Asking, How could they do it? about the many ordinary people who have been perpetrators and those who resist extensive evils – genocide, human trafficking, endemic sexualized violations of females, economic exploitation -- the book delves into historic, contemporary, national, and international examples. The author, a moral philosopher, draws also on literature, psychology, economics, journalism, pop culture. Reversing Arendt’s banality of evil, she finds that mind-deadening banality, thoughtless conventionality, ambition, greed, status-seeking enable the evil of banality.

Asking, How could they do it? about the many ordinary people who have been perpetrators and those who resist extensive evils – genocide, human trafficking, endemic sexualized violations of females, economic exploitation -- the book delves into historic, contemporary, national, and international examples. The author, a moral philosopher, draws also on literature, psychology, economics, journalism, pop culture. Reversing Arendt’s banality of evil, she finds that mind-deadening banality, thoughtless conventionality, ambition, greed, status-seeking enable the evil of banality.

'Thinking with Hannah Arendt: An Introduction' suggests that those who read Arendt not as a system-building professional philosopher but, rather, as a thinker whose work invites and (by 'unfreezing' concepts) prepares us to think for ourselves about particular realities of our times will read her as she wished to be read. The essays following this introduction are briefly discussed as examples of such independent engagement and, in that, as truer to Arendt's work than readings by those who approach her from (...) their pre-set theoretical and/or critical stances. (shrink)

This is the first collection of essays to evaluate John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy from a feminist perspective. The variety of feminist interpretations offered here ranges from Jane Addams's praise for his collegial efforts to resolve the problems of the inner city to contemporary comparisons of his approach with Addams's own critique of capitalism as patriarchal. In between are essays assessing Dewey's contributions to feminist theory and practice both in his lifetime and in regard to contemporary feminist approaches to education, subjectivity, (...) objectivity and truth, and social and political philosophy. At a time when feminists are questioning and developing alternatives to the scientistic value-free inquiry advocated by logical positivism, the myth of detached observation informing the epistemological turn, rationalistic ethics, and the model of an unattached, nonrelational subject, this book reminds us of Dewey's early and passionate opposition to the same assumptions and his reconstruction of philosophy as a "method of moral and political diagnoses and prognosis." It has often been remarked that Dewey's pragmatism provides a genuine alternative to the usual masculinist biases of Western philosophy, and the various essays in this book develop this claim more extensively. Contributors, besides the editor, are Jane Addams, Ana M. Martínez Alemán, Paula Droege, Marilyn Fischer, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Judith M. Green, Lisa Heldke, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Erin McKenna, Marjorie C. Miller, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, and Shannon Sullivan. (shrink)

Minnich and Patton gather an eclectic cohort of thought-leaders to reflect on the importance and intricacies of thinking in their respective fields. Philosophically framed and interdisciplinary in approach, this illuminating book is designed to be supremely useful to readers from all backgrounds.

This is a unique, groundbreaking study in the history of philosophy, combining leading men and women philosophers across 2600 years of Western philosophy, covering key foundational topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Introductory essays, primary source readings, and commentaries comprise each chapter to offer a rich and accessible introduction to and evaluation of these vital philosophical contributions. A helpful appendix canvasses an extraordinary number of women philosophers throughout history for further discovery and study.

I should say, before beginning, that I am hearing what you say about Rorty now from the perspective on his work I have (for the time being, at least) as a result of having heard a working paper he presented to the scholars’ workshop of which I was a member at The Getty this winter, and then participating with him in a 4-hour discussion (and following small dinner gathering). I have also recently read his curious rather autobiographical essay, "Trotsky and (...) Wild Orchids," and that too has had some effect. So, I think I am speaking about my sense of where Rorty is now with his thinking, rather than primarily about the Rorty who is contained in the works you are discussing. You might say that whether I am at all right or quite wrong, I am speaking about what I understand to be a person’s evolving thinking, and you are speaking about a body of work bearing a name, Rorty. These are never, of course, quite the same, but engagement of the two is always at least interesting (perhaps particularly so to those of us interested more in philosophizing than in Philosophy, if I may put it that way). (shrink)

Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments—and why we can’t see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, (...) diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom. (shrink)

In 2008, Peter Felten, the founding director of Elon's Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, asked me to coordinate an inaugural two-year teaching and learning seminar for faculty, to focus on some element of engaged learning (Elon University's pedagogical focus). We titled the project the Elon Research Seminar on Engaged Undergraduate Learning. As a philosopher who works at the intersections of political philosophy and the scholarship of teaching and learning and as one interested in the relationships among democracy, (...) responsibility, and progressive social justice activism, I decided to ask Elizabeth Minnich, senior scholar for the Association of American Colleges and Universities Office of .. (shrink)

This article reviews John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect, A Critical Engagement with Dewey's Democracy and Education, edited and spearheaded by David T. Hansen, with contributions by Gert Biesta, Reba N. Page, Larry A. Hickman, Naoko Saito, Gary D. Fenstermacher, Herbert M. Kliebard, Sharon Fieman-Nemser and Elizabeth Minnich. This review will not only praise and evaluate the merits of this book, but will also attempt to frame this new study of Dewey within the challenges that continue to engage (...) education in the realms of democracy, as the latter continues to strive for its own survival. While highlighting salient aspects of Hansen et al.'s rereading of Dewey's great work, this review seeks to frame both Dewey's text and this Deweyan study within the breadth of those other challenges by which education—and in turn philosophy of education—has come to take on issues such as: the nexus between theory and practice, the prevalent domination of the social scientific paradigm in education and the continuous threat of the standardisation and institutionalisation of human learning. It will be argued that, to meet this challenge, philosophy of education must sustain a continuous engagement with Dewey's work. A rereading of Dewey also involves a revaluation of his pragmatic theory of education and its lineage, moving from Emerson's metaphilosophy to Cavell's ethics. As Hansen et al. invariably engage with the latter, this review will question, through Adorno and Horkheimer's critique of pragmatisation, whether Deweyan pragmatism can still challenge the current state of affairs by which education is not only systematised away from learning, but also subsumed into a more institutionalised state—a condition that immediately jars with Dewey's own philosophical instincts and pedagogical labours. (shrink)

Introducing the work of three French feminists - Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Michele L Doeuff - "Sexual Subversions" provides access to the work of these writers. In doing so this book raises some key issues of relevance to feminist research, addressing debates around the nature of feminist theory; the relationship between feminist thinking theory; the relationship between feminist thinking and male-dominated areas of knowledge; the strategies appropriate for developing non-patriarchal or woman-centered knowledges. No book on French feminists would be (...) complete without including the contributions of Kristeva and Irigaray. The inclusion of Le Doeuff's work, which brings a different perspective to bear on the question of sexual difference, provides a counterbalance to literary appropriations of French feminism by Anglo-American readerships. Kristeva, Irigaray and Le Doeuff are the focal points of this study, precisely because each highlights the differences of the others, revealing the frameworks to which the others are committed. Nevertheless, while these writers do not present a common political or theoretical position or form a school, each does address the question of women's autonomy from male definition, affirms the sexual specificity of women, seeks out a femininity women can use to question the patriarchal norms and ideals of femininity and rejects the preordained positions patriarchy allots to woman. This book is intended for students and researchers in women's studies, philosophy and feminism. (shrink)

Marking a ground-breaking moment in the debate surrounding bodies and "body politics," Elizabeth Grosz's Space, Time and Perversion contends that only by resituating and rethinking the body will feminism and cultural analysis effect and unsettle the knowledges, disciplines and institutions which have controlled, regulated and managed the body both ideologically and materially. Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy, and--in a controversial way--queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped bodies of their specificity, their corporeality, and the vestigal (...) traces of their production as bodies. Her tour de corpe investigates the work of Michel Foucault, Teresa de Lauretis, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler and Alphonso Lingis. Grosz considers their work by examining the ways in which the functioning of bodies transforms understandings of space and time, knowledge and desire. Begining with an exposition of the epistemological implications of bodily and sexual difference, Grosz examines the effects such knowledge have on the reception of meaning. She looks at the relationship between the knowledge of difference and the way that knowledge validates, affirms, avows and valorizes subjects. Grosz then extends this analysis to an investigation of the relationship between space, time, bodies and the spatial "arts" such as architecuture, urban planning and geography. In the last section, Grosz moves toward a radical consideration of bodies and their relationship to transgression and perversity. Controversially showing the ways in which "queer" theory fails to offer a truly transformative conception of bodies and their politics, Grosz finds "queer" a reactive category "which sees itself in opposition to a straight norm and thus defines itself in terms of this norm." Consequentially, "queer" theory inherits the acceptance of an entire range of sexual practices, without "asking what they share and without taking into account the profound tension that may exist among these practices." Grosz's Space, Time and Perversity is a diverse and incisive collection of essays from a renowned feminist philosopher. (shrink)

What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies that promote workers' dignity and standing? Hijacked explores how the history of political economy has been a contest between these two ideas about whom the work ethic is supposed to serve. Today's neoliberal ideology deploys the work ethic on behalf of the One Percent. However, workers and their advocates have long used the work (...) ethic on behalf of ordinary people. By exposing the ideological roots of contemporary neoliberalism as a perversion of the seventeenth-century Protestant work ethic, Elizabeth Anderson shows how we can reclaim the original goals of the work ethic, and uplift ourselves again. Hijacked persuasively and powerfully demonstrates how ideas inspired by the work ethic informed debates among leading political economists of the past, and how these ideas can help us today. (shrink)

This book addresses fundamental questions about marriage in moral and political philosophy. It examines promise, commitment, care, and contract to argue that marriage is not morally transformative. It argues that marriage discriminates against other forms of caring relationships and that, legally, restrictions on entry should be minimized.

This article reviews John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect, A Critical Engagement with Dewey’s Democracy and Education, edited and spearheaded by David T. Hansen, with contributions by Gert Biesta, Reba N. Page, Larry A. Hickman, Naoko Saito, Gary D. Fenstermacher, Herbert M. Kliebard, Sharon Fieman-Nemser and Elizabeth Minnich. This review will not only praise and evaluate the merits of this book, but will also attempt to frame this new study of Dewey within the challenges that continue to engage (...) education in the realms of democracy, as the latter continues to strive for its own survival. While highlighting salient aspects of Hansen et al.’s rereading of Dewey’s great work, this review seeks to frame both Dewey’s text and this Deweyan study within the breadth of those other challenges by which education—and in turn philosophy of education—has come to take on issues such as: the nexus between theory and practice, the prevalent domination of the social scientific paradigm in education and the continuous threat of the standardisation and institutionalisation of human learning. It will be argued that, to meet this challenge, philosophy of education must sustain a continuous engagement with Dewey’s work. A rereading of Dewey also involves a revaluation of his pragmatic theory of education and its lineage, moving from Emerson’s metaphilosophy to Cavell’s ethics. As Hansen et al. invariably engage with the latter, this review will question, through Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of pragmatisation, whether Deweyan pragmatism can still challenge the current state of affairs by which education is not only systematised away from learning, but also subsumed into a more institutionalised state—a condition that immediately jars with Dewey’s own philosophical instincts and pedagogical labours. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organisational behaviour is an ongoing concern, prompting the need for more nuanced understanding of the workplace environment most likely to inhibit it. This study considers the role of risk climate, sometimes referred to as risk culture, as well as ethical climate, for reducing UPB. The study investigates whether four risk climate factors can, by focusing on the long-term consequences of UPB to the organisation, and providing guidance on behavioural norms, reduce UPB misconduct. Surveying employees in three financial institutions we (...) found that only one of the risk climate factors, avoidance, is consistently associated with UPB. On the other hand, a self-interested, ethical climate significantly increases UPB in all samples. In multi-climate analysis, we found that risk climate factors interacted with ethical climate to predict UPB. That is, when employees perceive that the workplace ethos is not self-interested, three factors of risk climate—avoidance, proactive and manager—significantly predict UPB. UPB is least likely when self-interest is low, avoidance risk climate is low, proactive risk climate is high and manager risk climate is high. Implications for leaders are discussed. (shrink)

Essays at the intersection of philosophy and architecture explore how we understand and inhabit space. To be outside allows one a fresh perspective on the inside. In these essays, philosopher Elizabeth Grosz explores the ways in which two disciplines that are fundamentally outside each another—architecture and philosophy—can meet in a third space to interact free of their internal constraints. "Outside" also refers to those whose voices are not usually heard in architectural discourse but who inhabit its space—the destitute, the (...) homeless, the sick, and the dying, as well as women and minorities. Grosz asks how we can understand space differently in order to structure and inhabit our living arrangements accordingly. Two themes run throughout the book: temporal flow and sexual specificity. Grosz argues that time, change, and emergence, traditionally viewed as outside the concerns of space, must become more integral to the processes of design and construction. She also argues against architecture's historical indifference to sexual specificity, asking what the existence of (at least) two sexes has to do with how we understand and experience space. Drawing on the work of such philosophers as Henri Bergson, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan, Grosz raises abstract but nonformalistic questions about space, inhabitation, and building. All of the essays propose philosophical experiments to render space and building more mobile and dynamic. (shrink)

It has been argued that people in areas with high pathogen loads will be more likely to avoid outsiders, to be biased in favor of in-groups, and to hold collectivist and conformist values. Cross-national studies have supported these predictions. In this paper we provide new pathogen codes for the 186 cultures of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample and use them, together with existing pathogen and ethnographic data, to try to replicate these cross-national findings. In support of the theory, we found that (...) cultures in high pathogen areas were more likely to socialize children toward collectivist values (obedience rather than self-reliance). There was some evidence that pathogens were associated with reduced adult dispersal. However, we found no evidence of an association between pathogens and our measures of group bias (in-group loyalty and xenophobia) or intergroup contact. (shrink)

Recent defenses of same-sex marriage and polygamy have invoked the liberal doctrines of neutrality and public reason. Such reasoning is generally sound but does not go far enough. This paper traces the full implications of political liberalism for marriage. I argue that the constraints of public reason, applied to marriage law, entail ‘minimal marriage’, the most extensive set of state-determined restrictions on marriage compatible with political liberalism. Minimal marriage sets no principled restrictions on the sex or number of spouses and (...) the nature and purpose of their caring relationships, nor on which marital rights are exchanged, and whether they are exchanged reciprocally or asymmetrically. Minimal marriage supports adult care networks, urban tribes, friendships, and other forms of relationships as well as ‘traditional’ marriages. I provide a publically justifiable rationale for a legal framework supporting non-dependent caring relationships between adults. The argument is that caring relationships are primary goods, and that liberal justice accordingly requires legal frameworks supporting caring relationships. Minimal marriage is one such framework. (shrink)

My primary aim is to call into question an influential notion of paternal responsibility, namely, that fathers owe support to their children due to their causal responsibility for their existence. I argue that men who impregnate women unintentionally, and despite having taken preventative measures, do not owe child support to their children as a matter of justice; their children have no right against them to support. I argue for this on the basis of plausible principles of responsibility which have been (...) used to defend abortion rights. I then consider the morally relevant differences between men and women, arguing that while in some cases these differences may justify differential treatment, their import should not be overstated - in many cases, the burden of child support will be too great to impose justly on fathers. This conclusion is not as undesirable as it may seem: I suggest feminist considerations in favor of revising the notion of paternal responsibility and considering alternative arrangements of child support. (shrink)

In _On Paradox_ literary and legal scholar Elizabeth S. Anker contends that faith in the logic of paradox has been the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century. She attributes the ubiquity of paradox in the humanities to its appeal as an incisive tool for exposing and dismantling hierarchies. Tracing the ascent of paradox in theories of modernity, in rights discourse, in the history of literary criticism and the linguistic turn, and in the transformation (...) of the liberal arts in higher education, Anker suggests that paradox not only generates the very exclusions it critiques but also creates a disempowering haze of indecision. She shows that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic: it engrains a startling homogeneity of thought while undercutting the commitment to social justice that remains a guiding imperative of theory. Rather than calling for a wholesale abandonment of such reasoning, Anker argues for an expanded, diversified theory toolkit that can help theorists escape the seductions and traps of paradox. (shrink)

Scientists’ sense of social responsibility is particularly relevant for emerging technologies. Since a regulatory vacuum can sometimes occur in the early stages of these technologies, individual scientists’ social responsibility might be one of the most significant checks on the risks and negative consequences of this scientific research. In this article, we analyze data from a 2011 mail survey of leading U.S. nanoscientists to explore their perceptions the regarding social and ethical responsibilities for their nanotechnology research. Our analyses show that leading (...) U.S. nanoscientists express a moderate level of social responsibility about their research. Yet, they have a strong sense of ethical obligation to protect laboratory workers from unhealthy exposure to nanomaterials. We also find that there are significant differences in scientists’ sense of social and ethical responsibility depending on their demographic characteristics, job affiliation, attention to media content, risk perceptions and benefit perceptions. We conclude with some implications for future research. (shrink)

Much of the bioethical literature on parenthood does not address a fact about parenthood which deserves more attention: parental rights and obligations are attached to socially constructed institutional roles. Both the content of these roles, and the way in which they determine who a child’s parents will be, issue from social and legal institutions of parenthood, and this makes a difference to accounts of the moral basis of parenthood. I will argue that this poses a problem for the causal account (...) of parenthood: the variability of parental obligations, and their assignment, underscores the problems the causal account has with defining the relevant notion of cause and with fixing procreative costs. If institutional role obligations arise only through voluntary undertakings, then understanding moral parenthood as an institutional role makes the voluntarist account of parenthood more attractive. However, I must address two questions: whether such role obligations can arise non-voluntarily, and whether the voluntarist account can deal with common cases of parenthood. (shrink)

Linking specific nursing actions to outcomes in the healthcare setting is challenging. Patient outcomes are varied and influenced by a myriad of factors, and always involve a wider team than any one nurse. It is difficult to control for a single action or set of actions of a particular nurse. Furthermore, practice is seldom about any ‘one’ action, for one thing leads to another, all within a complex interplay of influencing factors. In this article, we outline a research method which (...) combined Dewey's pragmatism with Gadamer's hermeneutics to explore the consequences of the nurse's use of advanced assessment skills in the acute care setting of medical and surgical wards. This pragmatic hermeneutic methodological approach allowed the complex interplay of influences to be revealed in the unfolding story. Reflection of the nurse brought insights that may otherwise have been passed over. The philosophical notions of Dewey drew attention to the play of ‘means’ and ‘ends’. A hermeneutic approach that calls for ‘thinking’ extends understanding and raises insights that can inform education and practice. (shrink)

This essay is a critical engagement with recent assessments of comparative religious ethics by John Kelsay and Jung Lee. Contra Kelsay's proposal to return to a neo-Weberian sociology of religious norm elaboration and justification, the authors argue that comparative religious ethics is and should be practiced as a field of study in active conversation with other fields that consider human flourishing, employing a variety of methods that have their roots in multiple disciplines. Cross-pollination from a variety of disciplines is a (...) strength of comparative ethics, which has enlivened recent and ongoing research on ethics, not a problem to be resolved by convergence on a single, distinctively comparative project. The authors also argue in response to Lee and Kelsay that while individual comparative studies of virtue and personal formation can be flawed in various ways, this line of research has been productive and at times very compelling. Moreover, attention to comparative virtue ethics shows how scholarship on some ethical topics necessitates drawing on a variety of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds, a conclusion relevant to all work in religious ethics today. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that mass incarceration belongs to a category of social status interventions by which the modern state either withholds the ordinary protections and benefits of the law from outlawed groups or subjects them to private punishment based on their mere membership in those groups. In the US these groups include immigrants and resident Latinos, the homeless, the poor and poor blacks, sex workers, and ex-convicts. Outlawry is a fundamentally anti-democratic practice that cannot be justified in terms (...) of deterrence and is incompatible with public safety. (shrink)

Males in many non-monogamous species have larger ranges than females do, a sex difference that has been well documented for decades and seems to be an aspect of male mating competition. Until recently, parallel data for humans have been mostly anecdotal and qualitative, but this is now changing as human behavioral ecologists turn their attention to matters of individual mobility. Sex differences in spatial cognition were among the first accepted psychological sex differences and, like differences in ranging behavior, are documented (...) for a growing set of species. This special issue is dedicated to exploring the possible adaptive links between these cognitive and ranging traits. Multiple hypotheses, at various levels of analysis, are considered. At the functional (ultimate) level, a mating-competition hypothesis suggests that range expansion may augment mating opportunities, and a fertility-and-parental-care hypothesis suggests that range contraction may facilitate offspring provisioning. At a more mechanistic (proximate) level, differences in cue availability may support or inhibit particular sex-specific navigation strategies, and spatial anxiety may usefully inhibit travel that would not justify its costs. Studies in four different cultures—Twe, Tsimane, Yucatec Maya, and Faroese—as well as an experimental study using virtual reality tools are the venue for testing these hypotheses. Our hope is to stimulate more research on the evolutionary and developmental processes responsible for this suite of linked behavioral and cognitive traits. (shrink)

This book is about what exceeds or resists calculation--in life and in death. Its two parts and nine chapters highlight, in their coupling of Freud and Derrida, the accidents both in and of psychoanalytic writing, and the philosophical question of what limits the openness of our horizon.

Wedding vows seem to be promises. So they go: I promise to love, honour, and cherish .... But this poses a problem. Divorce is not widely seen as a serious moral wrong, but breaking a promise is. I first consider, and defend against preliminary objections, a ‘hard-line’ response: divorce is indeed prima facie impermissible promise-breaking. I next consider the ‘hardship’ response—the hardship of failed marriages overrides the prima facie duty to keep promises. However, this would release promisors in far too (...) many cases. I resolve the triad by considering the content of the vows. Vows concerning love are not promises at all. We cannot promise to do acts the performance of which is outside our control, and love involves states of mind outside our control. Vows concerning spousal roles are complicated by diverse social understandings of marriage and the centrality of emotion to the roles. (shrink)

This article reflects one scholar's attempt to locate herself within emerging ethical methodologies given a specific concern with cross-cultural women's moral praxis. The field of comparative ethics's debt to past debates over methodology is considered through a typology of three waves of methodological invention. The article goes on to describe a specific research focus on U.S. Catholic and Iranian Shii women that initiated a search for a distinct method. This method of comparative ethics, which focuses on the production of ethical (...) knowledge through the interaction of discursive logics of various moral agents, is described. The conclusion turns to how methodological invention can itself become a constructive project through the way it (1) locates the scholar in relation to her subject of study and (2) allows for isolation of tactics within specific moral discourses. (shrink)

Concerns about children's ability to fully comprehend and evaluate advertising messages has stimulated substantial research and heated debate among scholars, business leaders, consumer advocates, and public policy makers for more than three decades. During that time, some very fundamental questions about the fairness of marketing to children have been raised, yet many remain unresolved today. With the emergence of increasingly sophisticated advertising media, promotional offers and creative appeals in recent years, new issues have also developed. This paper provides a basis (...) for further examination of some the key questions in this area, and suggests how children's advertising research can be employed to illuminate them. (shrink)