermediate position. Aristotle treats these, he says, as including physical and non-physical components. Other writers too have sought a position somewhere in the middle. Thus G. R. T. Ross concedes that we find in Aristotle ‘what looks like the crudest materialism’. It appears that objects produce changes in an organism, ‘and the reception of these changes in the sense organ is perception’. But, he maintains, this gives us only half the picture. The complete theory ‘may in a way be designated as a doctrine of psychophysical parallelism’. W. D. Ross also seeks a middle position. He thinks that Aristotle sometimes brings out ‘the distinctively mental, non-corporeal nature of the act [of sensation].… But Aristotle cannot be said to hold successfully to the notion of sensation as a purely mental activity having nothing in common with anything physical. He is still under the influence of earlier materialism’. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Interpretations of Aristotle's account of the relation between body and soul have been widely divergent. At one extreme, Thomas Slakey has said that in theDe Anima‘Aristotle tries to explain perception simply as an event in the sense-organs’. Wallace Matson has generalized the point. Of the Greeks in general he says, ‘Mind–body identity was taken for granted.… Indeed, in the whole classical corpus there exists no denial of the view that sensing is a bodily process throughout’. At the opposite (...) extreme, Friedrich Solmsen has said of Aristotle's theory, ‘it is doubtful whether the movement or the actualization occurring when the eye sees or the ear hears has any physical or physiological aspect.’ Similarly, Jonathan Barnes has described Aristotle as leaning hesitantly towards the view that desire and thought are wholly non-physical. But on the emotions and sense-perception, Barnes takes an intermediate position. Aristotle treats these, he says, as including physical and non-physical components. Other writers too have sought a position somewhere in the middle. Thus G. R. T. Ross concedes that we find in Aristotle ‘what looks like the crudest materialism’. It appears that objects produce changes in an organism, ‘and the reception of these changes in the sense organisperception’. But, he maintains, this gives us only half the picture. The complete theory ‘may in a way be designated as a doctrine of psychophysical parallelism’. W. D. Ross also seeks a middle position. He thinks that Aristotle sometimes brings out ‘the distinctively mental, non-corporeal nature of the act [of sensation].… But Aristotle cannot be said to hold successfully to the notion of sensation as a purely mental activity having nothing in common with anything physical. He is still under the influence of earlier materialism’. (shrink)

In this book, Della Rocca traces out the conceptual links between key concepts and principles of Spinoza's system bearing on representation and the mind-body problem. In the course of doing so, he presents and defends a number of new, interesting theses about Spinoza's thought on these matters. The arguments are presented with impressive clarity and in great detail. All in all, the book is a significant contribution to the literature on Spinoza's metaphysics and epistemology, and should be read by (...) anyone with a serious interest in its historical subject or in the two perennial philosophical problems on which it focuses. (shrink)

Few philosophers have left a legacy like that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He has been credited not only with inventing the differential calculus, but also with anticipating the basic ideas of modern logic, information science, and fractal geometry. He made important contributions to such diverse fields as jurisprudence, geology and etymology, while sketching designs for calculating machines, wind pumps, and submarines. But the common presentation of his philosophy as a kind of unworldly idealism is at odds with all this bustling (...) practical activity. In this book Richard. T. W. Arthur offers a fresh reading of Leibniz’s philosophy, clearly situating it in its scientific, political and theological contexts. He argues that Leibniz aimed to provide an improved foundation for the mechanical philosophy based on a new kind of universal language. His contributions to natural philosophy are an integral part of this programme, which his metaphysics, dynamics and organic philosophy were designed to support. Rather than denying that substances really exist in space and time, as the idealist reading proposes, Leibniz sought to provide a deeper understanding of substance and body, and a correct understanding of space as an order of situations and time as an order of successive things. This lively and approachable book will appeal to students of philosophy, as well as anyone seeking a stimulating introduction to Leibniz's thought and its continuing relevance. (shrink)

In the keynote essay, David Chalmers proposes that we explain consciousness by a non-reductive theory of experience which adds new basic principles to the laws of nature. This essay endorses Chalmers’ proposal but argues -- contrary to Chalmers -- that the principles of such a theory interfere with purely physical laws, since the principles entail violations of physical conservation laws. The essay argues that the qualified incorrigibility of the mental nonetheless provides compelling reason to opt for a non-reductive theory.

Philosophers are increasingly coming to recognize the importance of Freudian theory for the understanding of the mind. The picture Freud presents of the mind's growth and organization holds implications not just for such perennial questions as the relation of mind and body, the nature of memory and personal identity, the interplay of cognitive and affective processes in reasoning and acting, but also for the very way in which these questions are conceived and an interpretation of the mind is sought. (...) This volume of essays, by some of today's leading philosophers, explores all these topics, as well as the methods, results and status of the theory itself, while two 'classical' discussions by Wittgenstein and Sartre are also included. A number of the contributions – those by Donald Davidson, W. D. Hart, Jim Hopkins, Adam Morton, David Pears and Richard Wollheim – have not been published before, and a very useful bibliography is provided. It is an anthology that will be vital to anyone interested in Freudian theory and, more generally, in philosophical psychology. (shrink)

Were I not afraid of appearing too philosophical, I should remind my reader of that famous doctrine, supposed to be fully proved in modern times, “That tastes and colours, and all other sensible qualities, lie not in the bodies, but merely in the senses.” The case is the same with beauty and deformity, virtue and vice. This doctrine, however, takes off no more from the reality of the latter qualities, than from that of the former; nor need it give any (...) umbrage either to critics or moralists. Though colours were allowed to lie only in the eye, would dyers or painters ever be less regarded or esteemed? There is a sufficient uniformity in the senses and feelings of mankind, to make all these qualities the objects of art and reasoning, and to have the greatest influence on life and manners. And as it is certain, that the discovery above-mentioned in natural philosophy, makes no alteration on action and conduct; why should a like discovery in moral philosophy make any alteration? (shrink)

This is a revised and updated version of Swinburne's controversial treatment of the eternal philosophical problem of the relation between mind and body. He argues that we can only make sense of the interaction between the mental and the physical in terms of the soul, and that there is no scientific explanation of the evolution of the soul.

Plato stands as the fount of our philosophical tradition, being the first Western thinker to produce a body of writing that touches upon a wide range of topics still discussed by philosophers today. In a sense he invented philosophy as a distinct subject, for although many of these topics were discussed by his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries, he was the first to bring them together by giving them a unitary treatment. This volume contains fourteen essays discussing Plato's views about (...) knowledge, reality, mathematics, politics, ethics, love, poetry, and religion. There are also analyses of the intellectual and social background of his thought, the development of his philosophy throughout his career, the range of alternative approaches to his work, and the stylometry of his writing. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a "Moral Knowledge Argument" and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can (...) respond to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the `Moral Concept Strategy'. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain. (shrink)

The thematic survey of traditional literature uncovered a pressing need to study the M-L figure as a phenomenon in its own right. A design was constructed intending to evoke the figure's full phenomenal appearance. Instead of framing a highly determinate structure wherein a specific question is posed, E presented the figure to naive Ss, simply asking them to describe it. The purpose was to ascertain what naive Ss would perceive if not encumbered by a prior set. In addition, five experiential (...) questions about the descriptive task were included, aiming to elucidate and render intelligible the factual perceptions. The results showed that the M-L figure appears physiognomically. Typical responses exhibiting stylistic variation pointed to the dialectic between perceiver and perceived thing. A second finding was that the perception of equal horizontal lines as unequal emerged as a predominant, but only one of several possible ways of resolving the M-L figure's many perceptual possibilities. In fact, the data revealed a trend that elucidates the conditions which make possible the "M-L effect." Finally, "direction-orientation," a phenomenal variable elucidated by Merleau-Ponty's notions about the body and perception, emerged as the most characteristic way of perceiving the experimental figure. (shrink)

In the sociology of the body, the analysis of physiognomy is a neglected topic. The idea that one can judge the character of another from their facial or bodily characteristics is a pervasive phenomenon. However, its historical and cultural spread does not entail that we inevitably tie it to notions of human essence. This study focuses upon a particular periodic resurgence of physiognomic discourse in the West, at the end of the 18th and the entirety of the 19th century. (...) In contrast to previous arguments, I argue that physiognomic discourse was able to exploit 19th-century phrenology as a conduit for its own perpetuation. I point out that the perception of the other that physiognomy promotes is largely based upon an atemporal view of the body. I suggest that this physiognomic perception remains an entrenched but changeable component in contemporary relations between self and other. (shrink)

Comparative case studies of lawyer deviance and discipline offer a unique perspective on how and why lawyers misbehave, how regulatory bodies respond, and the efficacy of those responses. Such studies also provide valuable pedagogic tools, opening the eyes of law students to the ways in which they, too, could transgress ethical rules. This special issue builds on my two books on misbehaving lawyers in New York and California by presenting vivid accounts of such lawyers in the UK, Canada, Australia, New (...) Zealand, and the Netherlands. (shrink)

In their papers for this issue, Sterelny and Sutton provide a dimensional analysis of some of the ways in which mental and cognitive activities take place in the world. I add two further dimensions, a dimension of manipulation and of transformation. I also discuss the explanatory dimensions that we might use to explain these cases.

This paper explores the impact that developments in the field of neuroprosthetics will have on the ethical viability of healthy limb amputation, specifically in cases of Body Integrity Identity Dis...

BackgroundAs the COVID-19 pandemic develops, healthcare professionals are looking for support with, and guidance to inform, the difficult decisions they face. In the absence of an authoritative national steer in England, professional bodies and local organisations have been developing and disseminating their own ethical guidance. Questions inevitably arise, some of which are particularly pressing during the pandemic, as events are unfolding quickly and the field is becoming crowded. My central question here is: which professional ethical guidance should the professional follow?Main (...) bodyAdopting a working definition of “professional ethical guidance”, I offer three domains for a healthcare professional to consider, and some associated questions to ask, when determining whether – in relation to any guidance document – they should “bin it or pin it”. First, the professional should consider the source of the guidance: is the issuing body authoritative or, if not, at least sufficiently influential that its guidance should be followed? Second, the professional should consider the applicability of the guidance, ascertaining whether the guidance is available and, if so, whether it is pertinent. Pertinence has various dimensions, including whether the guidance applies to this professional, this patient and/or this setting, whether it is up-to-date, and whether the guidance addresses the situation the professional is facing. Third, the professional should consider the methodology and methods by which the guidance was produced. Although the substantive quality of the guidance is important, so too are the methods by which it was produced. Here, the professional should ask whether the guidance is sufficiently inclusive – in terms of who has prepared it and who contributed to its development – and whether it was rigorously developed, and thus utilised appropriate processes, principles and evidence.ConclusionAsking and answering such questions may be challenging, particularly during a pandemic. Furthermore, guidance will not do all the work: professionals will still need to exercise their judgment in deciding what is best in the individual case, whether or not this concerns COVID-19. But such judgments can and should be informed by guidance, and hopefully these preliminary observations will provide some useful pointers for time-pressed professionals. (shrink)

In her controversial paper, Anna Smajdor proposes that brain-dead people could be used as gestation units for prospective parents unable or unwilling to undertake the act themselves—what she terms whole body gestational donation (WBGD). She explores the ethical issues of such an idea and, comparing it with traditional organ donation, asserts that such deceased surrogacy could be a way of outsourcing pregnancy’s harms to a populace unable to be affected by them. She argues that if the prospect is unacceptable, (...) this may reveal some underlying problems with traditional cadaveric organ donation. Smajdor’s analysis, however, overlooks several problems arising from WBGD. This paper provides an account of those issues and argues that, in addition to WBGD being viscerally unpleasant, it is also ethically unviable. The paper starts by providing an account of WBGD before acknowledging its negative response within traditional and social media. After arguing that such cursory and gut reactions are insufficient to reject the proposal outright, this paper then provides three concerns regarding WBGD omitted by Smajdor: (i) the co-opting of life-saving organs for reproduction, (ii) the discrepancy between using cadaveric organs to save a life versus creating one, and (iii) the universalization of feminist concerns regarding reproductive body commodification. The paper concludes by tentatively agreeing with Smajdor that considering WBGD may help reveal vulnerable assumptions regarding organ donation and surrogacy, but that the significant ethical issues raised may prove insurmountable and make the intervention—thought experiment or otherwise—untenable. (shrink)

Sufferers of body integrity identity disorder (BIID) experience a severe, non-delusional mismatch between their physical body and their internalised bodily image. For some, healthy limb amputation is the only alleviation for their significant suffering. Those who achieved an amputation, either self-inflicted or via surgery, often describe the procedure as resulting in relief. However, in England, surgeons who provide ‘elective amputations’ could face prosecution for causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) under section 18 of the Offences Against the Persons Act (...) 1861. Whether such a therapeutic intervention should be classified as GBH depends on the presence of harm, as, without harm, it is hard to argue that GBH has occurred. However, there is no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes harm. Such a definitional absence then begs the question, what is harm? It is this question which this article addresses, using the provision of healthy limb amputation in cases of BIID as an example. Drawing on metaphysics, this article will seek to clarify three separate contemporary models of harm: the counter-temporal, the counterfactual, and the non-comparative. Each model will be applied to the scenario of a surgeon carrying out a BIID-induced, therapeutic, healthy limb amputation, and in each, how harm may, or may not, be understood to have been caused will be explored. It concludes that an unexamined conception of harm is ill-equipped for employment in suspected cases of GBH when it is unclear whether harm has been caused and that a better-informed understanding of harm is required in cases where there is potential disagreement, be that in instances of BIID or a myriad of other borderline scenarios. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest have been reduced to financial conflicts. The National Institutes of Health’s new rules for managing conflicts of interest in medical research, the first major change to the regulations in over 15 years, address only financial ties. Although several commentators urged that the regulations also cover non-financial interests, the Department of Health and Human Services declined to do so. Similarly, the Institute of Medicine’s influential 2009 Conflict of Interest Report focuses almost exclusively on financial conflicts. Institutional policies at (...) academic medical centers and guidance from professional bodies and medical journals also primarily emphasize financial ties. Even broadly worded rules are applied more readily to financial ties than non-financial interests, such as the regulations that restrict institutional review board members with conflicting interests from participating in protocol reviews. (shrink)

At least since Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, it has increasingly become accepted that the existence of God is, intellectually, a lost cause, and that religious faith is an entirely non-rational matter--the province of those who willingly refuse to accept the dramatic advances of modern cosmology. Are belief in God and belief in science really mutually exclusive? Or, as noted philosopher of science and religion Richard Swinburne puts forth, can the very same criteria which scientists use (...) to reach theories about everything from DNA to the Big Bang be used to argue for the existence of God? In Is There a God? Swinburne presents a powerful and approachable case for the existence of God. Using the methods of scientific reasoning, Swinburne rigorously argues that science, far from replacing God, provides good grounds for belief in God. With each new discovery and advance, from black holes to quarks, superstrings to continuing evolution, science brings us closer to a complete understanding of how things work--but science can only go so far. Though it can explain much of how the universe works, science doesn't tell us why there is a universe at all. We can understand much of how life evolved, but why is there any life on earth? We can name and explicate scientific laws, but how is it that they operate in the universe? The Darwinian theory holds that the complex animal and human bodies that are here today exist because, ages ago, there were certain chemicals on earth, and given the laws of evolution, it was probable that complex organisms would emerge. But why those laws rather than any other? Why those chemicals? In Swinburne's view, the ultimate grand unifying theory is possible only by a belief in what he calls theism, acknowledging the existence of God: it was God who brought about the natural laws so that humans and animals would evolve. The watch may have been made, Swinburne asserts in reference to Richard Dawkins, with the aid of some blind screwdrivers (or even a blind watchmaking machine), but they were guided by a watchmaker with some very clear sight. At the heart of his argument is Swinburne's belief that the very success of science in showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong grounds for believing there is an even deeper cause of that order. By embracing a belief in God that acknowledges the truth in science, Swinburne's elegant argument supplies an essential spiritual element to our understanding of order and beauty, the structure beneath the chaos of the natural world. This informed and provocative volume will be essential reading for all readers of popular science, philosophy, and religion. (shrink)

Pain is commonly explained in terms of the perceptual activity of a distinct sensory modality, the function of which is to enable us to perceive actual or potential damage to the body. However, the characterization of pain experience in terms of a distinct sensory modality with such content is problematic. I argue that pain is better explained as occupying a different role in relation to perception: to indicate when the stimuli that are sensed in perceiving anything by means of (...) a sensory modality exceed a significant level of intensity. Viewing the system underlying pain experience as an integral and functionally integrated feature of all the senses provides a new perspective on the diverse forms of pain, what it is like to experience pain and the contrasting natures of pain and pleasure. (shrink)

How may emergent biotechnologies impact upon our relations with other animals? To what extent are any changes indicative of new relations between society and nature? This paper critically explores which sociological tools can contribute to an understanding of the technologisation of animal bodies. By drawing upon interview data with animal scientists I argue that such technologies are being partly shaped by broader changes in agriculture. The complexity of genomics trajectories in animal science is partly fashioned through the deligitimisation of the (...) productivist paradigm but continue to sit in tension around particular conceptions of sustainability in farm animal production.In spite of this deligitimisation process genomics is now being framed in the context of a new productivism (termed the livestock revolution) bound up in projected global changes in animal consumption during the first half of the 21st century. This potentially jars against both social trends that seek to re-enchant animal life and sustainability discourses which include social and environmental contexts. Nevertheless the possibility of a new productivism is supported by various interconnected trends including the emergence of a discourse of the 'bioeconomy' and a liberal regulatory apparatus for farm animal breeding technologies. Ultimately an understanding of the possibility of emerging new bio-capitalisations on animal life should be set in a broader context of competing agricultural paradigms as well as ongoing tensions over 'naturalness' in human/animal relations. (shrink)

How much does rationality constrain what we should believe on the basis of our evidence? According to this book, not very much. For most people and most bodies of evidence, there is a wide range of beliefs that rationality permits them to have in response to that evidence. The argument, which takes inspiration from William James' ideas in 'The Will to Believe', proceeds from two premises. The first is a theory about the basis of epistemic rationality. It's called epistemic utility (...) theory, and it says that what it is epistemically rational for you to believe is what it would be rational for you to choose if you were given the chance to pick your beliefs and, when picking them, you were to care only about their epistemic value. So, to say which beliefs are permitted, we must say how to measure epistemic value, and which decision rule to use when picking your beliefs. The second premise is a claim about attitudes to epistemic risk, and it says that rationality permits many different such attitudes. These attitudes can show up in epistemic utility theory in two ways: in the way you measure epistemic value; and in the decision rule you use to pick beliefs. This book explores the latter. The result is permissivism about epistemic rationality: different attitudes to epistemic risk lead to different choices of prior beliefs; given most bodies of evidence, different priors lead to different posteriors; and even once we fix your attitudes to epistemic risk, if they are at all risk-inclined, there is a range of different priors and therefore different posteriors they permit. (shrink)

In Body and Story Richard Terdiman explores the tension between what seem two fundamentally different ways of understanding the world: as physical reality and as representation in language. In demonstrating the complicated relationship between these two perspectives, he also offers a new approach to the problem of conflicts between irreconcilable but equally compelling theoretical ideas. Enlightenment rationalism is most often understood as maintaining that words can meaningfully refer to and grasp things in the material world, while Postmodernism famously (...) argues that nothing exists outside of language. Terdiman challenges this clean distinction, finding the early seeds of Postmodern doubt in the Enlightenment, and demonstrating the stubborn resistance of material reality -- particularly that of the body -- to language even today. Building on readings of works by 18th-century encyclopedist Denis Diderot and contemporary philosopher-icon Jacques Derrida, Terdiman argues that despite their genuine and profound opposition, a constant negotiation or mutual interrogation has always been taking place between these two world-views, even as the balance at times shifts to one side or the other. In analyzing these shifts he proposes a new model for understanding how seemingly unabridgeable theories legitimately coexist in our intellectual conception of the world, and he suggests a new ethics for managing this coexistence. (shrink)