Despite the popularity of equality as a political value, egalitarianism as a political theory has never, I think, been fully or successfully defended. I aim in this paper to begin the defense of such a view. The egalitarianism I have in mind has as its ideal a condition of equal wellbeing for all persons at the highest possible level of well-being, i.e. maximum equal well-being. Egalitarianism holds that society should be arranged so as to promote and maintain this state. Defending (...) such a view involves, as I see it, three tasks. First, the ideal I have Just mentioned must be made clearer and more specific and its implications for the distribution of particular goods such as material possessions and liberty must be revealed. Second, positive arguments must be given in support of an equal distribution of well-being as a requirement of morality and Justice. And, thirdly, arguments to the effect that there are Just or Justified inequalities which seriously outweigh the claims of equality must be rebutted. (shrink)

In “Women, Welfare and the Politics of Need Interpretation,” Nancy Fraser pursues a “meaning-oriented” inquiry intended to illuminate the gender bias of the American welfare system in order to aid feminists and their allies in the continuing political struggles over the welfare system. For Fraser the fundamental issues are over judgments about what women need—“need interpretation.” I argue that although her analysis of the system is vivid and provocative, it is inadequate as a contribution either to political theory or practical (...) strategy. Fraser substitutes a search for patterns and meanings for careful clarification and defense of political values. She leaves needs without foundation and does not explore the capacities for change in modem liberal states. The meanings she reveals provide us neither with a sound basis for judgments on political values nor with a strategy for improvement. (shrink)

A liberal society should be extremely troubled by the idea of preventive detention. Authoritarian states frequently punish people on suspicion of disloyalty or because rulers wish to remove people...

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 89, Issue 2, Page 364-367, June 2011.

Cosmopolitanism is a form of egalitarianism about global justice. Egalitarians hold that economic inequalities are justifiable only under limited conditions. Cosmopolitans, like Brock, embrace basic principles of distributive justice that apply to all human beings. Their opponents, sometimes called liberal nationalists, are also egalitarians but limit the scope of egalitarian justice to cooperating members of a society. Outsiders are owed help to lead minimally decent lives but these are humanitarians obligations, not obligations of distributive justice. Brock’s defense of cosmopolitanism is (...) thoughtful and sensitive but appears to be too weak. Her basic principle of distributive justice appears to allow more inequality than cosmopolitans can accept. Liberal nationalists defend preference for fellow citizens and Brock seems not to have done a fully adequate job answering their arguments, especially their appeal to reciprocity among citizens. It’s therefore difficult to know where Brock stands on some of the crucial issues about global justice. (shrink)

In two studies we investigated whether people evidence an effect of moral contamination with respect to hypothetical organ transplants. This was achieved by asking participants to make judgements after presenting either positive or negative background information about the donor. In the first study, positive/negative background information had a corresponding effect on three judgements with attitudes to a heart transplant most pronounced by negative background information relative to good information and controls. This effect was replicated in the second study with both (...) heart and liver transplantation. Negative effects were stronger than positive effects in all conditions consistent with a negativity bias, but again stronger with regards to organs than controls. These results confirm findings from surveys that reveal real patients are concerned about moral contamination following organ transplantation and show that this bias in evident even in hypothetical, non-life-threatening scenarios. In a third study we found a significantly stronger moral contagion effect in Japanese relative to English participants, suggesting that concerns about moral contagion may be moderated by culture. (shrink)

Boehm's model conceptualizes a common ancestor to humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos at several million years B.P., followed by a model of prehistoric foragers at 25,000-50,000 B.P. based on ethnographic data from twentieth-century hunters and gatherers. By putting processes of complex communication into the picture, we can refine Boehm's model considerably by filling in significant scenarios for humans beginning at perhaps 2 million years ago. These include a suite of features that include constraints on sexual behaviour, a rudimentary division of labour, (...) the gendering of morality, socialized control over junior males, increased group size, increased home range size, the reduction of bullying behaviour, and a reverse dominance hierarchy that promotes egalitarianism among fully adult males. Boehm's model emphasizes the last two of these, but it is consistent with the others as well. Cultural or proto-cultural elaboration of beliefs and associated practices is the symbolic dimension of morality and is an important component of human evolution. Boehm's model is extremely important for outlining socio-political mechanisms and concomitants in the formation of adult male egalitarian groups, and, in the process, identifying a key element in the evolution of human morality. (shrink)

Although young children might be uncertain about the nature of certain representations, most modern adults would explicitly maintain that photographs have no ongoing physical connection the objects that they depict. We demonstrate here in three studies that destruction of a photograph of a sentimental object produces significantly more electrodermal activity than destruction of photographs of other control objects. This response is not attributable to anxiety about being observed whilst destroying the picture, nor is it entirely due to simple visual association (...) ‐ the same response occurs when the photograph does not resemble the object. We suggest that this effect may reflect a tacit acceptance of “sympathetic magic”. (shrink)

Do humans start life with the capacity to detect and mentally represent the objects around them? Or is our object knowledge instead derived only as the result of prolonged experience with the external world? Are we simply able to perceive objects by watching their actions in the world, or do we have to act on objects ourselves in order to learn about their behavior? Finally, do we come to know all aspects of objects in the same way, or are some (...) aspects of our object understanding more epistemologically privileged than others? -/- "The Origins of Object Knowledge" presents the most up-to-date survey of the research into how the developing human mind understands the world of objects and their properties. It presents some of the best findings from leading research groups in the field of object representation approached from the perspective of developmental and comparative psychology. Topics covered in the book all address some aspect of what objects are from a psychological perspective; how humans and animals conceive what they are made of; what properties they possess; how we count them and how we categorize them; even how the difference between animate and inanimate objects leads to different expectations. The chapters also cover the variety of methodologies and techniques that must be used to study infants, young children, and non-human primates and the value of combining approaches to discovering what each group knows. -/- Bringing together leading researchers, communicating the most contemporary and exciting findings within the field of object representation, this volume will be an important work in the cognitive sciences, and of interest to those across the fields of developmental and comparative psychology. (shrink)

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models of science (...) and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process. (shrink)

To consider power as not only the direct physical oppression of others, but as a production of authority through discursive knowledge and a claimed ‘expertise’ of the world, has been one of Foucault’s great legacies to critical work on mental health and illness. As arbiters of the ‘truth’ on what is and what is not mental pathology, I agree with Swerdfager that the privileged knowledge of the mental health professions and the consequential marginalization of other forms of knowledge on distress (...) can be better theorized through an investigation of the power/knowledge nexus. Practically, scholars and researchers can begin to address these... (shrink)