'...a 'must read' for all students of constitutional law, whatever their academic discipline...this excellent book accomplishes the author's purpose: it forces us to take textualism seriously.'-LEGAL STUDIES FORUM.

(1996). Centrifugal states and Centripetal Courts: Early state reaction to European Court of Justice (1958–1994) and U.S. Supreme Court (1789–1860) The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 703-709.

This paper presents a direction for narrative ethics based on ethical ideas found in the works of Michel Foucault. Narrative ethics is understood here at the meta-level of cultural discourse to see how the moral subject is constituted by the discursive practices that structure the contemporary debate on reproductive technologies. At this level it becomes meta-narrative-ethics. After a theoretical discussion, this paper uses two literary narratives representing the polarized views in the debate to show how the moral subject may be (...) compelled to relate to its self. Ethics is redefined as Foucauldian rapport à soi, and ethical analysis, at this meta-level, shows how the moral self is intimately connected to cultural discourse. (shrink)

This book offers a conversation with Nietzsche rather than a consideration of the secondary literature, yet it takes to task many prevalent approaches to his work, and contests especially the way we often restrict our encounter with him to ...

The Heart of Judgment explores the nature, historical significance, and continuing relevance of practical wisdom. Primarily a work in moral and political thought, it also relies extensively on research in cognitive neuroscience to confirm and extend our understanding of the faculty of judgment. Ever since the ancient Greeks first discussed practical wisdom, the faculty of judgment has been an important topic for philosophers and political theorists. It remains one of the virtues most demanded of our public officials. The greater the (...) liberties and responsibilities accorded to citizens in democratic regimes, the more the health and welfare of society rest upon their exercise of good judgment. While giving full credit to the roles played by reason and deliberation in good judgment, the book underlines the central importance of intuition, emotion, and worldly experience. (shrink)

The orderliness of the universe and the existence of human beings already provides some reason for believing that there is a God - as argued in Richard Swinburne's earlier book Is There a God? Swinburne now claims that it is probable that the main Christian doctrines about the nature of God and his actions in the world are true. In virtue of his omnipotence and perfect goodness, God must be a Trinity, live a human life in order to share our (...) suffering, and found a church which would enable him to tell all humans about this. It is also quite probable that he would provide his human life as an atonement for our wrongdoing, teach us how we should live and tell us his plans for our future after death. Among founders of religions, Jesus satisfies uniquely well the requirement of living the sort of human life which God would need to have lived. But to give us adequate reason to believe that Jesus was God, God would need to put his 'signature' on the life of Jesus by an act which he alone could do, for example raise him from the dead. There is adequate historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The church which he founded gave plausible interpretations of his basic message. Therefore Christian doctrines are probably true. (shrink)

In “Meeting the Moment: Bioethics in the Time of Black Lives Matter,” Camisha Russell calls for transforming “bioethics-as-usual” with help from “outsiders”. Prior scholars agree...

Preston's (2011) challenge to the moral presumption against geoengineering is applied to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in Scotland, United Kingdom. Qualitative data is analysed to assess if and how Preston's arguments play out in practice. We argue that the concepts of 'lesser evil' and prioritising human well-being over non-interference in natural processes do bring different value positions together in support of CCS, but that not all people see short-term carbon abatement as the 'least worst' option or a suitable (...) way to prioritise human well-being. (shrink)

This study applied psychographic segmentation theory to explore the psychological type profile of 1082 visitors to four cathedrals (three in England and one in Wales) and to set this profile alongside the published national normative data. Data provided by the Francis Psychological Type Scales demonstrated that among cathedral visitors there were more introverts (60%), sensing types (72%) and judging types (80%), with a balance between thinking types (49%) and feeling types (51%). Comparisons with the population norms demonstrated that extraverts and (...) perceiving types were significantly underrepresented among visitors to these four cathedrals. The implications of these findings are discussed for enhancing the visitor experience of those currently visiting and for attracting those psychological types currently less likely to visit. CONTRIBUTION: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this article demonstrates (by means of applying psychographic segmentation theory and gathering data from four cathedrals) that extraverts and perceiving types were significantly under-represented among cathedral visitors. These data are important for understanding limitations on the reach of cathedrals within the wider community. (shrink)

Examination of recent debates about belief shows the need to distinguish: (a) non-linguistic informational states in animal perception; (b) the uncritical use of language, e.g. by children; (c) adult humans' reasoned judgments. If we also distinguish between mind-directed and object-directed mental states, we have: Perceptual 'beliefs' of animals and infants about their material environment. 'Beliefs' of animals and infants about the mental states of others. Linguistically-expressible beliefs about the world, resulting from e.g. the uncritical tendency to believe what we are (...) told. Uncritically-formed beliefs about the mental states. Beliefs about the material world arrived at by the weighing of evidence. Beliefs about mental states formed by critical assessment. (shrink)

In the last few years, off-line simulation has become an increasingly important alternative to standard explanations in cognitive science. The contemporary debate began with Gordon (1986) and Goldman's (1989) off-line simulation account of our capacity to predict behavior. On their view, in predicting people's behavior we take our own decision making system `off line' and supply it with the `pretend' beliefs and desires of the person whose behavior we are trying to predict; we then let the decision maker reach a (...) decision on the basis of these pretend inputs. Figure 1 offers a `boxological' version of the off-line simulation theory of behavior prediction.(1). (shrink)

ABSTRACTMost scholars agree that meaning and intelligibility are central to Heidegger’s account of Dasein and Being-in-the-world, but there is some confusion about the nature of this intelligibility. In his debate with McDowell, Dreyfus draws on phenomenologists like Heidegger to argue that there are two kinds of intelligibility: a basic, nonconceptual, practical intelligibility found in practical comportment and a conceptual, discursive intelligibility. I explore two possible ways that Dreyfus might ground this twofold account of intelligibility in Heidegger: first in the distinction (...) between the hermeneutic and apophantic “as”, and second in the presence and absence of the as-structure. I argue that neither approach succeeds because practical intelligibility is always already discursive and discursive articulation is a condition of practical comportment. (shrink)

After a brief introduction to Philosophical Practice, I explain why I use it in my courses and elaborate on some of the material and techniques I present to students in the hope that it helps them to become better-adjusted and happier people. As an example of the sorts of assignments I create for these courses I present a semester-long assignment called “Everyday Philosophical Practice” that is based on the practice of mindfulness and requires intentional metacognition from the students. This approach (...) has shown success not only at helping students to gain self-knowledge, but also at awakening and strengthening different positive cognitive dispositions such as desiring to think about difficult things, acceptance of the need for effort in clarifying thought, and the like. (shrink)

This study examines the association between mystical experience, as captured by the Francis-Louden Mystical Orientation Scale, and psychological health, as captured by the Eysenckian three dimensional model of personality, among 329 students attending a state university in Turkey. The data reported no significant association between mystical orientation and psychoticism scores, and a small but significant positive association between mystical orientation and neuroticism scores, after controlling for sex differences. This finding suggests that there may be a small inverse association between mystical (...) experience and psychological health among students in Turkey. (shrink)

The United States, like other countries facing rising health care costs, is pursuing a commitment to interoperable electronic health records. Electronic records, it is thought, have the potential to reduce the risks of error, improve care coordination, monitor care quality, enable patients to participate more fully in care management, and provide the data needed for research and surveillance. Interoperable electronic health records on a national scale — the ideal of a national health information network — seem likely to magnify these (...) advantages. Thus, the recent economic stimulus package contains considerable funding for the development of “health information technology architecture that will support the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information in a secure, private, and accurate manner.”. (shrink)

Previous research has examined growing globalized divisions in domestic labor through the perspective of poor migrant women who perform care work in advanced industrialized societies. This article explores this global trend in reverse, focusing on first-world women who migrate into developing countries and engage with local dynamics of care through volunteer work. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Helping Hands, an organization of expatriate wives that assisted a local state-run orphanage in Beijing, China, I argue that gendered processes (...) of privileged migration caused women to develop a “logic of care” that equated good care solely with maternal nurturance and emotional connection. This logic permeated their volunteer efforts, causing conflicts with Chinese state caregivers who prioritized the performance of reproductive tasks. This case demonstrates the socially constructed nature of logics that underlie care practices and their relationship to increasingly transnational configurations of privilege and inequality. When applied to first-world women’s charitable activities in developing countries, unquestioned gendered logics can reinforce larger global disparities of power through the stratified provision of care. (shrink)

Syndromic surveillance uses new ways of gathering data to identify possible disease outbreaks. Because syndromic surveillance can be implemented to detect patterns before diseases are even identified, it poses novel problems for informed consent, patient privacy and confidentiality, and risks of stigmatization. This paper analyzes these ethical issues from the viewpoint of the patient as victim and vector. It concludes by pointing out that the new International Health Regulations fail to take full account of the ethical challenges raised by syndromic (...) surveillance. (shrink)

International codes of ethics play an important role in guiding professional practice in developing countries. In the occupational health setting, codes developing by international agencies have substantial import on protecting working populations from harm. This is particularly so under globalisation which has transformed processes of production in fundamental ways across the globe. As part of the process of revising the Ethical Code of the International Commission on Occupational Health, an African Working Group addressed key challenges for the relevance and cogency (...) of an ethical code in occupational health for an African context through an iterative consultative process. (shrink)

Intended both for undergraduate students and for general readers, this introduction to the philosophy of science uses case studies, anecdotes and personal comment to portray many heroes and villains from the field of science through the ages.

Presents findings from a survey conducted among 30,000 13-15 year olds throughout England and Wales, giving particular attention to social, personal and moral issues.

I argue that the distinction between first-person present and other-directed contexts of justification throws new light on epistemology. In particular, it has implications for the relations between justification, knowledge and truth, the debate between externalism and internalism, and the prospects for reflective equilibrium. I suggest that to focus on the third-person questions about knowledge or justification is to risk missing the main point of epistemology, namely to help us make reflective judgments about what to believe.

Buridan’s principle asserts that a discrete decision based upon input having a continuous range of values cannot be made within a bounded length of time. It appears to be a fundamental law of nature. Engineers aware of it can design devices so they have an infinitessimal probability of not making a decision quickly enough. Ignorance of the principle could have serious consequences.

A sample of 711 16 year old adolescents completed an Anglicised form of the Dommert revision of the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, together with the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory and Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. They also provided information about church attendance, personal prayer and paternal occupation. The data demonstrate that higher dogmatism scores are associated with lower IQ scores, lower social class backgrounds, higher neuroticism scores, higher lie scale scores and being male. No correlation was found between dogmatism scores and personal (...) prayer, church attendance or extroversion scores. These findings are discussed against the wider background of the personal and social correlates of dogmatism. (shrink)

In a diverse and complex world, the notion of ‘cultural competence’ is offered by some as an ethical solution to health care work which is culturally naïve or inappropriate. Notions of cultural competence, however, may obscure the fact that many clinicians, regardless of background, may feel ill equipped to deal with difference in their daily work. Drawing largely on South African examples, I suggest that issues of cultural incompetence, linked both to personal anxieties and to the ways in which health (...) care systems are structured, may be important to explore — personally, professionally, and politically. Through examining the difficulties of our own work and recognizing these, we may learn more only by learning a set of skills about the ‘other’. (shrink)

This dissertation offers an original interpretation of the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's enterprise, it is claimed, was anti-political. His aim was to describe the means of achieving greatness in an age of nihilism. This was primarily a philosophic, aesthetic, even religious project. The goal was to live heroically, and Nietzsche defined modern heroism as the realization of individuality. Concern for and engagement in political matters was considered unworthy of and detrimental to this prescribed life. ;The author argues, nonetheless, the (...) Nietzsche did not so much abandon politics as internalize it. Nietzsche is shown to have developed a spiritual politics, a politics within a multipartite self whose agonistic interaction is evoked. Nietzsche's concern was to propagate this strife-filled politics of the soul, and he offered his as a model of such a heroically styled life of continuous self-overcoming. ;The dissertation examines the incarnations Nietzsche proposed for the heroic individual: the philosopher, the artist, and the saint, their incorporation in the educator and the solitary, and their apotheosis in the overman. Nietzsche's higher man is shown to be he who has actualized his underlying potential for a heroic life, which, in the end, is marked by his love of fate and his acceptance of the eternal recurrence. ;The dissertation surveys the entirety of Nietzsche's writings, including his notes and correspondence. An attempt is made to demonstrate the continuity of his project. The author argues that heroic individualism and its politics of the soul are the predominant themes of Nietzsche's work, accounting for the development of Nietzsche's thought and its paradoxes. (shrink)