Ralph R. Acampora - Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.3 480-481 Gary Steiner. Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. ix + 332. Cloth, $37.50. In this text Steiner surveys the history of doctrines, attitudes, and beliefs about the ethical standing (...) of animals. Unsurprisingly, he finds that the mainstream of thought in this area manifests "an underlying logic: that all and only human beings are worthy of moral consideration, because all and only human beings are rational and endowed with language" . This neatly expresses the anthropocentrism identified in the.. (shrink)

Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. _Corporal Compassion _emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, (...) he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy. _Corporal Compassion_ examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition, and challenges practitioners to go beyond recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach. (shrink)

Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. _Corporal Compassion _emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, (...) he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy. _Corporal Compassion_ examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition, and challenges practitioners to go beyond recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach. (shrink)

Max Hallman has put forward an interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy according to which Nietzsche is a prototypical deep ecologist. In reply, I dispute Hallman’s main interpretive claim as well as its ethical and exegetical corollaries. I hold that Nietzsche is not a “biospheric egalitarian,” but rather an aristocratically individualistic “high humanist.” A consistently naturalistic transcendentalist, Nietzsche does submit a critique of modernity’s Christian-inflected anthropocentrism (pace Hallman), and yet—in his later work—he endorses exploitation in the quest for nobility (contra Hallman). I (...) conclude thatecophilosophers need to exercise hermeneutical caution in any attempt to appropriate Nietzsche for environmentally ethical designs, lest they illegitimately ventriloquize their own moral voices into an authoritative but alien mouthpiece. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Nietzsche's texts invite perplexing questions about the justification and objectivity of his ethical views. According to the interpretation suggested here, Nietzsche does not advance a substantive normative ethics, but proposes, based on his ontological idea of will to power, an instrumentalist theory of value. He is not a realist about value—according to him, nothing is intrinsically valuable. However, things, actions, beliefs, and values can be evaluated with reference to their capacities in serving our fundamental quest for power. The central (...) advantage of this interpretation against competing readings is that it attempts to make sense of how an “objective” evaluation fits together with antirealism or nihilism about value, including how the “ethics” of will to power is to be understood alongside the metaphysical and ethical doctrine of eternal recurrence. (shrink)

'A Nietzschean Bestiary' gathers essays treating the most vivid & lively animal images in Nietzsche's work, such as the howling beast of prey, Zarathustra's laughing lions, & the notorious blond beast.

This dissertation is an attempt to show that, and how, an inter-species morality of compassion may be grounded reasonably in a phenomenology of body. It provides a literature survey of relevant works and authors, largely drawn from the modern European traditions of philosophic existentialism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics . The ontology and axiology presupposed by a somatically based bioethic are outlined in advance of the latter's presentation . Relevance of the embodied bioethic to actual affairs is demonstrated through exercises in practical (...) philosophy . An extended summary, as well as comparisons with other positions or outlooks and suggestions for further reflection or research, are also supplied . Appropriate propaedeutics, furnishing preliminary context for the project, can be found in the introduction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western PhilosophyRalph AcamporaGary Steiner. Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. ix + 332. Cloth, $37.50.In this text Steiner surveys the (Eurocentric) history of doctrines, attitudes, and beliefs about the ethical standing of (nonhuman) animals. Unsurprisingly, he finds that the (...) mainstream of thought in this area manifests "an underlying logic: that all and only human beings are worthy of moral consideration, because all and only human beings are rational and endowed with language" (2). This neatly expresses the anthropocentrism identified in the book's title, the "discontents" of which are obviously a gloss on Freud's reading of civilization—that is to say, Steiner sees a great deal of dissatisfaction (largely misgivings of conscience) mixed in with our sense of superiority over other animals. Subliminal unease with, and even explicit dissent from, the mainstream orthodoxy is not absent from the [End Page 480] historical account—indeed, as the author rightly indicates, there has been a parallel (if comparatively minor) stream of more animal-friendly philosophy throughout the ages of thinking on this subject. Moreover, this latter current of thought has been gathering strength lately as "an increasing number of ethologists and philosophers have marshaled insights concerning the evolutionary continuity and physiological similarity between animals and human beings to argue that many animals are conscious, sentient beings that [or better, who] deserve substantial moral consideration" (3).From the outset, then, Steiner situates his historical project within the context of contemporary debates in animal ethics. "By focusing on the historical development of thinking about animals," he proposes, "one can understand the sources of our own anthropocentric prejudices and use that history as the basis for a radical rethinking of the moral status of animals" (37). Early on, in the first chapter in fact, Steiner identifies two problems in the current development of the heterodox, animal-friendly tradition: animal ethicists, he claims, tend to overestimate the mental faculties of nonhumans and do not question the longstanding assumption that intellect (rational or linguistic) is what ultimately imparts moral significance. In effect, Steiner's charge is that these moralists anthropomorphize animals psychologically because they are still tied (critical protestations notwithstanding) to ethical anthropocentrism.Even aside from his ambition to further contemporary animal ethics, Steiner has provided a needed and lucid account of the history he targets. The historical surveys of animal ethics already on the record are limited either because they are merely brief preludes to anthologies or monographs whose main interest is to theorize anew or because they are subsidiary to histories of broader fields such as environmental or ecological thinking. Though Steiner harbors no pretense to exhaustive coverage, the figures he does treat are representative of a fairly comprehensive range from antiquity to postmodernity. Not only are famous vegetarians of the classical Greco-Roman periods covered (viz. Pythagoras, Plutarch, and Porphyry), but arch-anthropocentrists such as Aristotle and the Stoics are examined as well (though in the chapter dedicated to them, one would have liked to see more attention given to the animal-friendly Theophrastus). Notable here is that Steiner treats an assortment of Presocratic philosophers, extending back even to epic thinkers such as Hesiod and Homer. A number of medieval Christians are covered (including Augustine, Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Aquinas), and then it is on to a full chapter about Cartesian thought, before another on empiricism, utilitarianism, and Kant. Last in the survey come a trio of late moderns (Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Schweitzer), followed by a postmodern triumvirate (Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida). Unfortunately absent from this later coverage are the vitalist Henri Bergson and his post-structuralist heirs, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.In his final chapter Steiner aims to harness the history he has related for the purpose of reconceiving the moral status of animals so as to avoid the twin problems of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism which he sees as our inheritance in the Western tradition. The route he takes is to synthesize biocentrically two rival approaches of species linkage, one that stresses common competence and another... (shrink)

Strangers to Nature brings together many of the leading scholars who are working to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. This volume will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about the human/non-human animal relationship that is currently taking place.

means of defense, squirts its spittle and half-digested fodder at its opponent.”1 Thus we see Nietzsche, as he does frequently in his writings, drawing on the semantic resources made available by the investigation of animal nature and using them to illuminate human character. The editors of . Nietzschean Bestiary had the superlative idea to advance the progression from zoology to anthropology one step further: starting from Nietzsche’s myriad trope of animality, to construct a philosophical bestiary that illuminates not only the (...) status of human animality but also that of our metaphorical resources in general. The result comprises twenty-five essays from twenty-three contributors, most of which are organized around a single creature (albeit no llama). These essays’ execution of the original idea is, on the whole, excellent. I do not think that they establish the two main conceits of the volume. But the volume nevertheless provides a vivid and diverse display of Nietzsche’s animal tropes that engages with broader philosophical concerns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Animal Beyond Docile and BrutalRobert N. MatuozziA Nietzschean Bestiary: Becoming Animal Beyond Docile and Brutal, edited by Christa Davis Acampora and Ralph R. Acampora ; xxxii & 371 pp. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. $75.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.What if instead of re-reading Nietzsche's corpus, one imagines what it would be like to view his works on the "Nietzsche Network." Imagine a (...) spectator situated in the middle of a vast amphitheatre preparing to watch these simulacra. Gazing up and around a series of giant, flat-screen video monitors arrayed in layers around the interior wall of an amphitheatre, the spectator views and listens to Nietzsche's multi-media texts as, simultaneously, they seductively flash their provocative narratives in flickering streams of high-resolution sounds, words, and images.The Nietzsche Network is a roaring carnival. It consists of colorful, speculative historical dramatizations and equally enticing philosophical tableaux. Dark ambient musical motifs, laced with interludes of explosive, uncontrollable laughter, are a subliminal presence. Lurid detective stories and somber cultural narratives and slashing polemics implicate cultures and ideologies in festivals of cruelty and soul-murder. Poignant genealogical and aphoristic asides on joy [End Page 443] and work and suffering, weird psychological skits starring well-known ensemble casts are accompanied by hoarse oratory, soaring denunciations, and sober etymological digressions. Intermittently, the spectator is startled by abrupt, sometimes strident proclamations, like confessional bulletins shot from nowhere.Nietzsche's siren-like prose exhibits an extraordinary rhetorical range. This is particularly true of the polychromatic works originally published in the gloaming of his career in the period after 1886. Nietzsche's compelling, fluvial style is accounted for in this volume by the kinetic movements of lizards and the halcyon tones of birds, to his study of the ancient Greek and Roman classics (and to the lost musicality of Greek tragedy in particular), and to his emphatic embrace of a kind of plosive, Dionysian philosophical technics.The content of the Nietzsche Network spans thousands of years of human experience and thought. A prequel features a substantial bestiary of traditional animals and emergent biomorphic forms set in a variety of carefully animated zoological dioramas. Among the modernists, has there been another thinker as strangely original and subversive? Allowing for fundamental differences, only Valéry comes to mind. Like the silent, ruminating cow in his "untimely" essay on history, Nietzsche prevents the past from injecting noise into present and future philosophizing. He will be the exemplary philosopher of the other-than-human as he campaigns to re-inscribe human animality into the zoological text of nature. Through explicit pronouncements and in scattered philosophical sorties involving human animality and his (desperate) utopist vision of human perfectibility, Nietzsche attempted to attain—at least conceptually—what Richard Rorty aptly calls the "historical sublime, a future which has broken all relations with the past."This excellent collection of essays on Nietzsche's bestiary demonstrates the surprising persistence of the animal imaginary in his thought. The various pieces also illuminate the multiple thematic and linguistic transformations Nietzsche develops as he enlists animals in his feral, anti-essentialist dialectic on the obscure continuum between "humans," "animals," and "nature." It turns out that a degraded version of Nietzsche's strangest thought experiment on animalism, the übermensch, is perhaps only a few years away from being produced through emerging boutique bioengineering, a prospect that has some commentators on both the left and the right blinking with apprehension. These essays amply demonstrate that Nietzsche's bestial philosophy of human and animal alterity subverts, among other paradigms, the strange Cartesian notion that animals are mechanical automata while humans are transcendental rationalists. As one commentator in this book broadly puts it, Nietzsche shows that the various schemes concocted to put an illusory distance between humans and animals have ended up being an immensely corrupting "pretense" (p. 224).Precursor bestiaries are indicated in this volume, though the medieval tradition originating in the Physiologus is here mostly displaced by a different [End Page 444] menagerie of cultural affiliations. The fabulist Aesop is present, along with Aristotle and Montaigne, though La Fontaine is not, and Pico Mirandola's famous remarks in his Oration on... (shrink)

Christiane Bailey and Chloë Taylor (Editorial Introduction) Sue Donaldson (Stirring the Pot - A short play in six scenes) Ralph Acampora (La diversification de la recherche en éthique animale et en études animales) Eva Giraud (Veganism as Affirmative Biopolitics: Moving Towards a Posthumanist Ethics?) Leonard Lawlor (The Flipside of Violence, or Beyond the Thought of Good Enough) Kelly Struthers Montford (The “Present Referent”: Nonhuman Animal Sacrifice and the Constitution of Dominant Albertan Identity) James Stanescu (Beyond Biopolitics: Animal Studies, Factory (...) Farms, and the Advent of Deading Life) Ian Werkheiser (Domination and Consumption: An Examination of Veganism, Anarchism, and Ecofeminism) Cynthia Willett (Water and Wing Give Wonder: Trans-Species Cosmopolitanism) Corey Lee Wrenn (Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex) Emily R. Douglas (Eat or Be Eaten: A Feminist Phenomenology of Women as Food) Gary Steiner’s Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013) Chloë Taylor (“Postmodern” Critical Animal Theory: A Defense) Patrick Llored (La déconstruction derridienne peut-elle fonder une communauté politique et morale entre vivants humains et non humains?) Jan Dutkiewicz (“Postmodernism,” Politics, and Pigs) Gary Steiner (Response to Commentators). (shrink)

Next SectionBackground Scientific papers are retracted for many reasons including fraud (data fabrication or falsification) or error (plagiarism, scientific mistake, ethical problems). Growing attention to fraud in the lay press suggests that the incidence of fraud is increasing. Methods The reasons for retracting 742 English language research papers retracted from the PubMed database between 2000 and 2010 were evaluated. Reasons for retraction were initially dichotomised as fraud or error and then analysed to determine specific reasons for retraction. Results Error was (...) more common than fraud (73.5% of papers were retracted for error (or an undisclosed reason) vs 26.6% retracted for fraud). Eight reasons for retraction were identified; the most common reason was scientific mistake in 234 papers (31.5%), but 134 papers (18.1%) were retracted for ambiguous reasons. Fabrication (including data plagiarism) was more common than text plagiarism. Total papers retracted per year have increased sharply over the decade (r=0.96; p<0.001), as have retractions specifically for fraud (r=0.89; p<0.001). Journals now reach farther back in time to retract, both for fraud (r=0.87; p<0.001) and for scientific mistakes (r=0.95; p<0.001). Journals often fail to alert the naïve reader; 31.8% of retracted papers were not noted as retracted in any way. Conclusions Levels of misconduct appear to be higher than in the past. This may reflect either a real increase in the incidence of fraud or a greater effort on the part of journals to police the literature. However, research bias is rarely cited as a reason for retraction. (shrink)

Health care professionals often face moral dilemmas. Not dealing constructively with moral dilemmas can cause moral distress and can negatively affect the quality of care. Little research has been documented with methodologies meant to support professionals in care for the homeless in dealing with their dilemmas. Moral case deliberation is a method for systematic reflection on moral dilemmas and is increasingly being used as ethics support for professionals in various health-care domains. This study deals with the question: What is the (...) contribution of MCD in helping professionals in an institution for care for the homeless to deal with their moral dilemmas? A mixed-methods responsive evaluation design was used to answer the research question. Five teams of professionals from a Dutch care institution for the homeless participated in MCD three times. Professionals in care for the homeless value MCD positively. They report that MCD helped them to identify the moral dilemma/question, and that they learned from other people’s perspectives while reflecting and deliberating on the values at stake in the dilemma or moral question. They became aware of the moral dimension of moral dilemmas, of related norms and values, of other perspectives, and learned to formulate a moral standpoint. Some experienced the influence of MCD in the way they dealt with moral dilemmas in daily practice. Half of the professionals expect MCD will influence the way they deal with moral dilemmas in the future. Most of them were in favour of further implementation of MCD in their organization. (shrink)

I can get away with it because no one is in a position to call me on it. Professor Robinson cannot consistently complain that (A) begs the question against his thesis that there is no such fallacy. He would discourage anyone from "helping" him by accusing me of committing the fallacy against him. With advocates like that, who needs adversaries? I. EMBEDDING PERSPECTIVES After all, Robinson has a viable reply to my argument. He should simply deny my premise. Later I (...) will show how (A) might rationally persuade Robinson. But my immediate goal is not to convert the skeptic about the existence of the fallacy but rather to use his extreme position to make a point about the nature of question-begging. Those who object that argument (A) begs the question against Robinson must do so on behalf of Robinson. This assistance requires that one launch the accusation from Robinson's perspective and with his dialectical interests at heart. (shrink)

This research explores the contextual approach within Christian-Jewish religious education, addressing a notable gap in existing literature and offering fresh insights into the application of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model within Christian contexts. Through a qualitative literature study employing a three-step methodology, including an in-depth analysis of Deuteronomy 11:19–20, this study reveals that this biblical text provides both educational guidance and theological significance, serving as a foundational support for the CTL model in Christian-Jewish religious education. The integration of (...) digital media into biblical sources holds promise for future research, while the central challenge lies in harmonising life experiences and empirical phenomena with biblical reflections to seamlessly integrate inquiry processes and pedagogical phases, with potential avenues for further exploration in scripture models endorsing CTL. This research provides valuable insights for educators, parents and policymakers in Indonesia and beyond, advancing educational research in contextualised teaching models within religious education.Contribution: This article demonstrates that the CTL model in the digital era has the potential to revolutionise religious education and profoundly impact learners, making it a significant scientific contribution in the context of Christian-Jewish religious education. (shrink)

Across four studies, we explored how feeling nostalgic about an attitude object impacts the metacognitive characteristics of the attitude toward that object and how those metacognitions predict the evaluation’s underlying strength. In each study, participants reflected on and evaluated a song or television show that either did or did not elicit nostalgia. Across these studies, we found support for the hypotheses that nostalgic attitude objects are viewed more positively, appraised with greater attitudinal importance, and exhibited less objective ambivalence. In Study (...) 4, we observed that nostalgic attitudes are associated with greater behavioural intentions and that this relationship was mediated both by attitudinal importance and objective ambivalence. These studies contribute to our understanding of how nostalgia affects attitude formation processes. (shrink)

In recent decades, particularly since the publication of Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy and Gerardus Van der Leeuw's Religion in Essence and Manifestion , what is known as the ‘phenomenological’ approach to the study of religion has become extremely popular. I myself, in teaching courses in religious studies, have for a number of years used Van der Leeuw's classic study; it is a work of amazing insight and scholarship, and perhaps the single greatest example ofjust how successful the (...) method of phenomenology can be when applied to a distinct field of study. But it is not only in the domain of religious studies that phenomenologists have made important contributions; in the spheres of social and political theory, for example, as well as in the philosophy of art, the philosophy of psychology, and other areas, there have been notable accomplishments. (shrink)

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed.

Though nominalism is a major presupposition in academia and western society, R. Scott Smith shows that nominalism undermines all knowledge whatsoever. In light of the many clear examples of knowledge that we do have, nominalism should be replaced by a realist view of properties.

For most of the church's history, people have seen Christian ethics as normative and universally applicable. Recently, however, this view has been lost, thanks to naturalism and relativism. R. Scott Smith argues that Christians need to overcome Kant's fact-value dichotomy and recover the possibility of genuine moral and theological knowledge.

The Primacy of God, the notion of justice toward God is seldom considered and often foreign. Far more discussed is how God might either undermine or motivate social justice. The Primacy of God by R. Jared Staudt offers an important intervention. With the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas, Staudt argues that it is vital for both contemporary society and contemporary Catholic theology to return to the traditional view of God as the one to whom all human and social action must (...) be ordered and to recover the virtue of religion as the virtue which orders all other virtues to God. Not only does Staudt helpfully remind readers of the ancient philosophical and biblical notion of worship as a dictate of the natural law, he also illuminates the way in which Christian liturgy, as an enactment of Christ's high priesthood, is the great fulfillment of natural and biblical worship. Accordingly, Staudt secures religion as essential for the virtue of love. This brings Staudt to criticize modern theologians like Karl Barth, who claimed that religion is inherently idolatrous, as well as Karl Rahner, who claimed that love of neighbor is the highest moral act. Staudt also considers the question of religious truth in light of the plurality of religions, soliciting the assistance of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as the way in which religion relates to the development of culture, engaging the great Catholic social historian Christopher Dawson. The Primacy of God is a much-needed work that ought to set the agenda for Catholic theology in the twenty-first century. (shrink)