We tend to think that a person who is both reasonable and moral can have a good life. What constitutes a life that is not only good but superlative, or even “marvellous” or “holy”? Those who have such lives are called sages, heroes or saints, and their lives can display great integrity as well as integration with a transformative “Spiritual Presence.” Does it follow that saints are perfect people? Is there a common vision that impels them to seek holiness? In (...) a controversial interpretation of mysticism Horne suggests that there is no single formula for the meaning of life and no one story that displays it to us. Mysticism, rather than being just a visionary perception, then becomes a problem-solving process that brings about a creative transformation of the personality at a critical stage in life. He suggests also that saints may be imperfect morally and describes true saints as double-minded: they are serious in a playful way. Mysticism and Vocation illuminates our understanding of saintly lives by explicating their mystical characteristics and extending discussions of mysticism to explain its role in active lives. In discussing important decisions that go beyond conventional morality, it adds to recent philosophical arguments by Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams and others to the effect that morality should be defined more broadly to deal with the human condition. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy and religious studies, in both graduate and undergraduate programs. (shrink)

Many of us have a prereflective sense--or at least, a hope--that there are reasons to be moral which apply to an agent regardless of what his or her existing motivations may be. The view that there are no such reasons may, then, be regarded as a form of moral scepticism. The philosophical position which seems most fit to refute this form of moral scepticism, and hence to support our prereflective sense, is a Kantian view of morality, according to which we (...) are required to be moral solely in virtue of being rational. I examine a number of recent arguments for this position; I conclude that all of them fail, and for similar reasons. Nor, I argue, is there any non-Kantian view which could succeed at the same task. It is thus very tempting to infer that this form of moral scepticism is immune to any simple refutation. However, perhaps the best way to combat scepticism is not to argue for its negation--as do the positions examined so far--but to show that there is something problematic in the sceptic's whole approach to the issue. At this point I turn for enlightenment to an analogy with epistemological scepticism. Here, too, if we try to argue for the negation of scepticism, we seem bound to fail; but here the more subtle strategy of attacking the sceptic's whole approach has actually been attempted. I sketch a number of versions of this more subtle strategy; I then sketch some analogous responses to moral scepticism, and consider whether any of them are successful. I argue that the attempt fails--that even if epistemological scepticism is indeed amenable to this kind of treatment , moral scepticism is not. This conclusion is only strengthened when I argue that another, related strategy, which employs an analogy between morality and mathematics, also falls short at the same point. Moral scepticism therefore survives intact. The appropriate reaction, I suggest, is neither complete despair nor complete equanimity. (shrink)

This article explores the relation among illness, home, and belonging. Through a feminist phenomenological framework, I describe the disorientations of being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and living with mental illness. This research anticipates the consequences of illness and serious disorientations for a conception of belonging as seamless body–world compatibility. Instead, this article examines how the stability of bodily dwellings in experiences of disorientation can suggest ways of being in the world that are more attentive to interdependency, (...) unpredictability, and change in human experience. I argue that these types of dwellings function as a more capacious and apposite metaphor to account for variations in belonging. This discussion outlines the ethical importance of building worlds that make room for different ways of being at home in and through our interactions with others. Although my discussion does not supply norms for ethical action, I contend that a feminist phenomenology of illness generates saliences and illuminates sensibilities that can transform our ways of being with others. (shrink)

Being at Home stimulates careful conversation about some of the most pressing issues facing higher education institutions in South Africa today - race, transformation, and institutional culture. While there are many reasons to be despondent about the current state of affairs in the South African tertiary sector, this book is an invitation for the reader to see these problems as opportunities for rethinking the very idea of what it is to be a university in contemporary South Africa. It (...) is also, more generally, an invitation to think about what it is that the intellectual project should ultimately be about, and to question certain prevalent trends that affect - or, perhaps, infect - the current global academic system. The volume will be of interest to all those who are concerned about the state of the contemporary university, both in South Africa and beyond. [Subject: African Studies, Higher Education]. (shrink)

The negative health effects of stress are well documented in medical and psychological research, but these effects are underexplored in political philosophy. This essay evaluates these effects in relation to the explanatory and normative value of the concept that I call “being at home.” The phenomenological description of the state of being at home is the sense of feeling safe and at ease in your context, and therefore able to relax. Although it characterizes a particular state (...) of being for an individual person, its conditions are relational. I show how the normative value of being at home can guide nonideal action-guiding recommendations to respond to racism in light of the claim that one of the negative effects of racism is a steady stream of disruptions to a person’s sense of ease in the world. Racism and microaggressions create stress, which then causes further negative health effects to the minority body. Consequently, the physical harms perpetrated by racist and sexist societies on the members of oppressed identities can be as great as the effects of actions standardly understood as violence. Demonstrating that a nonideal theoretical approach to bioethics is well suited to evaluating the philosophical ramifications of the bodily damage incurred by microaggressions, I recommend selective and episodic separatism from the perpetrators of microaggressions as a health-protective response to the realities of living in an unjust world. (shrink)

In my paper, by drawing on the writings Heidegger developed in the late 1920s, I wish to display what we may refer to as the thorough educational nature of Heideggerian reflection. It is my argument that the analysis of Dasein we find in the early Heidegger displays an extraordinary deep and dense reflection on selfhood and subjectivity, a reflection that is rooted in subject’s freedom and transcending. By paying attention to the interplay between these two features, I argue that in (...) the late 1920s, while challenging the notion of an all-encompassing consciousness as the place where everything should be understood and managed, Heidegger built a conception of selfhood and subjectivity in terms of freedom, responsibility, and ongoing transformation. Such a conception, I argue, is in and of itself educational. (shrink)

This article examines Heidegger’s account of dwelling while placing it in the broad context of a wide array of his lectures and the constellation of his collected writings. The focus on this question is primarily ontological in character, in spite of the spatial significance of the phenomenon of dwelling, and the bearings it has on a variety of disciplines that interrogate its essence, be it in architectural humanities and design or in geography, which probe the various elements of its architectonic (...) and topological underpinnings. The investigation of Heidegger’s reflections on dwelling will be connected in this line of inquiry with his consideration of what he refers to as “the gathering of the fourfold,” namely as “earth, sky, mortals and divinities,” and the manner they are admitted and installed into “things,” all to be set against the background of his meditations on the origins of the work of art, and on the unfolding of the essence of modern technology as en-framing. (shrink)

This paper offers a short history of Agnes Heller’s relationship to China through three aspects: imaginative aesthetic enjoyment, real encounters with Chinese cultural spectacles and actual audiences, and the construction of an academic community through creative dialogue. These discussions suggest that Heller felt at home in China. Although Heller has passed away, a home for us remains in her work through remembering her and engaging further with her writings.

Recent work in the philosophy of biology argues that we must rethink the biological individual beyond the boundary of the species, given that a key part of our essential functioning is carried out by the bacteria in our intestines in a way that challenges any strictly genetic account of what is involved for the biological human. The gut is a kind of ambiguous other within our understanding of ourselves, particularly when we also consider the status of gastro-intestinal disorders. Hegel offers (...) us theoretical tools to describe and understand our relationship to our gut. His description of our selves as continually mediated through otherness is strikingly compatible with the kind of structure contemporary biology presents us with. His accounts of digestion and habit, contextualized by his logic, help point toward an understanding of selfhood as porous and yet still capable of being sufficiently unified for us to make sense of ourselves, one which allows us to acknowledge otherness within us while still having enough unity for agency. (shrink)

In Nothing To It, Brother Phap Hai brings his characteristic warmth and humor to explore the many different gates to transformation offered by Buddhism. A gate is a teaching, practice, or way of looking at things. Each gate is an invitation to consider a new frame of reference through which we can consider our situation, an opportunity to look at things differently. Readers who enjoyed Bhante Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English will delight in this new explanation from the Australian-born monk, (...) who lives at Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, California. There are fifty-eight gates explored in Nothing To It, arranged in ten traditional groups, with one chapter exploring each gate. Based on a series of talks given by Phap Hai in 2013, the book is designed to be equally valuable when read through at leisure or used as the text for a ten week self-guided course. Each chapter includes questions for reflection, additional reading suggestions on the topic, and writing exercises. The gates can be explored in order or investigated at random. Phap Hai offers a charming blend of ancient wisdom, Dharma scholarship, and contemporary applications. (shrink)

Adorno wrote prolifically about modernism in culture and the arts, but little has been written about whether or in what form he might have addressed architectural concerns. The project of exploring this potentially fruitful intersection has been helped in the last couple of decades by authors from philosophy and critical theory contrasting his ideas about dwelling with Heidegger’s and by architectural theorists considering the import of his aesthetic theory.1 If these fall shy of the more immediate connections to architecture that (...) some have hoped to uncover, this is because Adorno almost never wrote about specific buildings and their designers. Neither did he publish any texts dedicated exclusively to architecture or dwelling, which is not to say that he never wrote about them or that architectural concerns are absent from his work. Adorno’s writings on dwelling and architecture live here and there, emerging and then moving on to surface later, if not often as direct commentary then as a kind of architectural gaze his thinking sometimes employs. Dwelling and architecture exist like exiles in his writings even though the question of dwelling—of what it means to inhabit social and space-time worlds as embodied beings—lies as much at the core of Adorno’s philosophy as it did in Heidegger’s. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some contributions that Mexican and Latinx phenomenologists have made to the critical phenomenology of home, i.e., the experience of “being at home in the world”—an experience that has always been both deeply cherished and bitterly contested. Tracing a line of thought that runs from the work of two Mexican phenomenologists in the 1940s and 1950s (Jorge Portilla and Emilio Uranga) to the work of two contemporary Latinx phenomenologists in the U.S. (Gloria Anzaldúa and Mariana (...) Ortega), we find a shared view that the Mexican and Latinx experience has been marked by zozobra, an anxious condition characterized by the inability to be at home in the world. However, these philosophers disagree about the source of this zozobra, and even whether zozobra is something that should overcome or embraced and celebrated. Reading these thinkers together, we learn that home is several things simultaneously: an essential foundation for human existence; an illusory ideal whose pursuit leads us to exclude vulnerable others and vulnerable parts of ourselves; and a site for the negotiation of the circumstances in which one finds oneself, in the tragic and beautiful hope of creating a life to call one’s own. (shrink)

To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

Abrasive, harsh, uncompromising, blunt, uncomfortable. Lyrical, haunting, evocative, pleasure-full, drenching, soaring. All of this, all at once, now, not later. No postponing, no deferring to an endlessly deferred not yet, not yet, not yet.

Nel Noddings, one of the central figures in the contemporary discussion of ethics and moral education, argues that caring--a way of life learned at home--can be extended into a theory that guides social policy. Tackling issues such as capital punishment, drug treatment, homelessness, mental illness, and abortion, Noddings inverts traditional philosophical priorities to show how an ethic of care can have profound and compelling implications for social and political thought. Instead of beginning with an ideal state and then describing (...) a role for home and family, this book starts with an ideal home and asks how what is learned there may be extended to the larger social domain. Noddings examines the tension between freedom and equality that characterized liberal thought in the twentieth century and finds that--for all its strengths--liberalism is still inadequate as social policy. She suggests instead that an attitude of attentive love in the home induces a corresponding responsiveness that can serve as a foundation for social policy. With her characteristic sensitivity to the individual and to the vulnerable in society, the author concludes that any corrective practice that does more harm than the behavior it is aimed at correcting should be abandoned. This suggests an end to the disastrous war on drugs. In addition, Noddings states that the caring professions that deal with the homeless should be guided by flexible policies that allow practitioners to respond adequately to the needs of very different clients. She recommends that the school curriculum should include serious preparation for home life as well as for professional and civic life. Emphasizing the importance of improving life in everyday homes and the possible role social policy might play in this improvement, _Starting at Home_ highlights the inextricable link between the development of care in individual lives and any discussion of moral life and social policy. (shrink)

Nel Noddings, one of the central figures in the contemporary discussion of ethics and moral education, argues that caring--a way of life learned at home--can be extended into a theory that guides social policy. Tackling issues such as capital punishment, drug treatment, homelessness, mental illness, and abortion, Noddings inverts traditional philosophical priorities to show how an ethic of care can have profound and compelling implications for social and political thought. Instead of beginning with an ideal state and then describing (...) a role for home and family, this book starts with an ideal home and asks how what is learned there may be extended to the larger social domain. Noddings examines the tension between freedom and equality that characterized liberal thought in the twentieth century and finds that--for all its strengths--liberalism is still inadequate as social policy. She suggests instead that an attitude of attentive love in the home induces a corresponding responsiveness that can serve as a foundation for social policy. With her characteristic sensitivity to the individual and to the vulnerable in society, the author concludes that any corrective practice that does more harm than the behavior it is aimed at correcting should be abandoned. This suggests an end to the disastrous war on drugs. In addition, Noddings states that the caring professions that deal with the homeless should be guided by flexible policies that allow practitioners to respond adequately to the needs of very different clients. She recommends that the school curriculum should include serious preparation for home life as well as for professional and civic life. Emphasizing the importance of improving life in everyday homes and the possible role social policy might play in this improvement, _Starting at Home_ highlights the inextricable link between the development of care in individual lives and any discussion of moral life and social policy. (shrink)

Can one expect religious minorities to be committed to a liberal democratic state? Can a democratic, Western, liberal state be open and safe for all – both ultra-orthodox and secular alike – and count on the allegiance of all? Does this require that religious minorities ‘hide’ their religious identity and conform to prevailing laws and customs and express their religious views and practices only in the privacy of their own homes? Or should minorities request that they receive public recognition? Ought (...) such minorities tolerate opposing views and practices on matters that are central to their faith, or should they request that these are not expressed in public? In this paper, I discuss and evaluate four possible responses to these questions. (shrink)

On July 13, 2014, the director and producer of Midnight Rider turned themselves in to the Wayne County (Georgia) Sheriff's Department after being charged with involuntary manslaughter and criminal...

The image of home has a central place in the thought of both Heidegger and Hegel. In Hegel, being at home is central to Hegel’s reformulation of Kantian freedom. The notion of home and dwelling is also a central notion in Heidegger’s thought, especially his later thought. This paper examines their respective uses of the term and argues that the different ways they conceive the problem of home or dwelling reveals their different conceptions of modernity.

This paper discusses the educational significance of the national museum as a reminder of the nature of home and its relation to nostalgia. I contextualise the sense of home in various ways. First, the national museum materialises the nostalgic claim of ‘our’ history, the collective memory and identity, which is in some way or other mixed up with the personal memory. Second, it problematises the relation to home. Barbara Cassin’s question, ‘when are we ever at home?’, (...) subtitle to her book Nostalgia, expresses a puzzle that may be apparent both to those who have never left home and to those who have to leave their home for personal, social, or political reasons. In the light of Cassin’s book, the national museum comes to be seen in a contradictory way: it provides the ground and materialisation for the collective identity of a people, and it leaves open to something more disturbing. Yet this disturbance, if welcomed and embraced, is crucial to realising the educative importance of the museum in its contribution to the understanding of the human condition. (shrink)

The authors argue that the chain of events which they describe is the end-product of a century's effort to convert Hindus into a 'proper' modern nation and a conventional ethnic majority. Simultaneously, the effort is equally to turn the followers of other Indian faiths into well-behaved ethnic minorities and nationalities. The American model of a 'melting pot' is being imposed with the expectation that it will dissolve India's primordial identities. A society which has for centuries been a salad bowl (...) of diverse communities, each identifiably different but constituting parts of a whole, is being forced to conform to the pattern of a 'proper' nation-state. (shrink)

People who have mental illness are in particular need of what a home can provide, but they are especially vulnerable to not being in a place with a home-like environment, whether due to homelessness, incarceration, or hospitalization. At any given time, approximately 170,000 people are inpatients in psychiatric units or hospitals (NASMHPD 2017). Psychiatric hospitals are not homes, and they are not designed for long-term stay. The main purpose of the modern psychiatric hospital is to stabilize people (...) in mental health crises, such as those who are psychotic or suicidal; hospitals are best thought of as temporary, transitional dwellings. Even though a person may only reside there for a week or a month, however, it is a crucial period of stabilization and healing. As this paper argues, practices of home-making increase epistemic and moral agency, which enables crisis stabilization, healing, and recovery. This paper examines several functions of home and shows some of the ways that patients in psychiatric hospitals try to replicate these functions in the physical space they have given their many constraints. Because practices of home-making support the goals of hospitalization, the hospital experience should be designed to encourage these practices as much as possible. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, ‘palliative care’ has evolved as a special nursing field in Germany. Its historic roots are seen in the hospices of the Middle Ages or in the hospice movement of the twentieth century. Actually, there are numerous everyday sources to be found about this subject from the nineteenth century. The article at hand deals with the history of nursing the terminally ill and dying in domestic care in the nineteenth century. Taking care of and nursing the (...) dying was part of everyday routine in the nursing care as practiced by the deaconesses and sisters in those days. Mit der Seelenpflege bei den unheilbar Kranken und Sterbenden schufen die Kaiserswerther Diakonissen sich einen von Ärzten unabhängigen Kompetenzbereich. Meine Analysen zur Privatpflege zeigen jedoch darüber hinaus, dass die in ihrer Aufmerksamkeit auf das Mutterhaus ausgerichteten Diakonissen auch in Leibespflege sehr viel unabhängiger von den Ärzten zu agieren schienen als die freien Krankenschwestern. The article takes a look not only at the actual nursing activities but also at the relationship between the sisters and their patients and their relatives and the family doctor. On the basis of the recorded letters which the nurses wrote to the deaconess motherhouse in Kaiserswerth, it is also possible to analyze how the deaconesses communicated and reflected their actions at the deathbed. (shrink)

In this essay, I first argue for the importance of somaesthetics in thinking about “autonomy” and “atmosphere” in architecture in a manner that brings about a critical re-education. Refusing the strict distinction between these architectural approaches through a turn to somaesthetics, I then turn to Kant’s theory of reflective judgment to set forth discursive possibilities for arriving at some understanding of the concept of architectural atmosphere. Finally, I suggest ways in which somaesthetics and Kantian thought can be seen as mutually (...) enhancing, rather than opposing each other. (shrink)

Naturalist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore meditates on connection and separation in these twenty-one elegant, probing essays. Using the metaphor of holdfasts—the structures that attach seaweed to rocks with a grip strong enough to withstand winter gales—she examines our connections to our own bedrock. “When people lock themselves in their houses at night and seal the windows shut to keep out storms, it is possible to forget, sometimes for years and years, that human beings are part of the natural world,” (...) she writes. _Holdfast _passionately reclaims an awareness of the natural world, exploring the sense of belonging fostered by the communal howls of wolves; the inevitability of losing children to their own lives; the fear of bears and love of storms; the sublimity of life and longing in the creatures of the sea; her agonizing decision when facing her father’s bone-deep pain. As Moore travels philosophically and geographically—from Oregon’s shores to Alaska’s islands—she leaves no doubt of her virtuosity and range. The new afterword is an important statement on the new responsibilities of nature writers as the world faces the consequences of climate change. (shrink)

Contemporary discussion of biological teleology has been dominated by a complacent orthodoxy. Responsibility for this shortcoming rests primarily, I think, with those who ought to have been challenging dogma but have remained silent, leaving the orthodox to grow soft, if happily. In this silence, champions of orthodoxy have declared a signal victory, proclaiming the dominance of their view as one of philosophy’s historic successes. But this declaration is premature at best—this would be neither the first nor probably the last time (...) that a narrow school of philosophy has declared the resolution of age-old problems only to have those problems rise from the ashes of their better selves when a broader view is articulated. I propose to challenge orthodoxy by undermining its fundamental assumption and to enlist the help of others in articulating a formidable heterodox alternative to contemporary dogma concerning biological teleology, perhaps on the model I sketch below. (shrink)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of key writers within sociology and anthropology criticised much of the existing research on children within the social sciences as ‘adultist’. This has subsequently provoked attempts by academics to define new ways of working with, not on or for, children that have been characterised by a desire to define more mutuality between adult and children in research relationships and to identify new ways that researchers can engage with young people. This paper (...) aims to address some of the ethical complexities that this work has generated by focusing on five areas of ethical concern in relation to research with children in the environments of home and school: consent; access and structures of compliance; privacy and confidentiality; methodologies and issues of power; and dissemination and advocacy. While most of these issues are not necessarily unique to working with children, but underlie many research projects, they are refracted in particular ways in child-oriented research because of the unequal relationships of power between adults and children; the way that adults mediate access to children; the legal complexities of children's position as minors; and the particular nature of the environments—school and the parental home—in which researchers usually encounter young people. (shrink)

Meanings of living at home on a ventilator Nine adults were interviewed in order to illuminate the meanings of being dependent on a ventilator and living at home. The data were analysed using a phenomenological‐hermeneutic method inspired by the philosophy of Ricoeur. Five main themes emerged through the analysis: experiencing home as a safe and comfortable space from which to reach out, experiencing the body as being frail, brave and resilient, striving to live in the (...) present, surrendering oneself to and trusting others, and experiencing technology as a burden and a relief to the lived body. Meanings of being home on a ventilator were interpreted as maintaining autonomy and persistence in interaction with the ventilator and other human beings and being able to rise above yourself and your personal boundaries in order to live a good life. These meanings indicate that aesthetic and ethical values impact on the lived body. They are bound up with experiencing a vital force and interdependency, bringing safety and courage into daily life. (shrink)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of key writers within sociology and anthropology criticised much of the existing research on children within the social sciences as 'adultist'. This has subsequently provoked attempts by academics to define new ways of working with , not on or for, children that have been characterised by a desire to define more mutuality between adult and children in research relationships and to identify new ways that researchers can engage with young people. This (...) paper aims to address some of the ethical complexities that this work has generated by focusing on five areas of ethical concern in relation to research with children in the environments of home and school: consent; access and structures of compliance; privacy and confidentiality; methodologies and issues of power; and dissemination and advocacy. While most of these issues are not necessarily unique to working with children, but underlie many research projects, they are refracted in particular ways in child-oriented research because of the unequal relationships of power between adults and children; the way that adults mediate access to children; the legal complexities of children's position as minors; and the particular nature of the environments—school and the parental home—in which researchers usually encounter young people. (shrink)

Although protected by the law on fixed prices for books, independent bookshops in France have struggled to maintain their market share against bookselling giants such as Amazon and the chains. In trying to do so, they have developed a rhetoric based on the singularity of the experience in physical shops, stressing a sense of intimacy akin to that associated with the domestic sphere. Their being independent – no matter how slippery the notion – has also been a key argument. (...) Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic goods, this paper aims to show that this strategy has been effective in singling out something that ‘only’ independent retail can provide, something that proves particularly attractive to certain categories of customers. The article draws on semi-structured interviews carried out with owners of small and medium-sized independent bookshops, together with observation during events and debates, to provide some insight into a key element of physical bookshops’ resilience. (shrink)

The coronavirus outbreak has led to abrupt changes in people’s daily lives as many state governments have restricted individuals’ movements in order to slow the spread of the virus. We conducted a natural experiment in the United States of America in April 2020, in which we compare responses from states with “stay-at-home orders” and no such orders. We surveyed 458 participants and examined the effects of these government-imposed restrictions on social, mental, physical, and financial well-being as well as (...) the mediating role of resilience. Structural equation modeling reveals that resilience buffers stay-at-home orders’ potential side-effects on well-being. Specifically, individuals living in states with stay-at-home orders report lower functional well-being than individuals living in states without such orders, which negatively relates to resilience. Resilience in turn is associated with higher social, mental, physical, and financial well-being. Thus, resilience can be seen as an effective means of buffering stay-at-home orders’ potential negative effects on the components of well-being. Our results indicate the central role of resilience, which is crucial in dampening the effects of stay-at-home orders on well-being. Following our results, governments and policymakers should focus their efforts on strengthening individuals’ resilience, which is a key predictor of social, mental, financial, and physical well-being. (shrink)

Douglas R. Anderson's Philosophy Americana reads like a series of rescue attempts: an attempt to rescue academic teaching from institutional and bureaucratic logic; to rescue philosophers such as Bugbee and Royce from their pragmatist critics; to rescue the pragmatists themselves from their would-be champions among the postmodernists; to (in a related move) save Emerson from Cavell; to save country music from the charge that it is either politically retrograde or an experiential dead-end; and to save Kerouac and the Beats from (...) the charge of nihilism or its more enjoyable cousin, hedonism. Anderson connects his chapters through a common theme: the centrality of failure and loss to American culture and the need to both be at home in/with it and to move beyond its self-limiting aspects. Though this rubric may provide us with a clue as to Anderson's temperament as a writer it does not finally provide an adequate frame for the book, which reads more like a book of related essays than... (shrink)

Why is it that some business managers appear to behave differently in private and at work? How, if at all, are the decisions managers make affected by the nature of their organisations? What impact do organisational values have on the moral autonomy of managers? A research project into these questions is now under way in three disparate Australian business firms and this paper sets out the premise underlying it. For purposes of research the general premise is that the moral character (...) of a business influences the moral judgements and actions of its members. More specifically, it is suggested that the economic paradigm renders a business organisation amoral rather than moral or immoral, and as a result moral responsibility comes to be assigned to individual members. However, the socio-cultural nature of such firms interferes with the ability of managers to exercise moral autonomy. Governed as it is by the market or laws of economics, the amoral organisation is likely to transform its members into individuals without moral standards. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how surveillance facilitates new power relationships.Design/methodology/approachThis longitudinal qualitative study is predicated on observations of the home care workers interacting with their managers and clients. The emerging picture was complemented with interviews of the participants. The home care workers were chosen as being crucial in the construction of new everyday relationships, and their interpretations were given most value in presenting how surveillance and monitoring relationships are constructed as embedded mundane practices (...) and as emerging from practical needs.FindingsThe paper discusses an implementation and use case of surveillance capable technology in a social home care setting. The findings suggest discrepancy of how surveillance is being interpreted by different participants depending on their positioning in the context of use.Originality/valueThe study presents a case study where surveillance issues emerge not only at the workplace but also in the domestic sphere. The paper explores the workers' role in defining surveillance at the workplace, and questions the limits of legitimate surveillance in the social care context concerning vulnerable citizens as clients. (shrink)

Why is it that some business managers appear to behave differently in private and at work? How, if at all, are the decisions managers make affected by the nature of their organisations? What impact do organisational values have on the moral autonomy of managers? A research project into these questions is now under way in three disparate Australian business firms and this paper sets out the premise underlying it. For purposes of research the general premise is that the moral character (...) of a business influences the moral judgements and actions of its members. More specifically, it is suggested that the economic paradigm renders a business organisation amoral rather than moral or immoral, and as a result moral responsibility comes to be assigned to individual members. However, the socio-cultural nature of such firms interferes with the ability of managers to exercise moral autonomy. Governed as it is by the market or laws of economics, the amoral organisation is likely to transform its members into individuals without moral standards. (shrink)

In recent work, Mark Johnson has argued that a scientifically updated version of John Dewey’s pragmatism affords human beings the opportunity to feel at home in the world. This feeling at home, however, is not fully problematized, nor explored, nor resolved by Johnson. Rather, Johnson and his collaborators, Don Tucker (2021) and Jay Schulkin (2023), defend this updated pragmatism within the historical development of the sciences of life and mind from the twentieth century to the present day. A (...) central theme in this defense is the affinity pragmatism has with neurophenomenology, especially the enactivism seen in 4E cognition. Another theme is the future orientation of pragmatism, especially as it is focused on developments in cybernetics and artificial intelligence. Given Johnson’s previous work on expanding the number of E’s to 7, and other pragmatist suggestions for more, I argue that neuropragmatism’s development of Dewey’s conception of experience as organism-environment transaction (symbolized by the diphthong, Œ) is critical for understanding what Johnson and Tucker call the cybernetic revolution as an enchanting and welcoming future instead of a disenchanting and alienating one. (shrink)

Studies of the challenges faced by women in policing have paid little attention to the specific experiences of policewomen who are mothers. Guided by critical theorizing on the gendered nature of the police culture and domestic labor, 16 police officer mothers in Ontario, Canada, were interviewed. Our qualitative analyses explore their experiences of the “lion’s share” of domestic labor; the organizational, cultural, and operational features of policing; and the challenges of child care, and examine how these combine to foster particular (...) stresses. In contrast to intensive mothering approaches that rely on the advice of external experts, our participants work to protect children by carefully constructing stories and asking questions that are based on their own on-the-job experiences with dangerous and/or abhorrent situations. As such, they engage in danger-protection parenting practices to prevent their children from becoming victims or offenders. Our research extends the theorizing on intensive/extensive mothering practices, builds on the scholarship on policing, and adds to the literature on women in nonstandard occupations. This sociological analysis of police mothers’ experiences and practices underscores the importance of understanding and working to change the social contexts, at work and at home, that compromise the well-being of police mothers and other emergency-response workers. (shrink)