This article represents the outcome of a dialogue between a vet and a healthcare ethicist on the theme of ‘love’ in professional life. We focus on four types or varieties of love in relation to the professional care of humans and animals. We discuss the relevance of Fromm’s core elements of love and consider the implications of these for human and animal health care practice. We present and respond to five arguments that might be waged against embracing love as a (...) professional value in veterinary and medical practice. We argue that a moderated love can and should be reclaimed as a contemporary professional value. It is most helpfully contextualised within virtue ethics or care ethics. We suggest that love is a rich starting point from which to launch an exploration of an interprofessional humanimal clinical ethics. (shrink)

We propose that marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to Black and Latino consumers results from the intersection of a business model in which profits come primarily from marketing an unhealthy mix of products, standard targeted marketing strategies, and societal forces of structural racism, and contributes to health disparities.

Using the theoretical constructs “biographical disruption” and “limit experience” and also methodological frameworks from autoethnography and discourse analysis, we discuss the divergent ways in which language and healing are conceptualized and performed, first in an American medical clinic and then by traditional healers in Kwara‘ae (Solomon Islands). Discourses at the Dallas clinic draw on allopathic and complementary medicine and in emphasizing a scientific approach to talk about illness and treatment, were found to create ambiguity in patients’ sense of their physical (...) and metaphysical identities. In contrast, Kwara‘ae healing involves disappearing into silence, in which the physical and metaphysical are never separated, and where healing occurs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The Smith Report has generated central questions about the mathematics education of UK adolescents. This paper highlights the close match between the goals of school mathematics, adolescence and exploratory pedagogy. This is contrasted with the prescriptive nature of current regimes. In particular, without careful attention to pedagogy it is possible that the introduction of different pathways may lead to a failure to achieve the outcomes desired by employers and universities, and to inequity in provision for students.

This study compares involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories in depressed and never depressed individuals. Twenty depressed and twenty never depressed individuals completed a memory diary; recording their reactions to 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories over 14–30 days. Psychiatric status , psychopathology, rumination and avoidance were assessed. For both groups, involuntary memories more frequently lead to strong reactions than voluntarily memories. For both modes of retrieval, depressed individuals reported more frequent negative reactions than never depressed individuals and rated memories as (...) more central to identity with higher levels of rumination and avoidance. Depressed individuals retrieved both positive and negative memories during involuntary retrieval. These findings support the view that involuntary memory retrieval represents a basic mode of retrieval during healthy and disordered cognition, and that during depression, both involuntary and voluntary memories are central to identity and associated with rumination and avoidance. (shrink)

This article explores the role of limit experiences (Tracy) and linguistic relativity (Whorf) in shaping our ontological and epistemological understandings of the world. Specifically, I trace the transformations in embodied understanding I have undergone in three situations across my life course–in Hawai'i, Solomon Islands, and as an acutely ill and disabled patient in a live-in clinic in Dallas, Texas. I give examples of how our perceptions, conceptions, and proprioceptions are positioned, constrained, opened to interpretation, and even denied by our culture (...) and language. Limit experiences, however, open the possibility for transformation of understanding and recognition that there are probably infinite manifest and unmanifest realities. (shrink)

Rereads classical figures in continental thought, takes up current topics in the legacy of political theory, and analyzes and evaluates Foucault's work as a prime manifestation of the complicated modern interface between truth and power, institution and liberation.

We examine children's cognitive skills and cultural representations in naturally occurring discourse, integrating theoretical perspectives from psychology, cognitive anthropology, and sociolinguistics. We focus on two interactional events recorded in our 10-year study of children's language socialization in Kwara'ae involving the same child at ages 2 and 4 years interacting with an older child and an adult, respectively, around routine tasks. In both cases a potentially serious cultural anomaly that challenges the children's own constructions of cultural models tests their strategic creativity (...) and agency in negotiating an outcome. The resulting discourse reveals how they are construing and modeling culture in a time of rapid social change. (shrink)

This paper suggests the utility of studying unconscious cognition from a selectionist perspective, specifically as outlined by theory and research in the field of behavior analysis. Currently, issues surrounding the complexity of the unconscious cognitive behaviors, the number of variables involved, and the multidirectional influences of these variables, are of utmost concern to theories of mind and behavior. Unanswered questions about these factors leave us without the ability to predict outcomes in an individual case or adequately manipulate variables in order (...) to alter outcomes. Multiple examples of current work by behavior analysts are suggested as potentially fruitful ways of addressing some of these concerns. (shrink)

This study aims to characterise Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) members’ perceptions on five main themes associated with ethics reviews, namely, the nature of research, ethical/moral issues, assent, participants’ risk and HREC prerogatives issues. Three hundred and sixteen HREC members from over 200 HRECs throughout Australia responded to an online questionnaire survey. The results show that in general, HREC members’ beliefs are reasoned and align with sound principles of ethical reviews. There seems to be a disposition for living up to (...) ethical/moral values, avoiding the issue of consent waivers and respecting participants’ welfare, as well as a sense of ambiguity about HREC prerogatives. Problematic areas were a tendency towards over-valuing quantitative research methods for their perceived validity and a neutral view on issuing consent waivers to participants with intellectual disability and, finally, the belief that research that limits disclosure, plans deception or actively conceals is morally unjustifiable. Implications for professional development and policy-making are discussed. (shrink)

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

Currently, the most influential accounts of personal autonomy, at least in the English-speaking world, focus on providing conditions under which agents can be said to exercise self-control. Two distinct accounts of personal autonomy have emerged in this tradition: firstly, hierarchical models grounded in the work of Harry Frankfurt; and secondly, systems division models most famously articulated by Gary Watson. In this paper, I will show the inadequacies of both of these models by exploring the problematic views of the self (...) and self-control underlying each model. I will suggest that the problems faced by these models stem from the fact that they endorse a problematic fragmentation of the self. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 9, Page 999-1000, November 2022.

Performer Training is an examination of how actors are trained in different cultures. Beginning with studies of mainstream training in countries such as Poland, Australia, Germany, and the United States, subsequent studies survey: - Some of Asia's traditional training methods and recent experiments in performer training - Eugenio Barba's training methods - Jerzy Grotowski's most recent investigations - The Japanese American NOHO companies attempts at integrating Kyogen into the works of Samuel Beckett - Descriptions of the training methods developed by (...) Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart at their Saratoga International Theatre Institute - Recent efforts to re-examine the role and scope of training, like Britain's International Workshop Festival and the European League of Institutes of Arts masterclasses - The reformulation of the use of emotions in performer training known as Alba Emoting. (shrink)

Harold Garfinkel wrote a series of highly detailed and lengthy 'memos' during his time (1951-53) at Princeton, where remarkable developments in information theory were taking place. These very substantial manuscripts have been edited by Anne Warfield Rawls in Toward a Sociological Theory of Information (Garfinkel 2008). This paper explores some of the implications of these memos, which we suggest are still relevant for the study of 'information' and information theory. Definitional privilege of 'information' as a technical term has been (...) arrogated by information science, which thereby excludes the interactional occasions of use of 'information'. The authors examine some 'professional' and 'laic' determinations of 'information'. Looking at in situ uses of 'information' shows how dealing with 'information' is characterized by ad hoc practices, such as specifications, 'authorization' and 'particularization' procedures. The authors report on a series of workplace studies in academic libraries, looking at how librarians account for 'information' through practices of classification. Classifying 'information' is a member's local accomplishment, and explicating practices of classifying 'information' undermines the formal-analytic project of the 'Philosophy of Information,' as formulated, for instance, by Luciano Floridi. Implications of Garfinkel's work must remain beyond the purview of information science if it is to maintain its status as the recognized field dealing with 'information'. However, such omission risks 'losing the phenomenon' of 'information': to adapt an argument from Dorothy Smith (Catalyst, 8, pp 39—54, 1974), it trades upon decontextualized uses and recontextualizes 'information' for the practical purposes of formal analysis. (shrink)

The potential societal impacts of automation using intelligent control and communications technologies have emerged as topics in a number of recent writings and public policy initiatives. Many of these expressions have referenced the writings and research efforts of Herbert Simon (1961), Norbert Wiener (1948), and contemporaries from their early technological and social vantage points concerning the future of technology and society. Constructed entities labeled as “thinking machines” (such as IBM’s Watson as well as intelligent chatbot and robotic systems) have (...) also played significant roles in this discourse. This paper provides an historical sequencing then analyzes a selection of writings produced since the 1940s concerning the economic and social issues involving artificial intelligence (AI) research and applications. The paper explores how overstatements and hyperbolic themes and concepts, often stemming from AI’s early periods, are being employed in characterizations of current AI approaches in apparently opportunistic attempts to provide rhetorical support for various large-scale business and societal initiatives. It also addresses the relative neglect of the consideration of many of AI’s sociotechnical failures and discontinued approaches in recent examinations of automation and social welfare issues. The paper discusses the moral logic of AI researchers and developers providing reasonable and measured narratives in public discourse rather than hyperbole, efforts that can empower decision makers to make sounder judgments concerning the technology’s current and future applications as well as allocate the rewards of the technology more equitably. (shrink)

How should we understand the relationship, for Aristotle, between matter, form, and hylomorphic composite? Are matter and form distinct from each other, so that each hylomorphic unity harbours a plurality within it, or would such a plurality undermine the unity of the composite? A recent strand of argument in both Aristotelian and contemporary literature on hylomorphism has concluded that no genuine unity can be composed of a plurality. I will argue that the objection motivating this conclusion falls away as improperly (...) formulated in light of Aristotle's metaontology—in particular, his thesis that unity is indeterminate. The genuine objection threatening hylomorphic unity is one that Aristotle himself formulates as a central concern in his Metaphysics: no substance can be composed of substances. He answers this genuine objection in his appeal to the actuality/potentiality distinction, and in Metaphysics VIII.6 he reminds us why no more basic problem of hylomorphic unity arises. Against the backdrop of Aristotle's metaontology, hylomorphic unity cannot be undermined by the plurality, just as such, of matter and form. (shrink)

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley (...) contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics. (shrink)

The birth of a new science is long, drawn out, and often fairly messy. Comparative psychology has its roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man, was fertilized in academic psychology departments, and has branched across the universities into departments of biology, anthropology, primatology, zoology, and philosophy. Both the insights and the failings of comparative psychology are making their way into contemporary discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning (Chollett 2019; Lapuschkin et al. 2019; Watson 2019). It is the right time (...) to turn a philosophical lens onto the methodologies of comparative psychology. That is the aim of this Element. -/- Comparative psychology is the umbrella covering the different ways scientists study animal mind and behavior. Comparative psychologists study animal behavior and mentality, including the mechanisms and inner states that allow crows to form hooks, vervet monkeys to give warnings, crabs to make trade-off decisions, and humans to use language. While focus is on the similarities and differences between different species, capacities are often studied in terms of their evolutionary history, development, and current ecological or cultural context. What this entails is that comparative psychologists have a range of different kinds of training, different areas of expertise, and different research questions. One comparative cognition researcher compares children and dogs on causal reasoning abilities (Daphna Buchsbaum), another looks at memory in corvids (Nicola Clayton). An animal behaviorist examines raccoon territories in a city (Suzanne MacDonald). One anthropologist looks at war in wild chimpanzees (John Mitani), another looks at how innovations are adopted in capu- chin monkeys (Susan Perry). One ethologist looks at play in wolves (Marc Bekoff), and another looks at deception in birds (Carolyn Ristau). One biologist looks at male alliances in dolphins (Richard Connor), and another examines economic game performance in apes and monkeys (Sarah Brosnan). An animal welfare scientist studies the effect of enrichment on mink (Georgia Mason). A learning theorist looks at gambling in pigeons (Thomas Zentall). A zoologist studies social learning in bees (Lars Chittka). It is not easy to guess in which department you’ll find a comparative psychologist. -/- This Element aims to examine the methods of comparative psychology, which remains especially concerned about how to study animal minds and behavior without falling prey to fuzzy thinking. Animals can be cute, so humans are often intrinsically drawn to them; and this love of animals is sometimes taken to be at odds with being a careful scientist. The methods of comparative psychology reflect this worry with their special emphases on avoiding bias and on avoiding developing warm relationships with animal subjects. The first two sections analyze three textbooks to examine what young scientists are taught. Section 1 investigates three methodological principles students are taught to follow: Anti-anthropomorphism, Morgan’s Canon, and Anti-anthropocentrism. I argue that the first two principles should be discarded, and that developing relationships with animals should no longer be discouraged, as relationships promote understanding. Building on this critique, in Section 2 I challenge the common prohibition against including animal consciousness in comparative psychology by arguing that it does not harm the science, but promotes it. Setting aside the special prohibitions for comparative psychology, in Section 3 I examine how the quest for objectivity in comparative psychology introduces its own bias and argue that the different disciplines of comparative psychology will introduce different biases; the best scientists can do is identify the sources of bias. The quest to eliminate all bias is a misguided one. Section 4 applies these issues to recent debates in ape cognition research between scientists who work in the field and those who work in the lab, and suggests best practices for integrating knowledge from both sources. -/- I have had the opportunity to work with a number of comparative psychologists in a variety of contexts, including a stint at Lou Herman’s dolphin communication lab in the 1990s, collaborative studies with Peter Verbeek on the child’s theory of mind at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Child Development, conducting research on orangutan pantomime communication with Anne Russon at her field sites in Borneo, research on rat social learning with Noam Miller at Wilfrid Laurier University, and co-teaching a field course in dolphin communication with Kathleen Dudzinski. As a philosopher of science who has been in the field and in the lab, I have a perspective from which to compare the comparative psychologists. This Element is my attempt to synthesize almost thirty years of experience and thinking about how to study animal minds. (shrink)

Why equality cannot be conditional on a shared human “nature” but has to be for all For centuries, ringing declarations about all men being created equal appealed to a shared human nature as the reason to consider ourselves equals. But appeals to natural equality invited gradations of natural difference, and the ambiguity at the heart of “nature” enabled generations to write of people as equal by nature while barely noticing the exclusion of those marked as inferior by their gender, race, (...) or class. Despite what we commonly tell ourselves, these exclusions and gradations continue today. In Unconditional Equals, political philosopher Anne Phillips challenges attempts to justify equality by reference to a shared human nature, arguing that justification turns into conditions and ends up as exclusion. Rejecting the logic of justification, she calls instead for a genuinely unconditional equality. Drawing on political, feminist, and postcolonial theory, Unconditional Equals argues that we should understand equality not as something grounded in shared characteristics but as something people enact when they refuse to be considered inferiors. At a time when the supposedly shared belief in human equality is so patently not shared, the book makes a powerful case for seeing equality as a commitment we make to ourselves and others, and a claim we make on others when they deny us our status as equals. (shrink)

Anne Conway was an extraordinary figure in a remarkable age. Her mastery of the intricate doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah, her authorship of a treatise criticising the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, and her scandalous conversion to the despised sect of Quakers indicate a strength of character and independence of mind wholly unexpected (and unwanted) in a woman at the time. Translated for the first time into modern English, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is (...) the most interesting and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century. Her radical and unorthodox ideas are important not only because they anticipated the more tolerant, ecumenical, and optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, but also because of their influence on Leibniz. This fully annotated edition includes an introduction which places Conway in her historical and philosophical contexts, together with a chronology of her life and a bibliography. (shrink)

The environmental crisis is the most prominent challenge humanity has ever had to battle with, and humanity is currently failing. The Anthropocene—or so called ‘age of humans’—is indeed a period when the survival of humanity has never been so much at risk. This book locates itself in the field of critical green political theory. Fremaux's analysis of the current environmental crisis calls for us to embrace radical shifts in our modes of being; or, in other words, socially progressive innovations that (...) will be described within the unique framework of "Green Republicanism." In offering a constructive and emancipatory delineation of what could be considered an ecological civilization that is respectful of its natural environment and social differences, this book describes how to shift from an ‘arrogant speciesism’ and materialistic lifestyle to a post-anthropocentric ecological humanism focusing on the ‘good life’ within ecological limits. This new political regime calls for a radical reinvention of our societies, a decentering of the humans within our metaphysical worldview, and a withdrawal of the capitalist technosphere at the benefit of the biosphere. It will require a new economic paradigm that replaces the unsustainable capitalist logic of growth by sustainable degrowth and steady economics. Rooted in ethical thinking and political philosophy, this book seeks to offer a concrete roadmap of how sustainable societies can be fostered. (shrink)

The digital shift leads to increasing changes. Employees can deal with changes through informal learning that enables needs-based development. For successful informal learning, self-regulated learning is crucial, i.e., to set goals, plan, apply strategies, monitor, and regulate learning for example by applying resource strategies. However, existing SRL models all refer to formal learning settings. Because informal learning differs from formal learning, this study investigates whether SRL models can be transferred from formal learning environments into informal work settings. More precisely, are (...) all facets relevant, and what are the relational patterns? Because informal workplace learning occurs through interaction with the context, this study investigates the influence of context, i.e., organizational learning culture and job characteristics on SRL. Structural equation modeling of N = 170 employees in various industries showed the relevance of the self-reported metacognitive strategies planning, monitoring, and regulation; the resource strategies help-seeking and effort regulation; and deep processing strategy elaboration. However, there was no evidence for organization strategies. The learning strategies were associated with self-efficacy and mastery-approach goal orientation. Regarding context, results supported indirect effects over self-motivational beliefs of learning strategies. Organizational learning culture was connected with mastery-approach goal orientation, whereas job characteristics autonomy and feedback were related to self-efficacy, which were again related to SRL strategies. Therefore, context can empower employees not only to accomplish their tasks but to develop themselves by applying SRL strategies. The results are discussed, and practical implications are outlined. (shrink)

Freadman uses the term genre to access Peirce’s work, and expands this original theoretical approach by proposing that “genre” interacts with “sign” and that this interaction is central to the study of the semiotic in general.

The Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) literature tends to focus on bias as a problem that requires ex post solutions (e.g. fairness metrics), rather than addressing the underlying social and technical conditions that (re)produce it. In this article, we propose a complementary strategy that uses genealogy as a constructive, epistemic critique to explain algorithmic bias in terms of the conditions that enable it. We focus on XAI feature attributions (Shapley values) and counterfactual approaches as potential tools to gauge these conditions (...) and offer two main contributions. One is constructive: we develop a theoretical framework to classify these approaches according to their relevance for bias as evidence of social disparities. We draw on Pearl’s ladder of causation (Causality: models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, Causality, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511803161) to order these XAI approaches concerning their ability to answer fairness-relevant questions and identify fairness-relevant solutions. The other contribution is critical: we evaluate these approaches in terms of their assumptions about the role of protected characteristics in discriminatory outcomes. We achieve this by building on Kohler-Hausmann’s (Northwest Univ Law Rev 113(5):1163–1227, 2019) constructivist theory of discrimination. We derive three recommendations for XAI practitioners to develop and AI policymakers to regulate tools that address algorithmic bias in its conditions and hence mitigate its future occurrence. (shrink)