A main objective of this study is to assess the opinions of 50 behavioral health patients on selective control over their behavioral and physical health information. We explored patients' preferences regarding current consent models, what health information should be shared for care and research and whether these preferences vary based on the sensitivity of health information and/or the type of provider involved. The other objective of this study was to solicit opinions of 8 behavioral health providers on patient-driven granular control (...) of health information and potential impact on care.Electronic surveys were implemented at an outpatient Behavioral Health facility that provides care for behavioral health patients with non-serious mental illnesses. The Patient Survey included questions regarding patients' demographics and about their concerns and preferences for data sharing for care and research. The Provider Survey included questions about their view on the current consent process and perceptions on barriers and facilitators to implement patient-controlled granular consent models.This novel study provides valuable preliminary data that can help guide future studies to better understand privacy choices of this underrepresented patient group. (shrink)

In her latest book _Spying Through a Glass Darkly: The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence_, Cécile Fabre suggests that the deception of third parties during an infiltration operation can be justified as a foreseen but unintended side effect. In this essay, I criticize this view. Such deception, I argue, is better justified paternalistically as a means of preventing third parties from becoming wrongful threats. In the second part of the article, I show that Fabre ignores an important moral complication in (...) deception operations where agents intentionally allow others to be harmed as a means of protecting a secret. I argue that intentionally allowing harm to others as a means is a particularly problematic mode of agency which must be addressed in a normative account of espionage. (shrink)

"Challenging myths about the power-filled life"--Cover.

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they (...) obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development seeks to explore and develop Leon Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development. In particular, it aims to adapt the political and historical analysis which originated in Trotsky's Russia for use within the contemporary field of world literature. As such, it draws together the work of scholars from both the field of international relations and the field of literature and the arts. This collection will therefore be of particular interest to anyone who is interested (...) in new ways of understanding world literary texts, or interested in new ways of applying Trotsky's revolutionary politics to the contemporary world order. (shrink)

Symbols enable people to organize and communicate about the world. However, the ways in which symbolic knowledge is learned and then represented in the mind are poorly understood. We present a formal analysis of symbolic learning—in particular, word learning—in terms of prediction and cue competition, and we consider two possible ways in which symbols might be learned: by learning to predict a label from the features of objects and events in the world, and by learning to predict features from a (...) label. This analysis predicts significant differences in symbolic learning depending on the sequencing of objects and labels. We report a computational simulation and two human experiments that confirm these differences, revealing the existence of Feature-Label-Ordering effects in learning. Discrimination learning is facilitated when objects predict labels, but not when labels predict objects. Our results and analysis suggest that the semantic categories people use to understand and communicate about the world can only be learned if labels are predicted from objects. We discuss the implications of this for our understanding of the nature of language and symbolic thought, and in particular, for theories of reference. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction A Cautious Set‐Up Minimal Authorship (of Sorts) Minimal Authorship (of the Comic Sort) Some Work for a Theory of Comic Authorship Illustrating Robust Comic Authorship Comic Authorship of the McCloudian Sort Appropriation Cases Commission Cases Collaborative Cases Non‐Collaborative Cases Final Thoughts Notes References.

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. A novel and restrictive account of public reason is defended. Then it is argued that political liberalism's core commitments restrict reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups.

Generating group interaction is a necessary part of teaching philosophy, but there are many obstacles to creating it in a traditional classroom. We propose that philosophy courses can be improved by turning to hybrid models that integrate classroom discussion with online message boards, or forums. Using anecdotes and a comprehensive survey, we argue that using forums helps instructors overcome time constraints in the classroom, helps some students overcome anxiety over contributing, improves discussion, reduces the need to review, and gives instructors (...) a better view of how their students encounter philosophy. We also provide examples of how to use forums and forum assignments. (shrink)

Philosopher Kings? The Adjudication of Conflicting Human Rights and Social Values, by George C. Christie, examines the attempts by courts to sort out conflicts involving freedom of expression, including religious expression, on the one hand, and rights to privacy and other important social values on the other. It approaches the subject from a comparative perspective, using principally cases decided by European and United States courts. A significant part of this book analyzes conflicts between freedom of expression and the right to (...) privacy. In a world in which, freedom of expression and privacy are said to be of equal value, the book explores whether it is possible to develop, through case-by-case adjudication, a legal regime which can give clear direction as to what expression is or is not permitted. Otherwise, if such a regime proves impossible, in the guise of recognizing the equal value of expression and privacy, privacy may become de facto the preferred value. (shrink)

The doctrine of the moral equality of combatants holds that combatants on either side of a war have equal moral status, even if one side is fighting a just war while the other is not. This chapter examines arguments that have been offered for and against this doctrine, including the collectivist position famously articulated by Walzer and McMahan’s influential individualist critique. We also explore collectivist positions that have rejected the moral equality doctrine and arguments that some individualists have offered in (...) its favor. We defend a non-categorical version of the moral equality doctrine, according to which combatants on either side of a just war sometimes (but not always) have equal moral status. On our view, some degree of culpability is necessary for liability, and non-culpable combatants may therefore sometimes remain non-liable even when they fight for an unjust cause. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine Sextus Empiricus' treatise Against the geometers . We first set this treatise in the overall context of the sceptic's polemics against the liberal arts. After a discussion of Sextus' attitude to the quadrivium , we discuss the structure, the sources and the target of the Against the geometers . It appears that Euclid is not Sextus' source, and neither he, nor the professional geometers, seem to be Sextus' main targets. Of course, Sextus never really makes (...) clear his precise target, but his attacks are rather directed against geometry as a means of modelling the physical world, thus ruining the support geometry was intended to bring to the physical part of dogmatic philosophy. (shrink)

This target article focuses on dynamics that arise in three typical ethically complex cases in which psychiatric consultations are requested by physicians: a dying patient refuses life-prolonging treatment, an uncooperative patient demands to be allowed to go outside and smoke, and an angry patient demands to be admitted to the hospital. The discussion canvasses what is at stake morally and clinically in each of these cases and explores clinician–patient interactions, dynamics in relationships between consulting physicians and consultant psychiatrists, patient transference, (...) and physician countertransference. The article defines legalism and countertransference and argues that an ethically and clinically important consequence of these phenomena for patients is distortion of clinicians' perceptions of patients' decisions and vulnerabilities. The discussion also describes how legalism and countertransference adversely affect how clinicians treat their psychiatrist colleagues. Finally, the article suggests how the effects of legalism and countertransference can be mitigated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:120 A WORD ON BEHALF OF DEMEA Little attention has been given to the a priori argument for God's existence espoused by Demea in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. This circumstance is neither surprising nor unjustified. Given Hume's well-known theological sympathies, certainly no one would be tempted to regard Demea as Hume's spokesman. Demea's argument plays so small a role in the Dialogues as to suggest that Hume does (...) not take it at all seriously. He may present it only to establish that he is aware of alternative arguments for God's existence, but thinks them even less successful than the design argument and hence undeserving of extensive critique. Yet, if a philosopher criticizes an argument he deems unworthy of respect, he should still provide sound, not spurious, reasons for rejecting it. This is exactly what D. C. Stove has argued that Hume fails to do in Part IX of the Dialogues, assuming, as is generally done, that the speeches of Cleanthes and Philo present reasoning that Hume would personally endorse. Stove argues that most of the criticisms of Demea's argument are "extremely defective, and that they even include an inconsistency" (Stove, p. 300). This contention has been challenged by Donald Stahl, who has published a succinct point by point rebuttal of Stove's contentions.3 The Stove-Stahl controversy only deals with the reasoning presented in paragraphs 5, 6, 7, and 10 of Part IX because those are the contentions Stove attacks. He has "nothing to say against" the criticisms presented in paragraphs 8 and 9, which he assumes will be generally agreed to be 121 less important than the others (Stove, p. 308). He totally ignores the argument of paragraph 11. However, I am not convinced that the criticisms of these paragraphs are less important and I do have something to say against them. Consequently, instead of intervening directly on either side of the dispute between Professors Stove and Stahl, I shall attend principally to the argumentation of paragraphs 8, 9, and 11. I shall (1) summarize Demea's argument, (2) argue for the significance of the criticisms of paragraphs 8-9, (3) examine those criticisms, and (4) assess the role of Philo's concluding remarks in paragraphs 10-11. 1. Demea's Argument Early on Hume has Demea speak so obviously inconsistently as to make the reader wonder whether this character is supposed to think at all about the implications of the claims he espouses. At the beginning of Part II, he proclaims that God's existence is surely not at issue, since no one of common sense... ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so certain and self-evident." The nature of God is the only proper object of theological inquiry, and that is "altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us" (D 141)! Given such a radically apophatic position (Hume calls it "mystical"), it is hardly surprising that the sceptical Philo readily concurs, once he specifies that he takes 'God' to mean just "the original cause of this universe (whatever it be)" (D 142). But Demea immediately buttresses his alleged self-evident truth by appealing to the authority of Father Malebranche and the whole tradition of Christian theology, apparently oblivious to the impropriety of 122 supporting an indubitable truth by citing authorities (D 141-142). Further, scarcely more than a page later, after Cleanthes has sketched out the design argument, this same Demea is horrified that Cleanthes gives no abstract arguments or a priori proofs and calls for a "demonstration of the being of a God" (D 143). When, in Part IX, Demea himself undertakes to provide the "simple and sublime argument a priori" (D 188) he expected from Cleanthes, he characterizes the argument as "the common one," which suggests he is more engaged in paraphrasing authority than in thoughtfully arguing. The argument, in fact, as has been generally recognized, closely follows one given by Samuel Clarke in the Boyle Lectures of 1704. 5 Demea begins by assuming that "whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence," (D 188) since nothing can cause itself to exist. He then states a dilemma: in tracing the... (shrink)

There are several important conceptual issues and questions about the practice of healthcare ethics that can, and should, inform the development of any practice standards. This paper provides a relatively short overview of seven of these issues, with the invitation for further critical reflection and examination of their relevance to and implications for practice standards. The seven issues described include: diversity (from the perspective of training and experience); moral expertise and authority/influence; being an insider or outsider; flexibility and adaptability (for (...) local contexts of practice); the relative weighting of procedural and normative aspects of ethics practice; making mistakes or errors; and conflicts of interest in practice. (shrink)

Zeitgeist Literature is offered here as a term with great potential as a conceptual tool for analyzing literature that responds to the moment in which it was written. Such literature chronicles the social and political life of the current moment, its trends and moods, and the mysterious forces that dictate tastes, manners, feelings, and actions of the collective.

I take issue with an argument to the effect that because contractualism proves--both practically and theoretically--the philosophically superior moral theory, we have the result that nonhuman animals can have no, nor ought be extended any, moral standing. The combined argument belongs to Peter Carruthers, and appears in his The Animals Issue. My response involves demonstration that on careful analysis contractualism fares even less well than the two theories against which Carruthers compares it--rights and utilitarian. Furthermore, I offer a sketch of (...) a theory which does not fall for reliance on a singularly problematic premise--a premise which plays pivotally in traditional contractualist, rights and utilitarian accounts. The upshot is that this "alternative rights theory" fares best in reflective equilibrium analysis as against not only those theories Carruthers decries, but contractualism as well. We are, it appears, drawn back to the nagging question of whether and how things nonhuman may matter morally. For, Carruthers conclusion is disallowed. That the alternative rights theory offers novel yet satisfactory means by which to account for moral motivation and knowledge, as well as differences in moral respect due morally relevant beings, is explored. That the theory avoids the troublesome pitfalls of intuitionism and supervenience further secures its frontrunning position--which, again, begins to indicate that and how more than solely humans are of moral relevance. (shrink)

A central goal of typological research is to characterize linguistic features in terms of both their functional role and their fit to social and cognitive systems. One long-standing puzzle concerns why certain languages employ grammatical gender. In an information theoretic analysis of German noun classification, Dye, Milin, Futrell, and Ramscar enumerated a number of important processing advantages gender confers. Yet this raises a further puzzle: If gender systems are so beneficial to processing, what does this mean for languages that make (...) do without them? Here, we compare the communicative function of gender marking in German to that of prenominal adjectives in English, finding that despite their differences, both systems act to efficiently smooth information over discourse, making nouns more equally predictable in context. We examine why evolutionary pressures may favor one system over another and discuss the implications for compositional accounts of meaning and Gricean principles of communication. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When hope is discussed in bioethics’ literature, it is most often in the context of ‘false hopes’ and/or how to maintain hope while breaking bad news to patients. Little or no time is generally devoted to the description of hope that supports these analyses. In this paper, I present a detailed description of hope, one designed primarily for the healthcare context. Noting that hope is an emotional attitude, four key aspects are explored. In particular, the function of imagination in (...) hope is discussed in depth. Through an examination of the relationship between hope and vulnerability, I demonstrate how adequately describing hope can broaden the normative inquiry into the role of hope in healthcare. Three ways in which persons with hope can be vulnerable are illustrated, and the challenge of how healthcare providers can attend in moral ways to the hopes of patients is identified. (shrink)

Roots are good to think with indeed most of us use them as a metaphor every day. A root can signify the hiddenness of our beginnings, or, in its bifurcating structure, the various possibilities in the life of an individual or a collective. This book looks at rootedness as a metaphor for the genealogical origins of people and their attachment to place and how this metaphor transformed so rapidly in twentieth-century Europe. Christy Wampole s case study is France, with (...) its contradictory legacies of Enlightenment universalism, anti-Semitism, and colonialism. At one time, French nationalist rhetoric portrayed the Jews as unrooted and thus unrighteous people. After the two world wars, the root metaphor figured in the new French philosophy (notably Deleuze and Guattari). And recently, Caribbean thinkers in Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique have debated whether their roots were in Africa, France, the Caribbean, or in some pan-national network that could not be identified on a map. Walpole argues that while the metaphor was perhaps once useful in the establishment of communities and identities, that usefulness has expired. The longer we remain attached to the figure of rootedness, the more discord it sows. Giving up on the metaphor of rootedness, Wampole urges, allows us to see at last that we are in fact unbound by the land we inhabit.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Demea's Departure James Dye Although Demea's departure atthe end ofpart 11 is one ofthe dramatic highlights ofthe Dialogues,1 it has prompted little comment. That is a pity, since it is a striking departure from Hume's Ciceronian model in De natura deorum, and the motivation for the change is far from clear. What is clear is that to this point Philo and Demea have been informal allies. The conclusions ofPhilo's (...) sceptical arguments have dovetailed nicely with Demea's negative theology—an alliance, as it were, between reason aware of its own failure and faith which accepts the invincible mysteriousness of the divine. Both distrust reason's competence to attain knowledge of God. After Demea's departure, Cleanthes and Philo seem to embark on a more conciliatory relationship for which the preceding parts have so ill-prepared the reader that Philo's "reversal" or "confession" in part 12 has become a standard exegetical problem in the literature. If Demea must go to facilitate the reconciliation ofPhilo and Cleanthes, what motivates his exit now? The usual view takes the departure to be motivated by Demea's unhappiness with Philo's disquisition on evil. This is so vague as to be useless, especially since through most of part 10 Demea eagerly co-operates with Philoin describinglife in terms which make thereaUty of evil all the more compelling. If the dialogue is psychologically coherent, the subsequent conversation must introduce something else tomotivate Demea's departure. Whatis ofsuch significance that Hume chooses to punctuate it with the dramatic flourish of Demea's exit? It does have much to do, I think, with something Philo says, but not about "the problem ofevil" as that is usually construed. It has something to do with the problem of evil, but more with the implications of what Philo says than with his explicit claims. It will be necessary, however, to setthese factorsin theircontext; andfor that purpose,let's startwith part 9. Part 9 Many have located the beginnings ofa Demea-Philo rupture in part 9, not in Demea's perception ofPhilo, but in Philo's willingness to attack Demea. Specifically, Philo has commonly been taken to approve Cleanthes'criticisms ofDemea's argument and to add his own to them. The temptation to interpret Philo as endorsing Cleanthes' criticisms is particularly strong because those criticisms seem to echo Volume XVIII Number 2 467 JAMESDYE characteristically Humean positions. However, in this context, as criticisms ofDemea's argument, they are question-begging and, in fact, backfire on Cleanthes.2 Moreover, Philo does not say that he accepts Cleanthes'arguments. (Heisperhaps astonished that Cleanthes, inhis eagerness to attack any view which smacks of "old-fashioned" a priorism, can forcefully espouse views which undercut his own position.)3 His first remarks after Cleanthes' exceptionally spirited attack on Demea strongly resemble his remarks in part 2 following Demea's equally spirited initial objection (appealing to tradition and authority) to Cleanthes' argument.4 Both responses are playfully ironic, and we should no more presume that Philo endorses Cleanthes' argumentation in part 9 than we should assume him to endorse Demea's in part 2. Nor are Philo's own contributions to part 9 such as to give affront to Demea. He pointedly classifies the first ofthe two points he makes as "upon another topic" (D 191). Then he invokes as an example the fact that adding the digits ofany product of9 always yields either 9 or some lesser product of 9. The point of the example is that this fact, which initially seems marvellous and inexplicable, ceases to astonish one who understands mathematics sufficiently well to see that it is arithmetically necessary that the products of 9 have this property. Philo claims that it is probable that the similarly astonishing order of the universe may in like manner be determined by some intrinsic necessity in matter, which would seem equally unremarkable to us had we far more thorough knowledge of the nature of matter than we currently possess. The crux ofPhilo's argument is that ifa remarkable regularity or orderfound in certain numbers is numerically necessary, itrequires no further explanation; similarly, ifa remarkable regularity or order in nature is necessary, it does... (shrink)

AUTHORITY AND INEQUALITY UNDER CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM: USA, USSR, AND CHINA by Barrington Moore, Jr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. 142 pp., $29.95.

ABSTRACT When hope is discussed in bioethics’ literature, it is most often in the context of ‘false hopes’ and/or how to maintain hope while breaking bad news to patients. Little or no time is generally devoted to the description of hope that supports these analyses. In this paper, I present a detailed description of hope, one designed primarily for the healthcare context. Noting that hope is an emotional attitude, four key aspects are explored. In particular, the function of imagination in (...) hope is discussed in depth. Through an examination of the relationship between hope and vulnerability, I demonstrate how adequately describing hope can broaden the normative inquiry into the role of hope in healthcare. Three ways in which persons with hope can be vulnerable are illustrated, and the challenge of how healthcare providers can attend in moral ways to the hopes of patients is identified. (shrink)

Is a feminist political liberalism possible? Political liberalism’s regard for a wide range of comprehensive doctrines as reasonable makes some feminists skeptical of its ability to address sex inequality. Indeed, some feminists claim that political liberalism maintains its position as a political liberalism at the expense of securing substantive equality for women. We claim that political liberalism’s core commitments actually restrict all reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine substantive equality for all, including women and other marginalized (...) groups. In particular, we argue that political liberalism’s criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that eliminate social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to reasonable democratic deliberation among equal citizens and that the criterion of reciprocity requires the social conditions necessary for recognition respect among persons as equal citizens. As a result, we maintain that the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship. (shrink)

In 1941 Fritz Saxl and Rudolf Wittkower of the Warburg Institute organized an exhibition on English Art and the Mediterranean. The photographic exhibition showed the long history of artistic and cultural ties between English art and the classical tradition, employing Aby Warburg's method. The project was an attempt by Saxl, as director, to show the relevance of the Warburg Institute's work in England, the new home of the Library since 1933. Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery, actively promoted the (...) work of the Institute, including by supporting the naturalization process for many of the Warburg scholars. The popular belief in the cultural ties between England and Italy fed into the positive reception for the exhibition and into acceptance of the work of the Warburg Institute. The exhibition was published in a large format catalog in 1948, further adding to the popularity of the exhibition with a diverse British public. Although the motivation for the exhibition emerged from political conditions and institutional circumstance, it had a lasting effect on the history of the study of English art and architecture. Wittkower and others turned to research on the classical tradition in English art, even though the method had limited relevance beyond the “neoclassical” period. (shrink)

The idea of public reason is central to political liberalism's aim to provide an account of the possibility of a just and stable democratic society comprised of free and equal citizens who nonetheless are deeply divided over fundamental values. This commitment to the idea of public reason reflects the normative core of political liberalism which is rooted in the principle of democratic legitimacy and the idea of reciprocity among citizens. Yet both critics and defenders of political liberalism disagree over whether (...) or not the idea of public reason permits citizens to appeal to their comprehensive conceptions of the good in public deliberation over matters of basic justice. Our aim in this paper is to provide a defense of an exclusive idea of public reason, and at the same time we aim to dispel the underlying concerns of two prominent criticisms of the idea of public reason—the concern of alienation from the political process, as expressed by religiously oriented critics, and the concern over women's equality, as expressed by feminist critics. We argue that inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason are not consistent with political liberalism's core commitments. Further, we claim, inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason deepen feminist concerns. We think that, properly understood, an exclusive account of the idea of public reason can address feminist concerns about political liberalism and avoid alienating (reasonable) religious persons in an unacceptable way. Thus, we conclude that an exclusive account of the idea of public reason is our best hope for reconciliation. (shrink)

This groundbreaking book is the first to provide a critical overview of the relationship between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice in museum culture. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections, with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. In recent years museums have provided the impetus for cutting-edge artistic practice, either as a response to particular collections, or as part of exhibitions. But the question of how museums have (...) staged contemporary ceramics and how ceramic artists respond to museum collections has not been the subject of published research to date. This book examines how ceramic artists have, over the last decade, begun to animate museum collections in new ways, and reflects on the impact that these new initiatives have had in the broad context of visual culture. Ceramics in the Expanded Field is the culmination of a three-year AHRC funded project, and reflects its major findings. It brings together leading international voices in the field of ceramics, research undertaken throughout the project and papers delivered at the concluding conference. By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions and the dialogue between ceramics and museological practice, this book will bring focus to an area of museology that has not yet been theorized, and will contribute to policy debates and art practice. (shrink)