Political argument and institutions in the UnitedKingdom have frequently been represented as the products of ablend of nationalistic conservatism, liberal individualism andsocialism, in which consensus has been prized over ideology. This situation changed, as the standard story has it, with therise of Thatcherism in the late 1970s, and again with the arrivalof Tony Blair's ``New Labour'' pragmatism in the late 1990s. Solidarity as an element of political discourse makes itsappearance in the UK late in the day. It has been most (...) stronglylinked to the Third Way debate, as framed most influentially inthe work of Prof. Anthony Giddens.In this paper we review the history and pre-history of the debateon solidarity in the UK, focussing mostly on its implications forwelfare state reform. In particular we discuss the proposals forthe long-term care of the Elderly issued by the Royal Commissionon long-term care in 1999. In this context we critically examinethe idea that solidarity is a new concept in British politicalculture, and that it is a concept which has real political ``bite''in the project of welfare reform. We examine this through aconsideration of Giddens's attempted synthesis of politicalargument and social theory. (shrink)

BackgroundThough sobriety in young people is on the rise, students who drink little or no alcohol may experience social exclusion at University, impacting well-being. We aim to understand the social experiences of United Kingdom undergraduate students who drink little or no alcohol.MethodsA mixed-methods study using semi-structured, one-to-one interviews and the 24-Item Social Provisions Scale and Flourishing Scale with 15 undergraduate students who drink little or no alcohol. Descriptive statistics are presented for quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative.ResultsEight main (...) themes and four subthemes were generated from thematic analysis summarised in two sections ‘views of drinkers from non-drinkers’ and ‘how peer pressure feels and how people deal with it.’ The initial transition to University represented a challenge, where participants struggled to find their ‘true’ friends. However, students generally had high levels of social provision, well-being and enjoyed close friendships with fewer casual acquaintances. All students experienced some kind of peer pressure and developed coping strategies when in social situations involving alcohol. Fear of missing out on the ‘typical’ University experience heightened self-imposed expectations to drink. Despite participants acknowledging their counter-normative behaviour, some felt they were subject to stigmatisation by drinkers, doubting their non-drinker status, causing feelings of exclusion or being ‘boring.’ Their desire to ‘be like everyone else’ exposed some insight into the negative stereotypes of sobriety, including frustration behind alcohol’s status elevation.ConclusionStudents adopt strategies to minimise peer pressure and to fit in. Future research should interrogate drinkers’ perceptions of their sober peers to deepen understanding, better break down ‘us and them,’ and mitigate future expectations within the University drinking culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 174-178 [Access article in PDF] Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. By Tom Chetwynd. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001. 153 pp. Tom Chetwynd brings many strengths to his book of reflections on Zen and Christianity. Because his most obvious strength is his craft as a professional writer, he offers us a book that is well written, carefully organized, and a pleasure to read. He divides (...) his reflections into three parts: "Zen Experience," "Christian Meditation in the Light of Zen," and finally, "Christian Zen Practice." It is especially in the first and third parts that the author is particularly helpful for Christians engaged in interfaith dialogue.In part 1 Chetwynd's reflections on the Zen experience are autobiographical. He tells us that he came to Zen as a committed adult Christian who did not jettison his faith for another but rather labored to integrate his Christian faith and his Zen experience. Those of us who travel this very same path are familiar with the stages of Chetwynd's journey: in the first stage our attention is drawn to Zen by a random phrase in a book or by a friend's interest in Zen; then follows our first attempt to sit in a sesshin with others; then the experience of boredom, pain, and frustration, all of which give birth to the conviction that Zen might very well work for others but not for us. However, our first meeting with a charismatic roshi who inspires, encourages, and launches us back on the journey with the challenging and consoling words: "[You] can do it." These words help us both to ignore our fear and to sustain our resolve to sit with vigor to the last bell.What makes Chetwynd's experience so extraordinary and unique was the rapid opening of his mind. After his very first sitting, he tells us, he experienced his teacup "shining alone in empty space," and immediately following his first sesshin, Chetwynd reveals that his teacher, a Japanese monk, assured him that "he [the teacher] had nothing more to give [him/the student]." Chetwynd's experience very much reminds me of an incident that happened years ago in Tokyo. At a meeting with Kadowakii Roshi, he introduced me to a Mexican Jesuit who, the Roshi revealed, had experienced kensho during his first sesshin. I will always remember the Roshi's expression [End Page 174] of surprise and admiration as he uttered how wonderful and rare indeed was such an experience.Chetwynd is candid about the effect that the Zen experience has on his Christian faith: comparing his Zen experience to the latter, he confesses that his three years of theological study were "all for nothing"; he acknowledges that he believes he has received more insight from one week of Zen sitting than from the twenty-five years he practiced Christianity; he claims that while his Zen experience enables him to return to his Christian prayer and liturgy with new insight, it also makes him aware that while engaging in these spiritual exercises, he finds his heart is elsewhere. He goes on to reveal that he fears losing his faith because the idea of a godless universe "quite simply appall[s him]." Possibly adding to his quandary was Kyudo Roshi's reaction to Chetwynd's question about the value of the prayer of petition. On two occasions the author tells us that his teacher "chuckled" in response to his question about the prayer of petition. One would hope that in interreligious encounters with Christians, Zen teachers in their compassionate outreach would remember that what is amusing to them—the value of the prayer of petition and its opposite, a godless universe—is "quite simply appalling" to their Christian friends.Chetwynd's second part of the book, the story of Christian meditation in the light of the Zen experience, is extremely tentative. In it he builds a case for a number of possibilities: he suggests that the dharma of the Buddha is "not recognizably different" from the Kingdom of Heaven in Christian terminology; that the essential nature of the universe is not... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 174-178 [Access article in PDF] Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. By Tom Chetwynd. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001. 153 pp. Tom Chetwynd brings many strengths to his book of reflections on Zen and Christianity. Because his most obvious strength is his craft as a professional writer, he offers us a book that is well written, carefully organized, and a pleasure to read. He divides (...) his reflections into three parts: "Zen Experience," "Christian Meditation in the Light of Zen," and finally, "Christian Zen Practice." It is especially in the first and third parts that the author is particularly helpful for Christians engaged in interfaith dialogue.In part 1 Chetwynd's reflections on the Zen experience are autobiographical. He tells us that he came to Zen as a committed adult Christian who did not jettison his faith for another but rather labored to integrate his Christian faith and his Zen experience. Those of us who travel this very same path are familiar with the stages of Chetwynd's journey: in the first stage our attention is drawn to Zen by a random phrase in a book or by a friend's interest in Zen; then follows our first attempt to sit in a sesshin with others; then the experience of boredom, pain, and frustration, all of which give birth to the conviction that Zen might very well work for others but not for us. However, our first meeting with a charismatic roshi who inspires, encourages, and launches us back on the journey with the challenging and consoling words: "[You] can do it." These words help us both to ignore our fear and to sustain our resolve to sit with vigor to the last bell.What makes Chetwynd's experience so extraordinary and unique was the rapid opening of his mind. After his very first sitting, he tells us, he experienced his teacup "shining alone in empty space," and immediately following his first sesshin, Chetwynd reveals that his teacher, a Japanese monk, assured him that "he [the teacher] had nothing more to give [him/the student]." Chetwynd's experience very much reminds me of an incident that happened years ago in Tokyo. At a meeting with Kadowakii Roshi, he introduced me to a Mexican Jesuit who, the Roshi revealed, had experienced kensho during his first sesshin. I will always remember the Roshi's expression [End Page 174] of surprise and admiration as he uttered how wonderful and rare indeed was such an experience.Chetwynd is candid about the effect that the Zen experience has on his Christian faith: comparing his Zen experience to the latter, he confesses that his three years of theological study were "all for nothing"; he acknowledges that he believes he has received more insight from one week of Zen sitting than from the twenty-five years he practiced Christianity; he claims that while his Zen experience enables him to return to his Christian prayer and liturgy with new insight, it also makes him aware that while engaging in these spiritual exercises, he finds his heart is elsewhere. He goes on to reveal that he fears losing his faith because the idea of a godless universe "quite simply appall[s him]." Possibly adding to his quandary was Kyudo Roshi's reaction to Chetwynd's question about the value of the prayer of petition. On two occasions the author tells us that his teacher "chuckled" in response to his question about the prayer of petition. One would hope that in interreligious encounters with Christians, Zen teachers in their compassionate outreach would remember that what is amusing to them—the value of the prayer of petition and its opposite, a godless universe—is "quite simply appalling" to their Christian friends.Chetwynd's second part of the book, the story of Christian meditation in the light of the Zen experience, is extremely tentative. In it he builds a case for a number of possibilities: he suggests that the dharma of the Buddha is "not recognizably different" from the Kingdom of Heaven in Christian terminology; that the essential nature of the universe is not... (shrink)

In this article, we trace the histories of discourses supporting ‘jobs for natives’ in the UK and Austria using the discourse-historical approach to critical discourse studies. DHA uses four ‘levels of context’ as heuristic devices in critical analysis. In this article, we focus our attention predominantly on the broadest of these, largely eschewing the text internal analysis typical of CDA, in favour of a wider contextual sweep. In this way, we deconstruct and trace the conceptual history of British and Austrian (...) slogans of the extreme right related to issues of un/employment. We argue that slogans such as ‘British Jobs for British workers’ and ‘Austria First’ have been recontextualised into current political rhetoric while carrying historical context-dependent connotations, stemming from pre-World War II colonialism and antisemitism. Hence, we further claim that – although such rhetoric is currently widespread across EU member states – the ideologies and traditions drawn upon are distinct and create specific subtexts to be exploited for political ends; this is part of the discursive strategy of ‘calculated ambivalence’ employed in such rhetoric. (shrink)

The original edition of this directory of professional codes of conduct in the United Kingdom was the first reference book to give information on more than a handful of codes. For the second edition the work has been greatly extended and revised, thereby reflecting both the ever-increasing number of codes and the ongoing interest in them. The main part of the book lists alphabetically nearly 500 UK organizations with codes in use, an increase of some 30 per cent on (...) the previous edition. Each entry gives the name, address, telephone and fax numbers of an organization and either reproduces its code verbatim (to make a total of about 200) or summarizes the content. Approximately 80 per cent of the codes or summaries have undergone changes since first publication. The comprehensive introduction looks at the development, scope and purpose of codes, recent trends and codes in an international context amongst other points, while the extensive index provides an easy and useful approach by topic. (shrink)

Political argument and institutions in the UnitedKingdom have frequently been represented as the products of ablend of nationalistic conservatism, liberal individualism andsocialism, in which consensus has been prized over ideology. This situation changed, as the standard story has it, with therise of Thatcherism in the late 1970s, and again with the arrivalof Tony Blair's ``New Labour'' pragmatism in the late 1990s. Solidarity as an element of political discourse makes itsappearance in the UK late in the day. It has been most (...) stronglylinked to the Third Way debate, as framed most influentially inthe work of Prof. Anthony Giddens.In this paper we review the history and pre-history of the debateon solidarity in the UK, focussing mostly on its implications forwelfare state reform. In particular we discuss the proposals forthe long-term care of the Elderly issued by the Royal Commissionon long-term care in 1999. In this context we critically examinethe idea that solidarity is a new concept in British politicalculture, and that it is a concept which has real political ``bite''in the project of welfare reform. We examine this through aconsideration of Giddens's attempted synthesis of politicalargument and social theory. (shrink)

The de‐repression of transposable elements (TEs) in mammalian genomes is thought to contribute to genome instability, inflammation, and ageing, yet is viewed as a cell‐autonomous event. In contrast to mammalian cells, prokaryotes constantly exchange genetic material through TEs, crossing both cell and species barriers, contributing to rapid microbial evolution and diversity in complex communities such as the mammalian gut. Here, it is proposed that TEs released from prokaryotes in the microbiome or from pathogenic infections regularly cross the kingdom barrier (...) to the somatic cells of their eukaryotic hosts. It is proposed this horizontal transfer of TEs from microbe to host is a stochastic, ongoing catalyst of genome destabilization, resulting in structural and epigenetic variations, and activation of well‐evolved host defense mechanisms contributing to inflammation, senescence, and biological ageing. It is proposed that innate immunity pathways defend against the horizontal acquisition of microbial TEs, and that activation of this pathway during horizontal transposon transfer promotes chronic inflammation during ageing. Finally, it is suggested that horizontal acquisition of prokaryotic TEs into mammalian genomes has been masked and subsequently under‐reported due to flaws in current sequencing pipelines, and new strategies to uncover these events are proposed. (shrink)

Abstract:The closing section of James's "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" contains a surprisingly abrupt dismissal of Kant's philosophy. This paper suggests that James's real target is his host, George Holmes Howison, whose Philosophical Union had invited James to speak at Berkeley. James and Howison shared a common commitment to pluralism in opposition to the Absolute monism such as Josiah Royce was developing. Howison relies on Kant's account of the a priori as well as his moral ideal of a Kingdom (...) of Ends in order to fashion a pluralistic form of |idealism that would avoid the errors he found in Absolute monism while also countering the influential evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. While James shared Howison's opposition to monism, as well as his critical view of Spencer, he did not share his aversion to evolutionary ideas. Ultimately, the pragmatism that he announced at Berkeley would reply to Howison's Kantian approach by retaining a pluralism while building on the modern psychology growing out of evolution. James's position would test the alliance that they had forged against monism. In time, it would prove too fragile to withstand their growing differences until a final break came in the year before James's death. (shrink)

Rapid advances in high throughput genomic technologies and next generation sequencing are making medical genomic research more readily accessible and affordable, including the sequencing of patient and control whole genomes and exomes in order to elucidate genetic factors underlying disease. Over the next five years, the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Initiative, funded by the Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom) and the National Institutes of Health (United States of America), will contribute greatly towards sequencing of numerous African samples (...) for biomedical research. (shrink)

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

Throughout the animal kingdom, p53 genes function to restrain mobile elements and recent observations indicate that transposons become derepressed in human cancers. Together, these emerging lines of evidence suggest that cancers driven by p53 mutations could represent “transpospoathies,” i.e. disease states linked to eruptions of mobile elements. The transposopathy hypothesis predicts that p53 acts through conserved mechanisms to contain transposon movement, and in this way, prevents tumor formation. How transposon eruptions provoke neoplasias is not well understood but, from a (...) broader perspective, this hypothesis also provides an attractive framework to explore unrestrained mobile elements as inciters of late‐onset idiopathic disease.Also see the video abstract here. (shrink)

Surrogacy and adoption are both family-making measures subject to extensive domestic and international regulation. In this nationally representative survey study (N = 1552), we explore public attitudes to various forms of surrogacy and adoption in the United Kingdom, in response to an early proposal to allow “double donor” surrogacy as part of the ongoing legal reform project. We sought to both gauge public moral support for adoption and surrogacy generally, the effect that prospective parents’ fertility had on this support, (...) and the extent to which the public would find equivalencies between “double donor” surrogacy (DDS) and planned private adoption (PPA) to be morally significant. Our findings indicate that whilst there is broad baseline support for all forms of adoption and surrogacy, this support increases significantly when one or both prospective parents are infertile. These findings also suggest that the language in which a family-making arrangement is characterized has a greater influence on moral support for the arrangement than practical features such as the biological relationship (or absence thereof) between one/both parents and the child. (shrink)

Rejecting Kant''s absolute opposition to revolution, I propose a modified Kantian perspective for reflecting on political violence, drawing from Kant''s basic ideas but abandoning some dubious assumptions. Developing suggestions in earlier papers, the essay sketches a model for moral legislation that combines the core ideas of each of Kant''s formulas of the Categorical Imperative. Though only a framework for deliberation, not a complete decision procedure, this excludes extremist positions, prohibitive and permissive, about political violence. Despite Kant''s hopes, the values implicit (...) in his fundamental principle fail to support easy, inflexible solutions; but they place strong presumptions against lawless coercion and killing, undermining social order, treating persons as dispensable, underestimating options, arrogant faith in one''s own judgment, and reckless simplicity in political thinking. (shrink)

Flavonoids are a class of low molecular weight phenolic compounds that is widely distributed in the plant kingdom. They exhibit a diverse spectrum of biological functions and play an important role in the interaction between plants and their environment. Flavonoids not only protect the plant from the harmful effects of UV irradiation but also play a crucial role in the sexual reproduction process. A special class of flavonoid polymers, the tannins, plays a structural role in the plant. Yet other (...) classes of flavonoids, flavonols and anthocyanins, have been implicated in the attraction of pollinators. Certain flavonoids participate in the interaction between plants and other organisms such as symbiotic bacteria and parasites. This raises the intriguing question as to how these different compounds arose and evolved. Based on taxonomy and molecular analysis of gene expression patterns it is possible to deduce a putative sequence of acquisition of the different branches of the biosynthetic pathway and their regulators. (shrink)

Is Kantian Ethics guilty of utopian thinking? First, potentially good and bad uses of utopian ideals are distinguished, then an apparent path is traced from Rousseau’s unworkable political ideal to Kant’s ethical ideal. Three versions of Kant’s Categorical Imperative are examined briefly for the ways that they may raise the suspicion that they manifest or encourage bad utopian thinking. In each case Kantians have available responses to counter the suspicion, but special attention is directed to the version that says “Act (...) on the maxims of a universally law–giving member of a kingdom of ends.” Interpretations vary, but here primary focus is on one contemporary reconstruction and development of this central idea. Several objections suggest that this idea encourages bad utopian thinking are briefly addressed: that we cannot count on everyone to follow ideal rules, that even conscientious people disagree in their moral judgments, and that theories that allow exceptions to familiar moral rules create a “slippery slope” to moral chaos. (shrink)

This paper assesses the effect of DNA barcoding—the use of informative genetic markers to identify and discriminate between species—on taxonomy. Throughout, we interpret this in terms of _varipraxis_, a concept we introduce to make sense of the treatment of biological variation by scientists and other practitioners. From its inception, DNA barcoding was criticised for being reductive, in attempting to replace multiple forms of taxonomic evidence with just one: DNA sequence variation in one or a few indicative genes. We show, though, (...) how DNA barcoding has not narrowed or reduced taxonomy in the way it was projected to. We examine the development and implementation of DNA barcoding across three kingdoms of life: animals, plants, and protists. Through this, we demonstrate that for DNA barcoding to work, the range of acceptable intra-specific variation needs to be demarcated from variation deemed to be characteristic of inter-specific differences. Consequently, biological processes responsible for particular patterns of variation need to be investigated and understood. This encourages an integrative disposition towards understanding and explaining the evolutionary processes affecting the rate and nature of change at the nucleotide level. We detail how the impact of DNA barcoding has manifested differently across the three kingdoms we examine, assessing this in terms of the ontological commitments that are held and instantiated in practice. Based on this evaluation, we consider the problem of studying multi-kingdom communities, and assess the consequences of our analysis for understanding classification and taxonomy. (shrink)

This inaugural lecture considers three main aspects of the relationship between science and morality in Greco-Roman antiquity: first some of the ancient debates on the morality of particular scientific research programmes, especially in connection with the practice of human and animal dissection and vivisection; secondly ancient attempts to secure the autonomy and objectivity of natural scientific inquiry; and thirdly the continuing influence - in certain areas of ancient science - of values, including moral and political values, and of the assumption (...) of the privileged position occupied by human beings in the animal kingdom and the cosmos. (shrink)

"A new framework has been established across the United Kingdom with four key priorities. These priorities include helping patients receive a final diagnosis quickly, increasing rare disease awareness among healthcare professionals, better coordination of care, and improving access to specialist care, treatments, and drugs (DHSC, 2021).".

We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters (...) contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. (shrink)

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union, a ‘third’ space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated ‘inside’ the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this ‘third space’ in the resultant ‘moral panic’ about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive (...) linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on the Bulgarian/romanian immigration issue which we then connect to anti-Roma discourse. Results reveal a view of the United Kingdom as contaminated by Roma and underscore the need for novel metaphors to be countered before they become entrenched and used as tools for political propaganda. (shrink)

This volume contains four of Hegel's most important political tracts which he produced for the attention of the general public. Included are "The German Constitution," "On the Recent Domestic Affairs of Wurtemberg, especially on the Inadequacy of the Municipal Constitution," "Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, 1815-1816," and "The English Reform Bill." Passages omitted in the translation of the third of these writings have been summarized by Knox. Pelcynski's [[sic]] "introduction" is a monograph in itself, (...) considering, in an historical and a critical fashion, Hegel as a political writer and political philosopher.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Special Value of a Good Will and Acts from Duty Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives The Universal Law Formulas The Formula of Humanity as an End in Itself Autonomy and the Kingdom of Ends Deriving the Supreme Moral Principle from Common Moral Ideas Why Kant Needs the Second‐Person Perspective Kant on Law and Justice Kant on Punishment Kant's Vision of a Just World Order Beneficence and Other Duties of Love Duties to Oneself and Duties (...) of Respect to Others The Enduring Value of Kant's Ethics. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of certain assumptions that, I hold, lie in the background of MacIntyre’s conception of the formation of the intellectual schema as found, most prominently, in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry. A thorough examination of MacIntyre’s concept of the rational schema, I will show, reveals that the parsing he proposes to carry out on intellectual history is confronted with a problem that finds its analogue in the field of biological taxonomy. (...) In order to carry out this project of determining where the seams lie in intellectual history one must first recognize that the parsing itself is a scheme-dependent undertaking. As such it is not unlike the necessarily somewhat arbitrary identification of species and genera in the biological realm. In other words, it should be recognized that intellectual history, like the morphology of the plant and animal kingdoms, is continuous, not discreet. An almost wholly unexamined assumption that stalks through Whose Justice? and Three Rival Versions is that there are something like intellectual natural kinds in the history of ideas. Indeed, the notion that there are “traditions” at all in the sense in which MacIntyre uses the term may be a highly conventional artefact of an Enlightenment-era view of intellectual progress. This leads me to conclude that MacIntyre has failed to observe that the view of traditions and schemes neatly succeeding one another, on which much of his critique is dependent, is itself a product of the perspective he calls “encyclopedia.” This, in turn, will make manifest why it is that almost all of MacIntyre’s examples of rational scheme-switching are from the natural sciences rather than the normative, a fact I will show is connected to a paradigm of linear progression that one tends to find in the exact sciences, but not in praxis. (shrink)

Two forms of independent action by consciousness have been proposed by various researchers – free will and holistic processing. (Holistic processing contributes to the formation of behavior through the holistic use of brain programs and encoding.) The well-known experiment of Libet et al. (1983) implies that if free will exists, its action must consist of making a selection among alternatives presented by the brain. As discussed herein, this result implies that any physical changes mind can produce in the brain are (...) very small, and this in turn implies that holistic processing would also act to select among brain programs. The latter process would contribute to flexibility of behavior, which would therefore be an indication of the possible presence of consciousness in an animal. Because locomotion requires response to varying and unpredictable conditions, the above conclusions support the idea that simple forms of consciousness appear very early in the evolutionary line of the animal kingdom. (shrink)

Drawing upon selected literature from the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Canada we examine how Foucault's concepts of ‘episteme’, ‘rupture’ ‘parrhesia’ ‘care of the self’, and ‘problemitization’ have been applied to particular contexts of leadership development, pedagogy, nursing knowledge, and the relationship between caring and politics. Our aims are threefold: to give examples of how selected Foucauldian concepts have been taken up in practice; to clarify how we are positioned today as nurses; and to invite more nurses to engage critically (...) with historical inquiry and to engage in deep philosophical reflection about their relationship with nursing. We begin by examining the conditions and circumstances of Foucault's life, and conclude by posing the question in our subtitle to stimulate debate about the philosophical relevance of Foucauldian scholarship to nursing. (shrink)