Our primary focus is on analysis of the concept of voluntariness, with a secondary focus on the implications of our analysis for the concept and the requirements of voluntary informed consent. We propose that two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions must be satisfied for an action to be voluntary: intentionality, and substantial freedom from controlling influences. We reject authenticity as a necessary condition of voluntary action, and we note that constraining situations may or may not undermine voluntariness, depending on the (...) circumstances and the psychological capacities of agents. We compare and evaluate several accounts of voluntariness and argue that our view, unlike other treatments in bioethics, is not a value-laden theory. We also discuss the empirical assessment of individuals? perceptions of the degrees of noncontrol and self-control. We propose use of a particular Decision Making Control Instrument. Empirical research using this instrument can provide data that will help establish appropriate policies and procedures for obtaining voluntary consent to research. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 8, Page W1-W3, August 2011.

In his new foreword to this edition, Hilary Putnam forcefully rejects these nativist claims.

In this highly original and accessible book, one of our leading philosophers of religion seeks to answer this question by analyzing the several states of mystic union as they are described and explained in the classical primary literature ...

Essays discuss cognition, perception, art, science, truth, metaphor, education, philosophy, and cognitive psychology.

Summary A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material others such as environments and animals; the (...) bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, (...) and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

The establishment or nurturing of a supportive organizational climate encompasses various activities rooted in ethical commitments. This study focuses on the outcome of these activities, exploring how team members’ collective interpretation and evaluation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives’ presence and authenticity impact team empowerment as a driver of team performance. Drawing on the organizational climate literature, while integrating signaling theory and attribution theory, we hypothesize that the impact of CSR climate on team performance through team empowerment hinges on two (...) key factors. First, teams must perceive the presence of CSR initiatives, denoting CSR climate quality. Secondly, there must be a consensus regarding the authenticity of these initiatives, signifying CSR climate strength. Results from a partial least squares—structural equation modeling analysis of multi-informant data obtained from 537 team members within 73 teams of 35 retail organizations in Belgium support most of our hypotheses. The results reveal that both CSR climate quality and strength are important drivers of team empowerment in support of team performance. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an analysis of the structure and content of loneliness. We argue that this is an emotion of absence-an affective state in which certain social goods are regarded as out of reach for the subject of experience. By surveying the range of social goods that appear to be missing from the lonely person's perspective, we see what it is that can make this emotional condition so subjectively awful for those who undergo it, including the profound sense (...) of being unable to realise oneself, in collaboration with others. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and authoritative volume, leading scholars engage with the philosophy and writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, a key figure in nineteenth-century thought. Their chapters cover his innovative philosophical strategies and explore how they can be understood in relation to their historical situation, as well as presenting incisive interpretations of Dilthey's arguments, including their development, their content, and their influence on later thought. A key focus is on how Dilthey's work remains relevant to current debates around art and literature, the (...) biographical and autobiographical self, knowledge, language, science, culture, history, society, and psychology and the embodied mind. The volume will be important for researchers in hermeneutics, aesthetics, practical philosophy, and the history of German philosophy, providing a valuable introduction to Dilthey's work as well as detailed critical analysis of its ongoing significance. (shrink)

Externalist theories hold that a comprehensive understanding of mental disorder cannot be achieved unless we attend to factors that lie outside of the head: neural explanations alone will not fully capture the complex dependencies that exist between an individual’s psychiatric condition and her social, cultural, and material environment. Here, we firstly offer a taxonomy of ways in which the externalist viewpoint can be understood, and unpack its commitments concerning the nature and physical realization of mental disorder. Secondly, we apply a (...) strongly externalist approach to the case of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and argue that this condition can be illuminated by appeal to the hypothesis of extended cognition. We conclude by briefly considering the significance this strongly externalist approach may have for psychiatric practice and pedagogy. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Reopening a Discussion The empiricist-derived epistemology that has directed most social and natural scientific inquiry for the last three ...

This is a book about Hobbes's philosophy as a whole, viewed through the lens of his philosophy of science. Political philosophy is claimed to have a certain autonomy within Hobbes's scheme of philosophy and science as a whole, and in particular, a kind of autonomy in relation to natural sciences. Hobbes's moral and political philosophies guide action --of both individual subjects and sovereigns. They have a role in a special kind of rhetorical product called counsel. In natural science Hobbes probably (...) exaggerates the explanatory powers of mechanics --the theory of matter in motion-- including by an attempted assimilation of geometry to the sciences of motion. (shrink)

"The well-known moral and political doctrines of Leviathan have tended to overshadow Hobbes's speculations in other fields. In this book doctrines familiar from the treatises on 'Policy', as well as less familiar empirical and metaphysical theories, are given balanced consideration against the background of his philosophy of science."--Bookjacket.

Psychiatry has witnessed a new wave of approaches to clinical phenotyping and the study of psychopathology, including the National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria, clinical staging, network approaches, the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, and the general psychopathology factor, as well as a revival of interest in phenomenological psychopathology. The question naturally emerges as to what the relationship between these new approaches is – are they mutually exclusive, competing approaches, or can they be integrated in some way and used (...) to enrich each other? In this opinion piece, we propose a possible integration between clinical staging and phenomenological psychopathology. Domains identified in phenomenological psychopathology, such as selfhood, embodiment, affectivity, etc., can be overlaid on clinical stages in order to enrich and deepen the phenotypes captured in clinical staging (‘high resolution’ clinical phenotypes). This approach may be useful both ideographically and nomothetically, in that it could complement diagnosis, enrich clinical formulation, and inform treatment of individual patients, as well as help guide aetiological, prediction, and treatment research. The overlaying of phenomenological domains on clinical stages may require that these domains are reformulated in dimensional rather than categorial terms. This integrative project requires assessment tools, some of which are already available, that are sensitive and thorough enough to pick up on the range of relevant psychopathology. The proposed approach offers opportunities for mutual enrichment: clinical staging may be enriched by introducing greater depth to phenotypes; phenomenological psychopathology may be enriched by introducing stages of severity and disorder progression to phenomenological analysis. (shrink)

Our successful engagement with the world is plausibly underwritten by our sensitivity to affordances in our immediate environment. The considerable literature on affordances focuses almost exclusively on affordances for bodily actions such as gripping, walking or eating. I propose that we are also sensitive to affordances for mental actions such as attending, imagining and counting. My case for this ‘Mental Affordance Hypothesis’ is motivated by a series of examples in which our sensitivity to mental affordances mirrors our sensitivity to bodily (...) affordances. Specifically, subjects perceive opportunities to perform a mental action and their doing so leads, under the right conditions, to the automatic preparation of that action. I conclude by sketching a mental affordance research program that would reinforce my case for the Mental Affordance Hypothesis and establish its ramifications for a number of debates across philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with it enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate. (...) Drawing on a vast range of material, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day. Her abiding interest lies in ongoing "practices of freedom" by which we negotiate our interrelation with others, with all the care and constraint that entails, while accepting difference and conflict as integral to our communion. As with all of Nelson's work, how she thinks-and how that thinking expresses itself in style-is crucial to the book's achievement. Through her generosity, rigor, and willingness to critically engage reigning pieties, Nelson shows that new forms of thinking and talking are available to us, ones that welcome a chorus of voices, and recommit us to our entanglement, even at its most difficult. On Freedom is an ambitious, essential book that reinvigorates the art of criticism. (shrink)

This collection marks the 350th anniversary of the publication of Leviathan with a collection of original papers by the leading Hobbes scholars in the world.

Many individuals have miserable work lives, in which they must toil away at mind-numbing yet exhausting tasks for hours on end, being ordered about by their superiors, perhaps with few guarantees that this source of income will persist for very long. However, this is only half of the story: what is centrally important is that many of those who endure these conditions are denied a fair wage in return for the burdens that they bear. In this article, I reflect on (...) the significance of this fact in order to argue for the evaporation thesis. This thesis holds that individuals’ claims to particular employment-related protections from their government disappear as their earnings increase. In the course of defending this position, I explore the moral difference an employee's wage offer makes to the work conditions that we can expect her to accept, including why there are limits to the role that cash can play here. (shrink)

Many individuals have miserable work lives, in which they must toil away at mind-numbing yet exhausting tasks for hours on end, being ordered about by their superiors, perhaps with few guarantees that this source of income will persist for very long. However, this is only half of the story: what is centrally important is that many of those who endure these conditions are denied a fair wage in return for the burdens that they bear. In this article, I reflect on (...) the significance of this fact in order to argue for the evaporation thesis. This thesis holds that individuals’ claims to particular employment-related protections from their government disappear as their earnings increase. In the course of defending this position, I explore the moral difference an employee's wage offer makes to the work conditions that we can expect her to accept, including why there are limits to the role that cash can play here. (shrink)

Many individuals have miserable work lives, in which they must toil away at mind-numbing yet exhausting tasks for hours on end, being ordered about by their superiors, perhaps with few guarantees that this source of income will persist for very long. However, this is only half of the story: what is centrally important is that many of those who endure these conditions are denied a fair wage in return for the burdens that they bear. In this article, I reflect on (...) the significance of this fact in order to argue for the evaporation thesis. This thesis holds that individuals’ claims to particular employment-related protections from their government disappear as their earnings increase. In the course of defending this position, I explore the moral difference an employee's wage offer makes to the work conditions that we can expect her to accept, including why there are limits to the role that cash can play here. (shrink)

I advocate a method that strives to interpret important historical figures in philosophy as presenting philosophical systems of thought. This kind of systematic interpretation, as I shall call it, begins with the supposition that the philosophy being interpreted is itself systematic. This sometimes requires recovering the obscured systematicity. Section I gives a positive characterization of systematic interpretations. Section II notes some of the special obstacles that these interpretations must overcome if they are to be successful. Section III gives a brief (...) sketch of how one might systematically approach Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. That text is a good test case because Locke professes systematicity, but historians have produced daunting arguments for the conclusion that the text fails to present a coherent system. (shrink)

It has often been suggested that a resolution of issues generated by the sociological study of ideas might be reached through a synthesis of specific insights to be found in the works of Karl Marx and George Herbert Mead. The present study originated in an investigation of this hypothesis, particularly as it bears on the central issue of sociological relativism. The author began by delineating the specific problems such a synthesis might resolve, and in the process became aware that the (...) nature and depth of differences separating the sociology of knowledge and its critics have never been fully analysed or understood. This volume therefore opens with a clarification of these differences, a clarification which leads to considerable redefinition of the problem as it has traditionally been understood by critics and proponents of the discipline alike. The author points out in particular that it is less a debate than a thorough-going contradiction which characterizes the literature dealing with the inadequacies of various formulations of the sociology of knowledge. In consequence, the study of Marx and Mead presented here is not simply yet another effort to discover a perspective which will satisfy the particular demands of the critics. Rather, it argues that an adequate perspective fully consistent with the central insight of the discipline - that knowledge is radically social in character - is to be found in a synthesis of elements in the perspectives of Marx and Mead. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on a kind of perceptual states that we call perceptual motivations, that is, perceptual experiences that plausibly motivate us to act, such as itching, perceptual salience and pain. Itching seems to motivate you to scratch, perceiving a stimulus as salient seems to motivate you to attend to it and feeling a pain in your hand seems to motivate actions such as withdrawing from the painful stimulus. Five main accounts of perceptual motivation are available: Descriptive, Conative, (...) Imperativist, Reflexive and Dual Content views. Some of these have been developed in detail and others are natural extensions of existing views. However, we argue that none provides a satisfactory account of the target perceptual states. Driven by the failings of each account, we identify three conditions that any satisfactory theory of perceptual motivation must meet: Direct Motivational Force, Non-Obligatory Force and Intention-Independent Influence. Then we offer an account that attempts to fulfil these conditions: the Affordance Model. This model of perceptual motivation is premised on the claim that each of the target states involves the perception of a specific affordance for action and the triggering of Automatic Motor Initiations (AMIs). We suggest that AMIs can explain the motivational force of these perceptual states. (shrink)

As a contribution to a critical yet responsive materialist ethics of environments and animals, I reexamine the significance of nature and animals in the critical social theory of Theodor Adorno. In response to the anthropocentric primacy of intersubjective discourse and recognition in recent figures associated with the Frankfurt School, such as Habermas and Honneth, I argue for the ecological import of the aporetic dialectic of nature and society diagnosed in Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Adorno’s later works. Adorno’s (...) continuing confrontation with the “domination of nature” traces the tensions between the ideological construction and resistance of “nature” as well as the instrumentalization and implicit disruptive promise of sensuous life. It indicates the material and bodily bonds between human and animal happiness and suffering, the ambiguous role of mimesis in domination and emancipation, and the critical prospect of an unforced and non-coercive freedom toward the object and answerability toward socially and historically mediated yet non-identical natural life. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Philosophers and political theorists have engaged Lacan's concept of the 'Real' in particular, with Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou deriving profound philosophical and political consequences from what is the most difficult of Lacan's ideas. This is the first book to explore in detail the genesis and consequences of Lacan's concept of the 'Real', providing readers with an invaluable key to one of the most influential (...) ideas in contemporary critical theory"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

Charles Darwin found much in Australia to challenge and inform his thinking. This book explores the impact that Darwin’s short visit to Australia in 1836 had on the man himself and on the emerging nation. Now, more than 170 years later, Darwin continues to influence Australian attitudes to life and living.

"What is it to claim that misogyny might be ironic? Why is it that, in the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, the possibility of irony constantly interferes with a conclusive ethical judgment over the meaning of their misogyny? How do we hold our interpretations of such ambiguous texts ethically accountable? This book brings together the driving concerns of hermeneutics, feminist philosophy and the history of philosophy in dealing with the problem of irony. It develops a thematic account of the (...) concept of irony as a philosophical form of interpretation, and explores this through close readings of three key sites of controversy regarding the relationship between irony and misogyny: Schopenhauer's On Women, Kierkegaard's In Vino Veritas and Nietzsche's Woman and Child. Rather than aiming to rescue their misogynistic texts by appealing to irony, the book suggests that ironic ambiguity is a formative, rather than distractive, aspect of these texts' misogyny. Working from the productive intersection between hermeneutics and deconstruction, the book explores the substantial ways in which authority and value are constructed in terms of ironic possibility"--Publisher. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first, I ask whether there is a human right to be spared extreme poverty. The answer is ‘Not necessarily’ if a human right is a legal right, and I argue that ‘human right’ either means a right in international law and associated policy, or else the term has an unacceptably wide sense. In the second section I consider microcredit as a poverty-alleviating mechanism, distinguishing between extreme and relative poverty in developing countries. (...) I argue that credit may not be a good way of alleviating extreme poverty, and that methods of collecting debt used by microcredit providers may have moral drawbacks. In the third section I consider the fit between the class of agents currently involved in offering financial services to the poor, and the class of agents recognized as duty-bearers by human rights law and policy. Unless states become highly involved in microcredit, it is not clear that microfinance providers are or can be human rights duty bearers. (shrink)

SCIENTISM AND 'SCIENTIFIC EMPIRICISM' WHAT IS SCIENTISM? Scientism is the belief that science, especially natural science, is much the most valuable part of ...

From Platonism to phenomenology -- Kant's epistemological shift to phenomenology -- Hegel's phenomenology as epistemology -- Husserl's phenomenological epistemology -- Heidegger's phenomenological ontology -- Kant, Merleau-Ponty's descriptive phenomenology, and the primacy of perception -- On overcoming the epistemological problem through phenomenology.

English summary: Tom Kleffmann provides a thorough interpretation of Nietzsche's concept of life in the chronological order of his writings. He also deals with the reception of this concept of life in German Protestant theology up to approximately 1930 analyzing works by Albert Schweitzer, Karl Barth and P. Tillich. German description: In der Philosophie Friedrich Nietzsches wird die kritische Wahrheit des Lebens atheistisch und doch in quasi-religioser Totalitat behauptet - und dies in einer Sprachmachtigkeit, die der zeitgenossischen Theologie zu fehlen (...) schien. Tom Kleffmann interpretiert zunachst Nietzsches Lebensbegriff nach der chronologischen Reihenfolge seiner Schriften. Dann beschaftigt er sich mit der Rezeption dieses Lebensbegriffs in der deutschen evangelischen Theologie bis ca. 1930. Hierbei wird neben Untersuchungen von Albert Schweitzers 'Kultur und Ethik' und der 2. Auflage des Romerbriefkommentars von Karl Barth erstmals eine Gesamtinterpretation von P. Tillichs 'Marburger Dogmatik' vorgelegt. Ein Schlusskapitel stellt die Ergebnisse fur den systematisch-theologischen Lebensbegriff dar. (shrink)