Review of Anton Ford, Jennifer Hornsby, and Frederick Stoutland, eds., Essays on Anscombe's Intention.

Introduction: Another Diction The hack. The salesman. The fired cop. The drifter. The betrayed criminal. Each of these constitutes a novel literary invention; each gives a new sense to the investigative character. They are not modifications of the classical model, stamped with the rational imprimatur of Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin, or Joseph Rouletabille – there is no line of filiation from these to Vachss’s Burke, Pelecanos’s Nick Stefanos, or Himes’s Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. Even Lacan’s powerful (...) psychoanalytic reading of Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” reveals Dupin to be a genius only in a game whose dialectical structure is given in advance. Although the subjects that come to occupy this structure only acquire determination through the assumption of their places, the dynamic form of the dialectic is itself “foreclosed” by the phallus whose circulation organizes the system. Dupin understands the circulation of the signifier only because this circulation is the figure of the law. Rejecting the phallocentric rationality of the mastermind, the new figurations of Vachss, Pelecanos, Himes, and others retain only in order to parody the grand orchestration of reason – their language is slang not deduction. They are not detectives but “dicks”: a name that incorporates within its reduction an empirical transformation of the transcendental. In fact, it is a transformation of the very sense of inquiry that requires this new type of conceptual personae in order to traverse its contours. The philosophical project of Gilles Deleuze – which he characterizes as a “transcendental empiricism” – is directed toward freeing thought from its determination by the philosophical traditions that constitute its history. Such a freeing would allow for a philosophical conceptualization of present events that are no longer able to be adequately conceptualized by that history. The distinctive character of Deleuze’s project comes from his insistence on the discontinuity between the tradition of thought and the new formulations that it is called upon to generate. For Deleuze, the philosopher is the one who asks about the generation of new concepts and thereby places herself in a double bind. On the one hand, the philosopher is historically conditioned, thrown into a tradition whose tools present a limited number of possible conceptual resolutions of a particular event. On the other hand, this conditional determination of philosophical thought is repeated, perpetually, so that the philosopher is always a parody of herself: solving the question of the determination of a present event by resolving the question of the determinability of the present by the past. This situation of parody is the limit of thinking; it is where thinking develops according to the vicissitudes of history. (shrink)

This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe’s work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original ...

What about honesty? -- History of honesty in society -- Honesty and the Constitution -- Honesty in society today.

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based on substantive data: the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with Lincoln’s promise of democracy; therefore, there is a need for a critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change. The result was the construction of two frameworks: the demoralization process that triggers social change, and a formal grounded theory that (...) could explain democratic social change endeavors across different domains and levels of analysis. This democratic social change grounded theory answers the research question: How do the principles of the American founding documents provide an understanding of the process of American democratic social change? (shrink)

The polarities of democracy framework is used to achieve human emancipation by simultaneously managing multiple paradoxes by employing Johnson’s polarity management as the conceptual framework. Although Johnson’s framework may be appropriate for managing other tension-dependent pairs, it is less suitable for managing multiple democratic values when the goal is human emancipation and sustainable democratic social change. Managing multiple polarities is exacerbated by the problem-shifting and problem-creation effect inherent in a tension-driven framework. The aim was to develop a constructivist grounded theory (...) to answer the research question: How can the first principles of democracy be used to reduce dynamic tension and achieve human emancipation? This gap has been filled by a parsimonious conceptual framework based on three democratic principles: human dignity, fairness, and knowledge. The principles of democracy conceptual framework can synthesize the tension between democratic values in order to manage, plan, and evaluate democratic social change initiatives. (shrink)

Clinical ethicists encounter the most emotionally eviscerating medical cases possible. They struggle to facilitate resolutions founded on good reasoning embedded in compassionate care. This book fills the considerable gap between current texts and the continuing educational needs of those actually facing complex ethics consultations in hospital settings. 28 richly detailed cases explore the ethical reasoning, professional issues, and the emotional aspects of these impossibly difficult consultations. The cases are grouped together by theme to aid teaching, discussion and professional growth. The (...) cases inform any reader who has a keen interest in the choices made in real-life medical dilemmas as well as the emotional cost to those who work to improve the situations. On a more advanced level, this book should be read by ethics committee members who participate in ethics consultations, individual ethics consultants, clinicians who seek education about complex clinical ethics cases, and bioethics students. (shrink)

Background: The United States symbolizes democracy in the new world and contributes to global prosperity. Nevertheless, incrementalism is a historically dominant national approach to public policy implementation that delays democracy and undermines human dignity. Human flourishing and national development are endangered by slow-moving democratic changes. This necessitates a social justice framework that traces the exploitation of incrementalism and the consequences of opportunity gaps. Objectives: This study aims to construct a grounded theory to address and answer the following research question: Are (...) anti-democratic concepts part of a process or strategy that hinders democratic change, and what reinforces it, if anything? Methods: Two categories emerged from a grounded theory of democratic social change. This combination of anti-democratic tenets and democratic principles led to abductive reasoning to fill the research gap. Results: The key finding was the existence of a systematic approach that led to democracy while simultaneously disempowering the same group through legal and extralegal means. Two processes hinder democracy: incrementalism and an anti-democratic demoralizing process. A constructivist social justice grounded theory was developed to analyze and evaluate public policy for barriers and facilitators of democracy. A thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact and consequences of public policy is recommended to better understand how such policies impede democracy and influence American perceptions of justice. (shrink)

Great Britain subjugated colonists using various power strategies, including dehumanization, misinformation, fear, and other divisive strategies. The Founders described these oppressive strategies as “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Throughout the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers imbued the people with hope in a government for the people: one unlike that of the monarchy, which sought to protect itself at the expense of colonists. As a result, the Founders created a government more likely to lead (...) with fairness, demonstrate respect for human dignity, unite Americans as one people, empower citizens through hope, and lead the nation toward security. This socio-ethical framework was an abductive discovery nested within a grounded theory study where it had been concluded that the first principles of democracy were woven within the American founding documents. Using Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory, the first principles of democracy—knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security—were used to answer an emerging research question: Are there two democratic frameworks in the founding documents, and how do they differ? The first principles of democracy promote a culture of ethics, resilience, and freedom. Their empowering disposition makes them suitable as a normative framework for a democratic government for the people. (shrink)

Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the Declaration (...) of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

This thesis examines the key moral principles that should govern decision-making by police and military when using lethal force. To this end, it provides an ethical analysis of the following question: Under what circumstances, if any, is it morally justified for the agents of state-sanctioned security institutions to use lethal force, in particular the police and the military? Recent literature in this area suggests that modern conflicts involve new and unique features that render conventional ways of thinking about the ethics (...) of armed conflict, and the use of lethal force, as inadequate or redundant. In particular, there is an increased concern with the moral difficulties created by “non-standard” cases. This is where the police or military are obliged to operate outside their conventional contexts. In such non-standard cases, on what moral basis can (or should) state actors – especially the police and military – use lethal force? One approach argues that there is nothing morally exceptional about the use of lethal force by police or military. This says the only available moral justification for using lethal force is killing in self-defence or defence of others. In contrast, I use an institutional approach to develop a moral framework for the state’s morally exceptional use of lethal force. The institutional approach is concerned with the ends (telos) or purpose of a social institution. It says that the moral purpose of a social institution alters the moral responsibilities of its agents; what is referred to as role morality. My analysis demonstrates that there is an important moral distinction between justified killing in self-defence and state-sanctioned uses of lethal force. My claim is that police and military uses of lethal force are not morally justified in the same way as the average person’s use of lethal force (i.e. self-defence or defence of others). Instead, I argue that the state-sanctioned institutional role of police and military give these state actors special moral duties, and therefore exceptional moral justification, for using lethal force. I argue that the institutional end of the police is the preservation of public safety. This includes using lethal force where it is necessary to protect life and prevent serious injury to jurisdictional inhabitants. In contrast, a morally responsible state uses military force to defend the “common good.” That is, when it is necessary to defend the peaceful functioning of a state from armed threats or other forms of political violence. I then conclude that non-standard cases require the addition of jus ad vim (or the just use of military force short-of-war) as a hybrid element to the moral framework for the state-sanctioned use of lethal force. This provides a better way of applying ethics to the use of military force when defending the common good against serious threats in non-standard cases. This is because jus ad vim complements the conventional military paradigm by permitting the use of military capabilities to defend the common good. But, at the same time, it inhibits the move towards the more destructive levels of violence characteristic of conventional warfighting. (shrink)

Multidisciplinary healthcare committees meet regularly to discuss patients’ candidacy for emerging functional neurosurgical procedures, such as Deep Brain Stimulation . Through debate and discussion around the surgical candidacy of particular patients, functional neurosurgery programs begin to mold practice and policy supported both by scientific evidence and clear value choices. These neurosurgical decisions have special considerations not found in non-neurologic committees. The professional time used to resolve these conflicts provides opportunities for the emergence of careful, ethical practices simultaneous with the expansion (...) of therapy applications. (shrink)

As neural implants transition from engineering design and testing into human subjects research, careful consideration must be paid to the ethical elements in developing research protocols. Although these ethical aspects may be framed by the design choices of the engineering, a number of challenging choices arise. In spite of many ethical considerations for neural implant technologies being shared with generic research ethics questions, there are subsets needing special attention. Even in considerations requiring increased attention, substantial overlap can be found with (...) research ethics questions for general medical implants and for psychiatric pharmaceuticals. The special attention to specific ethical questions in neural implants exists because of the value placed on preserving cognition and control as well as our continued memory of significant past research abuses in neurosurgery. This paper focuses on three issues of particular saliency to neural implant testing: inclusion/exclusion of subjects with psychiatric conditions, consent withdrawal of research subjects, and enhancement as a goal. (shrink)

Presents general information about meteorology, weather, and climate and includes more than thirty activities to help study these topics, including making a ...

Archaeological excavations carried out at Pentridge Prison discovered the ruins and foundations of three panopticon exercise yards. This paper details the scope and observations of the excavation program and discusses the influence of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon model on penal reform and prison design in Australia in the middle of the 19th Century.

This book argues against the view that mathematical knowledge is a priori,contending that mathematics is an empirical science and develops historically,just as ...

The US-Australia strategic relationship has evolved from more or less an adversarial position in the 19th century to an Australia largely dependent on the US during the Cold War to the interdependent partnership we see today. Strategic interdependence means that the US-Australia relationship is not merely a one-sided affair; that Australia has something of substance to offer the strategic relationship. Part of the reason that the relationship is strong is because of a shared language, similar social values, and compatible political-legal (...) systems. Moreover, the relationship has been thoroughly institutionalised via intelligence cooperation, defence science collaboration, and extensive personal relationships. But what the US really seems to value is Australia’s reliability as an ally. I argue that Australia best demonstrates its reliability as an ally, however, when it follows US strategic decision-making for the right reasons. This sense of reliability is more akin to trustworthiness than it is to loyalty. History demonstrates that Australia has not always agreed with the US. But agreeing doesn’t matter so much when Australia has established a track record of consistently applying sound reasoning to its strategic decisions and it has made substantive contributions to jointly sought after strategic outcomes. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the importance of ethics education for senior military officers with responsibilities at the strategic level of government. One problem, as I see it, is that senior commanders might demand “ethics” from their soldiers but then they are themselves primarily informed by a “morally skeptical viewpoint” (in the form of political realism). I argue that ethics are more than a matter of personal behavior alone: the ethical position of an armed service is a matter of the (...) collective responsibility of the people who constitute it, and senior military officers, having authority to give the orders, have a particularly important role. First, I discuss the continued prominence of a neorealist mindset in strategic thinking. Neorealist theory assumes that ethics is a largely irrelevant concern for strategic decision-makers. In contrast, I argue that consideration of moral values should be at the center of strategic theory and practice. Then, in the second section, I explore the “professional ethics” of senior military officers in order to develop an appreciation of the shared values and expectations regarding required conduct within any professional military service. I argue that senior military leaders should be concerned with what it means to be “good” and that this concept of the good can, and should, be applied across cultures and national boundaries. In the final section, I examine armed conflict and briefly discuss the moral reasoning involved to justify deliberate killing and destruction. I conclude that senior military officers require an understanding of sound moral reasoning to implement effective strategy. (shrink)

For Calvin, the understanding of God's accommodation to the limits and needs of the human condition was a central feature of the interpretation of Scripture and of the entire range of his theological work.

Objectives: To summarise the types of case brought to the Clinical Ethics Committee of the National Hospital of Norway from 1996 to 2002 and to describe and discuss to what extent issues of information/communication have been involved in the ethical problems. Design: Systematic review of case reports. Findings: Of the 31 case discussions, (20 prospective, 11 retrospective), 19 cases concerned treatment of children. Twenty cases concerned ethical problems related to withholding/withdrawing of treatment. In 25 cases aspects of information/communication were involved (...) in the ethical problem, either explicitly (n = 3) or implicitly (n = 22). Conclusion: Problems related to information/communication may underlie a classic ethical problem. Identification of these “hidden” problems may be important for the analysis, and hence, the solution to the ethical dilemma. (shrink)

Grounded theory methodology is perceived as challenging due to its systematic and rigorous process. However, this is because most people do not realize that the strategies used in the grounded theory data analysis process are used by laypeople and professionals regularly, if not daily. This article aims to help others interested in grounded theory with a background in qualitative data analysis feel comfortable engaging in the methodology and constructing multiple theories in the same study. It shares my latest experience incorporating (...) various data analysis strategies with the constructivist approach: holistic and systems thinking, situational analysis, dramaturgical analysis, perspective taking, and abstraction. The examples remove the mystery from abstraction and abductive reasoning. (shrink)

Experiments in particle physics have hitherto failed to produce any significant evidence for the many explicit models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that had been proposed over the past decades. As a result, physicists have increasingly turned to model-independent strategies as tools in searching for a wide range of possible BSM effects. In this paper, we describe the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SM-EFT) and analyse it in the context of the philosophical discussions about models, theories, and (bottom-up) (...) effective field theories. We find that while the SM-EFT is a quantum field theory, assisting experimentalists in searching for deviations from the SM, in its general form it lacks some of the characteristic features of models. Those features only come into play if put in by hand or prompted by empirical evidence for deviations. Employing different philosophical approaches to models, we argue that the case study suggests not to take a view on models that is overly permissive because it blurs the lines between the different stages of the SM-EFT research strategies and glosses over particle physicists' motivations for undertaking this bottom-up approach in the first place. Looking at EFTs from the perspective of modelling does not require taking a stance on some specific brand of realism or taking sides in the debate between reduction and emergence into which EFTs have recently been embedded. (shrink)

Examines what is necessary for a group to constitute an agent that can display akrasia, and what steps such a group might take to establish self‐control. The topic has some interest in itself, and the discussion suggests some lessons about how we should think of akrasia in the individual as well as in the collective case. Under the image that the lessons support, akrasia is a sort of constitutional disorder: a failure to achieve a unity projected in the avowal of (...) agency. This image fits well with the constitutional model of the soul in Plato's Republic. (shrink)

Shocking, brilliant, and eccentric, the French author, translator, and artist Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) exerted a profound effect on French intellectual culture throughout the twentieth century. The older brother of the painter Balthus, secretary to the novelist Andre Gide, friend to Geroges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, and heralded as one of the most important voices in the French "return to Nietzsche" by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, Klossowski pursued his singular vision of mortal embodiment through a variety of scholarly manifestations. In (...) Such a Deathly Desire, Klossowski's original interpretation of Nietzsche's eternal return is developed around the enigmatic figure of the "demon," then deepened with provocative readings of Gide's correspondence; Barbey d'Aurevilly's novel A Married Proest; and the intertwining of language and death in the work of Bataille, Blanchot, and Brice Parain. The book concludes with the powerful essay "Nietzsche, Polytheism, and Parody," in which Klossowski articulates the consequences of the eternal return and the meaning of Nietzsche's genealogy of the fabulation of the world. Intersecting with and confounding a range of disciplines - including psychoanalysis, literary criticism, gender studies, and philosophy - Klossowski's critical writings on language, literature, and the aesthetics of embodiment remain powerful and original contributions to contemporary concerns in the theoretical humanities. (shrink)

Strong claims have been made for emergence as a new paradigm for understanding science, consciousness, and religion. Tracing the past history and current definitions of the concept, Clayton assesses the case for emergent phenomena in the natural world and their significance for philosophy and theology. Complex emergent phenomena require irreducible levels of explanation in physics, chemistry and biology. This pattern of emergence suggests a new approach to the problem of consciousness, which is neither reducible to brain states nor proof of (...) a mental substance or soul. Although emergence does not entail classical theism, it is compatible with a variety of religious positions. Clayton concludes with a defence of emergentist panentheism and a Christian constructive theology consistent with the new sciences of emergence. (shrink)

How Galileo created the problem of consciousness -- Is there a ghost in the machine? -- Can physical science explain consciousness? -- How to solve the problem of consciousness -- Consciousness and the meaning of life.