Modern feminism has been preoccupied with difference. An early and continuing struggle has been to acknowledge differences between men and women without having those differences used against women. That struggle has been extended to recognizing differences among women. By the end of the 1980s, women were calling for a in which Although cautioning words were raised by some, feminists in general moved to trying not only to recognize but to celebrate difference.

That the life of the mind is also embodied is a truth figured here in the metaphor of flesh and bones. What is durable but not indestructible--the bone--is the author's passion for "jubilee justice." This unaltering skeleton has structured the altering "flesh" as the author has appropriated the discovery of the effects of abandonment, the lessons of invisibility, encounters with the narratives of suffering, and the deconstructions of postmodern social theory. Two challenges have persisted over time: that of protecting the (...) force of the river of justice from the domestications practiced by philosophers and that of anchoring judgments in a flowing stream of difference. (shrink)

Discusses the ethical issues involved in the use of human embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine.

In Handle with Care, novelist Jodi Picoult presents a heartbreaking case involving the question of wrongful birth. This essay examines Ronald M. Green's writings in the field of bioethics to see what wisdom they might bring to this case. I argue that Green's contributions to bioethics exemplify some of the best of ethical argumentation: attention to facts, discernment of morally relevant differences, enunciation and justification of principles, originality, and compassion. I then draw from his work three foci that illuminate aspects (...) of the dilemma presented by Picoult: the importance of parental love, the possibility that the dilemma might be reframed away from wrongful birth, and the need to shift our focus to questions of justice. While appreciating Green's contributions to bioethics, I also indicate several places of nuanced disagreement. (shrink)

Humility, properly understood as a sense of one's limits, is one of the goods internal to the practice of health care. Humility in Christian tradition has both a relational aspect and an epistemological aspect. Each of these is evident in the practice of medicine. In its relational aspect, humility includes reverance or awe for the grace and strength of patients and their care-givers, a sense that the care-provider is not self-sufficient but needs the care-receiver, and recognition of the worth of (...) those who are oppressed and outcast. In its epistemological aspect, humility is exhibited in respect for the meaning system of the patient and recognition of the limits of medical paradigms and their need for correction from the patient's perspective. The power wielded by the profession of medicine in contemporary society does not preclude the exercise of humility within the profession. Keywords: epistemology, humility, internal goods, practice of medicine, virtue CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Opposition to `ownership' of cells and tissues often depends on arguments about the special or sacred nature of human bodies and other living things. Such arguments are not very helpful in dealing with the patenting of DNA fragments. Two arguments undergird support for patenting: the notion that an author has a `right' to an invention resulting from his/her labor, and the utilitarian argument that patents are needed to support medical inventiveness. The labor theory of ownership rights is subject to critique, (...) though it may still have enduring value. The more important argument is that deriving from the common good. If patents on DNA are supported on the basis of their contributions to the common good, then they can also be limited based on considerations of the common good. (shrink)

Opposition to `ownership' of cells and tissues often depends on arguments about the special or sacred nature of human bodies and other living things. Such arguments are not very helpful in dealing with the patenting of DNA fragments. Two arguments undergird support for patenting: the notion that an author has a `right' to an invention resulting from his/her labor, and the utilitarian argument that patents are needed to support medical inventiveness. The labor theory of ownership rights is subject to critique, (...) though it may still have enduring value. The more important argument is that deriving from the common good. If patents on DNA are supported on the basis of their contributions to the common good, then they can also be limited based on considerations of the common good. (shrink)

Thirty years ago, both the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the collaborative team of Tom L. Beauchamp and James Childress placed justice on a short list of principles that should undergird medical treatment and research. It is difficult to sort out contributions of religious or theological ethics to justice theory in bioethics. Nonetheless, some claims can be made both for the influence of religious ethics on the public discussion of bioethics and (...) for the distinctive voice of religious or theological ethics in matters of justice. Taking a biblically based view of justice, it is argued at that a religious view extends the scope of justice; makes oppression and liberation primary categories for understanding justice; and makes justice the first principle rather than the second or third. (shrink)

The June 1975 issue of the Hastings Center Report published the Deliberations and Recommendations of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects concerning the regulation of fetal experimentation. The Commission's most controversial conclusions were as follows: First, it voted to allow non‐therapeutic research on the human fetus, provided important biomedical knowledge could not be gained in any other way, proper consent had been obtained, and the research imposed “minimal or no risk to the well‐being of the fetus” (Recommendation (...) 4). Because interpretations of the last phrase varied in the case of fetuses scheduled for abortion, the Commission recommended that a national ethical review body be able to rule on disputed cases (Recommendation 5). In the case of research during abortion and research on the non‐viable fetus ex utero, the Commission's interpretation of permissible “harm” was restricted to the proviso that “no intrusion into the fetus [may be] made which alters the duration of life” (Recommendation 6). The Commission also recommended further research on abortion techniques (Recommendation 12). The Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare accepted the Commission's Recommendations almost without change—the major modification was to request paternal consent rather than to rely on the fact that “the father has not objected.” The DHEW regulations were published in the Federal Register on Friday, August 8, 1975, and written comments on them were invited. Already, however, a number of commentators including several members of the Commission had offered either dissenting or qualifying remarks. Some are printed here. (shrink)

Common arguments from the abortion debate have set the stage for the debate on stem cell research. Unfortunately, those arguments demonstrate flawed reasoning—jumping to unfounded conclusions, using value laden language rather than careful argument, and ignoring morally relevant aspects of the situation. The influence of flawed abortion arguments on the stem cell debate results in failures of moral reasoning and in lack of attention to important morally relevant differences between abortion and human embryonic stem cells. Among those differences are whose (...) interests are at stake and the difference between an embryo in and out of the womb. Stem cell research differs from abortion in morally relevant ways and should be freed from the abortion debate and its flawed reasoning. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Coping with Genetic Disorders. By John C. Fletcher. Genetics, Ethics and Parenthood. Edited by Karen Lebacqz. Screening and Counseling for Genetic Conditions: The Ethical, Social, and Legal Implications of Genetic Screening, Counseling, and Education Programs. A report of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

I respond here to the essays by Karen Lebacqz and Stephen Palmquist, beginning with my debt of gratitude to Lebacqz for her understanding of the methodological depth I try to bring to the analysis of bioethical issues. I further illustrate that observation here by reviewing the logic of my approach to the issue of wrongful life. At the same time, in connection with human genetic enhancement, I acknowledge that I may have not properly appreciated the seriousness of (...) the problem of sin. To Palmquist's assertion that my criticisms of Kant's treatments of grace miss the way Kant has confined himself to being a philosophical theologian, I argue that Kant's problem lies instead in his poor application of his own compelling insights about the depths of human sinning. I close with an appreciation of Palmquist's observation of some important points of contact between Kant's understanding of sin and that of Kierkegaard. (shrink)

In this paper I describe and defend an account of virtuous motivation that differs from what we might call ordinary moral motivation. It is possible to be morally motivated without being virtuously motivated. In the first half of the essay, I explore different senses of moral motivation and the philosophical puzzles and problems it poses. In the second half, I give an account of virtuous motivation that, unlike ordinary moral motivation, requires the motivational structure characteristic of a fully virtuous person. (...) I draw on Aristotle's account of virtuous action to argue that a fully virtuous agent's judgment reflects a robust form of moral knowledge about what features of an action render it virtuous and hence, choiceworthy. Virtuously motivated actions are chosen in light of those features and are accompanied by the affective state appropriate to the overall moral landscape in which the judgment is made. (shrink)

-/- Carefully considering the difference in the philosophical potential of page poetry and performance poetry, Karen Simecek argues that it is only by considering them side by side that the unique cognitive value of each can be realised. -/- Focusing on spoken word poetry reveals the importance of voice and embodied words to the differing epistemic rewards of engaging with contemporary works of poetry in both private reading and live performance. This concept of embodied voice progresses a new line (...) of thinking in the cognitivism debate and unlocks the philosophical value of engaging with poetry. Simecek's discussion of performed poetry also advances discussions of affect and experience in contemporary analytic aesthetics which raise new insights and connections within the field. -/- The moral significance of the differing effects of poetry finds comprehensive articulation through a rich philosophical analysis of the thoughts and affects which arise in particular contexts. Simecek concludes that when page poetry is treated as paradigmatic, this enables reflection in the singular, whereas taking poetry in live performance as paradigmatic enables reflection on what is shared and shareable with others. (shrink)

Paradigmatic as Beauvoir’s thinking is for contemporary Western feminism, in the light of global developments, it is important to note that her feminist ideals surpass the dominant forms of Western liberalism in substantial ways. Her positive concept of ‘ethical’ freedom does not correspond to Western liberalism’s negative concept of freedom as the absence of constraints. Nor does her gender egalitarian concept of society resemble Western liberalism’s model of society with its dichotomous organization of labor and care. It is argued that (...) Western feminism, as it was conceived by Beauvoir, can be elaborated substantially, as well as strategically, into an inclusive feminism for a globalizing, yet culturally plural world. (shrink)

Performance is increasingly important to the poet, which is evidenced by the growing numbers of videos and audio recordings online including YouTube, the National Poetry library, and Poetry Archive. As a result, there are greater opportunities to engage with poets reading their own work and consequently, there is a need to move away from thinking of poetry as primary something that takes shape on the page. Furthermore, by refocusing attention to poetry as an oral artform, in particular to poetry performance, (...) different ways of understanding the value of poetry come to the fore. The live poetry performance, I argue, offers an attempt to reclaim the personal individual expression of language in contemporary society and demands attention by the audience because of the role of voice and body in the performance. Through awareness of ‘uniqueness of voice,’ the performed poem becomes a site of collective meaning making with individual identity intact as a shared endeavour between performer and audience, and necessarily resists appropriation (in the sense that the words experienced cannot be divorced from the performer or the performance space to serve as a proxy for meaning elsewhere). This chapter therefore makes an argument for the need to engage with spoken word and performance poetry in the live performance space. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that the gradual emergence of the modern nation-state is associated with intensified interest in the government of childhood. Grounded in the Foucauldian literature on governmentality and drawing on a broad range of disciplines, this book examines the government of childhood in the West from the early modern period to the present. The book deals with three key time periods, examining shifts in the conceptualization and regulation of childhood and child-rearing between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth (...) century; between the late eighteenth century and the mid/late twentieth century and the period from the late twentieth century to the present day. Building on the work of Chris Jenks, The Government of Childhood deploys the images of the Dionysian and Apollonian images of childhood as symbolic targets of power/knowledge and presents a third model - the Athenian child - as a symbolic target of modes of exercising power over the young that is grounded in children's capacity for agency. (shrink)

Although for a long time, Dutch academic philosophy was characterized by a pluralism of – imported – philosophical frameworks and paradigms, in more recent decades, a type of ‘normal philosophy’, in the Kuhnian sense, has become dominant which aims to solve ethical and political problems and dilemmas through rational-normative argumentation. Contrary to what is often claimed, the new 'normal philosophy' amounts not to thinking ‘beyond the analytic-continental divide’ in a fruitful synthesis, but to the subsumption of continental philosophical themes and (...) concepts under the analytic tradition. The potentially critical tenor of continental philosophy threatens to be ‘solved’ by this subsumption. ‘Normal philosophy’, with its emphasis on rational-normative argumentation, risks leading to a state philosophy that fits in with existing policy questions, ignoring systemic and structural power inequalities. I argue that the journal Krisis, in keeping with its original principles, should hang on to critical philosophical reflection, which today is needed more than ever, specifically – pace current right-wing and left-wing populist attacks on identity politics – on systemic, multiple forms of deprivation and oppression. (shrink)

A theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, Karen Barad elaborates her theory of agential realism, a schema that is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics.

We frequently speak of certain things or phenomena being built out of or based in others. Making Things Up concerns these relations, which connect more fundamental things to less fundamental things: Karen Bennett calls these 'building relations'. She aims to illuminate what it means to say that one thing is more fundamental than another.

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and (...) agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2, whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief. (shrink)

Studie over het filosofische werk van de Franse schrijfster (1908-1986).

Recently much has been made of the grounding relation, and of the idea that it is intimately tied to fundamentality. If A grounds B, then A is more fundamental than B (though not vice versa ), and A is ungrounded if and only if it is fundamental full stop—absolutely fundamental. But here is a puzzle: is grounding itself absolutely fundamental?

Recent defenses of shaming as an effective tool for identifying bad practice and provoking social change appear compatible with feminism. I complicate this picture by examining two instances of online feminist shaming that resulted in shame backlashes. Shaming requires the assertion of social and epistemic authority on behalf of a larger community, and is dependent upon an audience that will be receptive to the shaming testimony. In cases where marginally situated knowers attempt to “shame up,” it presents challenges for feminist (...) uses. (shrink)

A variety of relations widely invoked by philosophers—composition, constitution, realization, micro-basing, emergence, and many others—are species of what I call ‘building relations’. I argue that they are conceptually intertwined, articulate what it takes for a relation to count as a building relation, and argue that—contra appearances—it is an open possibility that these relations are all determinates of a common determinable, or even that there is really only one building relation.