In R_ousseau on Education, Freedom, and Judgment_, Denise Schaeffer challenges the common view of Rousseau as primarily concerned with conditioning citizens’ passions in order to promote republican virtue and unreflective patriotic attachment to the fatherland. Schaeffer argues that, to the contrary, Rousseau’s central concern is the problem of judgment and how to foster it on both the individual and political level in order to create the conditions for genuine self-rule. Offering a detailed commentary on Rousseau’s major work (...) on education, Emile, and a wide-ranging analysis of the relationship between Emile and several of Rousseau’s other works, Schaeffer explores Rousseau’s understanding of what good judgment is, how it is learned, and why it is central to the achievement and preservation of human freedom. The model of Rousseauian citizenship that emerges from Schaeffer’s analysis is more dynamic and self-critical than is often acknowledged. This book demonstrates the importance of Rousseau’s contribution to our understanding of the faculty of judgment, and, more broadly, invites a critical reevaluation of Rousseau’s understanding of education, citizenship, and both individual and collective freedom. (shrink)

Given the many differences among women, can feminist theory even speak in terms of the category "woman?" This is the question that currently dominates feminist theory. Theorists who subscribe to traditional feminism argue that feminism must, for political and philosophic reasons, employ the category "woman." Those who take a poststructuralist approach, however, assert that invoking "woman" is an oppressive tactic that advances an essentialist ideal that is oppressive to women no matter what the content of that ideal. Even a "feminist" (...) understanding of "woman" does violence to difference, they charge. Based on the many different ways in which any abstraction manifests itself concretely, they determine that the abstraction is a myth and reality is in fact radically contingent and discursively constructed; it is an ever-shifting field. We can never claim to "know" woman because to know her is only to know she is not knowable. Knowledge has no connection to any stable "being." ;This branch of feminist theory has gained increasing ascendance; currently, the charge of "essentialism" is almost enough to undermine the legitimacy of any feminist theory, no matter what other merits it may possess. But many feminists are uneasy with poststructuralism's depiction of reality and its implications: the impossibility of knowledge and the impossibility of political discourse which invokes an understanding of truth or the good. Yet neither do these traditional feminists wish to foreclose continued questioning. Some feminists try to combine the insights of poststructuralism, and the preservation of questions, with more traditional understandings of knowledge, the subject and reality. They assert that we must somehow combine both contingency and stability in our understanding of "woman." But they do not fully articulate of how both contingency and stability coexist, or how difference and unity coexist. These issues are addressed at length by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, from which feminists can learn a great deal about these tensions. Aristotle is not "traditional" in the simplistic way that he is often portrayed to be. His understanding of being combines many of the insights claimed by poststructuralism without severing the connection between knowledge and being. (shrink)

Engaging a broad range of Platonic dialogues, this collection of essays by distinguished scholars in political theory and philosophy explores the relation of Socratic philosophizing to those activities with which it is typically opposed—such as tyranny, sophistry, poetry, and rhetoric. The essays show that the harder one tries to disentangle Socrates’ own activity from that of its apparent opposite, the more entangled they become; yet, it is only by taking this entanglement seriously that the distinctive character of Socratic philosophy emerges. (...) The collection sheds new light on the ways in which Plato not only represents philosophy in relation to what it is not, but also makes it “strange” to itself. (shrink)

WE MUST CONSIDER CAREFULLY why Aristotle’s Metaphysics opens not with the question of being but with the question of knowledge. “All human beings desire to know” is the first sentence and raises the issue of the first two chapters, which, along with Nicomachean Ethics book 6, constitute Aristotle’s fullest treatment of the question of wisdom. Clearly, if we take seriously the order of the books of the Metaphysics as they have been transmitted to us, Book Α is an introduction. Yet (...) what does it mean to be an introduction? We need not work backwards from the question of being in order to see the significance of the opening treatment of knowledge. In what follows I will argue that the question of wisdom is not simply Aristotle’s “informal introduction to the investigation of being,” but rather raises important questions which themselves generate a turn to an examination of being. (shrink)

What is it about the nature of "soul" that makes it so difficult to adequately capture its complexity in a strictly discursive account? Why do some of the most profound human experiences elude our attempts to theorize them? How can a written document do justice to the dynamic activity of thinking, as opposed to merely presenting a collection of thoughts-as-artifacts? Finally, what can we learn about the activity of philosophizing, and about the human soul, by reflecting on the possibilities and (...) limitations of writing? These concerns, in various forms and in different registers, have preoccupied Michael Davis throughout his distinguished career. This volume is in honor of, and in dialogue with, Davis's work, which spans ancient philosophy and literature, continental philosophy and political philosophy. It includes original essays by numerous distinguished scholars in the fields of philosophy and political science. The remarkable range and caliber of the contributions attest to the breadth and depth of Davis's influence. The essays in Part I of the volume explore the nature of soul through the lens of tragedy. Part II consists of three essays that explore the human longing for perfect knowledge and completion--and the obstacles to the fulfilment of that longing--in relation to the divine. In Part III, the essays address the distinctive challenges of the political sphere and philosophy's relation to it. And while the relationship between philosophy and poetry is an implicit theme throughout the volume, the essays in Part IV focus directly on philosophy's aestheticizing tendencies. Many different philosophical and literary works are discussed throughout these chapters, including ancient works such as Plato's Republic, Euthydemus and Laws, Homer's Iliad, and Euripides' Trojan Women, as well as works by modern philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. In addition, three essays analyze some of Shakespeare's plays in relation to the thought of Plato and Machiavelli. All of the essays are thematically linked by a common thread as they attend to the poetic dimension of philosophical thinking. Michael Davis is Professor of Philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College, where he has taught since 1977 and has been the Sarah Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence (2003-2005). He has also taught on the graduate faculty at Fordham University and the New School for Social Research. He is the author of numerous articles and books, which include: Ancient Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Science; The Poetry of Philosophy: On Aristotle's Poetics; The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle's Politics; The Autobiography of Philosophy; Rousseau's The Reveries of the Solitary Walker; Wonderlust: Ruminations on Liberal Education; and The Soul of the Greeks: An Inquiry. He is also co-translator (with Seth Benardete) of Aristotle's On Poetics. Contributors include: Abraham Anderson, Jonathan Badger, Robert Berman, Ronna Burger, Kenneth DeLuca, Gwenda-lin Grewal, Scott Hemmenway, Paul Kirkland, Mary Nichols, Denise Schaeffer, Paul Stern, Richard Velkley, Lisa Pace Vetter, Ann Ward, Lee Ward, Catherine Zuckert and Michael Zuckert. About the Editor: Denise Schaeffer is Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of Rousseau on Education, Freedom and Judgment and contributing co-editor (with Christopher Dustin) of Socratic Philosophy and Its Others. She is co-editor (with Gregory McBrayer and Mary P. Nichols) of the Focus Philosophical Library edition of Plato's Euthydemus, for which she authored the Introduction and co-authored the Interpretive Essay. (shrink)

This book is both far reaching and tightly focused. It is an effort to recover the origins of philosophy in wonder, and particularly wonder at its own possibility. In the first half of the book, Davis discusses Heidegger, Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Plato. While acknowledging that these philosophers quite obviously differ, Davis argues that they share a core understanding of philosophy as an activity, as a verb. Philosophy raises questions about the nature of being and of the world in a self-reflective (...) manner that necessarily leads to questions about the conditions for the possibility of asking such questions. Thus the inquiry into the nature of the world entails an inquiry into the nature of the human soul and its capacity for philosophy. This is what it means for philosophy to be autobiographical. Davis makes clear the way in which the autobiographical quality of philosophy is fundamental to each philosopher's project without claiming that his presentation of that philosopher is exhaustive. (shrink)

Engaging a broad range of Platonic dialogues, this collection of essays by distinguished scholars in political theory and philosophy explores the relation of Socratic philosophizing to those activities with which it is typically opposed—such as tyranny, sophistry, poetry, and rhetoric. The essays show that the harder one tries to disentangle Socrates’ own activity from that of its apparent opposite, the more entangled they become; yet, it is only by taking this entanglement seriously that the distinctive character of Socratic philosophy emerges. (...) The collection sheds new light on the ways in which Plato not only represents philosophy in relation to what it is not, but also makes it “strange” to itself. (shrink)

A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does (...) servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Prior researchers have studied individual components of a theoretical decision-making model. This paper presents the results of a more complete study of the model components and presents limited support of theory. The study examines the relative importance of regulatory, organizational, and personal constructs on an individual''s ethical sensitivity. Auditors from the major international accounting firms, located in two southeastern cities, are surveyed. Structural equation modeling is used to allow for the simultaneous evaluation of the three constructs of interest. The results (...) indicate that the regulatory and organizational constructs are negatively correlated with the personal experience construct. The three constructs are not significant causal factors on ethical sensitivity. This result may be due to the manner in which ethical sensitivity is typically measured or may indicate that the complexity of the ethical decision-making process is not fully captured in the theoretical models. Thus, the models suggested in the prior literature and the results presented in prior studies of the individual components may need to be reconsidered. (shrink)

Partindo da noção de discurso de Michel Foucault buscamos pontuar os efeitos das falas comumente admitidas sobre o(a) professor(a) nos meios sociais e as formas como essas falas corroboram a instituição da figura do(a) bom(boa) professor(a). Para tanto recorremos aos textos publicados na seção "Obrigado, professor" da revista Nova Escola, sobre os quais empreendemos nossa análise.

This study examines interactions in which students help each other with their learning during classroom instruction, forming groups in the process. From a conversation analytic perspective, helping is assumed to be a sequentially organized activity jointly accomplished by the participants. As an activity that proceeds alongside other ongoing classroom activities, helping can be conceived as part of a multiactivity that poses students with multi-faceted interactional and moral challenges. While previous research on helping in educational contexts has primarily focused on the (...) influence of helping on learning outcomes and social dynamics in helping interactions, the present study investigates how students cope with the intricacies of moral commitments inherent in helping as a concurrent activity. The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, we aim to elaborate on how students’ dual involvements – i.e., their involvement in classroom activities while simultaneously providing help – manifest in the ways in which groups are constituted, maintained, and dissolved. The analyses reveal that both the compatibility of helping with the activity already in progress as well as the students’ problem definition are consequential for the sequential and bodily-spatial unfolding of the help interaction, inducing different arrangements that constitute a continuum, at each end of which there is a dominant orientation toward the shared space of helping or toward the individual/collective space. Furthermore, from a methodological perspective, our study aims to demonstrate the extent to which multimodal interaction analysis is applicable when examining naturally occurring groups, in this case, in interactive processes of helping. The study is based on a data corpus that comprises video recordings of mathematics and German lessons from two fifth-grade classrooms. (shrink)

Mediating the meaning of evidence through epistemological diversity Nursing's disciplinary recognition of ‘multiple ways of knowing’ reflects an epistemological diversity that supports nursing praxis. Nursing as praxis offers a conceptual way to explore what it is about the interface of practice, knowledge and evidence in nursing that distinguishes us as a discipline. I suggest that the relationship between evidence and knowledge is defined and mediated by the same epistemological diversity that supports nursing as praxis. Just as the meaning and truth‐value (...) of evidence is evaluated from within the body of existing disciplinary knowledge, new evidence may prompt an evaluation of the meaning and truth‐value of extant nursing knowledge. Nursing practice that relies on scientific evidence as a singular basis of practice knowledge is susceptible to exploitation by the diverse agendas operating within an ideology of evidence‐based practice and the healthcare system. Mediating the meaning of evidence for nursing practice through acknowledgement of the diverse epistemologies that underpin nursing knowledge will contribute to a disciplinary‐specific definition of what constitutes evidence for nursing, and will better direct how evidence is integrated into a disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

Over several articles, John McDowell sketches an analogy between virtue and perception, whereby the virtuous person sees situations in a distinctive way, a way that explains her virtuous behavior. Central to this view is his notion of silencing, a psychological phenomenon in which certain considerations fail to operate as reasons in a virtuous person's practical reasoning. Despite its influence on many prominent virtue ethicists, McDowell's ‘silencing view’ has been criticized as psychologically unrealistic. In this article, I defend a silencing view (...) of practical reasoning. I argue that the phenomenon of silencing has a narrower scope than is typically acknowledged. As a result, the view does not require the virtuous to be detached, unfeeling, or unpalatably stoic. Furthermore, I offer a psychologically plausible interpretation of McDowell's claim that the virtuous see situations in a distinctive sort of way. The salient fact at which the virtuous arrive in their view of a situation should be understood, I argue, in terms of subjective construal. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in initiating life-sustaining health technology is complex and often conducted at time-critical junctures in clinical care. Many of these decisions have profound, often irreversible, consequences for the child and family, as well as potential benefits for functioning, health and quality of life. Yet little is known about what influences these decisions. A systematic review of reasoning identified the range of reasons clinicians give in the literature when initiating technology dependence in a child, and as a result helps determine the (...) range of influences on these decisions.MethodsMedline, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Web of Science, ASSIA and Global Health Library databases were searched to identify all reasons given for the initiation of technology dependence in a child. Each reason was coded as a broad and narrow reason type, and whether it supported or rejected technology dependence.Results53 relevant papers were retained from 1604 publications, containing 116 broad reason types and 383 narrow reason types. These were grouped into broad thematic categories: clinical factors, quality of life factors, moral imperatives and duty and personal values; and whether they supported, rejected or described the initiation of technology dependence. The majority were conceptual or discussion papers, less than a third were empirical studies. Most discussed neonates and focused on end-of-life care.ConclusionsThere is a lack of empirical studies on this topic, scant knowledge about the experience of older children and their families in particular; and little written on choices made outside ‘end-of-life’ care. This review provides a sound basis for empirical research into the important influences on a child’s potential technology dependence. (shrink)

Job burnout, organizational commitment, and work environment continue to be important areas of research to be studied in the realm of company employment and employee retention. Job burnout is the state of physical and emotional exhaustion and perceiving one’s profession as dull or overwhelming. Meanwhile, organizational commitment refers to the company’s attitude towards the organization and their employees, encompassing loyalty, moral responsibility, and their willingness to work. And lastly, work environment provides opportunities for employees to establish connections, develop skills, and (...) maximize their full potential in performing tasks. For the current study, researchers utilized descriptive-correlational research design to investigate the influence of Work Environment towards the job burnout and organizational commitment of BPO agents in selected companies in Bulacan, Philippines. Hence, Danish Psychosocial Work Environment Questionnaire (DPQ), Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS), and the Three-Dimensional Model of Organizational Commitment Scale (ACS, NCS, CCS) were employed to properly assess the study's objectives. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was performed to analyze the collected data. Based on the analysis, findings show that work environment has no significant influence on the job burnout and organizational commitment of BPO Agents. Furthermore, the results of this study were thoroughly evaluated, leading to an in-depth discussion. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to benefit the stakeholders of the study and contributeto the existing body of knowledge. (shrink)

Radical Feminism Today offers a timely and engaging account of exactly what feminism is, and what it is not. Author Denise Thompson questions much of what has come to be taken for granted as `feminism' and points to the limitations of implicitly defining feminism in terms of `women', `gender', `difference' or `race//gender//class'. She challenges some of the most widely accepted ideas about feminism and in doing so opens up a number of hitheto closed debates, allowing for the possibility of (...) moving those debates further. (shrink)

Ethics consultants and critical care clinicians reflect on Seattle’s early experience as the United States’ first epicenter of COVID-19. We discuss ethically salient issues confronted at UW Medicin...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.2 (2000) 88-112 [Access article in PDF] Milton's Aesthetics Of Eating Denise Gigante It is not a little curious that, with the exception of Ben Jonson (and he did not speak gravely about it so often), the poet in our own country who has written with the greatest gusto on the subject of eating is Milton. He omits none of the pleasures of the palate, great or (...) small. In his Latin poems, when young, he speaks of the pears and chestnuts which he used to roast at the fire with his friend Diodati. Junkets and other "country-messes" are not forgotten in his "Allegro." The simple Temptation in the Wilderness, "Command that these stones be made bread" (which was quite sufficient for a hunger that had fasted "forty days"), is turned, in Paradise Regained, with more poetry than propriety, into the set out of a great feast, containing every delicacy in and out of season. The very "names" of the viands, he says, were "exquisite." And in Paradise Lost, Eve is not only described as being skilful in paradisaical cookery ("tempering dulcet creams"), but the angel Raphael is invited to dinner, and helped by his entertainers to a series of tid-bits and contrasted relishes--Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change. --Leigh Hunt, "Eating Songs" The title of an old play gives us a direct taste and surmise of its inwards, as the first lines of the Paradise Lost smack of the great Poem. --John Keats, "On 'Retribution, or the Chieftain's Daughter'" That Milton's Romantic readers should invoke the "taste" of his epic poetry suggests an awareness beyond the anecdotal. For as this essay will show, Milton complicates the category of physiological taste in such a manner as to form the ground for the possibility of aesthetic taste, which emerges as a distinct discourse in the early years of the eighteenth century. This is not to say that Milton is the only source for this dubious meaning-in-transition. But precisely how, prior to the interventions of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and the entire tradition of post-Miltonic theorists of taste, is one to read Adam's darkly sardonic postlapsarian remark: "Eve, now I see thou art exact of taste... And Palate call judicious" [PL IX.1017-20]? Critics have observed Milton's "ruthless and relentless pressure on 'taste,'" the fact that the word and its variants appear thirty times in Book IX of Paradise Lost alone [Ricks 69]. What I would like to suggest is that just as Milton is a seminal figure for the eighteenth-century aesthetic preoccupation with the sublime, 1 he is theoretically situated at the origins of the more generic thing called taste as well. [End Page 88]Of course Milton himself was aware of the epistemological implications of taste, whereby the Latin sapere can mean both "to taste" and "to know." 2 The fruit whose "mortal taste" was the source of all our woe did, after all, grow on the tree of knowledge, knowingly described by Satan as "precious of all Trees / In Paradise, of operation blest / To Sapience" [PL I.2, IX.795-97]. So too, when Adam calls Eve "exact of taste," he adds "of Sapience no small part" [PL IX.1018]. Throughout Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Milton plays with the epistemological connotation of taste, incorporating it even into the 1671 companion piece of the latter, Samson Agonistes, whose blind hero declares, "The way to know were not to see but taste" [1091]. At the time Milton was writing, however, taste was philosophically connected not only to knowledge and pleasure, but to morality as well. At the origins of the British empirical discourse of taste, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, inheriting this link between epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, inquires: "Will it not be found... that what is beautiful is... true; and what is at once both beautiful and true is, of consequence, agreeable and good?" [2: 268-69]. For Milton as for Shaftesbury, the beautiful was the true was the good, and access to these ideals was bound up with the philosophic complexity... (shrink)

Surgical innovation involves practices, such as new devices, technologies, procedures, or applications, which are novel and untested. Although innovative practices are believed to offer an improvement on the standard surgical approach, they may prove to be inefficacious or even dangerous. This article considers how surgeons considering innovation should reason in the conditions of uncertainty that characterize innovative surgery. What attitude to the unknown risks of innovative surgery should they take? The answer to this question involves value judgments about the acceptability (...) of risk taking when satisfactory scientific information is not available. This question has been confronted in legal contexts, where risk aversion in the form of the precautionary principle has become increasingly influential as a regulatory response to innovative technologies that pose uncertain future hazards. This article considers whether it is appropriate to apply a precautionary approach when making decisions about innovative surgery. (shrink)

This article explores the process and meaning of occupational mobility among a selected sample of 40 immigrant and nonimmigrant women of Mexican descent in the San Francisco Bay Area who entered the secondary labor market of semiskilled clerical, service, and operative jobs in 1978-1979 and 1980-1981. This labor market was segmented along race and gender lines with few promotional ladders available as the work force became more nonwhite and female. When Chicanas and Mexicanas obtained jobs with fewer Chicano coworkers and (...) greater avenues for advancement, they reported escalating conflictual social relations at work. Occupational mobility contained both objective and subjective dimensions for the respondents. Often a woman felt mobile in a job that lacked the means for advancement because she compared herself to a local Chicano or Mexicano working-class reference group and a self-concept rooted in her class, race, and gender. (shrink)

In such 3D virtual environments (3DVEs) as Second Life, one can ‘be’ re-created as avatar in whatever form one wants to be, facilitated by extensive beauty and cosmetic industries to help the residents of this world achieve a particular kind of glamorous image – limited only by their imaginations and Linden Dollar accounts. Yet, others in 3DVEs are working hard to re-create their avatars to be replicas of their ‘offline’ selves, appearing as they do in actuality. Such phenomena provide a (...) rich opportunity to explore the cultural contexts of ‘self-making’, the process of ‘becoming’ and the transformative, often transgressive, processes of ‘beauty practices’ as bodily praxis and serious play. Drawing on their international ethnographic research undertaken in Second Life, the authors explore the phenomenon of image, affect, subjectivity and representation in this alternative arena. We focus specifically on three interrelated and paradoxical aspects of self-making in this 3D virtual world: first, the ways in which many of our respondents described their avatar personae as symbolically representing their ‘authentic inner selves’; second, the ways our respondents used photography and video to verify and authenticate these ‘inner selves’, through capturing representations of their avatar bodies in action; and, third, the ways ‘authenticity’, for many of our respondents, depended on their avatar image aligning as closely as possible with their bodily appearance off-screen. The concept of what residents of Second Life understand as constituting the ‘authentic inner self’ both in and outside of the virtual world becomes particularly pertinent here. (shrink)

Building on more than two decades offeminist analysis of the family, this article takes a neoinstitutionalist approach to examine some of the ways that sex, gender, and sexual orientation intersect in lesbianheaded two-parent families, affecting how they construct their roles as mothers. Institutionalist theory tends to de-emphasize how actors deliberately construct social arrangements such as parenting roles within the family. The authors' analysis of interviews from 14 lesbian mothers remedies this deficiency by focusing both on how they draw upon and (...) transform institutionalized scripts, practices, and understandings of family roles and relations. Their findings reveal how these mothers reinscribed gendered understandings while simultaneously challenging heteronormative ones in their efforts to construct and maintain socially viable two-parent families. (shrink)

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with (...) both negative and positive reactions. (shrink)

When reasoning about deontic rules (what one may, should, or should not do in a given set of circumstances), reasoners adopt a violation‐detection strategy, a strategy they do not adopt when reasoning about indicative rules (descriptions of purported state of affairs). I argue that this indicative‐deontic distinction constitutes a primitive in the cognitive architecture. To support this claim, I show that this distinction emerges early in development, is observed regardless of the cultural background of the reasoner, and can be selectively (...) disrupted at the neurological level. I also argue that this distinction emerged as a result of selective pressure favouring the evolution of reasoning strategies that determine survival within dominance hierarchies. (shrink)

Empathy is a specific moral aspect of human behavior. The global workplace, and thereby a consideration of employee stakeholders, includes unique behavioral and ethical considerations, including a consideration of human empathy. Further, the human aspects of workplaces are within the domain of human resources and managerial oversight in business organizations. As such, human emotions and interactions are complicated by daily work related expectations, employee/employer interactions and work practices, and the outcomes of employees’ work routines. Business ethics, human resources, and risk (...) management practices are endemic aspects within workplaces. Increasingly, the understanding of models of AI-reliant business practices underscores the need for the consideration of the ethical aspects of AI impacts on employees in the workplace. This paper explores a systematic ethical lens of the opportunities and the risks of AI ideation, development, and deployment in business-employee relations practices beyond a compliance mindset, and that introduces a further set of workplace considerations. Empathy is concerned with human intentions. As such, attributive ethical indications of the role of AI in the workplace and its impacts on employees is necessary. Moreover, this paper uses a cognitive lens of empathy and focuses on artificial morality related to the ethical concerns, implications, and practices of AI development, deployment, and workplace practices that may impact employees in a variety of business aspects. (shrink)

An experiment was conducted to investigate the relative contributions of syntactic form and content to conditional reasoning. The content domain chosen was that of causation. Conditional statements that described causal relationships (if (cause>, then (effect>) were embedded in simple arguments whose entailments are governed by the rules -oftruth-functional logic (i.e., modus ponens, modus tollens, denying the antecedent, and affirming the consequent). The causal statements differed in terms ofthe number of alternative causes and disabling conditions that characterized the causal relationship. (A (...) disabling condition is an event that prevents an effect from occurring even though a relevant cause is present.) Subjects were required to judge whether or not each argument’s conclusion could be accepted. Judgments were found to vary systematically with the number of alternative causes and disabling conditions. Conclusions of arguments based on conditionals with few alternative causes or disabling conditionswerefoun~d:tobe-rnore accept~ able than cdnclusions based on those with many. (shrink)

The return of individual research results to participants raises many socio-ethical issues and is even more challenging when the participant is a child. The objective of this article is to present an overview of the few ethical guidelines and relevant literature addressing the return of individual results in pediatric research. By reviewing policies and the literature, we present some overarching considerations and delineate contextual issues in order to propose a framework.

As a matter of respect for the person, it is considered an ethical duty to offer to return research results to participants where appropriate. Nevertheless, the return of individual research results to participants raises many socio-ethical issues and greater challenges when the participant is a child. This discrepancy arises partly because the return of individual pediatric research results entails a tripartite relationship between researcher, child, and parent and is embroiled in numerous considerations.Extra caution is required in the pediatric research context (...) because children cannot generally decide whether they want to be informed of their own research results or whether the results should be disclosed to parents. Children have long been considered a special and vulnerable group, and their parents, as guardians, play a critical role in the consent process. However, with regards to the return of individual research results, this might pose a potential conflict of interest between the current or future desires of the child and those of the parents. (shrink)

This book is a contribution both to analytical philosophy of mind, and to Marxist philosophy. Marxists see pervasive irrationality in the conduct of human affairs, and claim that people in a class-divided society are prone to a variety of misconceptions. They say that we can suffer from "false consciousness" in our views about what inspires our behavior and in our judgments as to what is good for us. Meyerson uses the techniques of analytic philosophy to investigate this picture and argues (...) that Marxism is committed to the idea of motivated belief, and that the idea is philosophically defensible. She shows that there are other philosophically defensible claims which are congenial to Marxism: that there are facts about interests, that interests are not based on wants, that a desire can be contaminated by its history, that our judgments about our interests do not automatically motivate us, and that beliefs can survive the evidence that they are false. Meyerson throws light on puzzling psychological phenomena which confront everyone in their everyday political experience. (shrink)

Given that translation is always an imperfect process, why do people single out certain words as simply untranslatable? This article looks at one such supposedly untranslatable term, the German word Wissenschaft. Rather than take the word’s status as a given, it examines the historical processes through which Wissenschaft came to be seen as a word impossible to render into English. The article examines a mid-nineteenth century debate about Francis Bacon to show that as late as the 1860s “science” and “ (...) Wissenschaft” were still treated as comparable terms. Wissenschaft began to seem untranslatable only later in the nineteenth century, as part of a critique that set German national character in opposition to the supposedly shallow materialism of the British. After this initial divergence, scholars in the twentieth century continued to elaborate on the difference between the terms, with lasting implications for our retrospective understandings of nineteenth-century intellectual life. (shrink)

The article explores the problem of preferable technological changes in the context of work. To this end, it addresses the ‘why’ (motives and values) and the ‘how’ (organizational forms) of automation from a normative perspective. Concerning the ‘why,’ automation processes are currently mostly driven by values of economic efficiency. Yet, since automation processes are part of the basic structure of society, as is the division of labor, considerations of justice apply to them. As for the ‘how,’ the article suggests ‘fair (...) hybrid cooperation’ as an alternative ideal to guide automation priorities. It is achieved when the division of labor between humans and machines does not hinder, and preferably enables, workers’ experience of certain primary qualities in their work activity. By analogy with Rawls’ primary goods, these are qualities that it is necessary for every worker to experience in order to pursue their life plans: security, self-direction, self-development, dignity, and recognition. According to this criterion, the tasks to automate first are those hindering these contributive primary qualities. This provides us with a normative vocabulary and a standard to orient automation decisions but also to assess existing organizational forms and envisage alternative cooperative imaginaries. To illustrate how the ideal may play out in the real world, the article concludes with a ‘fair hybrid cooperation test’ and a nurse bots case for meaningful work. (shrink)

The Michigan Department of Community Health stores almost 4 million dried blood spot specimens in the Michigan Neonatal Biobank. DBS are collected from newborns under a mandatory public health program to screen for serious conditions. At 24 to 36 hours of age, a few drops of blood are taken from the baby’s heel and placed on a filter paper card. The card is sent to the state public health laboratory for testing. After testing, MDCH retains the spots indefinitely for the (...) personal use of the patient and also, pursuant to a 2000 law, for possible research. (shrink)

The Michigan Department of Community Health stores almost 4 million dried blood spot specimens in the Michigan Neonatal Biobank. DBS are collected from newborns under a mandatory public health program to screen for serious conditions. At 24 to 36 hours of age, a few drops of blood are taken from the baby’s heel and placed on a filter paper card. The card is sent to the state public health laboratory for testing. After testing, MDCH retains the spots indefinitely for the (...) personal use of the patient and also, pursuant to a 2000 law, for possible research. (shrink)

This article explores the process of university Ethical Review both as lived experience and as part of institutional governance at an English university. The article uses Blackburn's distinction between ethics and Ethics (Ethics?A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001) as a framework to examine the themes of ?vulnerability?, ?power? and ?relationships?. These themes are analysed closely both within the institutional and the fieldwork contexts, attempting to include the perspectives of all those involved in the research ethics process. The (...) article does not seek to draw any definitive conclusions but rather to stimulate, and add to the iterative discussion on the process of Ethical Review within institutions. Nonetheless, it does conclude by making some suggestions concerning the way in which the lived experience of ethics could better inform the practice of institutional Ethical Review. (shrink)