How do we know which institutions provide good care? Some scholars argue that the best way to think about care institutions is to model them upon the family or the market. This paper argues, on the contrary, that when we make explicit some background conditions of good family care, we can apply what we know to better institutionalized caring. After considering elements of bad and good care, from an institutional perspective, the paper argues that good care in an institutional context (...) has three central foci: the purpose of care, a recognition of power relations, and the need for pluralistic, particular tailoring of care to meet individuals? needs. These elements further require political space within institutions to address such concerns. (shrink)

The best framework for moral and political thought is the one that creates the best climate for good political judgments. I argue that universalistic theories of justice fall short in this regard because they cannot distinguish idealization from abstraction. After describing how an ethic of care guides judgments, I suggest the practical effects that make this approach preferable. The ethic of care includes more aspects of human life in making political judgments.

A psychoanalytic and philosophical exploration of sublimation as a key term in Jacques Lacan's theories of ethics and feminine sexuality.

This paper traces the history of uses of the word “gender”. It suggests that though “gender” has been recuperated and become commonplace, many issues persist around the way “women” and “men”, and the power relations between them, are defined and are evolving. Provided it still allows us to question the meanings attached to the sexes, how they are established and in what contexts, gender remains a useful, because critical, analytical category.

Universalistic claims about the nature of justice are presumed to require larger commitments from a global perspective than partialist claims. This essay departs from standard partialist accounts by anchoring partialist claims in a different account of the nature of responsibility. In contrast to substantive responsibility, which is akin to an obligation and derived from principles, relational responsibilities grow out of relationships and their complex intertwining. While such accounts of responsibility are less clear cut, they will prove in the long run (...) to be more valuable in thinking about global ethics. I illustrate this point by considering the moral issue surrounding abandoned relationships. The approach offered here—partiality that rests upon relational responsibilities—makes the responsibilities owed by those in higher income countries towards lower income countries much richer and more complex than is usually presumed. (shrink)

Tronto explores the “care crisis” that now pervades advanced industrial societies, in which women are doing more paid work and, consequently, less of the care work of civil society. Tronto urges advanced industrial societies to rethink who is responsible for care and recognize the role that government should play in ensuring that care is provided for those who need it. Unfortunately, citizenship has traditionally been defined in ways that make no provision for responsibilities to care for others. Tronto observes that (...) “privatizing” care by relegating it to the marketplace does not provide a solution to the care crisis, since paid care work is subject to exploitation, partly because it is often done by illegal immigrants from Third World countries. Despite expecting privatization to be the likely solution to the problem, Tronto nevertheless recommends that care work be regarded as a governmental responsibility in order to make it more valued publicly. (shrink)

: Are social movements responsible for their unfinished agendas? Feminist successes in opening the professions to women paved the way for the emergence of the upper middle-class two-career household. These households sometimes hire domestic servants to accomplish their child care work. If, as I shall argue, this practice is unjust and furthers social inequality, then it poses a moral problem for any feminist commitment to social justice.

Contributors to this volume demonstrate how the ethics of care factors into a variety of social policies and institutions, and can indeed be useful in thinking about a number of different social problems. Divided into two sections, the first looks at care as a model for an evaluative framework that rethinks social institutions, liberal society, and citizenship at a basic conceptual level. The second explores care values in the context of specific social practices or settings, as a framework that should (...) guide thinking. (shrink)

A standard view in ethics is that ethical issues concern a different range of human concerns than does politics. This essay goes beyond the long-standing dispute about the extent to which applied ethics needs a commitment to ethical theory. It argues that regardless of the outcome of that dispute, applied ethics, because it presumes something about the nature of authority, rests upon and is implicated in political theory. After internalist and externalist accounts of applied ethics are described, “mixed” approaches are (...) considered that contain inevitable political dimensions. A feminist alternative, Walker’s metaethic of responsibility, shows that authority is best understood as relational and that situations of unequal power are therefore often the places where applied ethics arises. Furthermore, in a democratic society, commitments to democracy should shape the account of authority, and, thus, the nature of applied ethics as well. (shrink)

RESUMEN:Este trabajo tiene por objeto analizar la articulación entre la afirmación del carácter racional de la fe, esto es, su dimensión latitudinaria, el escepticismo epistemológico, y su derivación práctica en un concepto de tolerancia restringido al interior del protestantismo. Se subrayará, en este sentido, el carácter estratégico de la articulación entre racionalidad de la fe y escepticismo, en cuanto permite apelar a la ignorancia con vistas a la tolerancia, sin por ello dejar de sostener la interpretación protestante del cristianismo, en (...) detrimento de la interpretación católica.PALABRAS CLAVE:LOCKE - LATITUDINARISMO - ESCEPTICISMO - TOLERANCIA - PROTESTANTISMOABSTRACT:This paper aims to analyze the articulation between faith rationality assertion, i.e. its latitudinarian aspect, its epistemological skepticism, and its practical implication in a restricted concept of tolerance within Protestantism. In this regard, we will emphasize the strategic feature of the link between faith rationality and skepticism, as it allows appealing to ignorance towards tolerance, without dropping the Protestant interpretation of Christianity, to the detriment of Catholic interpretation.KEYWORDS:LOCKE - LATITUDINARIANISM - SKEPTICISM - TOLERATION - PROTESTANTISM. (shrink)

A holobiont is a composite organism consisting of a host together with its microbiome, such as a coral with its zooxanthellae. To explain the often intimate integration between hosts and their microbiomes, some investigators contend that selection operates on holobionts as a unit and view the microbiome’s genes as extending the host’s nuclear genome to jointly comprise a hologenome. Because vertical transmission of microbiomes is uncommon, other investigators contend that holobiont selection cannot be effective because a holobiont’s microbiome is an (...) acquired condition rather than an inherited trait. This disagreement invites a simple mathematical model to see how holobiont selection might operate and to assess its plausibility as an evolutionary force. This paper presents two variants of such a model. In one variant, juvenile hosts obtain microbiomes from their parents (vertical transmission). In the other variant, microbiomes of juvenile hosts are assembled from source pools containing the combined microbiomes of all parents (horizontal transmission). According to both variants, holobiont selection indeed causes evolutionary change in holobiont traits. Therefore, holobiont selection is plausibly an effective evolutionary force with either mode of microbiome transmission. The modeling employs two distinct concepts of inheritance, depending on the mode of microbiome transmission: collective inheritance whereby juveniles inherit a sample of the collected genomes from all parents, as contrasted with lineal inheritance whereby juveniles inherit the genomes from only their own parents. A distinction between collective and lineal inheritance also features in theories of multilevel selection. (shrink)

This paper develops a simple, conceptual, mathematical model for the evolution of holobionts. Its purpose is to clarify how holobiont selection may cause evolutionary change in the traits of holobionts.

At least since the seventeenth century, the strange combination of epistemological certainty and ontological power that characterizes mathematics has made it a major focus of philosophical, social, and cultural negotiation. In the eighteenth century, all of these factors were at play as mathematical thinkers struggled to assimilate and extend the analysis they had inherited from the seventeenth century. A combination of educational convictions and historical assumptions supported a humanistic mathematics essentially defined by its flexibility and breadth. This mathematics was an (...) expression of l’esprit humain, which was unfolding in a progressive historical narrative. The French Revolution dramatically altered the historical and educational landscapes that had supported this eighteenth‐century approach, and within thirty years Augustin Louis Cauchy had radically reconceptualized and restructured mathematics to be rigorous rather than narrative. (shrink)

In order to consider the influence of tangible property on the exercise of political rights in the work of John Locke, we’ll analyze, first, the distribution and acreage measurement of the requirements for political participation and the exercise of public functions in The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina ; secondly, the considerations on land ownership, as a means of production, and the wage labor in Chapter V of Two Treatises of Government , II; finally, we’ll analyze the patrimonial restrictions for the (...) access to political rights, as well as the suggested participation for workers in Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money. (shrink)

The ArgumentIt has long been apparent that in the nineteenth century, mathematics in France and England developed along different lines. The differences, which might well be labelled stylistic, are most easy to see on the foundational level. At first this may seem surprising because it is such a fundamental area, but, upon reflection, it is to be expected. Ultimately discussions about the foundations of mathematics turn on views about what mathematics is, and this is a question which is answered by (...) a variety of different groups including mathematicians, students, curricular planners, parents, etc. Mathematical practice rests on some kind of mixture of the answers to this fundamental question which come from these diverse groups. Comparing the cultural matrices which supported mathematics in France and Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century sheds light on the real though often subtle differences in the ways the subject was pursued in the two countries. (shrink)

Are social movements responsible for their unfinished agendas? Feminist successes in opening the professions to women paved the way for the emergence of the upper middle-class two-career household. These households sometimes hire domestic servants to accomplish their child care work. If, as I shall argue, this practice is unjust and furthers social inequality, then it poses a moral problem for any feminist commitment to social justice.

Psychodynamic theory and practice are often misunderstood as appropriate only for the worried well or for those whose problems are minimal or routine. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book shows how psychodynamically informed, clinically based social care is essential to working with individuals whose problems are both psychological and social. Each chapter addresses populations struggling with structural inequities, such as racism, classism, and discrimination based on immigrant status, language differences, disability, and sexual orientation. The authors explain how (...) to provide psychodynamically informed assessment and practice when working with those suffering from mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and cognitive, visual, or auditory impairments, as well as people in prisons, in orphanages, and on child welfare. The volume supports the idea that becoming aware of ourselves helps us understand ourselves: a key approach for helping clients contain and name their feelings, deal with desire and conflict, achieve self-regulation and self-esteem, and alter attachment styles toward greater agency and empowerment. Yet autonomy and empowerment are not birthrights; they are capacities that must be fostered under optimal clinical conditions. This collection uses concepts derived from drive theory, ego psychology, object relations, trauma theory, attachment theory, self psychology, relational theories, and intersubjectivity in clinical work with vulnerable and oppressed populations. Contributors are experienced practitioners whose work with vulnerable populations has enabled them to elicit and find common humanity with their clients. The authors consistently convey respect for the considerable strength and resilience of the populations with whom they work. Emphasizing both the inner and social structural lives of client and clinician and their interacting social identities, this anthology uniquely realizes the complexity of clinical practice with diverse populations. (shrink)

The specific type of torture to which Abu Ghraib prisoners were submitted was predicated on the assumption that hejab, or the islamic system of modest, makes Muslims especially vulnerable to shame. This paper investigates this supposed link between hejab and the affect of shame through an analysis of the philosophical and psychoanalytic literature on shame and the films of the iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami. Beginning with a discussion of the massive impact of hejab regulations on Iranian cinema, the author shows (...) how Kiarostami’s critique of these regulations becomes a powerful argument for shame as against the modesty system. (shrink)

The 'Therapeutae' were a Jewish group of ascetic philosophers who lived outside Alexandria in the middle of the first century CE. They are described in Philo's treatise De Vita Contemplativa and have often been considered in comparison with early Christians, the Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. But who were they really? This study focuses particularly on issues of history, rhetoric, women, and gender in a wide exploration of the group, and comes to new conclusions about the 'Therapeutae' and their (...) relationship with the Jewish allegorical school of exegesis in Alexandria. The volume includes a new translation of De Vita Contemplativa. (shrink)

Nuclear weapons are different from every other type of weapons technology. Their awesome destructive potential and the unparalleled consequences of their use oblige us to think critically about the ethics of nuclear possession, planning, and use. Joe Nye has given the ethics of nuclear weapons deep consideration. He posits that we have a basic moral obligation to future generations to preserve roughly equal access to important values, including equal chances of survival, and proposes criteria for achieving conditional or “just deterrence” (...) to minimize the risk of nuclear use and help preserve these values. While Nye's conditions are laudable, they are not achievable. They rely on flawed assumptions about the nature of nuclear weapons and the inherent risks of the nuclear deterrence system. Since the Cold War ended, the strategy and practice of nuclear deterrence has grown riskier, more urgent, more dangerous, and less stable. It is time to rethink how we manage nuclear risks. A new nuclear security system must be built on the design principle that the consequences of system failure cannot threaten to end or fundamentally disrupt civilization. We owe the future a new nuclear security strategy that can prevent an existential global nuclear event. (shrink)

I draw from my papers and oral presentations to address several issues of Core and Neo‐shamanism. These include clarification of definitions and distinctions between traditional shamans, Core shamanism, Neo‐shamanism, and urban shamanism. Finally I propose an evaluation of Core and Neo‐shamanism.

Sophia De Morgan’s Memoir of Augustus De Morgan highlights the difficulty of creating a unified picture of a scientific life. It also provides a critical perspective from which to view the chronological development of the modern “scientist” from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.

In this paper I consider what may seem an "accidental" family relationship and stress its worrying attributes for contemporary family life. While we have made strides in being willing and able to "queer" kinship relationships, another frontier remains in thinking about the family. Not all forms of family relations are kinship or quasi-kinship relationships. I refer to a kind of family relationship that remains very largely invisible: that between the household's kin and their domestic servants. Throughout most of the twentieth (...) century writers about the family came to think of such relationships as unimportant because they were an historical curiosity, their resurgence re-raises unresolved and serious questions about the ethics and politics of the contemporary family. The important questions that I want to raise are these: if the family should serve as a school for justice, then what does the presence of servants teach? Historically and in contemporary terms, what does the nature of servitude have to do with autonomy and dependency? The paper involves a consideration of these questions in the eighteenth century as a way to provoke our current thinking. (shrink)

T violation has previously been shown to induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time which leads to a new quantum equation of motion called bievolution. Here we examine further details of the interference and clarify the conditions needed for the bievolution equation.

Este trabajo estudia críticamente seis posibles límites a la apropiación privada, individual, unilateral y desigual en el estado de naturaleza descripto por John Locke. I) la restricción expresada bajo la forma de dejar suficiente y tan bueno en común para otros; II) la prohibición del desperdicio de los frutos perecederos; III) asociada a esta segunda condición pero aplicada a la tierra, la prohibición de cercar tierra cuyos frutos se desperdicie; IV) la limitación propuesta por Macpherson, según la cual es una (...) condición de la apropiación mezclar el propio trabajo de modo personal con el objeto; V) el principio de caridad como derecho del necesitado a los medios de subsistencia; VI) la limitación que advierte Simmons, según la cual es posible derivar del principio de caridad un derecho al auto-gobierno, esto es, a no ser esclavizado a cambio de brindar, como es el deber del propietario al necesitado, los medios de subsistencia. (shrink)