This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic participation (...) and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or 'twilight' of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project 'The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance'. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. (shrink)

Ecological accounts of responsible agency claim that moral feedback is essential to the reasons-responsiveness of agents. In this paper, we discuss McGeer’s scaffolded reasons-responsiveness account in the light of two concerns. The first is that some agents may be less attuned to feedback from their social environment but are nevertheless morally responsible agents – for example, autistic people. The second is that moral audiences can actually work to undermine reasons-responsiveness if they espouse the wrong values. We argue that McGeer’s account (...) can be modified to handle both problems. Once we understand the specific roles that moral feedback plays for recognizing and acting on moral reasons, we can see that autistics frequently do rely on such feedback, although it often needs to be more explicit. Furthermore, although McGeer is correct to highlight the importance of moral feedback, audience sensitivity is not all that matters to reasons-responsiveness; it needs to be tempered by a consistent application of moral rules. Agents also need to make sure that they choose their moral audiences carefully, paying special attention to receiving feedback from audiences which may be adversely affected by their actions. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments are frequently dismissed as fallacious or weak arguments but are nevertheless commonly used in political and bioethical debates. This paper gives an overview of different variants of the argument commonly found in the literature and addresses their argumentative strength and the interrelations between them. The most common variant, the empirical slippery slope argument, predicts that if we do A, at some point the highly undesirable B will follow. I discuss both the question which factors affect likelihood of (...) slippage and the relation between the strength of the prediction and the justificatory power of the argument. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rethinking Variations of Musical MeaningfulnessAnneli ArhoAs a curious mind, I am able to focus on new kinds of topics, to research unknown practices; I am able to explore different cultures, interesting customs of making music, or I may trace various ways of musical thinking. It is wonderful to be able to enrich and transform my understanding of the musical world. [End Page 55]As a lived body,1 I have grown (...) up in the Western music tradition.2 This is my culture. This is the tradition I know as a composer, as a player of an instrument, as a teacher, as a researcher. Living in this culture has given me an embodied understanding of music. This understanding provides me with a meaningful background whenever I sense (hear, see, feel with my body's movements, read, fancy, and speak, write, or read about) music. I know this music in myself.As a musician, I have often been puzzled—even annoyed—that the tradition of writing about music favors descriptions and contemplations which I, as a musician, often find misleading and distorted. It has taken me a long time to realize two things: (1) the professional writers within various discourses create their own kinds of musical meaningfulness that are often interesting in themselves, and (2) in order to really share that kind of meaningfulness, I would have had to grow up within the discourse through which that meaningfulness evolved or was constructed.As a researcher, therefore, I have chosen to ground my research in my lived body, in the musicianship constituted through my experiences in making music. I am interested in phenomena of the lived world—as they are lived through and understood when making music.3 I am interested in different practices and divergent ways of regulating and guiding the making of music. I am interested in habitual ways of speaking about music, common ways of manual and mental training and rehearsing, and in different ways of teaching, supervising, and coaching. For me, all these reveal the phenomenon of music in our culture.My Living with Music—A Field of Musical MeaningfulnessAs a composer, I sometimes work with children and young people, and with their instrumental teachers. I have just started a three-year project in a music school, working each year with a new group of players. In 2004, I conducted a pilot project with recorder players. This year it will be the violin players; next year I may work with the piano players. There are many possibilities for the third year: the head of the school will have a hard job choosing a group from among the several enthusiastic candidates.I have enjoyed the open-mindedness of the children and of the volunteer teachers, too. Learning to play with music—learning to handle, vary, and transform, to compose, decompose, and recompose musical fragments, pieces, or sequences—may be as natural as any playing. Intertwining play, variation, and imitation seems to be an essential part of living and learning.But, I have also had to confront entrenched mythical conceptions of what it means to compose music, and curricula based on those conceptions.4 In my mind, composing cannot be regarded as a phenomenon that could simply be included in a curriculum. In practice, composing may refer to a variety of ways [End Page 56] of making music that are not always easy to tell apart from other culturally named phenomena, like playing, singing, improvising, or writing music.5 For me, composing simply refers to certain ways I live with music: several different ways of dealing with music, different kinds of activities, makings and doings, special states of mind, and special ways of using my embodied knowledge of music. Thus, composing refers to an individual and invisible6 background, an embodied perspective, a way of being, which shows me a certain variety of musical phenomena and their qualities, and conceals some others. Composing, like all arts of making and doing, generates its own practical and existential questions, which often are not an issue for those who do not compose. An outsider never really grasps the situation of a practitioner.Culturally bound ways of making music are being redefined... (shrink)

Does a diagnosis of brain dysfunction matter for ascriptions of moral responsibility? This chapter argues that, while knowledge of brain pathology can inform judgments of moral responsibility, its evidential value is currently limited for a number of practical and theoretical reasons. These include the problem of establishing causation from correlational data, drawing inferences about individuals from group data, and the reliance of the interpretation of brain findings on well-established psychological findings. Brain disorders sometimes matter for moral responsibility, however, because they (...) change an individual’s moral psychology in a way that is beyond their control. While control over psychological changes is not an excusing factor, brain disorders can mitigate moral responsibility because they confront individuals with new psychological deficits or urges for which their previous moral education and existing external and internal moral resources have not prepared them. (shrink)

The challenges facing us today require practical wisdom to allow us to react appropriately. In this paper, we argue that at a group level, we will make better decisions if we respect and take into account the moral judgment of agents with diverse styles of cognition and moral reasoning. We show this by focusing on the example of autism, highlighting different strengths and weaknesses of moral reasoning found in autistic and non-autistic persons respectively.

I defend an instrumentalist account of moral responsibility and adopt Manuel Vargas’ idea that our responsibility practices are justified by their effects. However, whereas Vargas gives an independent account of morally responsible agency, on my account, responsible agency is defined as the susceptibility to developing and maintaining moral agency through being held responsible. I show that the instrumentalism I propose can avoid some problems more crude forms of instrumentalism encounter by adopting aspects of Strawsonian accounts. I then show the implications (...) for our understanding of responsibility: my account requires us to adopt a graded notion of responsibility and accept the claim that certain individuals may not be responsible because they are not susceptible to being influenced by our moral responsibility practices. Finally, I discuss whether the account is committed to allowing the instrumentalization of non-responsible individuals in cases where blaming them may benefit others’ moral agency. (shrink)

The translated text has a specific value in the new culture: it can be a translation of a literary text, and it can be a translation of culture, i.e. a synchronic text of a cultural system. There are two principal concepts which are used in the present article: ‘translation’ and ‘reception’. Reception begins with the selection of the author, literary or historical epoch, literary style, or ideology. So, every translation and reception begins with reading, and every reading creates meanings. At (...) the same time, reception is also translation: it is a moment when two distinct cultures mix, and this situation needs understanding of the other. The translated texts create the image of the translated culture and/or nation. The article examines texts from Latvian and Lithuanian literatures from the second half of the 18th century to the early 20th century which have been translated into Estonian: what kind of texts are translated in different periods and by different translators (the selection of the authors and the texts); what the purpose of the translations is; how these translations translate Latvian or Lithuanian culture into Estonian; and how Estonians understand and accept these translated texts. And, finally, how these translated texts create the image of the translated culture and/or nation. (shrink)

The question of whether psychopaths are criminally and morally responsible has generated significant controversy in the literature. In this paper, we discuss what relevance a psychopathy diagnosis has for criminal responsibility. It has been argued that figuring out whether psychopathy is a mental illness is of fundamental importance, because it is a precondition for psychopaths’ eligibility to be excused via the legal insanity defense. But even if psychopathy counts as a mental illness, this alone is not sufficient to show the (...) insanity defense is applicable; it must also be shown that, as a result of the illness, specific deficits in moral understanding or control are present. In this paper, we show that a diagnosis of psychopathy will generally not indicate that a defendant is eligible for an insanity defense. This is because the group of individuals subsumed under the diagnosis is so heterogeneous that while some psychopaths do show significant impairments in affect and control which may impact on their responsibility, many psychopaths are not incapacitated in a way relevant to responsibility. (shrink)

We often hear that certain mental disorders are disorders of the brain, but it is not clear what this claim amounts to. Does it mean that they are like classic brain diseases such as brain cancer? I argue that this is not the case for most mental disorders. Neither does the claim that all mental disorders are brain disorders follow from a materialist world-view. The only plausible way of understanding mental disorders as brain disorders is a fairly modest one, where (...) we label brain differences we find in mental illness as pathological based on their link to mental dysfunction. How many mental disorders will turn out to be brain disorders on this understanding is an empirical question. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question whether mental disorders should be understood to be brain disorders and what conditions need to be met for a disorder to be rightly described as a brain disorder. I defend the view that mental disorders are autonomous and that a condition can be a mental disorder without at the same time being a brain disorder. I then show the consequences of this view. The most important of these is that brain differences underlying mental (...) disorders derive their status as disordered from the fact that they realize mental dysfunction and are therefore non-autonomous or dependent on the level of the mental. I defend this view of brain disorders against the objection that only conditions whose pathological character can be identified independently of the mental level of description count as brain disorders. The understanding of brain disorders I propose requires a certain amount of conceptual revision and is at odds with approaches which take the notion of brain disorder to be fundamental or look to neuroscience to provide us with a purely physiological understanding of mental illness. It also entails a pluralistic understanding of psychiatric illness, according to which a condition can be both a mental disorder and a brain disorder. (shrink)

A travel management programme allows an organisation to manage corporate travel expenditure, and through a well-formulated travel policy, to control its travel expenses. However, traveller non-compliance of the travel policy is an increasing area of concern with surveys conducted amongst travellers showing various reasons for non-compliance, both deliberate and unknowing. The purpose of this article is to look beyond the reasons and identify the underlying factors that influence travel policy compliance. Two broad categories of factors that lead to non-compliance are (...) distinguished: those related to the corporate travel policy as formulated and communicated by the organisation, referred to as corporate-related factors and including issues of corporate culture and business ethics; and those related to the person of the corporate traveller, referred as personal-related factors and including issues of personal ethics. This article makes a first attempt at identifying factors that have not previously been recognised in those industry or academic studies done on non-compliance or violation of the corporate travel policy. (shrink)

Current legal practice holds that a diagnosis of psychopathy does not remove criminal responsibility. In contrast, many philosophers and legal experts are increasingly persuaded by evidence from experimental psychology and neuroscience indicating moral and cognitive deficits in psychopaths and have argued that they should be excused from moral responsibility. However, having opposite views concerning psychopaths’ moral responsibility, on the one hand, and criminal responsibility, on the other, seems unfortunate given the assumption that the law should, at least to some extent, (...) react to the same desert-based considerations as do ascriptions of moral responsibility. In response, Stephen Morse has argued that the law should indeed be reformed so as to excuse those with severe psychopathy from blame, but that psychopaths that have committed criminal offences should still be subject to some legal repercussions such as civil commitment. We argue that consequentialist and norm-expressivist considerations analogous to those that support punishing psychopaths or at least retaining some legal liability, might also be drawn on in favour of holding psychopaths morally accountable. (shrink)

Consistent findings about the inverse association of social network level with coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity suggest the importance of investigating biological pathways of association. Differences in plasma fibrinogen level were investigated among middle-aged men with weak and strong structural and functional social network ties. Men with low scores in the adequacy of social participation variable (structural) had higher mean values of plasma fibrinogen than those with high scores. The difference remained after adjustment for age, smoking and cardiovascular health (...) status and after possible modifying factors were taken into account, but did not remain significant after allowing for physical fitness. Men with high scores in overall support (functional) had higher plasma fibrinogen levels compared to the men with low scores. This difference persisted after age and cardiovascular health status were taken into account but was explained by smoking. The data suggest that smoking and cardiorespiratory fitness are important mediating or modifying factors between structural and functional aspects of social network ties and plasma fibrinogen. (shrink)

The translated text has a specific value in the new culture: it can be a translation of a literary text, and it can be a translation of culture, i.e. a synchronic text of a cultural system. There are two principal concepts which are used in the present article: ‘translation’ and ‘reception’. Reception begins with the selection of the author, literary or historical epoch, literary style, or ideology. So, every translation and reception begins with reading, and every reading creates meanings. At (...) the same time, reception is also translation: it is a moment when two distinct cultures mix, and this situation needs understanding of the other. The translated texts create the image of the translated culture and/or nation. The article examines texts from Latvian and Lithuanian literatures from the second half of the 18th century to the early 20th century which have been translated into Estonian: what kind of texts are translated in different periods and by different translators (the selection of the authors and the texts); what the purpose of the translations is; how these translations translate Latvian or Lithuanian culture into Estonian; and how Estonians understand and accept these translated texts. And, finally, how these translated texts create the image of the translated culture and/or nation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the ways in which national identities are staged in recent film and theatre productions in Estonia. We want to complement the prevalent approaches to nationality (Anderson 1983; Gellner 1983; Bhabha 1990), where the role of theatre and film as modellers of national identity are undervalued. National identity is a complex term that presupposes some clarification, which we gave by describing its dynamics today; its relation to ethnic identity, a thread between the lived and declared national identities, (...) and the relevance of culture-based national identity. Herein we consider the concept of staging to have two implications: (1) as an aesthetic term it incorporates an artistic process, comprising several devices and levels; (2) as a concept in cultural theory it describes cultural processes in which something is set on stage for public reflection. Accordingly, in our analysis we considered national identities in theatre and film stagings in both senses. The results of our analyses demonstrated that our hypothesis about emerging new national identities in Estonia was valid, though deconstructed and hybrid national identities are not exactly and absolutely new types of identities but rather strategies of creating space for new identities to develop. A deconstructed national identity refers to the state of high self-reflexivity in which the existing elements of national identity are re-examined, recontextualised and re-evaluated. Further, a hybrid national identity demonstrates the diversity and coexistence of the components of national identity. Both strategies of staging are characteristic of the transformation of national identities, confirming that a single homogenous staging of national identity seems to be replaced by bringing multiple new self-models on stage. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the ways in which national identities are staged in recent film and theatre productions in Estonia. We want to complement the prevalent approaches to nationality (Anderson 1983; Gellner 1983; Bhabha 1990), where the role of theatre and film as modellers of national identity are undervalued. National identity is a complex term that presupposes some clarification, which we gave by describing its dynamics today; its relation to ethnic identity, a thread between the lived and declared national identities, (...) and the relevance of culture-based national identity. Herein we consider the concept of staging to have two implications: (1) as an aesthetic term it incorporates an artistic process, comprising several devices and levels; (2) as a concept in cultural theory it describes cultural processes in which something is set on stage for public reflection. Accordingly, in our analysis we considered national identities in theatre and film stagings in both senses. The results of our analyses demonstrated that our hypothesis about emerging new national identities in Estonia was valid, though deconstructed and hybrid national identities are not exactly and absolutely new types of identities but rather strategies of creating space for new identities to develop. A deconstructed national identity refers to the state of high self-reflexivity in which the existing elements of national identity are re-examined, recontextualised and re-evaluated. Further, a hybrid national identity demonstrates the diversity and coexistence of the components of national identity. Both strategies of staging are characteristic of the transformation of national identities, confirming that a single homogenous staging of national identity seems to be replaced by bringing multiple new self-models on stage. (shrink)

The question of whether mental disorders are disorders of the brain has led to a long- running and controversial dispute within psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of mind and psychology. While recent work in neuroscience frequently tries to identify underlying brain dysfunction in mental disorders, detractors argue that labelling mental disorders as brain disorders is reductive and can result in harmful social effects. This book brings a much- needed philosophical perspective to bear on this important question.

In everyday confabulation and rationalisation of behaviour, agents provide sincerely believed explanations of behaviour which are ill-grounded and normally inaccurate. In this paper, I look at the commonalities and differences between confabulations and rationalisations and investigate their moral costs and benefits. Following Summers and Velleman, I argue that both can be beneficial because they constrain future behaviour through self-consistency motivations. However, I then show that the same features that make confabulations and rationalisations beneficial in some cases can also make them (...) morally costly, when behaviour is explained and justified through the endorsement of bad moral principles. I show that these effects are most likely to occur where the central element of confabulation, self-explanation, and the central element of rationalisation, self-justification, coincide. (shrink)

This article presents the results of the empirical testing of the corporate travel policy compliance model conceptualised by the authors and first published in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2009. In the previous article, the theory underlying the model was explained. This article follows with the results of the empirical testing of the model and focusses on those related to the influence of personal factors on policy compliance. The constructs used to define personal-related factors include personal ethics, individual morality, (...) self-interest, levels of job- and life satisfaction and the conditions of travel. The empirical investigation sought to determine if personal-related factors significantly influenced travel policy compliance and from the study it could be concluded that there is a correlation, with certain factors exhibiting a stronger correlation than others. The implication is that organisations need to understand the impact of factors previously ignored or under-valued as determinants of non-compliance and take steps to recognise and remedy the situation to achieve higher levels of travel policy compliance amongst corporate travellers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Focusing on The Experience:Exploring Alternative Paths for ResearchEleanor Stubley, Anneli Arho, Päivi Järviö, and Tuomas MaliWriting and speaking are essential means of understanding, studying, and sharing music in the Western art music tradition. As a group of researchers, our story begins with the gap that seemingly exists between theoretical definitions or accounts of music and our experience of it as music makers—that is to say as composers, performers, (...) conductors, and teachers. Poignantly sensitive to the ways in which our musical experience and knowledge is embodied, we found ourselves one day four years ago sitting around an electrically-charged dinner table where ideas, questions, and the joy of having found someone like-minded seemed to be the main entrée. Since then, we have been working as a group, [End Page 39] experimenting with different ways of collaborating, using writing as a means of exploring and sharing our experiences across long distances. At first, the goal was simply to find a common ground, a platform for developing an extended dialogue that would draw on our unique backgrounds and divergent ways of our thinking. But, in the absence of a common language, both linguistic and theoretical, there were problems. We had, for example, to come to understand what each of us meant by the word experience and the role it could play as the ground of research, not as a series of defining moments or events but as the largely invisible flow of human life. We also had to deal with the inter-wovenness of mind and body, individual, and culture, not to mention our individual musical sensitivity and artistry. Confronted by these larger issues, our differences soon became the means to explore gaps or openings that could be entered to reveal the continuous becoming of music and language, the places where they intersect and diverge, and our own being in relationship to both.The papers presented in this symposium were the outgrowth of our dialogue during the summer of 2004. Each of us worked independently, yet each of us was also aware of the direction, the themes, and the ways of the others. The result is kaleidoscopic, each author starting from a different place, but seemingly working from the same palette of colors.Eleanor Stubley writes as a philosopher and conductor. Her work here is part of a larger on-going study that examines the way in which the body fills both language and our experience of music, with a particular focus on the way in which an interest in the body renews our understanding of music, language, and thought. Through a series of inter-connecting meditations inspired by the letter A, she challenges the practice of grounding research and practice in definitions of music as "organized sound." Her writing makes visible the habitual of a variety of educational practices, asking us to think anew about instructional technologies such as the alphabet, scale, and taxonomies of musical form, and to find in what we have traditionally thought of as practices of the mind, the omnipresence of the body. It also offers a new perspective on the hand, not as a tool or muscle to be trained as a skill, but as the very ground from which to develop an aesthetics of music that combines and recognizes the multiple ways in which we know and encounter music, through sight, sound, movement, and touch.Anneli Arho writes as a composer, educator, and philosopher/researcher. She explores the power of working from within the factical situation of a musician making music, focusing in particular on the embodiedness of music, questions of meaningfulness, and the ways in which phenomenological reflection on her own musical experiences has allowed her to move beyond traditional research discourses. Her writing asks us as educators to re-think curricular definitions of [End Page 40] composition, not simply as a collection of skills to be acquired or languages to be learned, but rather as embodied ways of living in and through sound. Using notation as an example, she argues that composing generates its own practical and existential questions distinct from those of listener, performer, and researcher, and which can never be totally shared with others... (shrink)

When individuals display cognitive biases, they are prone to developing systematically false beliefs. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that rather than being a flaw in human cognition, biases may actually be design features. In my paper, I assess the claim that unrealistic optimism is such a design feature because it is a form of error management. Proponents of this theory say that when individuals make decisions under uncertainty, it can be advantageous to err on the side of overconfidence if the potential (...) gains through success are high and the costs of failure are low. I argue that there are a number of conceptual problems in matching the theory with the existing data. I also show that there is empirical evidence against the error management hypothesis. (shrink)

Sometimes persons are legally responsible for reckless behavior that causes criminal harm. This is the case under the newly drafted provisions of the U.S. Model Penal Code (MPC), which holds persons responsible for “simple” rape (nonconsensual sex without proof of force or threats of force), where the offender recklessly disregards the risk that the victim does not consent. In this paper we offer an explanation and corrective critique of the handling of reckless rape cases, with a focus on the U.S. (...) criminal justice system, although our analysis is applicable more broadly. We argue that a wider group of reckless rapists are criminally responsible than is captured by the MPC and claim criminal punishment of reckless rapists must be justified by looking to both moral desert and instrumental aims achieved by criminal punishment. Part of the law’s job is to communicate and enforce society’s expectations regarding unacceptable behavior. In punishing reckless rape, we are not just giving people what they deserve, but also reinforcing and shaping norms regarding sexual behavior. (shrink)

Research concerning work on caring for older people shows that care providers experience a variety of consuming emotions and stress. They can be said to be in a vulnerable position. It is not known, however, how the care providers themselves understand vulnerability. The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of vulnerability to care providers caring for older people. A qualitative interpretive approach was adopted. Data were collected through tape-recorded interviews with 16 female registered and practical nurses who (...) were experienced in caring for older people. Qualitative analysis resulted in one core theme and six themes with subthemes. The core theme showed that, for the participating nurses, vulnerability essentially meant being human. The meanings of being human were illustrated by the six themes: having feelings; experiencing moral indignation; being harmed; having courage; protecting oneself; and maturing and developing. Analysis showed that vulnerability was a resource as well as a burden. (shrink)

Autobiographical stories do not merely offer insights into someone’s experience but can constitute evidence or even serve as self-standing arguments for a given viewpoint in the context of public debates. Such stories are likely to exercise considerable influence on debate participants’ views and behaviour due to their being more vivid, engaging, and accessible than other forms of evidence or argument. In this paper we are interested in whether there are epistemic and moral duties associated with the use of autobiographical stories (...) in mental health debates. We argue that debate participants have a responsibility to assess a story as evidence or as an argument when the story is put forward to support a given viewpoint. We also make some preliminary suggestions about what can be done to ensure that the use of stories contributes to the variety of the resources available to debate participants without compromising the quality of the argumentation or increasing polarisation. (shrink)

Sometimes persons are legally responsible for reckless behavior that causes criminal harm. This is the case under the newly drafted provisions of the U.S. Model Penal Code (MPC), which holds persons responsible for “simple” rape (nonconsensual sex without proof of force or threats of force), where the offender recklessly disregards the risk that the victim does not consent. In this paper we offer an explanation and corrective critique of the handling of reckless rape cases, with a focus on the U.S. (...) criminal justice system, although our analysis is applicable more broadly. We argue that a wider group of reckless rapists are criminally responsible than is captured by the MPC and claim criminal punishment of reckless rapists must be justified by looking to both moral desert and instrumental aims achieved by criminal punishment. Part of the law’s job is to communicate and enforce society’s expectations regarding unacceptable behavior. In punishing reckless rape, we are not just giving people what they deserve, but also reinforcing and shaping norms regarding sexual behavior. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 136-140. In early 2011, Cow Heavy Books published The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature , a compendium of catalog 'blurbs' for non-existent desired or ideal texts. Along with Erinrose Mager, I edited the project, in a process that was more like curation as it mainly entailed asking a range of contemporary writers, theorists, and text-makers to send us an entry. What resulted was a creative/critical hybrid anthology, a small book in which each page opens (...) to a new iteration of textual desire. These texts explore the material possibilities of the book. Somewhat parallel to the call of N. Katherine Hayles who, in her book Writing Machines , urges literary theorists to take up the practice of Medium Specific Analysis (to account for the way the medium in which it is presented conditions or at least bears on a literary text). I see in the imagined works of The Official Catalog a call for the innovative writers of today to become Medium-Responsive. This would mean thinking through the specific (materially constrained) possibilities offered by the media in which texts are presented, and in thinking of the literary text as a kind of art in the greater context of other arts and the book as a medium situated within the context of many other media. In doing so, the contemporary writer refutes the chorus of critics who lament the death of the book by consistently reinvigorating literary innovation. The following are selections from The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature that show possible paths for (thinking about) new writing that engages with its medium. —Ben Segal, Editor THE CUBE Even the most radical non-linear texts have tended to exploit or subvert only the sequential possibilities of print—from the continuous loop of Joyce's Finnegans Wake to the shuffled cards of Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 —but The Cube takes such multiplicities to an entirely new level. Set in a grid, the book's words can be read conventionally, across the page, as well as down each column—with either route making complete grammatical sense. But they can also be read as stacked strata and mined like lexical core samples through the layered pages of the book. Each path tells the same story from a different perspective (the narrative, naturally, hinges on the potential outcomes of a throw of cubed dice). By opening up the z-axis to reading in this way, The Cube recognizes the book as a three-dimensional sculptural space. Taking its lead from Armand Schwerner's (If Personal) and Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes , The Cube reads like a experiment by Christian Bök precision printed by Emily McVarish. Craig Dworkin is the editor, most recently, of The Consequence of Innovation: 21st Century Poetics (Roof Books, 2008), The Sound of Poetry/The Poetry of Sound , with Marjorie Perloff (U. Chicago Press, 2009), and Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing , with Kenneth Goldsmith (Northwestern UP, 2010). He teaches at the University of Utah. HE GOES In He Goes , we read notes, letters and e-mails from a scholar father to his novelist daughter. We read of the father's musings on Beckett, on Pinter, on Anne Frank; his description of a woman hanging laundry from a line. We read about his journey toward dying, followed by a brief, third person account of his death, and his obituary. Then a long series of blank pages that demand to be read in real time, non-sentence by non-sentence, blank page by blank page. Finally—and it is here that this peculiar little book begins to soar—the dead father writes to his as-of-yet-still-living daughter. He does not write from death. He does not write from life. The words unprint, unstamp, unkindle. Still, they require no translation. The father "writes" (for lack of a better word) about the serendipitous, the commonplace; he recommends another book. He jokes. He asks his daughter how her stomach is. He says forget about presence in absence, darling; screw words as memorial and the guys in garbage cans and loss as redemption and I can't go on I must go on. He goes, "Love, Fodder." He goes, "incidentally." He goes, "I thought you might like to know." Elizabeth Graver is the author of a story collection, Have You Seen Me? , and three novels: Unravelling ; The Honey Thief ; and Awake . Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories , Best American Essays , and Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards . She teaches at Boston College. THE PAPER ARCHIVIST A stunning package and a triumph of imagination, The Paper Archivist at times looks to be less a book than an abstract expressionist painting. Softly bound, its contents unfold to a single sheet of uneven thickness and texture—a canvas splattered with colored lines, stickers, broken sentences, and nonsense pictographs. But by following the directions to fold, dip, smell, rub, scratch, and tear the sheet according to the contingencies of the weather and using only the objects at hand, the reader slowly brings the forces hidden in the noise into a glorious sculptural convergence, processing a different story and shape each time. This is the rare book that continues to stir, whirl, and pop on every new reading. Sean Higgins blogs at BOMBlog where he is responsible for the column Volumes and Territories, as well as Ghost Island , a fledgling collaborative intellectual collective. THE SLOW BOOK The Slow Book , written by an anonymous author at the dawn of literacy, on a minor planet (otherwise notable only as the source of that exceptionally hardy, not very tasty grain called “shef” sowed on hostile planets as an early step to colonization), and encoded into a series of punctures on a strip of copper coiled inside a clever device, something between a player piano and an old-fashioned film projector, is being released into print, as was the author’s intention, at a rate of one word per century (local time). Each word is, across the Forty Galaxies, agreed to be uncannily apt for the century in which it appears—even “of,” in a century during which the highest value was attached to fidelity, whether to ideals, worlds, or romantic love; even “the,” which governed two centuries, one extraordinarily materialistic, during which advances in propulsion and navigation accelerated the exchange of exceptional objects between the remotest planets of the Forty, and one in which the central concern, both of philosophers and the common man, was whether, in an age of rapidly proliferating hypothetical worlds, anyone or anything concretely existed at all. Even those words published long before interstellar contact can be seen in retrospect to have transgalactic pertinence. As a result, attempts to abstract the machine from its publishers, Hobson & Hui, in order to “predict the future” for insight or gain by “fast- forwarding” the copper strip have been many and ingenious. While, in centuries of skepticism (“maybe”), or of unrest (“go”) the book has been nearly forgotten, in others it seems to haunt every thought, every deed, despite the fact that the subject of The Slow Book is still unclear. So far only a few sentences exist in print; everyone knows them, can quote them, offer the standard exegeses and assorted heresies; yet certainties are the stuff of adolescence; mature readers are forced to acknowledge that these sentences are probably only a preamble to the main argument. They contain no proper nouns, nor can we identify any definite theme. There is even disagreement about their tone, whether coolly ironic, as some insist, or ardent. The appearance of an unusual grammatical case, sometimes called the future pluperfect continuous, used to describe events that at some future point will have always been true (but are not yet)—hitherto known to appear only in the synthetic dogmas of the Thanatographical Society, and in certain highly circumscribed religious contexts—has suggested to some scholars that the Slow Book was originally intended for ritual use, but the proximity of the usage to a term designating a small hand plow that, as Pott and Mielcke have convincingly shown, would have borne a distinctly obscene double meaning in its culture of origin in the author’s time, argues otherwise. It is likewise unclear whether the situation that seems to be—with teasing incompleteness—sketched out in these few lines is intended as an illustration of general principles, a case study, a dramatic scene, or an extended metaphor. In short, we have no idea what The Slow Book is about. In our own time, we believe that it is almost certainly a work of fiction, but that may be because we live in the century of “if”. In each age, perhaps, we see the book we most need to read. Some have dared to suggest that the metal strip is blank until, with millennial fanfare, it advances into its new position, that no ur-text exists, that the book itself is brought into being—written—by our need. But that is exactly the sort of thing we would believe, in 7645. Shelley Jackson is the author of the story collection The Melancholy of Anatomy , the novel Half Life , and hypertexts including Patchwork Girl . The recipient of a Howard Foundation grant, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2006 James Tiptree Jr Award, she has also written and illustrated several children's books, including The Old Woman and the Wave ; Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog ; and Mimi's Dada Catifesto . Her stories and essays have appeared in Conjunctions , McSweeney's , The Paris Review , and Cabinet Magazine . In 2004 she launched her project SKIN , a story published in tattoos on 2095 volunteers. THE BOOK OF SOUNDS The Book of Sounds is just that: a book of sounds made when letters are construed in new ways to bring forth out of the alphabet new forms of speech. A book meant to be read out loud, The Book of Sounds is not unlike Laurie Anderson's O Superman or Brian Eno's Music for Airports in its attempt to make music out of the most primary and simplest of methods. It breaks language down to its barest bones and makes out of the page a drum that has never before been beaten upon. Peter Markus is the author of a novel, Bob, or Man on Boat (Dzanc Books) as well as two books of short fiction, Good, Brother and The Singing Fish , both of which were published by Calamari Press. A new collection of stories, We Make Mud , is now available from Dzanc Books. PARADISE OF THE BLIND by Celan Solen Although the reclusive Celan Solen published his first and only book in 1963—paying out-of-pocket for a limited edition of the slim collection No One May Have the Same Knowledge Again —he remained in American obscurity for almost three decades. In 1992 a micro-press in Istanbul brought out No One in Turkish. A German translation followed in 1995. Soon it became clear in literary circles Solen was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist—lyrical, dense, enigmatic—who could undo the conventional short story in 397 words by inventing impossible worlds housed in impossible whirls (in “Small Sadnesses,” a single chartreuse tree frog in Borneo unknowingly holds time together by its very presence in the universe, while each letter of its tale refers, not to itself, but to the one preceding it in the alphabet). By his disappearance last year, Solen was considered master by a generation of writers and critics (except, alas, for those gentlemen in the Swedish Academy). Imagine, then, that generation’s delight at the discovery, locked away in the author’s safe-deposit box, of his second and final composition. Had Lynch’s Lost Highway been book instead of film, and had it been penned by Beckett at his least certain, revised by Barthelme at his most formally deranged, and typeset by Derrida at his most semiotically catastrophic, the result might have been something like Paradise of the Blind : interlacing narratives of a man composed of borrowed organs (whose most cheerless and difficult to locate, god, could only have been invented by an empty heart), a nonexistent medieval painting blamed for the ruin of future hope, and the spread of a philosophy that holds earth a mistake constantly recurring in the dream of a fish lying on the floor of the Atlantic (if the fish wakes, our world winks off)—all contained in a text packed with typed-over passages, torn postcards, poems that can be deciphered only when held up to a mirror, pages ornamented with trompe-l'œil paperclips and coffee stains and buzzing houseflies, some busy with illegible runes that dissolve when exposed to light, three that smell like roses or lemons (depending on whether a man or woman is reading), two that stain with the bloody fingerprints of the those who handle them, one that ignites when brushed with breath, thirteen sewn from baby skin, one that moans when touched, and one that screams—yet all without mass, unimaginable, and invisible. Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative fiction, including, most recently, the novels Calendar of Regrets (2010) and Head in Flames (2009). He teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah. SUPERSTRUCTURE! by Barbara D'Albi As soon as I opened the third drawer of Barbara D'Albi's wooden novel, everything became hopeless. Now in Ithaca, there was no going back. And it wasn't just the intricate series of shelves, hinged doors and locked drawers which D'Albi layered into the book, no, lo, I was constructed anew by the story. Who else but D'Albi to imagine a God who becomes a carpenter and gets killed?! And makes it good! You want stories? D'Albi is a skyscraper, built with planes and levers. Momentarily I wondered where I could shelve this book, and then I thought: no matter; I couldn't put it down. Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he runs Publishing Genius. He is the author of Adam Robison and Other Poems and Say, Poem. 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Respect for autonomy and self-determination is a central principle in nursing ethics. Autonomy and quality of life are strongly connected, and, at the same time, autonomy is an important quality indicator on how older persons' housing functions. In this study, autonomy was conceived as self-determination. The aim of the study was to describe how older people living in sheltered housing experience self-determination and how they are valued as human beings. Eleven persons living in five different housing facilities for older people (...) in southern Sweden were interviewed. The data were analysed by manifest and latent qualitative content analysis. The overall theme expressing the latent content in the interviews emerged as disempowerment, which implied an environment that does not strengthen individual self-determination. The results showed a negative experience of how these older people thought they were valued in the sheltered housing where they lived. In sheltered housing, more attention should be paid to residents' self-determination and sense of value. (shrink)

This study of morphological overabundance focuses on the (non-)synonymy of parallel forms in Estonian illative case (‘into’) and the type of entrenchment behind it. We focus on the lexical level, testing whether the form preferred for a lexeme depends on semantic or morphophonological factors, or both. Using multifactorial regression analyses, we compare three corpus datasets: lexemes biased toward long forms, those biased toward short forms and lexemes with balanced form distribution. This is the first study to investigate realised overabundance in (...) this way, and to include inflection class membership in the model, enabling us to test whether declension class subsumes the morphophonological factors found to affect form preference in previous studies. The analysis shows that cell token frequency and inflection class are significant predictors of form preference, while the lexical-semantic features included in the study do not affect formative choice, highlighting the role of cell entrenchment instead of formative entrenchment in guiding form use. In conclusion, the study highlights the important role of inflection class (morphophonology) in the general shaping of form usage patterns in parallel forms and the weak role of semantic factors on the lexical level. (shrink)

Feeling old: being in a phase of transition in later life The aim of the study was to illuminate very old persons’ experiences of feeling old in order to get a nuanced understanding of the ageing process in later life. Fifteen persons 85–96 years of age, living in their own homes, were interviewed in‐depth. Data were analysed utilising a phenomenological‐hermeneutic approach. Eight persons reported that they felt old. The experience of feeling old entailed four characteristics: being able to date the (...) beginning of feeling old, fear of helplessness and of being unable to manage one’s life situation, not recognising one’s former self, and feeling different from others. These characteristics corresponded to the main properties of a transition process. The comprehensive understanding was that the very old persons who also felt old were in a phase of transition. The distinguishing qualities of those that felt old were also found to be in line with the dystonic dominance in the ninth stage designated by Joan Erikson of the previously described life cycle. Knowledge about transition processes and sensitivity to very old people’s experiences of feeling old are of great importance to nursing in order to provide adequate health care services and prevent unhealthy transitions. (shrink)

This study formulates a conception of knowledge in interactive practice disciplines such as education and health care and clarifies different types of knowledge in these disciplines. Focus is on the relationship between practical and theoretical knowledge. Four theses are discussed: (1) the role of knowledge in an interactive practice is to guide practice; (2) different types of knowledge in an interactive practice consist of value-knowledge, factual knowledge and procedural knowledge, parts of which are unarticulated, parts articulated; (3) science is a (...) way of articulating and creating knowledge that can be used as internal action determinants in the practice concerned; and (4) theories in an interactive practice can have both a theoretical and a practical purpose but the theoretical purpose is also indirectly linked to the practical. (Author/JD). (shrink)

It is commonly thought that mental disorders can undermine autonomy. In her new book, Michelle Maiese addresses the question to what extent this is the case. Her insightful book makes contributions...

BackgroundThe pursuit of sexual pleasure is a key motivating factor in sexual activity. Many things can stand in the way of sexual orgasms and enjoyment, particularly among women. These are essential issues of sexual well-being and gender equality.ObjectiveThis study presents long-term trends and determinants of female orgasms in Finland. The aim is to analyze the roles of factors such as the personal importance of orgasms, sexual desire, masturbation, clitoral and vaginal stimulation, sexual self-esteem, communication with partner, and partner’s sexual techniques.DesignIn (...) Finland, five national sex surveys that are based on random samples from the central population register have been conducted. They are representative of the total population within the age range of 18–54 years in 1971, 18–74 years in 1992, 18–81 years in 1999, 18–74 years in 2007, and 18–79 years in 2015. Another dataset of 2,049 women in the age group of 18–70 years was collected in 201... (shrink)

Why Free Will Is Real. By List Christian.

Religion and spirituality are integral to the philosophy of palliative care, shaping its approach to spiritual care. This article aims to examine the discourses within palliative care research to illuminate prevailing assumptions regarding spiritual care. Eighteen original articles were analyzed to examine how spiritual care is understood within palliative care. The analysis, informed by Foucault, aimed to identify recurring discourses. The finding reveals that, in palliative care research, spirituality is viewed as enigmatic yet inherently human and natural, assuming that every (...) individual has a spiritual dimension. The analysis points to healthcare professionals being expected to hold certain qualities to put spiritual care into practice. The analysis also reveals that in the analyzed articles, the concept of spiritual care is rooted in a Christian context, with the belief that all individuals possess inherent spirituality or religiosity, a concept often associated with Christian theology. The included articles often utilize theological terms and emphasize a monotheistic viewpoint. Spirituality is articulated as a complex, distinct concept, challenging clear definitions and professional responsibilities. Further, a moral formation of healthcare professionals is described, interpelling and ascribing qualities that healthcare professionals need to provide spiritual care. (shrink)