According to accounts of the Passion, Christ cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry, I argue, manifests that Christ lacks a belief that God is with him. Given the standard view of faith—belief that p is required for faith that p—it would follow that Christ lost his faith that God is with him just before he died. In this paper, I challenge the standard view by looking at the cognitive requirement of (...) faith. Although faith that p requires some positive cognitive orientation toward p, that orientation need not be belief. I show that reliance is an alternative stance that fulfills the cognitive requirement of faith. Reliance aims at providing sensible guidance for action that is in accord with one’s values/ends. Thinking of the cognitive component of Christ’s faith in terms of reliance makes sense of the doubt manifested in his cry. (shrink)

The findings of our experiments showed that social network sites such as Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter, have the ability to acquire knowledge about their users’ movements not only within SNSs but also beyond SNS boundaries, particularly among websites that embedded SNS widgets such as Google’s Plus One button, Facebook’s Like button, and Twitter’s Tweet button. In this paper, we analysed the privacy implication of such a practice from a moral perspective by applying Helen Nissenbaum’s decision heuristic derived from her (...) contextual integrity framework in order to answer the question of whether or not an online user’s privacy is being violated by this practice. (shrink)

Toward the end of Light in August, in the climactic scene in Chapter 1 where the authorities of justice pursue the elusive Joe Christmas through the streets of Jefferson, William Faulkner introduces a new character, Percy Grimm, a twenty-five-year-old captain in the State National Guard who has relentlessly acquired the rank of a special deputy for the search. As the town closes for the weekend, Grimm keeps vigil at a downtown store where other townsfolk have begun a poker game to (...) stay awake through the night as the search goes on. In their zeal to uphold law and justice, his men revel in their fantastic make-believe that they are doing the work of “a hidden and unsleeping and omnipotent eye watching the doings of men.” The poker game goes on through Saturday night until Christmas is spotted and given chase. As Grimm runs through the streets after the fleeing man, Faulkner presents to us the deputy's stream of thought from an omniscient point of view: “There was nothing vengeful about him either, no fury, no outrage. He was moving again almost before he had stopped, with that lean, swift, blind obedience to whatever Player moved him on the Board” (437). Through the rest of the chapter, Grimm, who has not participated in the poker game at all, thinks and acts as if he is engaged in a chess game, not as a player but as the stake or the pawn in a board game in which Jefferson is the board on which he and Christmas are being moved from place to place by two larger forces, he by the benevolent Providence and Christmas by the powers opposed to God. Finally, when Christmas is cornered and fatally shot in Reverend Hightower's kitchen, this fantasized game seems to end. (shrink)

Every civilized society treasures through its folk tales and folk myths the elements of its native tribal life as points of cultural reference. The tribe not only acts as a foil to our culture, but also sustains its very being and gauges the degree of progress and change in the civilization that we uphold. This interdependence has a vital force: insofar as civilized societies define themselves by the distance they have built up between themselves and their respective primitive societies, a (...) civilized culture without its indigenous tribal past risks the authenticity of its process of change to challenge and doubt. Hence, our adulation of distance in both time and space between ourselves and our tribal forefathers, and our eagerness to recognize, maintain, and even glorify our tribes—a necessary syllogism in our postulation of a self-preserving argument. In a peculiarly chiastic way, we thrive on our existential reliance on the very primitiveness that we seek to repudiate as characteristic of a world past. We celebrate our present by eulogizing our past, and to fit the tribes in the large scheme of our self-definition we iconize them. These idealized images hide a creative mask through which we embrace the romantic myths of our respective origins and progress; the parades we arrange for our tribal history—through performance on our streets, or through semantics in our literature—subtly embody this dependence. (shrink)

Increased productivity may have negative impacts on farm animal welfare in modern animal production systems. Efficiency gains in production are primarily thought to be due to the intensification of production, and this has been associated with an increased incidence of production diseases, which can negatively impact upon FAW. While there is a considerable body of research into consumer attitudes towards FAW, the extent to which this relates specifically to a reduction in production diseases in intensive systems, and whether the increased (...) incidence of diseases represents a barrier to consumer acceptance of their increased use, requires further investigation. Therefore a systematic review of public attitudes towards FAW was conducted, with a specific focus on production diseases in intensive systems. Four databases were searched to identify relevant studies. A screening process, using a set of pre-determined inclusion criteria, identified 80 studies, with the strength of evidence and uncertainty assessed for each. A thematic analysis led to the identification of 6 overarching themes constructed from 15 subthemes. The results demonstrate that the public are concerned about FAW in modern production systems. Concern varied in relation to age, gender, education and familiarity with farming. Naturalness and humane treatment were central to what was considered good welfare. An evidence gap was highlighted in relation to attitudes towards specific production diseases, with no studies specifically addressing this. However, the prophylactic use of antibiotics was identified as a concern. A number of dissonance strategies were adopted by consumers to enable guilt free meat consumption. (shrink)

This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 (...) illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself—its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity. (shrink)

Function theorists routinely speculate that a viable function theory will be equally applicable to biological traits and artifacts. However, artifact function has received only the most cursory scrutiny in its own right. Closer scrutiny reveals that only a pluralist theory comprising two distinct notions of function--proper function and system function--will serve as an adequate general theory. The first section describes these two notions of function. The second section shows why both notions are necessary, by showing that attempts to do away (...) with one of them fail. This demonstration draws on examples from the artifactual realm to motivate major points of the argument. The third section is an outline of artifact function. It confirms the conclusions of the second section, and also begins the task of describing some of the special features of artifact function needing accommodation within the general theory. (shrink)

This volume deals with the normative challenges and the ethical questions imposed by, and through, the developments and changes in everyday life, culture and society in the context of media change. We are thus concerned with the questions of whether and how the central concept of ethics must evolve under these premises—or in other words: what form do ethics take in mediatized societies? In order to address this question and to stimulate and initiate a debate, we have focused on two (...) concepts: responsibility and resistance. (shrink)

Gender-affirming hormone therapy is increasingly available to support healthy development of transgender youth, but ethical concerns have been raised regarding fertility-related implications. In this article, I present data from an exploratory qualitative study of the decision-making experiences of trans youth, parents of trans youth, and healthcare providers serving trans youth related to fertility and family creation. I discuss how cisnormative and bionormative biases can impact care and contribute to ethically problematic narratives of regret. Finally, I offer recommendations to support ethically (...) sound, gender-affirmative fertility and family creation counseling with transgender youth. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é analisar e avaliar um conjunto de textos aqui denominados textos-moldura presentes nas obras de Bakhtin e do Círculo traduzidas no Brasil desde 1979, com vistas a traçar um panorama nacional crítico do contexto de recepção da obra bakhtiniana e evidenciar algumas de suas especificidades, indiciadas nos diálogos que empreendem com os aspectos sociais, históricos e culturais. Pretende-se, ainda, contribuir para o aprofundamento dos estudos dialógicos e sua incontestável dimensão interdisciplinar. Além da perspectiva dialógica, as (...) reflexões apoiam-se, também, em teorias da tradução, caso específico da que discute a “relação entre um texto de partida e um contexto de chegada”, ou ainda “um modo de ler um texto em dado contexto”. Parte de uma pesquisa maior, os resultados aqui apresentados dizem respeito unicamente a uma das obras do Círculo: Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na Ciência da linguagem e suas duas traduções brasileiras. ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze and evaluate a number of texts called frame-texts found in the works of Bakhtin and the Circle, which have been translated in Brazil since 1979. Our objective is to offer a critical overview of the context of the reception of their work nationwide and highlight some of its specific features, apprehended in the dialogues established with social, historical and cultural aspects. We also intend to contribute to deepening the dialogical studies and its undeniable interdisciplinary dimension. In addition to the dialogic perspective, these reflections rely on theories of translation, especially those that discuss the “relationship between a text and its context of reception” or “a certain way of reading a text in a given context.” This discussion is part of a larger research study, and the results presented herein are related to one of the works of the Circle, namely, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language and its two translations into Brazilian Portuguese. (shrink)

Inherent in providing healthcare for youth lie tensions among best interests, decision-making capacity, rights, and legal authority. Transgender youth experience barriers to needed gender-affirming care, often rooted in ethical and legal issues, such as healthcare provider concerns regarding youth capacity and rights to consent to hormone therapy. Even when decision-making capacity is present, youth may lack the legal authority to give consent. The aims of this paper are therefore to provide an empirical analysis of minor trans youth capacity to consent (...) to hormone therapy and to address the normative question of whether there is ethical justification for granting trans youth the authority to consent to this care. Through qualitative content analysis of interviews with trans youth, parents, and healthcare providers, we found that trans youth demonstrated the understandings and abilities characteristic of the capacity to consent to hormone therapy and that they did consent to hormone therapy with positive outcomes. Employing deontological and consequentialist reasoning and drawing on a foundation of empirical evidence, human rights, and best interests we conclude that granting trans youth with decisional capacity both the right and the legal authority to consent to hormone therapy via the informed consent model of care is ethically justified. (shrink)

Corporate Philanthropy is multi-dimensional, differs between sectors and involves both individual and organisational decision-making to achieve business and social goals. However, the CP literature characteristically focuses on strategic decisions made by business leaders and ignores the role of employees, especially those in lower status and lower paid positions. To redress this imbalance, we conducted a qualitative study of employees’ involvement in CP processes in ten workplaces in the South East of England to identify whether and how they are involved in (...) CP decision-making and to capture their perspective on the nature of CP and the benefits generated by such activities. We specifically chose to study workplaces where employees are involved in the actual execution of the CP strategy, prioritising companies with a visible presence on the high street. The results illustrate the benefits of involving employees in CP decision-making, which we argue derives in part from the ‘liminal-like states’ that typify CP activities organised by shop floor staff, involving the temporary overturning of hierarchies, humanising of workplaces and opportunities for lower level staff to prioritise their personal philanthropic preferences and signal their charitable identity to colleagues and customers. Whilst the data also suggest that CP decision-making remains predominantly top-down and driven by profit-oriented goals, we conclude that employees should be involved in choosing charitable causes as well as in designing and implementing workplace fundraising, in order to maximise the advantages of CP for the company and for wider society. (shrink)

Extending her earlier work on a theory of human rights in her 1993 Operative Rights, Singer (emerita, American philosophy presumably, City U. of New York) critiques philosophies from Rousseau to Kymlicka in clarifying her views--influenced by Dewey and Mead (George Herbert, not Margaret)--and applying them to such issues as multiculturalism, minority rights, and conflict resolution. The analysis pivots on her concept of "a normative community" rather than natural rights. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Bibudhendra Narayan Patnaik, Life’s Little Tales. Bhubhaneswar: Sikshasandhan, 2022. 175 pp., ₹195.

Drawing on decades of experience, a psychotherapist and Zen practitioner makes the Abhidharma--the original psychological system of Buddhism--accessible to a general audience for the first time. The Abhidharma, one of the three major text collections of the original Buddhist canon, explores the critical juncture of Buddhist thought and the therapeutic aspects of the religion and meditation. It frames the psychological system of Buddhism, explaining the workings of reality and the nature of the human mind. Composed of detailed matrixes and lists (...) that outline the interaction of consciousness and reality, The Abhidharma explores the essence of perception and experience, and the reasons and methods behind mindfulness and meditation. Because of its complexity, the Abhidharma has traditionally been reserved only for academic or monastic study; now, for the first time, clinical psychologist Beth Jacobs makes this dynamic, important text and its teachings available to general readers, using practical explanation, personal stories, and vivid examples to gently untangle the technical aspects of the Abhidharma. Jacobs’ work illuminates this classic of Buddhist thought, highlighting the ways it can broaden and deepen our experience of the human psyche and offering profound insights into spiritual practice. (shrink)

Survivors of sexual abuse are frequently met with cultures of silence which make it difficult for their experiences to be acknowledged. Furthermore, many have been subjected to threats and intimidation in efforts to ensure that they remain silent about what has happened to them. One response to such experiences is to keep oneself busy and avoid ever being quiet enough to experience a sense of silence within. However, many spiritual traditions promote the embracing of silence as essential for those seeking (...) spiritual development. This paper explores these diverse experiences of silence for survivors of sexual abuse and considers why spiritualities which promote silence can be problematic. (shrink)

What is an avatar -- More than just another pretty face : the avatar effect -- Interview with the virtual cannibal -- Virtual presence -- X-reality, a conclusion.

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

Fringe benefits have been neglected as a source of job-induced gender inequality. Among full-time, private sector workers in the United States in 1979, women's health insurance coverage rate was 12 percentage points lower than men's. This article considers three models to explain such gender differences in the receipt of fringe benefits: the direct discrimination model, the occupational segregation model, and the industrial segregation model. Using data from the May 1979 Current Population Survey Supplement, we found the magnitude of the gender (...) gap in health insurance coverage in the United States to be related to industrial differences. We argue that industrial segregation of women workers may be more important than occupational segregation in determining gender differences in work rewards. (shrink)

Over the last year, pundits looking for an explanation for the improbable victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election have turned to the opioid epidemic, a public health crisis qua political crisis. Since the widespread closure of steel mills and other manufacturing plants throughout middle America in the 1980s, a new so-called "Oxy electorate" has emerged, citizens who rely on painkillers to ameliorate the material realities of economic decline and loss of community. According to postelection statistics, six of (...) the nine counties in Ohio that flipped from traditionally Democratic to vote Republican in 2016 logged an overdose rate that well exceeded the national average. Historian Kathleen Frydl... (shrink)

Presents a portrait of Alamaba rivers, from their origins in the Appalachian highlands to their confluence with the Gulf of Mexico, and promotes the stewardship and preservation of these natural regions.

Vermaas and Houkes advance four desiderata for theories of artifact function, and classify such theories into non-intentionalist reproduction theories on the one hand and intentionalist non-reproduction theories on the other. They argue that non-intentionalist reproduction theories fail to satisfy their fourth desideratum. They maintain that only an intentionalist non-reproduction theory can satisfy all the desiderata, and they offer a version that they believe does satisfy all of them. I reply that intentionalist non-reproduction theories, including their version, fail to satisfy their (...) first desideratum. Thus neither type of function theory satisfies all the desiderata. This suggests that the list of desiderata may well be inconsistent, and that ultimately we may have to decide whether to give up the first desideratum or the fourth one. I recommend giving up the fourth one on the grounds that this choice preserves the phenomenologically salient social aspects of artifact function. Vermaas and Houkes attempt to satisfy their desiderata Why this attempt fails What is to be done? (shrink)

Ethical perception involves seeing what is ethically salient about the particular details of the world. This kind of seeing is like informed judgment. It can be shaped by what we know and what we come to learn about, and by the development of moral virtue. I argue here that we can learn to see food justice, and I describe some ways to do so using three narrative case studies. The mechanism for acquiring this kind of vision is a “food justice (...) narrative” that is particular and concrete. These kinds of stories are counter narratives to a popular and dominant “script” about food that disguises the identity of people who eat, and obscures how constraints on free choice are created by particular lived circumstances. Food justice narratives specify the social and political location of individual people who are trying to nourish themselves. Once this contextual surround is included we are in a position to ask why this person, in this set of circumstances, is impeded in their access to nutritious food. This is not a question we are likely to consider if we leave out the identity of food consumers. Food justice narratives are forward looking as well because they bring into clearer focus what actions and kinds of social activism are appropriate responses to constraints on free choice. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to say that with the advent of technologies like synthetic biology the line between artifacts and living organisms, policed by metaphysicians since antiquity, is beginning to blur. But that line began to blur 10,000 years ago when plants and animals were first domesticated; and has been thoroughly blurred at least since agriculture became the dominant human subsistence pattern many millennia ago. Synthetic biology is ultimately only a late and unexceptional offshoot of this prehistoric development. From this (...) perspective, then, synthetic biology is a red herring, distracting us from more thorough philosophical consideration of the most truly revolutionary human practice—agriculture. In the first section of this paper I will make this case with regard to ontology, arguing that synthetic biology crosses no ontological lines that were not crossed already in the Neolithic. In the second section I will construct a parallel case with regard to cognition, arguing that synthetic biology as biological engineering represents no cognitive advance over what was required for domestication and the new agricultural subsistence pattern it grounds. In the final section I will make the case with regard to human existence, arguing that synthetic biology, even if wildly successful, is not in a position to cause significant existential change in what it is to be human over and above the massive existential change caused by the transition to agriculture. I conclude that a longer historical perspective casts new light on some important issues in philosophy of technology and environmental philosophy. (shrink)

For trans youth, the experience of gender differs from expectations based on sex assigned at birth (Frohard-Dourlent, Dobson, Clark, Duoll, & Saewyc, 2016). To support gender health—the ability to...

There is increasing interest in artifacts among philosophers. The leading edge is the metaphysics of artifacts and artifact kinds. However, an important question has been neglected. What is the ontological status of the category ‘artifact’ itself? Dan Sperber (2007) argues against its theoretical integrity for the purposes of naturalistic social sciences. In Section 2, I lay out Sperber’s argument, which is based on the observed continuum between natural objects and artifacts. I also review the implicit support for this continuum argument (...) in the philosophical literature on artifacts. In Section 3, I diagnose the fatal weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. They fail to take into account recent thinking about classification in philosophy of science, which has been forced to accommodate continua in biology. In Section 4, I focus specifically on the species problem in philosophy of biology, and on pluralism about species concepts as a response to it. I then identify an analogous artifact problem, and argue that pluralism about artifact concepts is an appropriate and defensible response here as well. Finally, in Section 5, I show that just as species pluralism leads to skepticism about the species category, so artifact pluralism leads to skepticism about the artifact category. I thus arrive at Sperber’s conclusion by an alternate route that does not run afoul of the weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. (shrink)