This chapter contains sections titled: Questions of Method The Troubled Dominance of the Liberal Paradigm Democracy The Political Person International Issues.

This book is about the processing of information in face-to-face communication when a speaker makes both audible and visible information available to a perceiver. Both auditory and visual sources of information are evaluated and integrated to achieve speech perception. The evaluation of the information source provides information about the strength of alternative interpretations, rather than just all-or-none categorical information, as claimed by “categorical perception” theory. Information sources are evaluated independently; the integration process insures that the least ambiguous sources have the (...) most influences on the judgment. Similar processes occur in a variety of other behaviors, ranging from personality judgments and categorization to sentence interpretation and decision making. The experimental results are consistent with a fuzzy logical model of perception, positing three operations in perceptual (primary) recognition: feature evaluation, feature integration, and pattern classification. Continuously valued features are first evaluated, then integrated and matched against prototype descriptions in memory; finally, an identification decision is made on the basis of the relative goodness-of-match of the stimulus information with the relevant prototype descriptions. (shrink)

Is it ethical for doctors or courts to prevent patients from making choices that will cause significant harm to themselves in the future? According to an important liberal principle the only justification for infringing the liberty of an individual is to prevent harm to others; harm to the self does not suffice.In this paper, I explore Derek Parfit’s arguments that blur the sharp line between harm to self and others. I analyse cases of treatment refusal by capacitous patients and (...) describe different forms of paternalism arising from a reductionist view of personal identity. I outline an Identity Relative Paternalistic Intervention Principle for determining when we should disallow refusal of treatment where the harm will be accrued by a future self, and consider objections including vagueness and non-identity.Identity relative paternalism does not always justify intervention to prevent harm to future selves. However, there is a stronger ethical case for doing so than is often recognised. (shrink)

The question "what is art?" is often said to be venerable and vexing. In fact, the following answer to the question should be obvious: (R) item x is a work of art if and only if x is a work in practice P and P is one of the arts. Yet (R) has appeared so far from obvious that nobody has given it a moment's thought. The trouble is not that anyone might seriously deny the truth of (R), but rather (...) that they will find it uninformative. After all, the vexing question is pressed upon us by radical changes in art of the avant-garde, and (R) offers no resources to address these changes. With that in mind, here is the case for (R). The challenges posed by the avant-garde are real enough and they need to be addressed, but the vexing question is the wrong question to ask to address them. It does not follow that the question has no good answer. On the contrary, (R) is all the answer we need, if we do not need an answer that addresses the challenges posed by the avant-garde. Moreover, (R) points to a question that we do need answered. So, not only is it true but, in addition, (R) is as informative as we need. (shrink)

We observed that despite international declarations on child-rights, outsourced domestic girl-child labour still persists. Raising the question whether outsourced domestic girl-child labour constitutes hermeneutical injustice, we respond affirmatively. Relying on two indigenous victimology-narratives that are newspaper reports, we expose some of the horrors that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour suffer. Comparing these reports with other victimology-narratives of hermeneutical injustice as reported by Miranda Fricker and Hilkje Hänel, we argue that the victims of outsourced domestic girl-child labour suffer a (...) hermeneutical gap and hermeneutical interference; and that the perpetuators of this practice, help to foster what we call ‘hermeneutical obstruction’. We recommend different counteracting measures such as: a radical feminization of educational curricula, which will allow for the introduction of the relevant hermeneutical resources that female children need in making sense of their experiences, into the classrooms and other places of learning; establishing feminist liberation agencies in all schools, religious institutions and hospitals, as ways of increasing the level of awareness about the rights of the girl-child in children and adults; feminizing legislation and legislative processes, to allow for the enactment of laws to protect the rights of the girl-child; and campaigning for a more rigorous enforcement of child-rights laws. (shrink)

This chapter begins by sketching an account of morally responsible agency and the general conditions under which it may fail. We discuss how far individuals with psychiatric diagnoses may be exempt from morally responsible agency in the way that infants are, with examples drawn from a sample of diagnoses intended to make dierent issues salient. We further discuss a recent proposal that clinicians may hold patients responsible without blaming them for their acts. We also consider cognitively impaired subjects in the (...) light of related issues in moral and political theory, asking whether they have been unjustly excluded from liberal conceptions of political community due to their presumed lack of agency. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available for (...) humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

What role should legislation or policy play in avoiding the complications of in-vitro fertilization? In this article, we focus on single versus double embryo transfer, and assess three arguments in favour of mandatory single embryo transfer: risks to the mother, risks to resultant children, and costs to society. We highlight significant ethical concerns about each of these. Reproductive autonomy and non-paternalism are strong enough to outweigh the health concerns for the woman. Complications due to non-identity cast doubt on the extent (...) to which children are harmed. Twinning may offer an overall benefit rather than burden to society. Finally, including the future health costs for children in reproductive policy is inconsistent with other decisions. We conclude that mandatory single embryo transfer is not justified and that a number of countries should reconsider their current embryo transfer policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Is Psychiatry About?Dominic Murphy, PhD (bio)There are no such things as minds, but there are animate objects who behave differently from other types of natural entity. They move around under their own power, and some of their activity seems to be very different from that of other natural objects. Furthermore, some of our predictions about these objects are disproved in interesting ways; if we make a false prediction (...) we do not revise our best theory about how such things generally behave, but we instead conclude that there is something wrong with the object of the prediction. These intelligent unpredictable things need a special vocabulary, and mental talk has arisen to serve as that vocabulary. But since a mind is not a thing in nature we face the problem of saying what the sciences of the mind are actually about.There are, then, intelligent systems that can be judged pathological, and some of them are our conspecifics. It is fair to say that there is no agreement about how such judgments are made or should be made. The question of what a mental illness is part of this larger picture, and it raises several different issues.First, how should we think about our practices of judging deviance? It would be contrary to accepted practice to wear a swimsuit to a state funeral, but what sort of norms would it violate and what state of mind would we ascribe to somebody who did it? Second, what is the difference between a judgment of deviance and a judgment of pathology? We have many ways of distinguishing between types of deviance, and the lines between criminality, immorality and pathology, to take three examples, are not always easy to discern. Third, what makes an illness a mental illness? This is Gough's topic, and I will get to it in a moment, but it worth situating it within this broader framework which asks what we are doing when we make these judgments of norm-violation.Gough begins by quite correctly pointing out that if we look at the domain of psychiatry as currently understood, we would have a hard time seeing what it is supposed to be the science of. It is customary to see psychiatry as dealing with the mental but, as Gough notes, there are some mental processes that psychiatry does not deal with, and some processes that psychiatry deals with that are not mental. Gough's response to this problem is a very interesting one, which starts from the idea that the point of psychiatry is to help those who need it; how different do things look if we start from this position? Conley and Glackin (2021) argues that the practical and therapeutic aspirations of psychiatry should constrain our understanding of mental illness. Glackin argues that we should [End Page 41] see this 'norms-first' view, as I will call it, as part of a broader liberal-democratic conversation about the ways in which we should live togetherA view that starts with norms is typically opposed to the 'naturalist' position. A naturalist begins with positive facts as the basis for diagnostic concepts, on the grounds that our concepts of disease and health are supposed to answer to facts about the physical and mental constitution of human beings. Gough's view is neither a norms-first view or a naturalist's view. We could call it an institutionalist view, or, if we were being a bit less kind, an ostensive one—"these things here, that's mental illness."David Hull (1988) taught us that every science (indeed, every intellectual formation or tradition) needs to be understood in two ways. First, we have the theoretical commitments that are taken to define it. Second, there are the practices and institutions that separate its practitioners off from others. Contemporary evolutionary biology, for instance, is built on the twin foundations of the modern synthesis—Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian genetics. These two theoretical commitments have been transformed and adapted and supplemented in diverse ways so that their modern forms no longer resemble their originals very closely. Still, they continue as the central undertakings about the nature of the living world that modern... (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive (...) socialization undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive (...) socialization undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to read Martin Heidegger’s later philosophy in terms of the assertion that themes such as the fourfold (das Geviert) and poetic dwelling could be interpreted as mythical elements within his writing. Heidegger’s later thought is often construed as challenging and difficult due to its quasi-mystical nature. However, this paper aims to illustrate that if one approaches his later thought from the perspective of myth, a different dimension of Heidegger’s thinking is revealed which is perhaps (...) more tenable than attempting to address his later thought purely from a philosophical position. In brief, Heidegger’s concept of the fourfold involves the following entities: mortals, divinities, the sky and the earth. His argument is that for mortals to dwell poetically (implying the living of a meaningful, holistic life) they must recognise and assume the guardianship of Being (which is inclusive of all the elements of the fourfold). Heidegger argues that our guardianship of Being will be a natural extension of our existence, once we realise the holiness or sacred nature of Being as such. Thus, the concept of the fourfold represents the possibility of existing in a harmonious, caring (or saving), relationship with Being. However, following Heidegger this holistic (and, arguably mythical) depiction of our existence is extremely unlikely due to the rampant nature of technological enframing (Gestell) that dictates the use of human and natural resources. Conceptually though, if this holistic depiction is approached taking into account Ricoeur’s argument regarding myth then it becomes tenable. Ricoeur writes that myth has a symbolic function in terms of its power of discovery and revelation and this implies that myth has a projected horizon. This horizon, Ricoeur writes, is a ‘disclosure of unprecedented worlds, an opening on to other possible worlds which transcend the established limits of our actual world’ (1997: 8). Thus, applying these characterisations of myth to elements of Heidegger’s later philosophy will reveal a justifiable and coherent interpretation of his concept of the fourfold from a mythical perspective. Such a reading demonstrates the centrality of the fourfold in Heidegger’s later thought, which more strictly philosophical approaches may undervalue. In closing this paper suggests the usefulness of a mythological approach to the later Heidegger, and demonstrates the continued vitality of myth, as a profoundly human paradigm which, as Heidegger recognised, can simultaneously complement and transcend our more restricted rational endeavours. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is the political theory which holds that coercive laws and policies are justified when and only when they are grounded in reasons of the public. The standard interpretation of public reason liberalism, consensus accounts, claim that the reasons persons share or that persons can derive from shared values determine which policies can be justified. In this paper, I argue that consensus approaches cannot justify fair educational policies and preserving cultural goods. Consensus approaches can resolve some controversies about (...) teaching values in the educational system, such as curriculum choice. But they cannot determine which culture goods, e.g., architecture, artwork, or language ought to be preserved in the education system. Consensus approaches cannot fairly resolve competing claims about these kinds of disputes. -/- I propose that convergence accounts of public reason, which allow individuals to draw on their own comprehensive doctrines in limited ways, can remedy these weaknesses in the mainline public reason tradition. The convergence approach can justify a pluralist state that can advance valuable community goods. John Henry Newman’s advocacy of liberal arts education finds resonance in other cultures, notably among Confucians, illustrating that there can be a shared moral vision and inquiry into the good life across deep substantive disagreements about educational values and policies, once we expand our notion of justification to be more inclusive. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Objectivism and Constructivism Problems for Constructivism Objectivism Troubles with Objectivism References.

Aquinas claims that ‘He Who Is’ is the most proper of the names we have for God. But this attempt to ‘describe’ God with a philosophical concept like ‘being’ can seem dangerously close to creating a false conception based on our limited understanding – an idol. A dominant criticism of Aquinas’ use of this term is that any attempt to use ‘being’ to describe God will inevitably make him merely some object in our ontology alongside other beings, unacceptably mitigating God's (...) radical transcendence and otherness. I will argue that Aquinas has a very creative response to this charge: ‘being’ stands in a unique relationship as the only concept that can ensure we do not draw God under some particular creaturely limit and thus use divine names to create an ‘idol’. In other words, ‘being’ is a special paradigm concept/term which ensures that we preserve humility in our attempts to name God. -/- . (shrink)

Pictorialists prefigure contemporary photographers for whom there are no holds barred when it comes to making an image from a recording event. The difference is that the inventory of image rendering tricks is now colossal. Liberal use of this inventory characterizes the third, lyric, art of photography. In lyric verse, the authors find heightened attention to the musical qualities of language, to the materiality of the sounds of speech, and to their emotional resonances. Lyric photographs tweak the variables of (...) the photographic process as it is characterized by the new theory of photography, whereas the traditional theory of photography does not welcome lyric photographs with the same warmth. By expanding the conception of pure photography to include lyricism, the new theory runs head to head with the traditional theory but also with the proposition that purity implies uniqueness. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that confidence and conservatism promoted aggression in our ancestral past, and that this may have been an adaptive strategy given the prevailing costs and benefits of conflict. However, in modern environments, where the costs and benefits of conflict can be very different owing to the involvement of mass armies, sophisticated technology, and remote leadership, evolved tendencies toward high levels of confidence and conservatism may continue to be a contributory cause of aggression despite leading to greater costs (...) and fewer benefits. The purpose of this paper is to test whether confidence and conservatism are indeed associated with greater levels of aggression—in an explicitly political domain. We present the results of an experiment examining people’s levels of aggression in response to hypothetical international crises (a hostage crisis, a counter-insurgency campaign, and a coup). Levels of aggression (which range from concession to negotiation to military attack) were significantly predicted by subjects’ (1) confidence that their chosen policy would succeed, (2) score on a liberal-conservative scale, (3) political party affiliation, and (4) preference for the use of military force in real-world U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. We discuss the possible adaptive and maladaptive implications of confidence and conservatism for the prospects of war and peace in the modern world. (shrink)

Background: Besides regulatory learning skills, learning also requires students to relate to their social context and negotiate it as they transition and adjust to medical training. As such, there is a need to consider and explore the role of social and cultural aspects in student learning, particularly in problem-based learning, where the learning paradigm differs from what most students have previously experienced. In this article, we report on the findings of a study exploring first-year medical students’ experiences during the (...) first semester of an undergraduate problem-based learning medical program at an African medical school. Method: We employed a qualitative case study approach using in-depth interviews with 23 first-year medical students. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 25 years. All students were bi/multilingual (some spoke three to five languages), with English as the learning language. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis to systematically identify and analyze patterns in the data using the Braun and Clarke framework. Results: Before medical school, students worked hard to compete for admission to medical school, were primarily taught using a teacher-centered approach, and preferred working alone. At the beginning of medical school, students found it challenging to understand the problem-based learning process, the role of the case, speaking and working effectively in a group, managing a heavy workload, and taking increased responsibility for their learning. By the end of the first semester, most students were handling the workload better, were more comfortable with their peers and facilitators, and appreciated the value of the problem-based learning approach. Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of interrogating contextual sociocultural factors that could cause tension when implementing problem-based learning in non-western medical schools. Adjustment to problem-based learning requires a conceptual and pedagogic shift towards learner-centered practice, particularly concerning self direction, the role of the case, and collaborative learning. As such, there is a need to develop and implement research informed learning development programs that enable students to reflect on their sociocultural beliefs and practices, and enhance their regulatory learning competence to optimize meaningful and early engagement with the problem based learning process. (shrink)

There is a theological puzzle concerning the way in which Satan – an angel – was able to sin, despite lacking knowledge of no relevant fact about the world. Anselm and Aquinas explain Satan’s sin as malicious in virtue of Satan’s indifference to what mattered. I appeal to their account of Satan’s sin as a paradigm case clarifying the way in which those who intentionally engage in nonconsensual sex are always acting maliciously. Assuming competence, those who engage in nonconsensual (...) sex fail to attend to what matters and are willing to harm others merely for their own gratification. Such attitudes are diabolical. (shrink)

BackgroundFear of abandonment and aloneness play a key role in the clinical understanding interpersonal and attachment-specific problems in patients with borderline personality disorder and has been investigated in previous functional Magnet Resonance Imaging studies. The aim of the present study was to examine how different aspects of attachment representations are processed in BPD, by using for the first time an fMRI attachment paradigm including personalized core sentences from the participants’ own attachment stories. We hypothesized that BPD patients would show (...) increased functional involvement of limbic brain regions associated with fear and pain when presented personalized attachment relevant stimuli representing loneliness compared to healthy controls.MethodsWe examined the attachment classifications of 26 female BPD patients and 26 female HC using the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System. We used an fMRI-adapted attachment paradigm to investigate the neural correlates of attachment. All participants were presented three personalized sentences extracted from their AAP attachment narrative, combined with standardized AAP pictures representing being alone or in interactive attachment situations.ResultsAs expected, the classification of unresolved attachment was significantly greater in BPD compared to HC. BPD patients showed increased fMRI-activation in brain areas associated with fear, pain, and hyperarousal than HC when presented with personalized attachment-relevant alone stimuli. In particular, pictures with monadic attachment situations induced greater anterior medial cingulate cortex, anterior insula, amygdala, thalamus and superior temporal gyrus activation in the patient group.ConclusionThe results point to increased fMRI-activation in areas processing emotional distress and painful experiences in BPD patients. In particular, the emotional cascade reflecting attachment distress was evoked by combining monadic pictures, representing abandonment and aloneness, with the patients’ personalized narrative material. Our results confirmed and replicated previous results that illustrate once again the high relevance of aloneness and feelings of abandonment for BPD in the context of attachment trauma. Moreover, our results support the hypothesis of hypermentalization in response to attachment distress as a core feature of social-cognitive impairment in BPD associated with common treatment implications across different therapeutic orientations. (shrink)

Will the ecological crises of our time be resolved using the same form of thought that has brought them about? Are technological prowess and political power the proper tools to address them? Is there not a deeper connection between our ecological crises and our human, social, political, economic, and ethical crises? This book argues that the popular approaches to ecological, bioethical, and other human crises are not working because they fail to examine the problem in its full depth. This depth (...) escapes us because we have abandoned true metaphysical reflection on the whole and substituted it unknowingly for a series of inadequate alternatives. Both the technocratic paradigm that views all of nature mechanistically and its antagonists--the eco-philosophies that argue for the realities of intrinsic value, relationality, and beauty--carry partial truths but are insufficient. This book presents a more radical alternative, rooted in the classical tradition yet fresh and vibrant. The metaphysics of gift, based in the giftedness of existence shared by all, offers a deeper and more satisfying vision of all things that can transform our relationship with nature and touches every aspect of human life: social, political, economic, technical, and ethical"-- Back cover. (shrink)

This volume brings together diverse sets of standpoints on liberalism in an era of growing skepticism and distrust regarding liberal institutions. The essays in the volume: - Relate concerns for liberal institutions with classical themes in perfectionist politics, such as the priority of the common good in decision-making or the role of comprehensive doctrines. - Analyse how perfectionist intuitions about the political life affect our concepts of public reason or public justification. - Outline various moral duties we have (...) toward other persons that underlie the liberal institutions or notions of rights functioning across the contemporary political landscape. - Explore various aspects of pluralism from within influential religious or philosophical traditions, applying insights from those traditions to issues in contemporary politics. The comprehensive volume will be of great interest to scholars, students, and researchers of politics, especially those in political philosophy and political theory. (shrink)

An Amnesty International briefing, published in July 2020, highlights the grave risks health workers are facing globally, particularly in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 The report uses data from 63 countries across the world from January to June 2020 and is rich with examples. While recognising that information about the pandemic is constantly evolving, and each country is in a separate phase of the outbreak, Amnesty International draws attention to several troubling trends. By virtue of the role undertaken by (...) health workers, they face a greater exposure to COVID-19, which has contributed to many of the concerns they now deal with. The briefing notes the evidence of the higher death rate from health workers compared with the general population in countries ranging from Denmark to Argentina, while also pointing out the significantly higher death rate in BAME health workers raised by the BMA in the UK.2 PPE shortages had been reported in nearly all of the 63 countries analysed. Many health workers globally stated that they had to buy their own PPE and others described cases of ‘improvisation’, when suitable PPE was not available, such as using bin bags or raincoats. Furthermore, health workers in several countries had experienced increases in workload with formal measures to extend health workers’ contracted hours passed in some countries as well as further changes to their terms and conditions of service. There were also reports of increased mental stress, particularly from those working in ICUs; the increased work and stress is not being matched with suitable compensation or remuneration. Despite many countries passing special benefits for health workers, it was commonly stated that these benefits had not been received yet or that they did not apply to all health workers, with cleaners and other lower-paid yet vital roles excluded. Deeply concerning …. (shrink)

In a recent judgment1 the Court of Protection was highly critical of health professionals for continuing to provide clinically-assisted nutrition and hydration in the face of disagreement about the patient’s best interests, without seeking to resolve the issue. This hearing had been set up specifically to consider whether GU’s dignity had been properly protected, and if not why not, given concerns raised by the Official Solicitor about what she considered to be “a complete abrogation of responsibility to consider properly or (...) at all, and to determine whether it was in GU’s best interests and therefore lawful to continue to give him an invasive medical treatment, CANH.” In April 2014, at 63 years old and living in Thailand, GU sustained severe injuries after suffering from an electrocution accident. He sustained a cardiorespiratory arrest with a significant delay before cardiopulmonary resuscitation was started and was unconscious and unresponsive. In September 2014 he was transferred to the UK. In August 2018, GU’s brother made a request for a best interests decision concerning the continuation of CANH. The family met to discuss this and all except GU’s son, agreed that continuing CANH was not in GU’s best interests. In view of the fact that there was not unanimity among the family, a decision was made that CANH should continue. Commenting on this decision, Mr Justice Hayden said ‘the apparent assumption that in the face of family disagreement ‘ therefore will continue to be cared for by nursing staff ” is a troubling non sequitur’ and stressed that ‘family dissent to a medical consensus should never stand in the way of an incapacitated patients’ best interests being properly identified’. He also made clear that the responsibility for ensuring that a best interests assessment is undertaken rests with the …. (shrink)

As the COVID-19 vaccine roll out continues apace, in the higher-income countries at least, concerns remain about the level of vaccine coverage in some health and social care settings. Although most countries have seen a relatively high uptake of vaccination against COVID-19 among staff, there continue to be some pockets of hesitancy. The risk of outbreaks in settings with potentially very vulnerable patients has led some governments across Europe to consider, or to introduce, measures compelling healthcare staff to be vaccinated. (...) The justifiability of mandating the vaccination of healthcare professionals is a longstanding question but it has come to the fore in recent months following a resurgence of cases of COVID-19 and the prevalence of the more transmissible Delta variant. In deciding whether the introduction of a mandate is appropriate, states have to balance a range of ethical and practical considerations. A voluntary approach, backed up with education, respects healthcare workers’ autonomy to make private healthcare decisions, which is valued highly in liberal democracies. However, healthcare professionals also have an obligation to ensure that they do not present a risk of harm to their patients. Similarly, healthcare providers have a responsibility to take appropriate steps to minimise the risk of infection. Alongside balancing these rights and responsibilities, governments must also consider the potential consequences and risks of enforcing vaccine uptake. For example, there are concerns that a coercive approach could deepen mistrust and resentment among people who are genuinely fearful or hesitant. Moreover, a large number of refusals and the subsequent imposition of sanctions, such as suspension or redeployment, could affect the ability of providers to staff necessary services. In the UK, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have all ruled out the introduction of compulsory vaccination. However, in July, the English Parliament voted through …. (shrink)

Knowledge is inextricably bound to power in the context of settler colonialism where apprehension of the Other is a tool of domination. Tracing the development of the “settler colonial” paradigm, this article deconstructs Zionist and Israeli dispossession of Palestinian land and sovereignty, applying the sociology of knowledge production to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian case. The settler colonial paradigm, linked to Israeli critical sociology, post-Zionism, and postcolonialism, reemerged following changes in the political landscape from the mid-1990s that reframed (...) the history of the Nakba as enduring, challenged the Jewish definition of the state, and legitimated Palestinians as agents of history. Palestinian scholars in Israel lead the paradigm’s reformulation. This article offers a phenomenology of Palestinian positionality, a critical potential for decolonizing the settler colonial structure and exclusive Jewish sovereignty, to consolidate a field of study that shapes not only research into the Israeli-Palestinian case but approaches to decolonization and liberation. (shrink)

Newborn infants are among those most severely affected by humanitarian crises. Aid organisations increasingly recognise the necessity to provide for the medical needs of newborns, however, this may generate distinctive ethical questions for those providing humanitarian medical care. Medical ethical approaches to neonatal care familiar in other settings may not be appropriate given the diversity and volatility of humanitarian disasters, and the extreme resource limitations commonly faced by humanitarian aid missions.In this paper, we first systematically review existing guidelines relating to (...) the treatment and resuscitation of newborns in humanitarian crises, finding little substantive ethical guidance for those providing humanitarian healthcare. We next draw on paradigm cases and published literature to identify and describe some of the major ethical questions common to these settings. We divide these questions into quality of life considerations, allocation of limited resources, and conflicting cultural norms and values. We finally suggest some preliminary recommendations to guide ethical decision‐making around resuscitation of newborns and withdrawal of treatment in humanitarian settings. (shrink)

This article reviews an epochal change in international thinking about physical punishment of children from being a reasonable method of chastisement to one that is harmful to children and troubling to families. In addition, the article suggests shifts in thinking about physical punishment were originally pioneered as part and parcel of the dismantling of national laws granting fathers’ specific rights to admonish children under conventions of patria potestas. A comparative historical framework of analysis involving two case studies of Ireland and (...) Ghana illustrates non-unilinear pathways of international convergence towards the prohibition of physical punishment. The comparative historical analysis highlights the 1930s and 1940s as an era when Ireland began to reject patria potestas and religious or judicial rulings which allowed for children to be given ‘a good beating’ in family and school settings. However, from the same period, Ghana is seen to experience Christian remonstrations not to ‘spare the rod’ leading to the ‘conventional’ tradition of ‘this is how we do it here’. Two case studies serve to illustrate that banning physical punishment was less controversial in Ireland where allied traditions of patria potestas and disciplinarian Christian beliefs had lost their moral hegemony than in Ghana where such beliefs still held influence. The article concludes overall that normative campaigns against physical punishment of children emanate from a coherent paradigm of family policy where childcare, education, and well-being of children are embedded as everyday societal responsibilities rather than privatised or patriarchal familial obligations. The coherent model offers an alternative moral hegemony to neo-liberal and Janus-faced conceptualisations of good or ‘intact’ families versus ‘broken’ or ‘troubled’ families. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Adorno’s conception of a possible reconciliation with nature is neither one of complete synthesis, nor absolute alienation. The most elaborated formulations regarding the possibility of such a reconciliation, which would be tantamount to a liberated nature, are to be found in Adorno’s aesthetics, and particularly in his discussion of the art–nature relation. The article engages Simon Hailwood’s recent criticism of the concept of the Anthropocene and his discussion of Adorno’s conception of the domination of (...) nature. While I concur with Hailwood’s insistence on the idea of “alienation from nature” in order to reach a more appropriate understanding of our current predicament, his analysis of Adorno’s take on this idea is problematic. I conclude by discussing another recent work on our troubled relationship with nature. While more attentive to artistic expressions than Hailwood’s work, Andreas Malm’s The Progress of This Stormconstitutes an inverted parallel to the former through its negligence of Adorno’s contribution to the discussion of the human–nature dialectic. (shrink)

We can distinguish two liberal paradigms that stand in opposition to each other. Liberalism as non-domination seeks to eliminate identities resulting from domination and oppression and hindering the emancipation of individuals. Liberalism as recognition holds that ‘the idea of a human world without identities makes no sense’ (Appiah) and considers identities to have their source in individual liberty and to provide the grounds for pluralism. The two liberal paradigms come to largely different results regarding the role of the (...) state and civil society. The paradigm of non-domination tends to enforce individual rights, if necessary against a hostile cultural and religious context. The paradigm of recognition defends mostly individual liberties, if necessary at the expense of certain individual rights. Liberalism stands here in front of a major dilemma: Either it protects individual rights in the sense of freedom as non-domination, or it defends individual liberties in Isaiah Berlin's tradition of negative liberty– in too many cases and in too many parts of the world, liberalism, understood in the terms presented here, cannot have it both ways. This review article argues that the liberal paradigms of non-domination and recognition are complementary; liberalism is about both recognition and non-domination. Following policy recommendation can be drawn: (1) Democratic institutions (parliament, political parties and constitutional courts) and democratic rights (right to vote, right of assembly and freedom of speech) are most efficient in fighting domination. (2) Although social identities are not fixed and open to change, they cannot be engineered by the state or civil society organizations and grow out of some form of social consensus. (3) The consensus around identities takes place within the pluralist public and civil sphere of a community. (4) While the support in the development of individual capabilities by the state is effective against domination, also history and collective memory help to overcome the traumatic experience of domination. (5) Systemic transformation requires the support from below, notably from the civil society, and is based on individual liberties. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is public health law and ethics, and the analytic framework advanced in the report Public health: ethical issues by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The author criticises the perceived problems found with liberal models associated with Millian political philosophy and questions the Report’s attempt to add to such theoretical frameworks. The author suggests a stronger theoretical account that the Council could have adopted—that advanced in the works of Joseph Raz—which would have been more appropriate. (...) Instead of seeking to justify overruling the legitimate interests of individuals in favour of society, this account holds that the interests are necessarily interwoven and thus such a conflict does not exist. It is based on an objective moral account and does not require an excessive commitment to individuals’ entitlements. (shrink)

This paper imagines what the liberatory possibilities of (full) ectogenesis are, insofar as it separates woman from female reproductive function. Even before use with human infants, ectogenesis productively disrupts the biological paradigm underlying current gender categories and divisions of labour. I begin by presenting a theory of women’s oppression drawn from the radical feminisms of the 1960s, which sees oppression as deeply rooted in biology. On this view, oppressive social meanings are overlaid upon biology and body, as artefacts of (...) culture and history. I then argue that ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation that can be seen as outgrowths of oppressive assumptions about women's function, ectogenesis should be pursued to replace two modes of assisted gestation. These are gestational surrogacy and uterine transplant, which arise partly from gendered, pronatalist, and geneticist norms. These practices are supported by assumptions about women’s identity and value. Pursuing technologies such as ectogenesis, which weaken the presumed link between biology and gender, is beneficial to (trans-inclusionary radical) feminist aims, as part of a broad project of challenging dominant power relations resting on and maintaining gender categories. By allowing the conceptual separation of female reproductive function from ‘woman’, ectogenesis raises questions about how we determine who counts in this gender identity, and also how we value those who claim the identity ‘woman’. I conclude that ectogenesis has the potential to challenge traditional patriarchal family structures, and thence all other male-dominated structures (of work, education, cultural production), allowing a reimagining of the family and society in more radical ways than we have yet achieved. (shrink)

While being generally appreciative of Sen's theory of capabilities, the point of this paper is to raise some conceptual challenges that arise in addressing entrenched conditions of power and domination from the capability paradigm. The enhancement of people's capability prospects with regard to education, employment, decent living standards and political participation can empower them to challenge various dominating conditions in society. It can also bestow a sense of self-confidence in people to stand up against discriminating practices. Yet, the objectives (...) of the capability theory remain less secure as long as citizens’ capability prospects are dependent on and subjected to arbitrary power and domination. I argue that Sen's theory of capabilities can be strengthened and developed as an effective antidote to the liberal hegemony in political theory by drawing on resources from Pettit's republicanism particularly by accommodating the robustness condition of freedom and by envisioning individual freedom as intimately tied to the common good of the polity. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, power sector liberalization has been embraced at different levels in the East Asian countries of China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The dominant rationale underlying power liberalization has been a quest for efficiency improvements, to be achieved by substituting private market activity for public regulations and by opening a country's electricity system to the global economy and management techniques. However, as the power system is increasingly liberalized, the possibility of establishing a local energy system, which has the (...) great potential to restore sustainable environment-society relations, has been diminished. As an alternative to the power liberalization strategy, this paper proposes a restoration of local energy regimes based on the model of an energy commons and a decentralization paradigm. The innovative energy-policy model of the Sustainable Energy Utility, as applied in the case of Seoul, Korea, is explored as a possible option for a local energy strategy for East Asian countries. (shrink)

While being generally appreciative of Sen's theory of capabilities, the point of this paper is to raise some conceptual challenges that arise in addressing entrenched conditions of power and domination from the capability paradigm. The enhancement of people's capability prospects with regard to education, employment, decent living standards and political participation can empower them to challenge various dominating conditions in society. It can also bestow a sense of self-confidence in people to stand up against discriminating practices. Yet, the objectives (...) of the capability theory remain less secure as long as citizens’ capability prospects are dependent on and subjected to arbitrary power and domination. I argue that Sen's theory of capabilities can be strengthened and developed as an effective antidote to the liberal hegemony in political theory by drawing on resources from Pettit's republicanism particularly by accommodating the robustness condition of freedom and by envisioning individual freedom as intimately tied to the common good of the polity. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary study fuses analysis of feminist literature and manifestos, radical political theory, critical vanguard studies, women's performance art, and popular culture to argue for the animal liberation movement as successor to the liberationist visions of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, most especially the Surrealists. These vanguard groups are judiciously critiqued for their refusal to confront their own misogyny, a quandary that continues to plague animal activists, thereby disallowing for cohesion and full recognition of women's value within a culturally marginalized cause. (...) This volume is of interest to anyone who is concerned about the continued--indeed, escalating--violence against nonhumans. More broadly, it will interest those seeking new pathways to challenge the dominant power constructions through which oppression of humans, nonhumans, and the environment thrives. Women, Destruction, and the Avant-Garde ultimately poses the animal liberation movement as having serious political and cultural implications for radical social change, destruction of hierarchy and for a world without shackles and cages, much as the Surrealists envisioned. (shrink)

This edited collection testifies to the fact that the animal liberation movement is now entering its political phase, after a period dominated by ethical approaches that undermined the paradigm of human supremacy and demanded justice for nonhuman beings. The contributors of this book collectively confront and take on questions of social transformation, guided by the idea that philosophy has an important role to play even at such a new level. They start from such diverse perspectives as critical theory, left (...) liberalism, and biopolitical thought. The result is an articulated picture in which, beyond any principled divergence, it is possible to detect the emergence of a relevant set of shared political preoccupations. This exploration of those offers fresh theoretical insights and suggestions for praxis. (shrink)

Purpose. Institutionalism is gaining strength as a dominant point of view on the world. Its philosophical basis is the postulate of the uncertainty of the development, which comes to replace the neoclassical certainty characteristic of industrial society. The postulate of uncertainty is closely connected with the idea of subjectivization and individualization of post-industrial society. All these were very important components of the new paradigm, although they do not exhaust the problem. In the heart of postmodernism is a mass identity (...) as a spiritual substance, while the more recently mass of people to realize themselves as natural and social beings. Person has absolute freedom in the acceptance and rejection of culture and civilization; it is pluralistic in their actions and in their consciousness. It is the subject of history and it should be creative, fluent mastering all the achievements of culture. Methodology. The dialogue system of the Postmodern, which is the basis of human communication with another person, human with society is a model of convergent formation of the world community and world economy. The same model of rationalism and adequate industrial society is a monologue, which is easily builds a bridge to violence, even if it is carried out in the name of the man behind him and the pathos of the exaltation of man as the bearer of unlimited creation possibilities. However, it is very important not just to modify rationalism, and to understand the origins of civilization. Scientific novelty. The postmodern era begins is not easy. Modern defending, using all their reserves: public thirst for justice, the priority of rationality, monologist public agencies and politicians in contrast to the dialogic postmodern imperative modality in the spiritual existence of man instead the freedom. Finally, the world of the story is set a trap – the anthropological paradigm of the globalization ideology formation. In this paradigm, people see materialistic rational measure of space and society building, i.e. the natural and social being, not a spiritual person. All this was evident in the course of transformation in Ukraine. Its main weakness is obvious. This narrows the field of mass participation in the market or by the adopted symbolism, the field of subjectivity. The population is invited to wait and endure, i.e. plays the role of the object of political and economic manipulation. Even more unacceptable monopolization of subjectivity government, for which everything is regarded as a subject of state regulation. Conclusions. For civilization of cardinal feature is the treatment of the person as the subject of history. The need for the development of civilization to increase the degree of subjectivity in an economy where people can express themselves freely and responsibly through a system of private property relations: economic entity is the subject of property. Policy enhancing the role of human rights and the development of the principle of subjectivity means deepening the democratic foundations of the state structure. In the social sphere the subjectivity is expressed in the individualization of the social existence of man and the personification of public relations and it is implemented through the mechanisms of liberal institutions. It seems that the civilizational unity of the economy, democratic state and liberal society has the value of a scientific paradigm. Whatever the great cultural peaks of the postmodern, the main processes of a new society formed at its foot: in the area of formation of public consciousness and public preferences with the mass participation of the individual in the economy, in the field of state-building and the formation of social institutions on the principles of Amateur participation. (shrink)

Purpose. Institutionalism is gaining strength as a dominant point of view on the world. Its philosophical basis is the postulate of the uncertainty of the development, which comes to replace the neoclassical certainty characteristic of industrial society. The postulate of uncertainty is closely connected with the idea of subjectivization and individualization of post-industrial society. All these were very important components of the new paradigm, although they do not exhaust the problem. In the heart of postmodernism is a mass identity (...) as a spiritual substance, while the more recently mass of people to realize themselves as natural and social beings. Person has absolute freedom in the acceptance and rejection of culture and civilization; it is pluralistic in their actions and in their consciousness. It is the subject of history and it should be creative, fluent mastering all the achievements of culture. Methodology. The dialogue system of the Postmodern, which is the basis of human communication with another person, human with society is a model of convergent formation of the world community and world economy. The same model of rationalism and adequate industrial society is a monologue, which is easily builds a bridge to violence, even if it is carried out in the name of the man behind him and the pathos of the exaltation of man as the bearer of unlimited creation possibilities. However, it is very important not just to modify rationalism, and to understand the origins of civilization. Scientific novelty. The postmodern era begins is not easy. Modern defending, using all their reserves: public thirst for justice, the priority of rationality, monologist public agencies and politicians in contrast to the dialogic postmodern imperative modality in the spiritual existence of man instead the freedom. Finally, the world of the story is set a trap – the anthropological paradigm of the globalization ideology formation. In this paradigm, people see materialistic rational measure of space and society building, i.e. the natural and social being, not a spiritual person. All this was evident in the course of transformation in Ukraine. Its main weakness is obvious. This narrows the field of mass participation in the market or by the adopted symbolism, the field of subjectivity. The population is invited to wait and endure, i.e. plays the role of the object of political and economic manipulation. Even more unacceptable monopolization of subjectivity government, for which everything is regarded as a subject of state regulation. Conclusions. For civilization of cardinal feature is the treatment of the person as the subject of history. The need for the development of civilization to increase the degree of subjectivity in an economy where people can express themselves freely and responsibly through a system of private property relations: economic entity is the subject of property. Policy enhancing the role of human rights and the development of the principle of subjectivity means deepening the democratic foundations of the state structure. In the social sphere the subjectivity is expressed in the individualization of the social existence of man and the personification of public relations and it is implemented through the mechanisms of liberal institutions. It seems that the civilizational unity of the economy, democratic state and liberal society has the value of a scientific paradigm. Whatever the great cultural peaks of the postmodern, the main processes of a new society formed at its foot: in the area of formation of public consciousness and public preferences with the mass participation of the individual in the economy, in the field of state-building and the formation of social institutions on the principles of Amateur participation. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author finds problematic the distinction between “public philosophy” and philosophy done within the classroom or within academia, especially where this distinction implies an incommensurable difference, a pure separation, a clean break. The “public” is always already operative within the academically cloistered spaces of the classroom, and philosophical thinking is always already occurring outside the walls of academia. Philosophy is more than engaging in abstract thought experiments. The irony is that Euro‐American philosophical domination and canon formation take (...) place within the context of white hegemony and racist terrorism, the enslavement and brutalization of Black bodies, and the history of white colonialism. Philosophically engaging such issues as, say, whiteness, is not an add‐on to a syllabus that is otherwise raceless. Warren understands the importance of active racial coalition‐building but reminds progressive and liberal whites that white racism is always insidiously operating in their lives. (shrink)

An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha’s Paramokṣanirāsakārikāvṛtti, a Commentary on Sadyojyotiḥ’s Refutation of Twenty Conceptions of the Liberated State. Edited and translated by Alex Watson, Dominic Goodall, and S. L. P. Anjaneya Sarma. Collection Indologie, vol. 122. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry, École française d’Extrême-Orient, 2013. Pp. 508. €38.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the beginnings and growth of civil movements in the Baltic republics in years 1985-1991, which led to their state independence. Proces of liberation of Baltic societies will be analyzed according to the following criteria: size and range of the civil movement and forms of its institutionalization (i), political concession made by republican authorities (ii) and level of control over the republican structure of power exercised by the civil movements (iii). Finally, I will (...) try to consider why evolution of the Baltic societies resulted in building of the stable democracies, whereas these same efforts are still unsuccesful in Belarus and were unsuccesful in Ukraine. This analysis will not be a chronicle's presentation of events from current history of the Baltic states but will be based on a coherent theoretical framework achieved by employing models and conceptual apparatus of non-Marxian historical materialism. (shrink)

This article traces the evolution by which in the context of 1930s South Africa the liberal philosopher Alfred Hoernlé came to recognize the inability of classical liberalism to address the problems of a society in which a racial hierarchy had become deeply entrenched. Although he must be criticized for his patriarchal approach and for the pessimism that led him to take White attitudes toward Black South Africans as an unchangeable part of the situation that simply had to be accepted, (...) his insight into the limits of liberalism still resonates. While most White commentators were still thinking of racism in terms of beliefs and attitudes, he already understood that the problem lay in the systemic adoption of “techniques of domination” or what we today might call institutional racism. Although his proposal in 1939 that “Total Separation” was “a legitimate application of sound liberal ideas” was deeply problematic in context and might well have had a serious negative impact, it should be understood that it was intended to highlight the fundamental paradox into which liberalism fell when attempting to solve the problems it had helped to create by its belief in a civilizing mission that began with violence. (shrink)

Gender patterns in speech styles provide us with models of both the dominant confrontational style (male) and the affiliative nurturant style (female). In this paper, I argue that dominant confrontational styles are seriously problematic, in speech as well as in behaviour generally, whereas affiliative nurturant styles offer us a model which can be generalized without contradiction. I distinguish confrontation from competition and address briefly how our classrooms might be used to teach affiliative nurturant styles of talking and living.

Kok?Chor Tan argues for a conception of Liberal Cosmopolitanism that seeks to reconcile ideals of global justice and national partiality. I provide two objections to his luck egalitarian model of global justice: first, it fails to provide adequate space for legitimate cultural variation with respect to the understanding of and valuing of natural resources; and second, that its account of ideas of collective responsibility is restricted to a point at which it becomes unrecognizable and inefficacious. I conclude with some (...) reflections on the implications of my analysis for the more general question of whether or how national partiality and global justice can be reconciled. (shrink)