First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume deals with the question of value-perception. It is discussed from different philosophical, psychiatric, theological, and anthropological perspectives. The leading hypothesis of all contributions is the realization that we live in a relational, dynamic world, in which we primarily percieve, and that to dissolve values from facts is fundamentally misleading, both in theory as in life."--Back cover.

What are ‘gay genes’ and are they real? This article looks at key research into these hypothesized gay genes, made possible, in part, by the Human Genome Project. I argue that the complexity of both genetics and human sexuality demands a truly critical approach: one that takes into account feminist epistemologies of science and queer approaches to the body, while putting into conversation resources from agential realism and critical realism. This approach is able to maintain the agential complexity of genetic (...) materiality, while also critically challenging the seemingly stable relationships between sex, gender and sexuality. (shrink)

Women’s preferences for several male traits, including voices, change over the menstrual cycle, but the proximate causes of these changes are unknown. This paper explores relationships between levels of estradiol, progesterone, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, prolactin, and testosterone (estimated using menstrual cycle information) and women’s preferences for male vocal masculinity in normally cycling and hormonally contracepting heterosexual females. Preferences for vocal masculinity decreased with predicted progesterone levels and increased with predicted prolactin levels in normally cycling—but not hormonally contracepting—women. Adaptive (...) explanations for menstrual variation in women’s preferences for masculine traits are discussed and evaluated in light of these findings. (shrink)

Paradise is often conceived as a place where suffering is not possible, so much so that the possibility of suffering in paradise has been used by various philosophers as a defeater for the possibility of paradise. [1] Employing a “reverse-engineered-theodicy,” I use Eleonore Stump’s morally-sufficient-reason for why God allows suffering in this earthly world to explore one condition that must obtain for suffering to remain impossible in paradise, namely, that internal fragmentation is not possible in paradise. After developing an intellectualist (...) explanation of the primal sin, I suggest one reason to believe that the internal fragmentation of redeemed humans in paradise is not possible. However, this reason does not extend to other non-human inhabitants of paradise, and so I suggest that it remains possible that these other inhabitants might yet become internally fragmented. Given that Christ-like consensual suffering that aids a third party’s internal integration is presumably morally justifiable, I conclude by suggesting that the suffering of the redeemed in paradise is in fact possible. Therefore, even in paradise, there is a place for hope that the redeemed do not suffer, and for trust in others that they do not bring such suffering into being. [1] For one example see. (shrink)

Film studies has largely avoided the biocultural turn that has swept through other areas of the humanities. This resistance may be understood in terms of the field’s recent distaste for grand theory—and in terms of the loose, social-constructionist thinking that is one residue of that distaste. Fortunately, a biocultural approach to cinema can offer film studies a necessary and defensible set of assumptions. It can also offer interpretive tools and potential ways of conceptualizing perennial concerns like authorship and genre. This (...) essay demonstrates the last two points through an evolutionary reading of Howard Hawks’s musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and through proposals for new ways of approaching auteurism and pornography. (shrink)

Recent developments in quantum physics postulate the existence of some form of multiverse, often considered inimical to theism. We argue that a cosmology of many worlds is not novel either to philosophy or to theism. The multiverse is not a monolithic concept and we refer to and use the four levels of categorization proposed by Max Tegmark. We trace the idea of a multiverse back to the Milesians and Epicureans in order to initially demonstrate its use of a plenitude argument. (...) We then examine the argument for possible compatibility based on a theistic principle of plenitude in three specifically Christian theists: Origen, Thomas Aquinas, and G. W. Leibniz. We conclude that this argument is sustainable so that if any level of the multiverse actually exists then it is harmonious with theism, and we argue that its fit is most successful if a multiverse is considered as a single possible world. We call this view Thomistic modal realism. (shrink)

This paper critically engages ethical issues in the allocation of novel, and potentially costly, health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness. First, we review potential benefits of novel health care resources for patients and their families and outline preliminary considerations to address concerns about cost. We then address two problems regarding the allocation of health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness: (1) the problem of uncertain moral status; and (2) the problem of accurately measuring the welfare (...) burdens these resources would relieve. We conclude by suggesting that opportunity-based frameworks might complement standard approaches for justifying resources allocation to patients with disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

Why did Bernhard Riemann, arguably the most original mathematician of his generation, spend the last year of life investigating the mechanism of hearing? Fighting tuberculosis and the hostility of eminent scientists such as Hermann Helmholtz, he appeared to forsake mathematics to prosecute a case close to his heart. Only sketchy pages from his last paper remain, but here we assemble some significant clues and triangulate from them to build a broad picture of what he might have been driving at. Our (...) interpretation is that Riemann was a committed idealist and from this philosophical standpoint saw that the scientific enterprise was lame without the “poetry of hypothesis”. He believed that human thought was fundamentally the dynamics of “mind-masses” and that the human mind interpenetrated, and became part of, the microscopic physical domain of the cochlea. Therefore, a full description of hearing must necessarily include the perceptual dimensions of what he saw as a single manifold. The manifold contains all the psychophysical aspects of hearing, including the logarithmic transformations that arise from Fechner’s law, faithfully preserving all the subtle perceptual qualities of sound. For Riemann, hearing was a unitary physical and mental event, and parallels with modern ideas about consciousness and quantum biology are made. A unifying quantum mechanical model for an atom of consciousness—drawing on Riemann’s mind-masses and the similar “psychons” proposed by Eccles—is put forward. (shrink)

Over five hundred years since it was named, utopia remains a vital concept for understanding and challenging the world we inhabit, even in or rather because of the condition of post-utopianism that supposedly permeates them. In Rethinking Utopia David M. Bell offers a diagnosis of the present through the lens of utopia and then, by rethinking the concept through engagement with utopian studies, a variety of radical theories and the need for decolonizing praxis, shows how utopianism might work (...) within, against and beyond that which exists in order to provide us with hope for a better future. He proposes paying a subversive fidelity to utopia, in which its three constituent terms: good, place, and no are rethought to assert the importance of immanent, affective relations. The volume engages with a variety of practices and forms to articulate such a utopianism, including popular education/critical pedagogy; musical improvisation; and utopian literature. The problems as well as the possibilities of this utopianism are explored, although the problems are often revealed to be possibilities, provided they are subject to material challenge. Rethinking Utopia offers a way of thinking about utopia that helps overcome some of the binary oppositions structuring much thinking about the topic. It allows utopia to be thought in terms of place and process; affirmation and negation; and the real and the not-yet. It engages with the spatial and affective turns in the social sciences without ever uncritically being subsumed by them; and seeks to make connections to indigenous cosmologies. It is a cautious, careful, critical work punctuated by both pessimism and hope; and a refusal to accept the finality of this or any world. ". (shrink)

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

The question I shall attempt to address in what follows is an essentially historical one, namely: Why did analytic philosophy emerge first in Cambridge, in the hands of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, and as a direct consequence of their revolutionary rejection of the philosophical tenets that form the basis of British Idealism? And the answer that I shall try to defend is: it didn't. That is to say, the ‘analytic’ doctrines and methods which Moore and Russell embraced in (...) the very last years of the nineteenth century were not revolutionary, did not emerge first in Cambridge, were the creation of neither Russell nor Moore and cannot be explained by appeal to facts concerning British Idealism. The adoption of the doctrines and methods which characterised the earliest manifestations of British analytic philosophy are to be explained neither by reference to anything specifically British, nor by appeal to anything unproblematically philosophical. Or so I shall argue. (shrink)

Während seiner langjährigen Tätigkeit als Facharzt für Psychiatrie am Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust hat der Autor dieses Beitrags die Entwicklung der Gesundheitsfürsorge von Kindern mit Geschlechtsidentitätsstörung (»gender dysphoria«) aus nächster Nähe beobachtet. Der Beitrag entwickelt einige Hypothesen zu den soziokulturellen Faktoren für den plötzlichen, sprunghaften Anstieg der Zahl minderjähriger Patienten, bei denen Geschlechtsidentitätsstörungen diagnostiziert und die dann zur medikamentösen und operativen Geschlechtsumwandlung an spezialisierte Zentren überwiesen wurden, und schildert charakteristische Denkverbote in diesem Zusammenhang. Die beruflichen Bedingungen, die seinen (...) Text beeinflussten, und die weiteren Entwicklungen in der Tavistock-Klinik wie auch in seinem eigenen Leben erläutert der Autor schließlich in einem nachstehenden Kommentar zu seinem eigenen Text. (shrink)

The idea of enlightenment entails liberty, equality, rationalism, secularism, and the connection between knowledge and human well being. In spite of the setbacks of revolutionary violence, political mass murder, and two world wars, the spread of enlightenment values has become the yardstick by which moral, political, and even scientific advances are measured. Indeed, most critiques of the enlightenment ideal point to failure in implementation rather than principle. By contrast, David Stove, in On Enlightenment, attacks the intellectual roots of enlightenment (...) thought, to define the limitations of its successes and the areas of its likely failures. Stove is not insensitive to the many valuable aspects of enlightenment thought. He champions the use of reason and rationality, and recognizes the falsity of religious claims as well as the importance of individual liberty. What he rejects is the enlightenment's uncritical optimism regarding social progress and its willingness to embrace revolutionary change. What evidence is there that the elimination of superstition will lead to happiness? Or that it is possible to accept Darwinism without Social Darwinism? Or that the enlightenment's liberal, rationalistic outlook will ever lead to the kind of social progress envisioned by its advocates. Despite their best intentions, social reformers who attempt to improve the world as a whole inevitably make things worse. He advocates a conservative "go slow" approach to change, pointing out that today's social structures are so large and complex that any widespread social reform will have innumerable unforeseen consequences. For example, the welfare state may diminish individual initiative, the use of pesticides may increase the food supply while polluting the water supply, the popularizing of university education may lead to a decline in academic standards. Since government has a virtual monopoly on large-scale change, it follows, in Stove's view, that its powers must be limited in order to prevent large-scale damage. Instead, he argues that reforms, when they are to be made at all, must be realistic, local, necessary and never coercive. Writing in the conservative tradition of Edmund Burke with the same passion for clarity and intellectual honesty as George Orwell, David Stove was one of the most precise, articulate, and insightful philosophers of his day. "Never just an academic, Stove was also a prominent, often crotchety, public intellectual of a conservative and, all too often, reactionary bent, many of whose views were extremist on any account, and his targets were many.... For Stove the important question about a belief is not whether it is extreme or mainstream, but whether it is true, or probable, or has sound evidentiary and/or rational credentials. In this he was surely right." -D. D. Todd, Philosophy in Review David Stove taught philosophy at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney. He is the author of Against the Idols of the Age and Scientific Irrationalism, both available from Transaction. Andrew Irvine is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Roger Kimball is managing editor of the New Criterion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On the NoseDavid F. Bell (bio)I recently underwent a COVID test. As the technician inserted the rather ominous cotton-tipped probe into my nostril, she told me that it was going to feel as if she were tickling my brain. Indeed… This experience, shared by many during the past three years, and likely multiple times, prompted me to think about my nose. Not since cocaine reentered American mainstream culture (...) in the 1970s and '80s—and found its way into countless movies that reflect the trend—has the nose been so central to a certain state of public life. It's difficult to find a film dealing with American culture from that period and beyond, from Scarface to The Wolf of Wall Street, in which there is not a scene depicting characters snorting the obligatory line or spoon of cocaine. Yes, snorting, sniffing, sneezing, ingesting the line through the nose and finishing leftover dust by collecting it with a moist finger, rubbing it lovingly against the front gum of the mouth. Freud's "Über Coca" looms ominously in the background, the work of a phase in Freud's professional career complicated by his obscure relationships with Parke-Davis (now a subsidiary of Pfizer) and Merck, pharmaceutical companies that supplied him with early samples to tickle his nose (Freud; Merkel). The Sacklers of the moment. In our day, Pfizer wants to transform our noses into defenses against the virus rather than conduits toward mind-altering dreams. In the wake of the Freud and William Halsted cocaine addictions chronicled by Howard Merkel, the irony of the contemporary link between Pfizer and the nose is patent.The nose: that orifice through which the virus creeps, the first stage in breathing, the first filter for air-borne pollutants. Recently, important immunological analyses of COVID have focused on the question of viral load, how much virus is necessary to overcome the nose's filtering function and reach the deeper airways leading to the lungs. The processes triggered by any of the major vaccines prepare antibody blueprints and actual antibodies that can be dispatched to the linings of the nose to counter the virus as soon as the body detects its presence. The Delta, Omicron, and subsequent variants remind us that the virus has mechanisms to challenge this response, namely, increased viral load that intensifies transmissibility and the potential to overwhelm antibodies. It seems, however, that [End Page 231] so-called breakthrough infections are still well controlled by the body's vaccinated immune system. Hysteria about the dangers of such incursions is partially a product of biased and often incorrect or incomplete media coverage of the COVID vaccine, which has terrified the vaccinated and fueled the skepticism of the unvaccinated.The virus tries to overpower and confuse the filtering nose in another way, more immediately apparent to our conscious selves. As many as eighty-five percent of COVID infections result in the loss of smell, generally recovered in about two to three weeks in sickened people who overcome the infection. About five percent of COVID victims, however, have not recovered their sense of smell six months or more after they have shed the virus.1 What might it mean to lose one's sense of smell? In our vision-oriented culture, both sound (the ear) and smell (the nose) have been less recognized as primary defense mechanisms than in other cultures. When one hears a sound, the first reaction is to prepare for a threat, before the sonic source is seen or understood. Orientation in the world, knowing from which direction the sound emanates, is key to preparing the body for an encounter with an unknown phenomenon: "To sound (an alarm) means to warn. Isn't any emerging sound understood as a warning? Any unexpected sonic occurrence is seen as an indication of something that is to come and that must be clarified rapidly" (Deshays 34). By the same token, to sample surroundings by sniffing what is in the air signals whether one should inhale or somehow try to hold one's breath in search of cleaner, more palatable air. Without olfaction, we are at potentially heightened risk of asphyxiation. We are more likely to... (shrink)

As Christians, we affirm that Scripture is our supreme guide to truth and righteousness. Some wish to go further and assert that it is our only guide. But how then can we account for the remarkable insight and moral integrity that many unbelievers seem to display? Indeed, how to account for the myriad ways in which believers themselves navigate the world based on knowledge and intuition not always derived from Scripture? Enter the doctrine of natural law. Frequently misrepresented as an (...) assertion of the autonomous power of human reason or as a uniquely Roman Catholic doctrine, natural law has actually been an integral part of orthodox Christian theology since the beginning, and is even clearly asserted in Scripture itself. In this brief guide, David Haines and Andrew Fulford explain the philosophical foundations of natural law, clear up common misunderstandings about the term, and demonstrate the robust biblical basis for natural law reasoning. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This research examines the trust and expectations people have for individuals with varying levels of status. Specifically, we predicted that people will have a greater amount of trust for individuals whom they perceive to have high (vs. low) status. Furthermore, we predicted that this positive effect of status on trust occurs because high-status individuals are viewed as less likely to engage in unethical behavior. We found evidence in two experimental laboratory studies and one survey study for some of our hypotheses. (...) An agenda for future research is suggested, including a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of these findings. (shrink)

This is a collective writing project that is part of the larger design of Infantologies, Infanticides and Infantilizations; a quartet that explores the philosophy of infants from thematic perspectives, that puts infants at the centre of our reflections, and that encourages a different academic style of thinking.

The adoption of the term grievance-fuelled violence reflects the fact that similarities exist between those committing violent acts in the context of grievance in different settings, so potentially allowing the application of insights gained in the study of one group to be applied to others. Given the low base rate of violence against public figures, studies in the field of violence against those in the public eye have tended to use, as a proxy for violence, attempts by the individuals concerned (...) to achieve unwarranted and unwanted proximity to the subject of their attention, given that approach is a necessary prerequisite for most forms of attack. In such studies, one factor that has frequently been considered is whether the making of threats is associated with a subsequent approach. The results have been varied, with no correlation found in some, a negative correlation in others, and a positive correlation in at least one. Such studies have been retrospective, using case files prepared for other purposes, and samples of cases have been selected according to their victims’ sector of employment – for instance, politicians, celebrities, judiciary, and the corporate world. This study of a sample of 126 threat assessment cases, using a prospective methodology, looks at the associations between the making of threats and subsequent approach from a different angle – that of a standardised and validated classification of underlying motivation. It finds that particular types and forms of threat are significantly associated with subsequent approach in cases that are fuelled by grievance, but not in those with the motivation of seeking a relationship. Furthermore, when a sample with a mixture of motivational categories was examined in the manner of previous studies, such associations with threat were not apparent. These results refine the existing understanding of the significance of threats in public-facing cases. Future research projects in this area might usefully incorporate the consideration of underlying motivation, in particular grievance. (shrink)

Despite evidence from cognitive psychology that men and women are equal in measured intelligence, gender differences in self-estimated intelligence are widely reported with males providing systematically higher estimates than females. This has been termed the male hubris, female humility effect. The present study explored personality factors that might explain this. Participants provided self-estimates of their general IQ and for Gardner’s multiple intelligences, before completing the Cattell Culture Fair IQ test as an objective measure of intelligence. They also completed the Bem (...) Sex Role Inventory as a measure of sex-role identification, and measures of general and academic self-esteem. Both gender and sex-role differences were observed for SEI, with males and participants of both genders who scored high in masculinity offering higher self-estimates. By comparing estimated and observed IQ, we were able to rule out gender differences in overall accuracy but observed a pattern of systematic underestimation in females. An hierarchical multiple regression showed significant independent effects of gender, masculinity, and self-esteem. Mixed evidence was observed for gender differences in the estimation of multiple intelligences, though moderately sized sex-role differences were observed. The results offer a far more nuanced explanation for the male hubris, female humility effect that includes the contribution of sex role identification to individual and group differences. (shrink)

This book walks readers through relevant Scripture passages on the topic of concience--a largely neglected topic in the church today--to offer guiding principles and practical advice for aligning our consciences with God's will.