I. In “Whitehead’s Theory of Becoming," V.C. Chappell asserts that Whitehead’s “epochal theory of time or becoming is both untenable and unnecessary”. It is untenable, he argues, because “ … the theory itself is unintelligible, and … … the Zenonian argument on which the theory is founded, even in its amended, Whiteheadian version, is invalid”. Although it is not clear to me that Whitehead’s use of Zeno’s arguments is unsound, our concern here will be limited to the first of these (...) two claims. I will attempt to show that Chappell’s demonstration of the unintelligibility of Whitehead’s theory begs the question. His purpose is to present us with a reductio ad absurdum of the epochal theory of time, but he succeeds only in demonstrating that if we substitute other premises for Whitehead’s own, his conclusions will not be consistent with these substitute premises. (shrink)

Legal theorists are familiar with John Finnis's book Natural Law and Natural Rights, but usually overlook his interventions in US constitutional debates and his membership of a group of conservative Catholic thinkers, the 'new natural lawyers', led by theologian Germain Grisez. In fact, Finnis has repeatedly advocated conservative positions concerning lesbian and gay rights, contraception and abortion, and his substantive moral theory derives from Grisez. Bamforth and Richards provide a detailed explanation of the work of the new natural lawyers within (...) and outside the Catholic Church - the first truly comprehensive explanation available to legal theorists - and criticize Grisez's and Finnis's arguments concerning sexuality and gender. New natural law is, they argue, a theology rather than a secular theory, and one which is unappealing in a modern constitutional democracy. This book will be of interest to legal and political theorists, ethicists, theologians and scholars of religious history. (shrink)

: Care work straddles the divide between activities performed out of love and those performed for pay. The tensions created for workers by this divide raise questions concerning connections between recognition and redistribution. Through an analysis of mobilization among childcare workers, we argue that care workers can address redistribution and recognition simultaneously through vocabularies of both skill and virtue. We conclude with a discussion of strategies to overcome the false dichotomy between recognition and redistribution.

Care work straddles the divide between activities performed out of love and those performed for pay. The tensions created for workers by this divide raise questions concerning connections between recognition and redistribution. Through an analysis of mobilization among childcare workers, we argue that care workers can address redistribution and recognition simultaneously through vocabularies of both skill and virtue. We conclude with a discussion of strategies to overcome the false dichotomy between recognition and redistribution.

Care work straddles the divide between activities performed out of love and those performed for pay. The tensions created for workers by this divide raise questions concerning connections between recognition and redistribution. Through an analysis of mobilization among childcare workers, we argue that care workers can address redistribution and recognition simultaneously through vocabularies of both skill and virtue. We conclude with a discussion of strategies to overcome the false dichotomy between recognition and redistribution.

Employee mobility is a phenomenon that challenges workplace ethics. This paper argues that despite on‐going attempts by management and consultants to build and install employee loyalty, and despite the complexity of relationships between employees and their organization, employee mobility remains a common phenomenon in today’s market. Courts, at least Israeli courts, perceive the employee–employer relationship as almost purely contractual and thus strive to protect workers first, often ignoring deeper commitments such as loyalty. This results in a certain dissonance in the (...) relationships between employees and employers. (shrink)

Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following low (11.0%), (...) moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

Little of the work in critical and hermeneutical psychology has been linked to instructional technology (IT). This article provides a discussion in order to fill the gap in this direction. The article presents a brief genealogy of American IT in relation to the influence of psychology. It also provides a critical and hermeneutical framework for psychology. It then discusses some problems of psychologism focusing on positivism, metaphysics, cultural ecology, and power. The narrow psychologism in IT produces a kind of systematic (...) blindness regarding cultural, political, and other issues. IT professionals are encouraged to engage reflectively with the power‐relations and ethical issues in which they are involved. The article points out a need for looking at psychology more comprehensively (e.g. critical and hermeneutical psychology). (shrink)

Noting tension between environmental and aboriginal politics in the Pacific Northwest of North America, this paper explores the historical-geographic constitution of both the Great Bear Rainforest conflict in British Columbia and the Makah whaling conflict in Washington State. By highlighting the uneven production of territoriality between each jurisdiction and tracing these differences though the historical-geographic imaginations of environmental activists and writers of letters to editors of metropolitan newspapers, the paper argues that situated geographies of colonialism inform interactions between environmental and (...) aboriginal politics at their core, thereby demonstrating the centrality of the production of space to the constitution of politics. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)

Jared Diamond and other leading scholars have argued that the domestication of animals for food, labor, and tools of war has advanced the development of human society. But by comparing practices of animal exploitation for food and resources in different societies over time, David A. Nibert reaches a strikingly different conclusion. He finds in the domestication of animals, which he renames "domesecration," a perversion of human ethics, the development of large-scale acts of violence, disastrous patterns of destruction, and growth-curbing (...) epidemics of infectious disease. Nibert centers his study on nomadic pastoralism and the development of commercial ranching, a practice that has been largely controlled by elite groups and expanded with the rise of capitalism. Beginning with the pastoral societies of the Eurasian steppe and continuing through to the exportation of Western, meat-centered eating habits throughout today's world, Nibert connects the domesecration of animals to violence, invasion, extermination, displacement, enslavement, repression, pandemic chronic disease, and hunger. In his view, conquest and subjugation were the results of the need to appropriate land and water to maintain large groups of animals, and the gross amassing of military power has its roots in the economic benefits of the exploitation, exchange, and sale of animals. Deadly zoonotic diseases, Nibert shows, have accompanied violent developments throughout history, laying waste to whole cities, societies, and civilizations. His most powerful insight situates the domesecration of animals as a precondition for the oppression of human populations, particularly indigenous peoples, an injustice impossible to rectify while the material interests of the elite are inextricably linked to the exploitation of animals. Nibert links domesecration to some of the most critical issues facing the world today, including the depletion of fresh water, topsoil, and oil reserves; global warming; and world hunger, and he reviews the U.S. government's military response to the inevitable crises of an overheated, hungry, resource-depleted world. Most animal-advocacy campaigns reinforce current oppressive practices, Nibert argues. Instead, he suggests reforms that challenge the legitimacy of both domesecration and capitalism. (shrink)

Basic human rights are supposed to protect people from abuse and harm. They are the means whereby we protect our humanity. One would expect, therefore, that basic human rights would be valid and sacred in any context, including industrial relations. However, the complexity of the employee–employer relationship obscures this issue, and it is not clear whether such rights can be protected or whether they are valid in the context of industrial relations. Since rights are relational, they are preconditioned on the (...) special nature of the relationship between employee and employer. Hence, the specific meaning that these rights have in industrial relations cannot be grounded in the notion of human rights as such, but rather depends on the special relationships between employers and employees. Though much legislation has been passed to regulate the relationship between employees and employers, the issues surrounding this relationship remain one of the most debated topics in business ethics. Our paper focuses specifically on the right to equal pay and the right to privacy. With respect to the right to property, the paper examines whether there is a conflict between general human rights and the fundamental right of employers to their property. The Israeli legislature has responded to this conflict by enacting ‘protective laws’ that legally outline and mandate certain human rights. Under these laws, employees are prevented and prohibited from waiving the rights granted to them by law, even if employed in private industries. Despite this legislative effort, market forces are at times stronger, and consequently some basic rights are not fully applied or implemented. (shrink)

The Israeli approach to advertising consists of two complementary sets of norms, legal norms and moral‐ethical norms. Advertising legislation demands honest disclosure. The Israeli legislator refrains from intervening in fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, free trade, occupation, and liberty of contract in advertising. However, there are also few interventions to prevent phenomena that are dangerous or abusive, especially to groups needing protection. The Israeli courts do try to apply moral considerations in cases tried by them, but living up (...) to moral responsibilities is different from complying with legal obligations. Advertisers in Israel have a(i) Treatise(r), consisting of ten ethical guidelines, which neither sums up advertising ethics in its entirety nor is legally binding. Sociological and psychological features of the culture need to be examined in order to spell out what truth and honesty in advertising actually mean in this society, and the manner in which these values are practised. Lacking sanctions in public law against misleading consumers or manipulation based on false facts, consumers must find remedy in civil actions which rely on moral and ethical rules. (shrink)

Poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and tyranny continue to afflict the world. Ethics of Global Development offers a moral reflection on the ends and means of local, national, and global efforts to overcome these five scourges. After emphasizing the role of ethics in development studies, policy-making, and practice, David A. Crocker analyzes and evaluates Amartya Sen's philosophy of development in relation to alternative ethical outlooks. He argues that Sen's turn to robust ideals of human agency and democracy improves on (...) both Sen's earlier emphasis on 'capabilities and functionings' and Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability orientation. This agency-focused capability approach is then extended and strengthened by applying it to the challenges of consumerism and hunger, the development responsibilities of affluent individuals and nations, and the dilemmas of globalization. Throughout the book the author argues for the importance of more inclusive and deliberative democratic institutions. (shrink)

There is a very interesting phenomenon which takes place in philosophy. Theories which appeared ten or fifteen years ago in the literature of, say, the philosophy of language or the philosophy of mind, often make a reappearance in current discussions of problems in the philosophy of religion. As Yogi Berra once remarked, ‘It's déjà vu all over again’. However, there is always a possibility that the transition from the earlier context to the later one will be less than smooth. For (...) sometimes the theory reappears in a slightly distorted form, and, as a result, its bearing on the current discussion is somewhat misconceived. In this paper, an example of this phenomenon, and its potential problems, will be considered. Our purpose is not, of course, to discourage such intra-disciplinary dialogue in philosophy of religion, but rather to recommend that it be undertaken with a considerable measure of care. (shrink)

A natural experiment was conducted studying the relations among student cheating, motivation, religiosity, and attitudes toward cheating. Students enrolled in a dual religious/college curriculum were surveyed regarding their cheating behavior, attitudes toward cheating, religiosity, and learning/grade motivations toward classes. Business and liberal arts college students were represented. Results strongly support the following conclusions. First, grade orientation is associated with increases in self-reported cheating. Second, among these religious students, more religiosity correlates with reduced reports of cheating in all courses. This result (...) appears to be due to the unique effect of religion on self-reported cheating rates and, depending on course content, on a reduction of grade orientation in religious students. Third, business students report more cheating than their liberal arts counterparts, even when taking the same courses. They have less critical attitudes toward cheating and greater grade orientation, both of which statistically contribute to this difference, but other factors are involved as well. Keywords: academic integrity, motivation, religiosity, cheating. (shrink)

On the evolution of mind Harry J. Jerison Most of us think of mind as a little person in the head, the 'knower' of reality (cf. Attneave,). ...