Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree (...) of attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

Curriculum reform urges teachers to constantly reflect on existing identities and develop probably whole new identities. Yet, in the wake of the poststructuralist view of identity as a complex matter of the social and the individual, of discourse and practice, and of agency and structure, teacher identity is a process of arguing for themselves and hence ethical and political in nature. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ethical self-formation and its adoption by Clarke “Diagram for Doing Identity (...) Work” in teacher education research, this 2-year-long case study explores how two Chinese English-as-foreign-language teachers engaged in identity work in a changing curricular landscape. The analysis of narrative frames and semistructured interviews reveals the relations between the relative stable and the evolving elements of teachers’ identity work, and the essential role of teachers’ ethical agency based on reflective and critical responsiveness to the contextual reality and the dynamic power relations during the reform. The findings argue for the importance of nourishing teachers’ reflective identity work and ethical agency during the turbulence of educational change. (shrink)

This article examines narratives, images, and stories that give insight to everyday experimentation and ethical self‐formation. I use the case of World Vision and its early leaders to unpack genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism. Rather than seeking to identify American evangelicalism’s normative ethical stance, I aim to expand the discussion in anthropology of ethics on ethical self‐formation through examining the tensions, reflections, and processes of becoming among evangelical humanitarians. In doing so, I examine (...) two focal areas of ethical self‐formation among early World Vision leaders. The first is oscillation between and mixing of passion and compassion frameworks in the American evangelical imagination. Second, I identify a range of temporal frames that evangelicals draw on to make sense of and formulate ethical responses to human needs encountered abroad. (shrink)

Motivation is a concept more frequently found in venues concerned with educational psychology than in ones concerned with educational philosophy. Under the influence of psychology, and its typically dualistic way of making sense of the world, motivation in education has tended to be viewed in dichotomous terms, for example, as intrinsic or extrinsic in character. Such psychology-derived theories of educational motivation operate within a dichotomous ontology, traceable to structuralist notions of agency versus (rather than within) structure, while exemplifying the tendency (...) in psychology that philosopher R. S. Peters identified over half a century ago, of seeking to provide totalizing, comprehensive theories of human behaviour in emulation of the achievements of the natural sciences. This article offers an alternative reading of motivation in terms of Foucauldian ethical self-formation that attempts to recognize motivation as arising from the individuals? socially situated and constrained agency, and that focuses on how individuals pursue learning as a way of creating a particular desired version of the self. We illustrate this approach through a vignette of Wolfgang, a Hong Kong learner of German as a third language. Although we are certainly not seeking to supplant other approaches to theorizing motivation, we believe that the approach we elaborate here contributes significantly to the repertoire of motivational research in education. (shrink)

Much has been written about creativity in education policy and about how the concept is mediated in institutions like schools and universities. Although constructs like ‘creative teachers’ and ‘tea...

In this essay, John Ambrosio examines the role of ascetic writing practices in Michel Foucault’s conception of ethical self‐formation. Ambrosio argues for an interpretation of Foucault’s later writings as representative of both an extension, and a dramatic break, from his previous writings — from demolishing the subject to embracing the notion of an autonomous and reflexive subject. Ambrosio further contends that Foucault’s notion of ethical self‐formation cannot be divorced from his genealogical method, and that (...) his primary preoccupation near the end of his life was to counterbalance his strong notion of a disciplinary society with the recognition of a subject able to make ethical choices and thus to transform itself. Finally, Ambrosio examines the implications of this for educators and argues that Foucault’s conception of ethical self‐formation through ascetic writing practices provides a powerful tool for teachers who seek to improve and transform their pedagogy. (shrink)

This volume argues that Bonhoeffer's early work, particularly his Christocentric anthropology, grounds his later expressed commitments to responsibility and faithfulness in a ""world come of age."" Ellison suggests, in fact, that a concern for otherness permeates all of Bonhoeffer's work: a Christian self-defined by its orientation towards otherness.

Ecclesia and Ethics considers the subject of Ecclesial Ethics within its theological, theoretical and exegetical contexts. Part one presents the biblical-theological foundations of an ecclesial ethic – examining issues such as creation, and Paul's theology of the Cross. Part two moves on to examine issues of character formation and community. Finally, part three presents a range of exegetical applications, which examine scripture and ethics in praxis. These essays look at hot-button issues such as the 'virtual self' in the (...) digital age, economics, and attitudes to war. The collection includes luminaries such as N.T. Wright, Michael J. Gorman, Stanley Hauerwas and Dennis Hollinger, as well as giving space to new theological and exegetical voices. As such Ecclesia and Ethics provides a challenging and contemporary examination of modern ethical debates in the light of up-to-date theology and exegesis. (shrink)

The interdisciplinary group of authors featured in this focus issue contribute to conversations at the intersection of anthropology and ethics by exploring ethical self‐making and moral experimentation among faith‐based actors in a range of humanitarian settings. Kari Henquinet describes the genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism by focusing on the ethical self‐formation of early World Vision leaders. Rachel Schneider and Sara Williams each explore practices by which relatively privileged individuals seek to cultivate virtue by engaging with (...) those on the margins, in poor, urban neighborhoods in South Africa, and through packaged tours in Israel/palestine, respectively. Sarah Tobin describes projects of Islamic self‐making among displaced refugee women in Jordan. Although they examine a wide range of subjects and settings, they explore a common set of themes, two of which I discuss here: moral experimentation, and engagements with suffering, poverty, and inequality. (shrink)

This article analyses the relations that teachers and school leaders establish with themselves and with others—especially those who would seek to govern them—through the professional and personal–professional activities that increasingly accompany pedagogical and administrative practice today. Specifically, the article seeks to analyse the conditions under which such ‘ethical-governmental’ relations have become possible and to clarify the lines of power, truth and ethics that are in play within them. In this way, it is argued, their intelligibility may be recovered; their (...) contingencies disclosed. The article first posits a non-psychologised, ‘enfolded’ notion of the self on which analysis rests before turning to an analytics of government of the conditions themselves. An important element within this entanglement of diverse events, discourses, practices and foldings is the ensemble of policies and practices developed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. The article argues that the programmes of this national agency are a salient and widespread force for acting upon teachers’ and school leaders’ self-constitution as a subject of their own actions—a subject which, in consequence, is enjoined to be more agile, self-reliant, engaged and entrepreneurial than its ‘routine-bound’ predecessors; a subject we describe as the ‘adaptive professional’. (shrink)

Those who advocate a “historicist” outlook on moral responsibility often hold that people who unwillingly acquire corrupt dispositions are not blameworthy for the wrong actions that issue from these dispositions; this contention is frequently supported by thought experiments involving instances of forced psychological manipulation that seem to call responsibility into question. I argue against this historicist perspective and in favor of the conclusion that the process by which a person acquires values and dispositions is largely irrelevant to moral responsibility. While (...) the thought experiments introduced by historicists raise perplexing questions about personal identity and involve clear instances of moral wrongs done to the manipulated subjects, neither of these considerations bear on the question of moral responsibility. Rather, questions about moral responsibility in manipulation cases should be answered, I argue, by considering whether a manipulated agent is capable of expressing through her actions the objectionable attitudes that make blame appropriate in normal cases of wrongdoing. (shrink)

Against the common view that a European identity is a functional precondition for legitimate EU governance, this article argues that conceptual weaknesses of the term ‘collective identity’ have led to a confusion of several analytic dimensions of ‘identity’ and to an overestimation of strong forms of collective identity. Insights provided by analytic philosophy will be introduced in order to redefine and differentiate ‘collective identity’. The ways in which people refer to themselves as members of we-groups will be outlined and illustrated (...) in order to contribute to an innovative model of the problem and therefore the policy-related formation of collective identities. The article concludes that a strong European identity is not a functional precondition for legitimate everyday democratic governance in the EU. Only in extraordinary situations and in order to institutionalize integration in ethically sensitive policy fields is it necessary that EU citizens discursively agree on an ethical self-understanding of their way of life. (shrink)

This chapter begins by briefly considering Foucault's genealogies of the modern moral subject as the backdrop against which he conducted his inquiries on the ethical forms of subjectivation found in antiquity. It then turns at greater length to these inquiries, bringing them into focus in terms of possibilities for the self‐transformation of the subject today. To make sense of these possibilities, and defend them against familiar criticisms, the chapter introduces and defends a meta‐ethical distinction between “orientations” and (...) “commitments” in ethics. A long section of this chapter is devoted to showing how self‐transformation makes sense of a range of topics featured in Foucault's late ethical writings. The author focuses primarily on the care of the self (including aesthetics of existence and pleasure) and the philosophical way of life (including ancient parrhesia and modern critique). The chapter concludes by opening a window onto further possibilities raised by the foregoing discussion. (shrink)

Charting a genealogy of the modern idea of the self, Felix Ó Murchadha explores the accounts of self-identity expounded by key Early Modern philosophers, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume and Kant. The question of the self as we would discuss it today only came to the forefront of philosophical concern with Modernity, beginning with an appeal to the inherited models of the self found in Stoicism, Scepticism, Augustinianism and Pelagianism, before continuing to develop as a subject (...) of philosophical debate. Exploring this trajectory, The Formation of the Modern Self pursues a number of themes central to the Early Modern development of selfhood, including, amongst others, grace and passion. It examines on the one hand the deep-rooted dependence on the divine and the longing for salvation and, on the other hand, the distancing from the Stoic ideal of apatheia, as philosophers from Descartes to Spinoza recognised the passions as essential to human agency. Fundamental to the new question of the self was the relation of faith and reason. Uncovering commonalities and differences amongst Early Modern philosophers, Ó Murchadha traces how the voluntarism of Modernity led to the sceptical approach to the self in Montaigne and Hume and how, by way of Hamann and Jacobi's reception of Hume, this sceptical strand, in turn, culminated in Kant's rational faith. More than a history of the self in philosophy, The Formation of the Modern Self inspires a fresh look at self-identity, uncovering not only how our modern idea of selfhood developed but just how embedded the concept of self is in external considerations: from ethics, to reason, to religion. (shrink)

BackgroundDementia care is essential to promote the well-being of patients but remains a difficult task prone to ethical issues. These issues include questions like whether manipulating a person with dementia is ethically permissible if it promotes her best interest or how to engage with a person who is unwilling to recognize that she has dementia. To help people living with dementia and their carers manage ethical issues in dementia care, we developed the CARE intervention. This is an intervention (...) focused on promoting the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and carers, i.e., their confidence that they can manage ethical issues when they occur. The purpose of this paper is to explain and discuss how we have developed the CARE intervention to promote the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia, their family, and professional carers through a specific and, we believe, new use of literary texts.MethodsThe CARE intervention has been developed in two phases: First, we conducted a needs assessment of the occurrence of ethical issues in dementia care and the need for an intervention to support people living with dementia and their carers in managing such issues. Second, in a design phase, we developed the CARE intervention to meet identified needs.ResultsTo address identified ethical issues in dementia care we designed the CARE intervention as a workshop format where people living with dementia and carers can meet, discuss literary texts, and deliberate on how to solve such issues. The workshop is structured by the following elements: An agenda of ethical issues, a collection of literary cases exemplifying ethical issues, a moderator with an understanding of dementia care, and an overview of the ethical principles relevant to the discussion of ethical issues. >This workshop concept is operationalized in three applications tailored to meet the specific ethical issues of each of the study´s three target groups: people living with dementia and family carers, professional and family carers, and professional carers.ConclusionWe conclude the paper by stating that it is possible to develop an intervention that promotes the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and family and professional carers. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the formation of the self and the worldly horizon within which this self achieves its meaning. Our inquiry takes place from two perspectives: the first derived from the Nietzschean analysis of how one becomes what one is; the other from current developments in complexity theory. This two-angled approach opens up different, yet related dimensions of a non-essentialist understanding of the self that is none the less (...) neither arbitrary nor deterministic. Indeed, at the meeting point of these two perspectives on the self lies a conception of a dynamic, worldly self, whose identity is bound up with its appearance in a world shared with others. After examining this argument from the respective view points offered by Nietzsche and complexity theory, the article concludes with a consideration of some of the political and ethical implications of representing our situatedness within a shared human domain as a condition for self-formation. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of this study is the reflection on ways of philosophical legitimation for the "Self-made-man" idea in the worldview of the Renaissance and Reformation. _Theoretical basis._ Historical, comparative, and hermeneutic methods became the basis for this. The study is based on the works of Nicholas of Cusa, G. Pico della Mirandola, N. Machiavelli, M. Montaigne, E. Roterodamus, M. Luther, J. Calvin together with modern researchers of this period. _Originality._ The analysis allows us to come to the conclusion that (...) casts doubt on the still widespread belief according to which the emergence of the "Self-made-man" idea is localized by the process of forming the American cultural code and the ideological heritage of Benjamin Franklin. It is highlighted that the formation of this idea is the result of a long process that originated in the ancient world and gains a special impetus in the Renaissance and Reformation. Precisely in the cultural context of the latter, the ancient intention to recognize the individual’s right to self-determination and self-government, which in the depths of Christian theology acquires only a potentially universal character, becomes not only acceptable but also, in the context of Protestantism worldview, the only admissible, in fact, individual’s obligatory life guidelines. _Conclusions._ Humanistic and reformation thoughts quite naturally led to further ideological legitimation of the person’s idea of who is creating oneself. This legitimation was during the complex interaction of numerous factors of culture in the Late Middle Ages, as well as ideas and intentions inherited from Antiquity. Key among them was the gradual formation of a new social order, in essence, indifferent to paternalistic rudiments, together with the ethics of Protestantism corresponding to it. The latter does not only legalize but, de facto, sacralizes the individual’s reorientation from hopes for the synergy of God’s grace and own free will in personal salvation, toward the self-reliance and personal efforts, awareness of personal responsibility for the own fate as key principles of the "Self-made-man" concept. (shrink)

A set of basic static predicates, 'in itself, 'existing through itself, 'free', and others are taken to be (at least) extensionally equivalent, and some consequences are drawn in Parts A and? of the paper. Part C introduces adequate causation and adequate conceiving as extensionally equivalent. The dynamism or activism of Spinoza is reflected in the reconstruction by equating action with causing, passion (passive emotion) with being caused. The relation between conceiving (understanding) and causing is narrowed down by introducing grasping (λ (...) μβ?νω) as a basic epistemological term. Part D, 'The road to freedom through active emotion', introduces a system of grading with respect to the distinctions introduced in the foregoing, including 'being in itself, 'freedom', etc. Active emotions are seen to represent transitions to a higher degree of freedom, the stronger and more active ones being the more conducive to rapid increase in degree of freedom. Elementary parts of the calculus of predicates are used in order to facilitate the survey of conceptual relations and to prove some theorems. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to think about the thematics of the inventive formation of teachers crossed by the aesthetic activity of self writing. Therefore, we echo the question made by Maurice Blanchot when we confront the language of research in education linked to the requirement for its discontinuity, so that the written word is plural and involved with the movement of an aesthetic experience: “How to write in such a way that the continuity of the movement (...) of writing might let interruption as meaning, and rupture as form, intervene fundamentally?” Two axes of analysis and intervention were investigated: the notion of self writing of Michel Foucault and the idea of text and outside the text of René Lourau. There are circles that aim to guide the reader in the trajectories of the research on inventive teacher formation and their diaristic fragments. The circles are not separated, but meet each other and resonate with the axes of self writing, of the text and of the outside the text, these being: research with; cartography; research diary and writing restitution. There are inventive resonances, where each diary fragment, more than being a fragment, is the expression of an action that constitutes effective practices open to intensities and differences. However, the work of the diary is reversed by taking it away from the standard, to be able to treat it closer to alterity, to the ethical, aesthetic and political subjectivity processes of inventive teacher formation. (shrink)

This paper examines the methodological problem of casuistry by reference to Immanuel Kant's position on it. He addressed “Casuistical Questions” in his last work on ethics, Metaphysik der Sitten, in order to defend his position against attacks from scholars defending an Aristotelian eudemonistic viewpoint. It is argued that Kantian casuistry has much in common with the Aristotelian idea of emphasizing the moral objectives and sensibility of an agent in concrete circumstances. Nevertheless, Kant did not entirely adopt the case-oriented ethical (...) perspective because he saw the moral duty as the „wide“ one. Moral duties are wide in the sense that they demand continuous self-examination: asking whether there might be a better way to limit one's maxim by another. According to Kant, although casuistry as a case study could give moral law or duties more practicability through the training of moral judgment, the moral agent cannot use with individual cases in order to modify or devise new moral rules or duties. (shrink)

Background The fourth section of the 1967 Abortion Act states that individuals (including health care practitioners) do not have to participate in an abortion if they have a conscientious objection. A conscientious objection is a refusal to participate in abortion on the grounds of conscience. This may be informed by religious, moral, philosophical, ethical, or personal beliefs. Currently, there is very little investigation into the impact of conscientious objection on service users in Britain. The perspectives of service users are (...) imperative in understanding the real-world consequences and potential impact of conscientious objection and should be considered when creating and reviewing policies and guidelines. This research provided a platform for women and those who can become pregnant to share their experiences and opinions at a time when these voices are largely excluded in the great tradition of Western political philosophy and law-making processes. Method Five service users were interviewed using a narrative interview approach to uncover their abortion journeys and experiences of conscientious objection. Findings The findings were presented as found poems and uncovered that doctors are not always: informing service users that they have a conscientious objection to abortion, giving service users enough information to access abortion (indirect referral), treating them non-judgmentally, and providing medically correct information. Service users did not experience burdens such as long waiting times and were still able to access legal abortion. However, service users did experience negative emotional effects, as they were often left feeling scared, angry, and hopeless when they were not referred and/or were mistreated. Conclusions Findings indicate that conscientious objection could work in practice. However, it is currently failing some individuals on an emotional level, as not all doctors are adhering to guidelines. Conscientious objection in Britain needs to be addressed, to ensure service users receive fair, impartial, non-judgmental care. (shrink)

In recent years, the theoretical work of Gilligan in women's psychological development has led to the development of the concept of moral orientation or moral voice in contrast to the concept of moral reasoning or moral judgment developed by Kohlberg. These concepts have been of particular interest in gender studies, especially as applied to adolescence. These concepts of moral orientation and moral reasoning are being increasingly employed in healthcare ethics studies in a wide variety of settings. The recent work has (...) included studies of physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, social workers, teachers of medical ethics, and hospital ethics committees. However, the study of moral development in healthcare providers has been hampered because collecting the necessary data from healthcare workers has been labor intensive and extremely time consuming. More efficient methods are needed. (shrink)

This article identifies five genres of anti-queer hate speech found in The Australian’s Facebook comments sections, exposing and analyzing the ways in which such comments are used to derogate cisgender and heterosexual women. One may be tempted to think of cis-het women as third-party victims of queerphobia; however, this article argues that these genres of anti-queer speech are, in fact, misogynistic. Specifically, it argues that these are instances of cis-hetero-misogynistic hate speech. Cis-hetero-misogyny functions as the “law enforcement branch” of a (...) cis-hetero-patriarchal gender order. Given the existence of such an order, it is clear that cis-het women’s liberation is inextricable from queer liberation. This article argues that to facilitate allyship and challenge this gender order—the order that elicits such hate speech acts—we need an epistemological revolution in the way we recognize and re-cognize human difference. (shrink)

The past two decades have been a time of heightened interest in the moral aspects of the practice of medicine. This interest has been reflected in medical education by the establishment of medical humanities programs in both preclinical and clinical education in many medical schools. It has also been reflected in the literature with a dramatic increase in journal articles on medical ethics as well as the development of medical ethics in textbooks. A number of journals have developed that are (...) specifically devoted to medical ethics, including The Journal of Medical Ethics, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, The Journal of Medical Humanities, Theoretical Medicine, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, just to name a few. The literature includes both theoretical foundations and conceptual analyses of particular issues as well as practical advice and general suggestions for how to implement programs in medical humanities. (shrink)

The most important distinction in value theory is the subjective-objective distinction which determines the epistemological status of value judgments about medical intervention. Ethical decisions in medical intervention presuppose one of three structures of justification — namely, an inductive approach, a deductive approach which can be either consequentialist or non-consequentialist, and a uniquely ethical approach. Inductivism and deductivism have been discussed extensively in the literature and are only briefly described here. The uniquely ethical approach which presupposes value objectivism (...) is analyzed in detail. This method involves a purely ethical inference which moves from facts to values directly with an emphasis on reason which involves a non-logical justification (as opposed to illogical). It involves the use of natural practical arguments which have an imperative conclusion but no imperative premise and exhibit a value-requiredness between two states of affairs. (shrink)

A study of physicians and medical students was conducted to determine the various philosophical positions they hold with respect to ethical decision-making in medicine and their epistemological presuppositions in relationship to the subjective-objective controversy in value theory. The study revealed that most physicians and medical students tend to be objectivists in value theory, i.e., believe that value judgements are knowledge claims capable of being true or false and are expressions of moral requirements and normative imperatives emanating from an external (...) value structure or moral order in the world, but that most physicians and medical students are inconsistent in the philosophical foundations of their medical ethical decision-making, i.e., in decision-making regarding values they tend to hold beliefs which are incompatible with other beliefs they hold about values. The study also revealed that most physicians and medical students think more emphasis should be placed upon medical ethics in medical education. (shrink)

A study of nurses and nursing students was conducted to determine the various philosophical positions they hold with respect to ethical decision-making in nursing and their relationship to the subjective-objective controversy in value theory. The study revealed that most nurses and nursing students tend to be subjectivists in value theory, i.e., believe that value judgments are purely personal, private expressions of one's own opinion or inner-feelings and not believe that value judgments are knowledge claims capable of being true or (...) false and therefore not expressions of moral requirements and normative imperatives emanating from an external value structure or moral order in the world. In addition, the study revealed that most nurses and nursing students are inconsistent in the philosophical foundations of their ethical decision-making, i.e., in decision-making regarding values they tend to hold beliefs which are incompatible with other beliefs they hold about values. (shrink)

A study of clinical medical ethicists was conducted to determine the various philosophical positions they hold with respect to ethical decision making in medicine and their various positions' relationship to the subjective-objective controversy in value theory. The study consisted of analyzing and interpreting data gathered from questionnaires from 52 clinical medical ethicists at 28 major health care centers in the United States. The study revealed that most clinical medical ethicists tend to be objectivists in value theory, i.e., believe that (...) value judgments are knowledge claims capable of being true or false and therefore expressions of moral requirements and normative imperatives emanating from an external value structure or moral order in the world. In addition, the study revealed that most clinical medical ethicists are consistent in the philosophical foundations of their ethical decision making, i.e., in decision making regarding values they tend not to hold beliefs which are incompatible with other beliefs they hold about values. (shrink)

In the wake of a pilot study that indicated that the experience of medical education appears to Inhibit moral development In medical students, increased attention needs to be given to the structure of medical education and the Influence it has on medical students. Interest in ethics and moral reasoning has become widespread in many aspects of professional and public life. Society has exhibited great interest in the ethical issues confronting physicians today. Considerable effort has been undertaken to train medical (...) students, interns, and residents In how to reason through medical-ethical dilemmas. Media attention has focused on Issues such as abortion, euthanasia, care of severely handicapped infants, organ transplantation, and so forth, producing heated debates in both the professional and lay literature over the morality of the various positions. The curriculum of medical education has paralleled and reflected this general Interest in medical ethics. Most medical schools now offer, and frequently require, course work in ethics. However, further research Is needed to better characterize and understand the relationship of medical education to moral development. (shrink)

Self-scrutiny has long been considered necessary for the development of virtue. Maimonides’ insistence on the importance of self-scrutiny in the formation of character has its roots in Aristotle, but is developed by him in such a way as to be innovative. Three related themes are discussed here : Maimonides’ conception of the role self-scrutiny plays in moral development ; how the imperative of self-scrutiny shapes his analysis of Mosaic Law ; and the specifically religious function (...) of self-scrutiny. Résumé On a longtemps considéré l’examen de soi comme nécessaire à l’acquisition de la vertu. L’insistance, chez Maïmonide, sur l’importance de l’examen de soi dans la formation du caractère, lui vient d’Aristote, mais il développe ce thème de manière innovatrice. On explore ici trois thèmes : la conception du rôle de l’examen de soi dans l’évolution morale selon Maïmonide ; comment l’impératif de l’examen de soi influe sur son analyse de la loi mosaïque ; et le rôle spécifiquement religieux de l’examen de soi. (shrink)

High moral standards and adherence to a moral code have long been strong tenets of the profession of medicine, even though there have been occasional lapses that have led to renewed calls for a revitalization of moral integrity in medicine. Certainly, a moral component has generally been held to be an important aspect of the concept of a physician.

The Norman Rockwell image of the American physician who fixed the broken arm of a child, treated the father for hypertension, and brought an unborn child into this world is now almost nonexistent. Since the time of the Rockwell portrait, a highly technical medical industry has evolved. Now two-thirds of physicians are board certified in subspecialties, and patients visit an average of 3–4 different physicians per year. Today's physicians see themselves less as “benevolent and wise counselors overseeing the patient's welfare (...) and more as objective scientists applying the latest technical methods to bring about the desired end.” The intimate patient-physician relationship that was once the norm in our society is rapidly disappearing. (shrink)

Through writings of Simone Weil and Michel Foucault, the article explores the notion of education as the formation of the attending and attentive subjects. Both writers have in different ways acknowledged the important relation between attention and the self. While Weil develops a spiritual form of attention, an attention which can be trained in any form of serious studying, aiming at dissolving the illusion of the self, Foucault understands attention as an important aspect in the Greek notion (...) of the care of the self, which was developed outside of and due to the limitations of pedagogy aiming at a self-attentive self-formation. Both non-egotistic notions of attention address ethical and educational dimensions of human subjectivity. Foucault’s notion is anti-institutional and Weil’s notion is non-formative. As such, both perspectives inform educational thinking and practice by highlighting attention as a crucial aspect of both the active and the contemplative subject. (shrink)

Socialism grew up in opposition to capitalism, just as liberalism developed in reaction to feudalism. Both liberalism and socialism combined potent critiques of the existing socio‐economic order with blueprints for a desirable future society. However, liberalism provides a rather more coherent body of thought than does socialism, and its theories are linked with the emergence of a dominant system combining capitalism and liberal democracy. By contrast, no widespread socio‐economic order has as yet emerged which can be confidently or closely associated (...) with the ideas of socialism. In both cases the relationship between theories and actual systems is a contestable one, but it has been particularly problematic in the history of socialism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics for a Layered SelfLaughter, Reciprocity, Generosity, HomeCynthia WillettI can imagine no better way to respond to these insightful readings than to turn the spotlight on the important books that Ann Murphy and Megan Craig have written on affect and ethics! Craig’s book, Levinas and James: Toward a Pragmatic Phenomenology, weaves radical empiricism into phenomenology as only a philosopher who is also an artist could. Her evocative queries on (...) prereflective affects, perception, and ethical attunement shed light on the role of moods for unsettling rigid ego boundaries, ethical subjectivity, the feeling of being alive, the audible dimension of ethical encounters, life beyond a struggle to survive, temporality, and ethical ambiguity. These themes are compelling for any postmoral ethics that operates beyond or below the register of modern moral theory’s abstract laws and transparent cogitos. Her work balances an ethical concern for vulnerability with a vital regard for the vibrancy of living creatures and landscapes.Ann Murphy’s Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary illuminates philosophical questions with an abiding lucidity that does not weaken but amplifies the complexity and difficulty of ethics. Murphy’s work exposes how tropes of violence saturate philosophical discourses of both identity formation and of political and historical transformation, and how this violence, embedded in norms, denies sympathetic concern to those outside the limits of cultural intelligibility. Building upon recent work by Judith Butler, Adriana Caverero, and others, Murphy addresses the ambiguities arising from the multiple responses that exposure to vulnerability provokes. These responses can signal care but [End Page 70] they can also manifest violence. Even as she acknowledges the complex underside of cultural intelligibility, Murphy affirms sympathy and generous concern as paradigmatic virtues to be cultivated in response to various forms of violence. She probes the significance of shame and guilt for collective responsibility, ever alert to alterity and difference. With attentive care to the singular contributions of a broad range of philosophers and critical traditions, she argues compellingly for a corporeal ethics grounded on the ontological fact of vulnerability.Through their work, Murphy and Craig pose astute questions for my project, and, in fact, for any endeavor to conceptualize an ethics attentive to an embodied sociality. I describe the multifaceted approach I contribute toward this task as a call and response ethics for a layered self. Craig wonders if the more basic feature before any “call” is contact, touch, or immersion. She notes my concern that “any purported gap or abyss between humans and animals has less to do with unique human capacities than with the rise of urban centers and the loss of contact with other species.” Harm arises from a loss of contact. This is so true. Ethics as contact calls attention to the poetry of proximity, to erotic waves that transmit through the sound or feel of the other’s breath, the heat of the body, and the smell of the skin. This intense proximity serves as a compelling source for ethical sociality, resonating in some respects with what Merleau-Ponty explores as the sense of flesh and touch and, as Murphy suggests, a transcendental eros. This contact is as primal and ordinary as the skin-to-skin contact of caregiver and infant or, perhaps, the skin-to-hair contact of a terrier and her human companion, lost for a moment in inexplicable laughter. From these observations, Craig asks if “call and response” as a locution or central designation adequately captures the intimacy and intensity of these engagements.Craig’s remarks raise the further question of what is at stake in designations or phrasings. An ethics of call and response, designated as such, emerges from phenomenological but also crucially Africana and critical theory traditions. As a relational ethics, this ethics of call and response highlights social relations and expectations, opening a path outside of what Murphy characterizes as the trifecta of virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism. It attends to desire (eros) beneath, in between, and above the prescriptive rules of moral reason or the interests of individuals. At its center are social bonds (friendship and companionship, community and domination, love, hate, and other social emotions, belonging and alienation, and the conflicts of groups and reconciliation) rather... (shrink)

Following a brief consideration of two contrasting purposes for teaching the medical humanities, a description is given of a film discussion elective course. In contrast to the usual teaching of medical ethics which is primarily a cognitive activity emphasizing the development of a code of principles such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence, the film discussion elective was primarily an affective activity emphasizing the development of an ethical ideal of caring, relatedness, and sensitivity to others. The pass/fail elective, offered for (...) one credit each quarter for two quarters, met once a week for one hour for twenty-four weeks. Each week a film was shown followed by a group discussion. A wide variety of social issues were covered. The objective of the course was to increase the ethical sensitivity of the medical students through promotion of introspection and reflection on social issues. A brief discussion is given of the importance and appropriateness of using film to promote the affective focus of medicine on the relief of suffering. Examples are given of how the course achieved its objective. A detailed description of the resource materials is provided. (shrink)

A resurgence of interest in virtue ethics has engendered new insight into the fundamental link between selfhood and morality. In contradistinction to the currently ascendant justice-reasoning research paradigm, it appears that a virtue ethics approach to moral psychology provides a theoretical framework which is amenable to the empirical investigation of the nature and formation of the moral self. Six primary features of virtue ethics are delineated with a unifying emphasis throughout on the inextricable link between virtue and moral (...) selfhood. Questions and issues concerning the possibility of a psychology of virtue ethics are directly addressed throughout. (shrink)

The contemporary revival of virtue ethics has focused primarily on retrieving central moral commitments of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Neoplatonist traditions. Christian virtue ethicists would do well to expand this retrieval further to include the writings of the Roman Stoics. This essay argues that the ethics of Jonathan Edwards exemplifies major Stoic themes and explores three noteworthy points of intersection between Stoic ethics and Edwards's thought: a conception of virtue as consent to a benevolent providence, the identification of virtue (...) as a singular and transformative good, and an account of moral formation as simultaneously self-directed and received. Common ground between Edwards and the Stoics illustrates the value of recognizing Stoic moral thought as a philosophical framework that can enhance and undergird Christian ethicists' understandings of moral development and the nature of virtue. (shrink)

In clinical practice, evidence suggests that teaching ethics using normative ethical theory has little influence on the ethical actions of providers in practice. Thus, new training methods are needed that improve clinician response to ethical problems. A sensemaking approach to ethics training has demonstrated promise as an evidence-based pedagogical method to improve ethical reasoning and response. Project ECHO is theoretically linked to improved sensemaking. This study examines the effectiveness of ECHO and training in use of sensemaking (...) approaches to ethical response by clinicians. A quasi-experimental design study using univariate linear regression was used to examine the effect of the three types of ethics training on ethical response self-efficacy scores, while controlling for participant characteristics of years in practice, discipline and sex. We found evidence that training in sensemaking through participation in ECHO promotes improved ethical response self-efficacy of clinicians. However, results also suggest that a traditional ECHO format that does not explicitly introduce sensemaking strategies into the training does not result in the same learning outcomes as measured through an ethical response self-efficacy survey. This study found important preliminary results to support use of sensemaking approaches in clinical ethics training. (shrink)