The lack of consensus in American society regarding the permissibility of assisted suicide and euthanasia is due in large part to a failure to address the nature of the human person involved in the ethical act itself. For Karol Wojtyla, philosopher and Pope, ethical action finds meaning only in an authentic understanding of the person; but it is through acting ( actus humanus ) alone that the human person reveals himself. Knowing what the person ought to be cannot be divorced (...) from what he ought to do; forWojtyla, the structure of the ethical “do” – the act itself – comes first. The current paper will focus on four arguments used to justify assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) the argument from autonomy, (2) the argument from compassion, (3) the argument from the evil of suffering, and (4) the argument from the loss of dignity. It will seek to answer each claim from the perspective of Karol Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. Much of this will come from his defining work in pure philosophy, The Acting Person (1969). The final part of the paper will suggest some positive solutions to the stalemate over the euthanasia debate, again drawn from Wojtyla's idea of human fulfillment through participation with the other, and with the community itself. (shrink)

The debate over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide continues to ignore the philosophical anthropology on which certain critical claims rest. In this paper, I offer several anthropologically based arguments against one prominent justification for EPAS: the Argument from the Evil of Suffering. I demonstrate that the argument is, at its core, a utilitarian one, and that a sound rebuttal can be found by examining Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II's view of suffering as a transformative experience for the human person. Wojtyla both (...) rejects the secular bioethics vision of meaningless, quantifiable suffering, but also offers to take Christian bioethics far beyond the story of Job and into the realm of phenomenological change. By focusing on participation of the suffering sick in community with others, and rejecting alienation, Christians can arrive at a more complete conception of suffering that embraces the complementarities of philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Physicians, nurses, and healthcare professional students openly participated in the medical atrocities of the Shoah. In this paper, a physician-bioethicist and nurse-bioethicist examine the role of hierarchical power imbalances in medical education, which often occur because trainees are instructed ‘to do so’ by their superiors during medical education and clinical care. We will first examine the nature of medical and nursing education under National Socialism: were there cultural, educational, moral and legal pressures which entrenched professional hierarchies and thereby commanded obedience (...) in the face of an ever-diminishing individual and collective conscience? We will then outline relevant parallel features in modern medical education, including the effects of hierarchy in shaping ethical decision making and conscience formation. We then propose several solutions for the prevention of the negative effects of hierarchical power imbalances in medical education: universal Holocaust education in medical and nursing schools; formative and experiential ethics instruction, which teaches students to ‘speak up’ when ethical issues arise; acceptance of, and adherence to, a personalistic philosophical anthropology in healthcare; support for rigorous conscience protection laws for minority ethical views that respect the role of integrity without compromising patient care. (shrink)

The permissibility of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is actively debated worldwide. Writers such as Ruth Macklin and Steven Pinker have argued that dignity is not a useful concept in bioethics and cannot be used legitimately by either side in the debate. In this essay, the author expands on a defense of the human person based in dignity and rooted in the work of Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) and Gabriel Marcel. He defends the idea, introduced by John F. Crosby, (...) that a human person has dignity because of her “unrepeatableness,” a concept known as incommunicability. The author argues that the concept of dignity—far from being abstract, useless, or dangerous, as some writers have recently claimed—is a practical and vital protection for persons. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.3 (Autumn 2010): 529–546. (shrink)

Confusion surrounds Catholic teaching on the use of assisted nutrition and hydration, specifically the question of when, if ever, its refusal or removal is ethical. This paper focuses on two often-neglected considerations: the relationship between means and mechanism, and an assessment of proportionality of the mechanism from the patient’s perspective. The authors draw on two critical principles of Catholic moral teaching: only ordinary means are required, and proportionality is subject to the perspective of the patient, not just that of experts (...) or the culture. The mechanisms that provide food and water have distinct benefits and burdens. Their proportionality is properly subject to analysis by the patient or surrogate, who determines which mechanism is acceptable in the patient’s situation. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the use of companion animals (pets) in studies of drugs and devices aimed at human and animal health and situate it within the context of philosophy of technology. We argue that companion animals serve a unique role in illuminating just what it means to use biological technologies and examine the implications for human-animal relationships. Though philosophers have often treated animals as technologies, we argue that the biomedical use of companion animals presents a new configuration of (...) ethical and technological concerns that deserves more attention. Though it seems that companion animals solve many of the ethical dilemmas caused by the use of laboratory animals, the use of companion animals presents its own set of ethical concerns. This paper contextualizes the use of companion animals in research. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a number of measurements relevant to sport-related concussion (SRC) symptoms; however, most studies to date have used a single MRI modality and whole-brain exploratory analyses in attempts to localize concussion injury. This has resulted in highly variable findings across studies due to wide ranging symptomology, severity and nature of injury within studies. A multimodal MRI, symptom-guided region-of-interest (ROI) approach is likely to yield more consistent results. The functions of the cerebellum and basal ganglia transcend (...) many common concussion symptoms, and thus these regions, plus the white matter tracts that connect or project from them, constitute plausible ROIs for MRI analysis. We performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), resting-state functional MRI, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) imaging using arterial spin labeling (ASL), in youth aged 12-18 years following SRC, with a focus on the cerebellum, basal ganglia and white matter tracts. Compared to controls similar in age, sex and sport (N = 20), recent SRC youth (N = 29; MRI at 8 ± 3 days post injury) exhibited increased susceptibility in the cerebellum (p = 0.032), decreased functional connectivity between the caudate and each of the pallidum (p = 0.035) and thalamus (p = 0.021), and decreased diffusivity in the mid-posterior corpus callosum (p < 0.038); no changes were observed in recovered asymptomatic youth (N = 16; 41 ± 16 days post injury). For recent symptomatic-only SRC youth (N = 24), symptom severity was associated with increased susceptibility in the superior cerebellar peduncles (p = 0.011) and reduced activity in the cerebellum (p = 0.013). Fewer days between injury and MRI were associated with reduced cerebellar-parietal functional connectivity (p < 0.014), reduced activity of the pallidum (p = 0.002), increased CBF in the caudate (p = 0.005), and reduced diffusivity in the central corpus callosum (p < 0.05). Youth SRC is associated with acute cerebellar inflammation accompanied by reduced cerebellar activity and cerebellar-parietal connectivity, as well as structural changes of the middle regions of the corpus callosum accompanied by functional changes of the caudate, all of which resolve with recovery. Early MRI post-injury is important to establish objective MRI-based indicators for concussion diagnosis, recovery assessment and prediction of outcome. (shrink)

Drug recalls and lawsuits against pharmaceutical manufacturers are accompanied by announcements emphasizing harmful drug side-effects. Those with elevated health anxiety may be more reactive to such announcements. We evaluated whether health anxiety and financial incentives affect subjective symptom endorsement, and objective outcomes of cognitive and physiological functioning during a mock drug recall. Hundred and sixty-one participants reported use of over-the-counter pain medications and presented with a fictitious medication recall via a mock Food and Drug Administration website. The opportunity to join (...) a class-action lawsuit was manipulated. We assessed health anxiety, recalled drug usage, blood pressure, heart rate, and performance on a computerized Trail Making Test. Symptom endorsement was strongly predicted by health anxiety. When combined, three health anxiety measures explained 28.5% variance. These effects remain strong after controlling for depression and anxiety. Litigation condition did not predict symptom endorsement. Blood pressure and heart rate were modestly predicted by health anxiety, but not by litigation condition. TMT performance was consistently predicted by health anxiety, with higher scores associated with poorer performance. Although there were no main effects for litigation, interactions consistently emerged for the TMT, with generally poorer performance for those with higher health anxiety in the non-litigation condition; whereas health anxiety was unrelated to performance for the litigation condition. All but one participant joined the litigation when given the opportunity, despite a healthy sample and minimal use of pain medication. Subsequent data from 67 individuals with no mention of the FDA scenario or litigation showed that health anxiety still significantly predicts symptom endorsement, but the explained variance is less than half that obtained in the FDA scenario. The findings suggest that health anxiety plays a significant role in adverse symptom reporting, beyond anxiety or depression, and this effect is independent of the presence of the FDA recall. The lack of differences for health anxiety and symptom endorsement between litigation and non-litigation conditions rules out malingering. Although it is general practice in drug recalls to list potential adverse side effects caused by medications, this may elicit unintended symptom experiences and health anxious individuals may be more susceptible. (shrink)

Approximately one trillion, trillion, trillion (101728) years from now, the universe will suffer a “heat death.” What are the existential implications of this fact for us, today? This chapter explores this question through Lyotard’s fable of the explosion of the sun, and its uptake and extension in the works of Keith Ansell Pearson and Ray Brassier. Lyotard proposes the fable as a kind of “post-metanarrative” sometimes told to justify research and development, and indeed the meaning of our individual lives, (...) after credulity in metanarratives has been lost: it replaces the adventure of the subject of history aimed towards the perfection and emancipation of the human with the adventure of inhuman, negentropic processes aimed towards the survival and extension of complexity. Ansell Pearson illustrates how contemporary transhumanists employ such a narrative, and critiques it from a Nietzschean perspective as preserving values which are nihilistic. Brassier employs it to argue against the phenomenological view that thought must be bounded by the horizonal correlate of the body and the earth, and to advance the argument that thought should abandon all meaning and purpose and embrace nihilism. This final chapter seeks to negotiate each of these positions, showing how Lyotard’s thought helps us to reflect on the existential significance of the “deep time” revealed by contemporary science. (shrink)

In this impressive second edition of Theory of Knowledge, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief, and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge,the work of Platinga, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories, contextualism, and recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and concludes (...) that external factors must be matched by appropriate internal factors to yield knowledge. This match of internal and external factors follows from Lehrer’s new coherence theory of undefeated justification. In addition to doing justice to the living epistemological traditions, the text smoothly integrates several new lines that will interest scholars. Also, a feature of special interest is Lehrer’s concept of a justification game.This second edition of Theory of Knowledge is a thoroughly revised and updated version that contains several completely new chapters. Written by a well-known scholar and contributor to modern epistemology, this text is distinguished by clarity of structure, accessible writing, and an elegant mix of traditional material, contemporary ideas, and well-motivated innovation. (shrink)

This introduction provides brief outlines of the articles collected in this special issue of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies on the topic of Ethics and Emotions. It also announces the winners of the 2021 Robert Papazian and PERITIA prizes.

The eminent philosopher Keith Lehrer offers an original and distinctively personal view of central aspects of the human condition, such as reason, knowledge, wisdom, autonomy, love, consensus, and consciousness. He argues that what is uniquely human is our capacity for evaluating our own mental states (such as beliefs and desires), and suggests that we have a system for such evaluation which allows the resolution of personal and interpersonal conflict. The keystone in this system is self-trust, on which reason, knowledge, (...) and wisdom are grounded. (shrink)

Boys, Boyz, Bois concerns questions of ethics, gender and race in popular American images, national discourse and cultural production by and about black men. The book proposes an ethics of masculinity, as ethnics refers to a system of morality and valuation and as ethics refers to a care of the self and ethical subject formation. The texts of analysis include recent films by black/African American filmmakers, gansta rap and hip-hop and black star persona: texts ranging from Blaxploitation and New Black (...) Cinema to contemporary music video to autobiography and the public image of Sidney Poitier. The book is a significant contribution to cultural studies and gender studies and critical race theory. What is distinctive about the book is the question of ethics as a question of race and gender. (shrink)

This chapter traces ‘capability’ as a topic of educational concern and ongoing debate, exploring what is meant by the philosophical concept of ‘capability’ in the international lineage of educational philosophy. Its purpose is first to clarify and situate the meaning of ‘capability’ within historical and contemporary debates within educational philosophy, and, second, to explore the relationship between specific philosophical accounts of capability and the notions of educational equality and social justice in education. While the term and concept of ‘capability’ has (...) been used by philosophers of education to denote a specific theoretical framework for thinking about educational justice and equality – The Capability Approach – the concept of capability is also understood more broadly in terms of the power or potential of individual students relative to the interaction of their individual capacities with educational environments, access, and opportunities. Literature within philosophy of education that considers capability in this latter, more general way looks at the role of educational institutions, structures, and practices as enabling and disabling social forms and considers the limiting effects of categories of difference related to individuals’ perceived and assessed capacities. These two areas of research are linked by the question of what forms of education enable students of varying abilities to develop the capabilities to live good lives. (shrink)

Several social metaphysicians have argued that groups are constituted by, but not identical to, their members. While the constitution view is promising, there are significant difficulties with existing versions of that view. Fortunately, lessons may be extracted from more traditional metaphysics and applied to the case of group agents. Drawing on such lessons, I present a novel account of the constitution relation holding between individuals and group agents. According to the resulting structural-constitution view, when individuals constitute a group of a (...) certain kind, they do so in virtue of exhibiting the structure characteristic of groups of that kind. (shrink)

Ashley J. Bohrer argues that it is only by considering race, gender, sexuality, and ability within the structures of capitalism and imperialism that we can understand power relations. Bohrer explains how the purported incompatibilities between Marxism and intersectionality arise more from miscommunication than a fundamental conceptual antagonism.

"Characterized by breadth of coverage, a refreshingly balanced approach to controversial issues, & a highly readable style."-Theological Studies.

Quassim Cassam has argued that psychological and epistemological analyses of conspiracy theories threaten to overlook the political nature of such theories. According to Cassam, conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. I develop a limited critique of Cassam's analysis.This paper advances two core theses. First, acceptance of conspiracy theories requires a rejection of epistemic authority that renders conspiracy theorists susceptible to co-option by certain political programs while insulating such programs from criticism. I argue that the contrarian nature of conspiracy (...) theories partially accounts for the prominence of such theories in populist movements.Second, the contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for their attractiveness, especially among those to whom populism already appeals. I argue that for those who resent what appears from their perspective as the shaping of the epistemic landscape by alien perspectives, conspiracy theorizing may facilitate the reassertion of epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

This book disseminates practical solutions to the automation of open and distance learning. It discusses computational methods, algorithms, implemented prototype systems, and applications of open and distance learning. It also provides state-of-the-art research on the impact and general principles of ethical computer use in academics, while also emphasizing the cyber philosophical aspect of human-computer interaction.

According to the powerful qualities view, properties are both powerful and qualitative. Indeed, on this view the powerfulness of a property is identical to its qualitativity. Proponents claim that this view provides an attractive alternative to both the view that properties are pure powers and the view that they are pure qualities. It remains unclear, however, whether the claimed identity between powerfulness and qualitativity can be made coherent in a way that allows the powerful qualities view to constitute this sort (...) of alternative. I argue here that this can be done, given a particular conception of both the qualitativity and powerfulness of properties. On this conception, a property is qualitative just in the sense that its essence is fixed independently of any distinct properties, and it is powerful just if its essence grounds its dispositional role. (shrink)

The use of nonhuman animals as models in research and drug testing is a key route through which contemporary scientific knowledge is certified. Given ethical concerns, regulation of animal research promotes the use of less “sentient” animals. This paper draws on a documentary analysis of legal documents and qualitative interviews with Named Veterinary Surgeons and others at a commercial laboratory in the UK. Its key claim is that the concept of animal sentience is entangled with a particular imaginary of how (...) the general public or wider society views animals. We call this imaginary societal sentience. Against a backdrop of increasing ethnographic work on care encounters in the laboratory, this concept helps to stress the wider context within which such encounters take place. We conclude that societal sentience has potential purchase beyond the animal research field, in helping to highlight the affective dimension of public imaginaries and their ethical consequences. Researching and critiquing societal sentience, we argue, may ultimately have more impact on the fate of humans and nonhumans in the laboratory than focusing wholly on ethics as situated practice. (shrink)

This paper brings together two positions that for the most part have been developed and defended independently of one another: contextualism about knowledge attributions and the knowledge account of assertion.

This paper describes the ways in which trolls and bots impede the acquisition of knowledge online. I distinguish between three ways in which trolls and bots can impede knowledge acquisition, namely, by deceiving, by encouraging misplaced skepticism, and by interfering with the acquisition of warrant concerning persons and content encountered online. I argue that these threats are difficult to resist simultaneously. I argue, further, that the threat that trolls and bots pose to knowledge acquisition goes beyond the mere threat of (...) online misinformation, or the more familiar threat posed by liars offline. Trolls and bots are, in effect, fake persons. Consequently, trolls and bots can systemically interfere with knowledge acquisition by manipulating the signals whereby individuals acquire knowledge from one another online. I conclude with a brief discussion of some possible remedies for the problem of fake persons. (shrink)

David Albert explains why we can typically influence the future but not the past by appealing to an initial low-entropy state of the universe. And he argues that in the rare cases where we can influence the past, we cannot use this influence to knowingly gain future rewards: so it does not constitute control. I introduce an important new case in which Albert's account implies we can not only influence the past but control it: a case where our actions in (...) the present are reliably correlated with several events in the present and past. To deal with such cases, we need to appeal to epistemic conditions on deliberation: being agents requires our decisions being epistemically undetermined at the time we make them. In a world with the past-hypothesis, this implies that deliberation will typically come prior to decision. Once deliberation in this direction is established, correlations towards the past cannot then be exploited for control. To explain why we cannot effectively control the past, we need to appeal to deliberation, whether as part of a defence of Albert's account, or used independently to explain the asymmetry of control. (shrink)

Appellate Court Modifications Extraction consists of, given an Appellate Court decision, identifying the proposed modifications by the upper Court of the lower Court judge’s decision. In this work, we propose a system to extract Appellate Court Modifications for Portuguese. Information extraction for legal texts has been previously addressed using different techniques and for several languages. Our proposal differs from previous work in two ways: our corpus is composed of Brazilian Appellate Court decisions, in which we look for a set of (...) modifications provided by the Court; and to automatically extract the modifications, we use a traditional Machine Learning approach and a Deep Learning approach, both as alternative solutions and as a combined solution. We tackle the Appellate Court Modifications Extraction task, experimenting with a wide variety of methods. In order to train and evaluate the system, we have built the KauaneJunior corpus, using public data disclosed by the Appellate State Court of Rio de Janeiro jurisprudence database. Our best method, which is a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory network combined with Conditional Random Fields, obtained an \ score of 94.79%. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Recently, new life has been breathed into the ancient philosophical topic of skepticism. The subject of some of the best and most provocative work in contemporary philosophy, skepticism has been addressed not only by top epistemologists but also by several of the world's finest philosophers who are most known for their work in other areas of the discipline. Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader brings together the most important recent contributions to the discussion of skepticism. Covering major approaches to the skeptical problem, (...) it features essays by Anthony Brueckner, Keith DeRose, Fred Dretske, Graeme Forbes, Christopher Hill, David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, Hilary Putnam, Ernest Sosa, Gail Stine, Barry Stroud, Peter Unger, and Ted Warfield. The book opens with a thorough introduction that outlines the skeptical problem, explains the dominant responses to skepticism, and discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and unresolved issues of each response, providing undergraduate students and nonphilosophers with the background and context necessary to understand the essays. Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader serves as an ideal text for courses in epistemology and skepticism and will also appeal to professional philosophers and interested general readers. (shrink)

Cognitive science is a cross-disciplinary enterprise devoted to understanding the nature of the mind. In recent years, investigators in philosophy, psychology, the neurosciences, artificial intelligence, and a host of other disciplines have come to appreciate how much they can learn from one another about the various dimensions of cognition. The result has been the emergence of one of the most exciting and fruitful areas of inter-disciplinary research in the history of science. This volume of original essays surveys foundational, theoretical, and (...) philosophical issues across the discipline, and introduces the foundations of cognitive science, the principal areas of research, and the major research programs. With a focus on broad philosophical themes rather than detailed technical issues, the volume will be valuable not only to cognitive scientists and philosophers of cognitive science, but also to those in other disciplines looking for an authoritative and up-to-date introduction to the field. (shrink)

I defend a new account of constitutive essence on which an entity’s constitutively essential properties are its most fundamental, nontrivial necessary properties. I argue that this account accommodates the Finean counterexamples to classic modalism about essence, provides an independently plausible account of constitutive essence, and does not run into clear counterexamples. I conclude that this theory provides a promising way forward for attempts to produce an adequate nonprimitivist, modalist account of essence. As both triviality and fundamentality in the account are (...) understood in terms of grounding, the theory also potentially has important implications for the relation between essence and grounding. (shrink)

Chapter Beginning an account of linguistic meaning: speaker, hearer, context, and utterance Pity the poor analyst, who has to do the best he can with ...

Este artigo apresenta o resultado de uma pesquisa desenvolvida no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ensino de História da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (ProfHistória/UFU). Nos limites do texto o objetivo consistiu em apresentar o processo que culminou na elaboração do Curso intitulado “Por uma educação antirracista: o estudo da história da África, cultura afro-brasileira e relações étnico-raciais” produzido como resultado da pesquisa desenvolvida no mestrado profissional, tendo como base e público alvo estudantes jovens e adultos. O estudo está fundamentado em uma (...) pesquisa qualitativa, com revisão bibliográfica em livros e artigos acadêmicos tendo como principais referências autores que realizaram estudos sobre Educação de Jovens e adultos (EJA) e Educação e relações étnico-raciais. Analisamos documentos que regularizam a educação brasileira e as leis antirracistas dedicando atenção especial à Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (LDB) 9.394/96 e à Lei 10.639/03, alterada posteriormente pela Lei 11.645/08 que estabelece a obrigatoriedade da temática História e cultura afro-brasileira e indígena. Recorreu também a um questionário diagnóstico aplicado aos jovens e adultos estudantes do Centro Estadual de Educação Continuada (CESEC Uberlândia). Conclui-se que para efetivar uma educação antirracista, o ensino de História da África e Cultura Afro-Brasileira não pode se limitar a ações pontuais. É necessário descolonizar os currículos. (shrink)

Understanding everyday behavior relies heavily upon understanding our ability to improvise, how we are able to continuously anticipate and adapt in order to coordinate with our environment and others. Here we consider the ability of musicians to improvise, where they must spontaneously coordinate their actions with co-performers in order to produce novel musical expressions. Investigations of this behavior have traditionally focused on describing the organization of cognitive structures. The focus, here, however, is on the ability of the time-evolving patterns of (...) inter-musician movement coordination as revealed by the mathematical tools of complex dynamical systems to provide a new understanding of what potentiates the novelty of spontaneous musical action. We demonstrate this approach through the application of cross wavelet spectral analysis, which isolates the strength and patterning of the behavioral coordination that occurs between improvising musicians across a range of nested time-scales. Revealing the sophistication of the previously unexplored dynamics of movement coordination between improvising musicians is an important step towards understanding how creative musical expressions emerge from the spontaneous coordination of multiple musical bodies. (shrink)

An ongoing debate in affective science concerns whether certain discrete, “basic” emotions have evolutionarily based signals that are easily, universally, and innatel...

What does the development of a truly robust contemporary theory of domination require? Ashley J. Bohrer argues that it is only by considering all of the dimensions of race, gender, sexuality, and class within the structures of capitalism and imperialism that we can understand power relations as we find them nowadays. Bohrer explains how many of the purported incompatibilities between Marxism and intersectionality arise more from miscommunication rather than a fundamental conceptual antagonism. As the first monograph entirely devoted to (...) this issue, »Marxism and Intersectionality« serves as a tool to activists and academics working against multiple systems of domination, exploitation, and oppression. (shrink)

If sociology is about society must it not also be about morality? In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the identification between sociology and morality was clear cut; Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Spencer, and Veblen all dealt with moral issues and one might argue that they saw themselves as engaged in a moral vocation. Now, one might argue that the connections between sociology and moral currents have become more tenuous. Moral Culture examines what it means to be moral in contemporary social (...) and cultural life. Author Keith Tester takes the highly original and revealing step of exploring how violence today, and throughout history, affects the relatively safe and secure people who live in the west and who tend to know horror only through television and cinema screens. The book raises questions about the meaning and significance of massacres in the Balkans, Rwanda and, rather more historically, the Holocaust, and the slaughter of Vietnamese peasants by American soldiers in My Lai. It also discusses how Adolf Eichmann and the men of Charlie Company might be different from or similar to us. It answers questions about whether this is a time of moral decay or more seriously, the collapse of moral Civilization. Sociologists often claim that they make a virtue of being relevant and objective, but few have attacked these issues with the urgency and originality that Keith Tester displays in this work. Each chapter provides a historically aware account of a moral problem making it especially relevant reading for students of cultural studies, sociology, political science, and moral philosophy. (shrink)