This paper describes an Intelligent Tutoring System for helping users with ADO.NET called ADO-Tutor. The Intelligent Tutoring System was designed and developed using (ITSB) authoring tool for building intelligent educational systems. The user learns through the intelligent tutoring system ADO.NET, the technology used by Microsoft.NET to connect to databases. The material includes lessons, examples, and questions. Through the feedback provided by the intelligent tutoring system, the user's understanding of the material is assessed, and accordingly can be guided to different difficulty (...) level of exercises and/or the lessons. The Intelligent Tutoring System was evaluated by a group of users and the results were more than satisfactory in terms of the quality of the material and the design of the system. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the meaning of birth in the work of Agamben, Esposito, and Derrida, paying particular attention to how it operates in their analyses of citizenship and national belonging. I show that Agamben views birth as negative, Esposito proposes a positive conception, and Derrida's writings imply an understanding that is ambivalent. Then, by focusing on the phenomenon of multiple citizenship, I argue for the value of the Derridean view.

The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians has since its inception, affirmed the agency of women in their theological reflection and praxis. In doing so, they have called on their male colleagues to stand in solidarity with them in forging alternative masculinities that renew culture, curb gender-based violence and mitigate HIV infection. This essay argues that there are three assumptions that form the basis of the work of the Circle theologians. Firstly, that women seek to be in egalitarian relationships with (...) men that bring dignity and respect. Secondly, women assert their agency to achieve this goal and in so doing bring healing and wholeness to both groups who are transformed through this process. Thirdly, women assert their agency in solidarity with other women as they build alternative egalitarian communities. Yet, the recent phenomenon of the #Blessed community of young women who seek out ‘blessers’, older men who engage them in transactional sex, in order to fund opulent lifestyles contradicts these assumptions. Their agency embraces non-liberative ideology and practice and chooses not to unseat the dominant ideologies of hetero- and econo-patriarchy. Contribution: The essay concludes that a lack of sustained economic analysis and engaged theological reflection on sexual ethics means the Circle is ill-equipped to respond to the challenge posed by the #Blessed community of young women. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Derrida’s attempts to transform how philosophy is conceived, specifically as this occurs in his writings on education. In these writings Derrida challenges two understandings of philosophy—in his interventions into debates on lycée education he targets philosophy in France, while in texts related to the founding of the Collège International de Philosophie at stake is philosophy understood as a broader European institution. I argue that in each case key in Derrida’s challenge is his rethinking of philosophy’s (...) relation to other disciplines, and I suggest that this rethinking can aid us in our own attempts to transform education in philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Derrida’s attempts to transform how philosophy is conceived, specifically as this occurs in his writings on education. In these writings Derrida challenges two understandings of philosophy—in his interventions into debates on lycée education he targets philosophy in France, while in texts related to the founding of the Collège International de Philosophie at stake is philosophy understood as a broader European institution. I argue that in each case key in Derrida’s challenge is his rethinking of philosophy’s (...) relation to other disciplines, and I suggest that this rethinking can aid us in our own attempts to transform education in philosophy. (shrink)

This essay explores the treatment of violence in Derrida's ethico-political work, stressing the underlying continuity of Derrida's thinking of politics, from his first reading of Levinas to one of the last notions he developed, autoimmunity. Haddad analyzes the use to which the idea of a “lesser violence” has been put, arguing that it is incompatible with Derrida's other claims.

Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy provides a theoretically rich and accessible account of Derrida's political philosophy. Demonstrating the key role inheritance plays in Derrida’s thinking, Samir Haddad develops a general theory of inheritance and shows how it is essential to democratic action. He transforms Derrida’s well-known idea of "democracy to come" into active engagement with democratic traditions. Haddad focuses on issues such as hospitality, justice, normativity, violence, friendship, birth, and the nature of democracy as he reads these (...) deeply political writings. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an epistemic evaluation of the harms that result from the widespread marketing of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests. While genetic tests are a valuable accessory diagnostic tool when ordered by a medical practitioner, there are different implications when they are sold directly to consumers. I aim to show that there are both epistemic and non-epistemic harms associated with the widespread commoditization of DTC genetic tests. I argue that the epistemic harms produced by DTC genetic tests have (...) been disregarded in discussions on the topic. Drawing on the notion of contributory epistemic injustices, I highlight two pertinent epistemic harms: (1) a failure to uptake an individual’s articulations about their identity and (2) the presiding reductionist framework dismisses useful hermeneutical resources. I then propose ways to mitigate these harms. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze Leonard Lawlor’s strategy of inheriting from the tradition, highlighting the way he traces and amplifies a series of conceptual transformations that take place across twentieth-century continental philosophy. Focusing on the particular movement from metaphysics to ethics enacted in From Violence to Speaking Out, I raise three concerns regarding Lawlor’s ethics of “the least violence,” arguing that there is a problem with a quantitative understanding of this notion, that the quality of potentiality attributed to it needs (...) more clarification, and that Lawlor’s proposal of a radical letting be has more dangers than he seems to realize. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this paper I argue that Derrida's writings on education contain a profound rethinking of professorial authority. I first outline the sources of professorial authority and describe how they were traditionally conceived in France at the time when Derrida was working. I then show how Derrida challenges and transforms these sources, focusing in particular on a new relation to knowledge, a new relation to the state, and a new understanding of charisma that emerge from his work.

Derrida lived almost his entire life attached to educational institutions, his work was received across the globe predominantly in the academy, and he was politically and philosophically preoccupied with issues related to teaching and educational institutions for a decade. The author uses these two events to organize his presentation of the main themes in Derrida's discussions of education. With two opponents, themselves opposed, Groupe de recherches sur l’enseignement philosophique (GREPH) and Derrida thus had a double task – to prevent the (...) particular reforms from coming to pass, while developing alternative reforms in their place. The author examines Derrida's pursuit of this double task by focusing on his re‐articulation of three themes, each one central to the traditional view: the role of the teacher; the age of the student, and philosophy's relation to a national language. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Derrida’s proposal for a new understanding of responsibility in the university, as it is articulated in “Mochlos, or The Confl ict of the Faculties,” together with remarks made in “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils” and “The University Without Condition”. I argue that this account of responsibility, while sharing some characteristics with Derrida’s later theorizations, enacts an inheritance of Kant and places an emphasis on community that is unique in (...) Derrida’s oeuvre. (shrink)

This work seeks to problematize the relations between philosophy, education, school and teaching. We will divide our approach in three questions: the relations between philosophy with the city, a teacher's activities and philosophy and philosophy as a subject in the school system, questions which crisscross, overlap and get confused. We believe that these reflections will show the ways for our future reflection.

Through ten case studies by international specialists, this book investigates the circulation and production of scientific knowledge between 1750 and 1945 in the fields of agriculture, astronomy, botany, cartography, medicine, statistics, and zoology. The book will interest scholars and undergraduate and graduate students concerned with the connections between the history of science, imperial history, and global history.

Robert Veatch was a notable and prolific author in a variety of areas in philosophy, health care practice, and policy. However, it is evident by the sheer number of case study in ethics books, eighteen editions of case collections in all, that this approach to teaching ethics in the health sciences was especially important to him. A few of these case study collections he wrote alone, but the majority were written with co-authors from nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, allied health, and medicine, (...) drawing on their respective areas of disciplinary expertise and experience as educators. The aim of this article is to focus on the pedagogy and framework Veatch developed to expose students to the rudiments of philosophical ethics so they could understand the conflicts between values, principles, and ethical theories. Authentic clinical cases, he believed, were a useful way to engage students. Putting the two ideas together, Veatch argued the best method of structuring cases is “bootlegging theory in a topical structure” (Veatch, Robert M., Case analysis in ethics instruction. In: Amy Haddad (ed) Teaching and learning strategies in pharmacy ethics, Creighton University, Omaha, 85–97, 1992). Veatch’s rationale for this carefully planned systematic arrangement between case topics and philosophical ethics content are presented. The influence and input of co-authors from different disciplines are explored regarding case development and commentary content. Finally, the impact of these interdisciplinary case study textbooks on ethics instruction in the health sciences is evaluated. (shrink)

This article analyses the drama surrounding the activism of female imams in North America. The image of Muslim women presiding over mixed congregational prayers evokes dramatically divergent responses among different Muslim constituencies, highlighting the disputed nature of fundamental issues pertaining to identity, community and authority. Provocative questions are raised: Can Islamic texts and communities of interpreters accommodate female religious authorities? Is it in the interest of Muslim women to seek empowerment within a domain of communal life in which male authority (...) has traditionally been dominant in all Sunni and most Shi'ite denominations? Do efforts to advance women within such contexts promise to help bridge the gap between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’, or merely underscore existing divisions and political motivations? In particular we explore two prominent figures, Amina Wadud and Asra Nomani, and each woman's understanding of basic textual debates, conception of Muslim women's needs, and perspective on themes pertaining to ‘Islamic—North American’ relations. Throughout this article, an attempt will also be made to clarify a central paradox of the North American imamah phenomenon: that it is both a highly contingent response to specific cultural and political circumstances and a manifestation of long-term negotiations within the larger Muslim community that favour the opening of new spaces for women within religious and social life. (shrink)

The relationship between national languages and schooling is a recurring theme in Derrida’s writings on education, playing an important role in the challenge he mounts to traditional understandings of the French State’s involvement in the teaching of philosophy. In this essay, I follow this thread of thinking across several of Derrida’s texts, paying specific attention to his diagnoses of positions arguing for a universal philosophical language on the one hand, and those elevating French as the proper language of philosophy on (...) the other. I demonstrate how, against these positions, an alternative understanding of relation between language and philosophical education starts to emerge in Derrida’s work, one in which translation is a key element. (shrink)

Although thousands of articles and books appear annually in the field of nursing ethics, the sheer volume of scholarly publications points to the need to provide assessment and focus, and that is what this book offers. Nursing and Healthcare Ethics documents the work of nurse scholars in ethics, and goes well beyond a mere documentation of what has transpired and a list of what can be done in the future. It creatively looks back to assess previous accomplishments and forward to (...) find new directions and strengthen future scholarly contributions in nursing ethics. Critical thinking activities, organized by the book s themes (such as vulnerability, care and caring, diversity and disparity, and pain and suffering) are examples of applying these scholarly insights into practice. This book is intended not only for undergraduate and graduate students in academic settings, but also for those in professional development programs. (shrink)

In this paper I demonstrate that the analysis supporting Derrida’s identification of the desire for a pure, originary idiom in Heidegger’s reading of Trakl in Geschlecht III provides a framework with which we can understand the call for a new language in Monolingualism of the Other. While acknowledging how his interpretation of Heidegger provides important insights that guide Derrida’s later negotiation with the dual dangers of nationalism and colonialism, I argue that the proximity to Heidegger, manifest in Derrida’s articulation of (...) a desire for language in the singular, threatens to close down possibilities latent in the promising definition of deconstruction as plus d’une langue—both more than a language and no more of a language. (shrink)

Derrida argued at great length early on in his career that texts live on in the absence of their author. The question remains, however, of precisely how this survival takes place. In this paper I argue that the life of Derrida’s own œuvre is sustained through his particular practice of self‐inheritance. I justify this claim by focusing on one moment in the text Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, in which Derrida inherits from himself through self‐citation. In citing himself while at (...) the same time modifying his citation, Derrida sets into motion a deconstruction of his own text that he does not seem to anticipate. It is this movement of deconstruction that enables Derrida’s text to live on. (shrink)

This review article discusses Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby’s recent book, Clinical Labor. Tissue donors and research subjects in the global bio-economy, as a topical contribution to the literatures on the bio-economy, and to studies of life sciences, society, and policy more generally. The article contextualizes the book within existing literatures and thoroughly considers its conceptual approach as well as its findings. Further, it discusses its value as a contribution, arguing that clinical labor also presents an intriguing framework for further (...) research, thereby suggesting some possible directions. (shrink)

The importance of the Treatise on equations by Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī has been brought to our attention by R. Rashed, who underlined the analytical aspects of this essentially algebraic work. Following Rashed, this article concentrates on one of these analytical concepts, namely the maximum of a polynomial expression f of degree 3. The purpose is to clarify the techniques that led al-Ṭūsī, when computing the maximum of f, to systematically display algebraic equations equivalent to f = 0. By demonstrating that (...) al-Ṭūsī's essentially algebraic proofs were also based on analytical procedures, we show that the presence of these equations was not fortuitous, but resulted from a correct understanding of the maximum of f. The accompanying geometrical representations were primarily for illustration. L'importance du Traité des équations de Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, a été mise en évidence par les travaux de R. Rashed, qui ont souligné les aspects analytiques de cette œuvre essentiellement algébrique. Parmi les notions analytiques qui figurent dans le Traité d'al-Ṭūsī, nous évoquerons uniquement celle du maximum d'une expression polynomiale du 3 e degré, f. La présente étude pourrait apporter une contribution à une problématique posée par R. Rashed: élucider les moyens et les techniques qui, lors du calcul du maximum, auraient conduit al-Ṭūsī à mettre systématiquement en valeur des équations équivalentes à fʹ = 0. Notre étude confirme que la présence de telles expressions n'est pas fortuite; elle découle d'une conception correcte du maximum de f. À cet effet, nous montrons que si les démonstrations utilisées par al-Ṭūsī sont essentiellement algébriques, elles s'appuient sur des procédés analytiques; les représentations géométriques qui les accompagnent constituent surtout des moyens de visualisation. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to analyze and extend Michèle Le Dœuff’s work on philosophy’s exclusionary practices, examining and enhancing both her diagnosis of the problem and how philosophy might be transformed. I proceed in three steps. First, I briefly outline the main features of Le Dœuff’s account of the reasons for the exclusion of women from philosophy. Le Dœuff’s focus is on the structure of philosophical pedagogy and its implications for the philosophical imaginary. Second, I examine Le Dœuff’s (...) proposals for transforming the imaginary so as to resist exclusionary practices. These suggestions involve the introduction of an original understanding of plurality in philosophy. However, Le Dœuff’s proposals are... (shrink)

There is a necessity to build a new republican regime in the Great Middle East, based on a broad sense of citizenship, on a respect for pluralism, and on re-evaluating difference as a positive element rather than as a threat. However, this re-building will succeed only when it is accompanied by a restoration of the religious space. The reformist national model is the best and most appropriate model for real situations within the current historical period. It is a model that (...) is able to develop according to each society’s developmental and political experience. (shrink)

Transformational leadership impacts on project and organizational success are well established. However, many underlying factors that make TFL effective are still missing. Therefore, we formulated hypotheses and tested the mediating role of trust and job satisfaction in linking TFL to project success. A time-lagged methodology was used to collect quantitative data using a structured questionnaire from 326 project manager-team member dyads working in Pakistan’s public sector. Our results showed that TS, JS, and TFL significantly impacted project success. Moreover, we found (...) that TS and JS mediate the relationship between TFL and PS. These findings highlight the importance of trust and job satisfaction as mechanisms that translate TFL into the success of projects for organizations. (shrink)

We explain here how the natural selection theory of people's mutualistic sense of fairness and the biofunctional theory of human understanding are made for each other. We welcome the stage that the target article has already set for this convergence, and invite the authors to consider moving the two independently developed approaches a step closer to the natural selection level of biofunctional understanding.

The preservation of our planet’s decreasing biodiversity is a global challenge. Human attitudes and preferences toward animals have profound impacts on conservation policies and decisions. To date, the vast majority of studies about human attitudes and concern toward animals have focused largely on western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic populations. In order to mitigate biodiversity loss globally, an understanding of how humans make decisions about animals from multicultural perspectives is needed. The present study examines familiarity, liking and endorsement of government (...) protection amongst six broad cultural groups living in Qatar for five threatened animal species indigenous to the Arabian Gulf. Our findings highlight similarities and differences across cultures toward animals. Overall, familiarity did not predict endorsement for government protection after liking was accounted for. Liking, however, emerged as an important predictor of endorsement for government protection across cultures, although the degree of animal liking varied culturally. WEIRD and South East Asian participants showed similar and more positive attitudes toward animals compared to the other groups. Participants from the Arabian Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia responded similarly toward the animals. Interestingly, the Arabian Gulf group demonstrated significantly less liking and protection endorsement for animals, including those animals which play an important role in their culture. This research highlights intriguing avenues for future research and points to liking as a possible universal human attitude toward animals that influences decision making about conservation across all cultures while suggesting applications for improving education. (shrink)

The fourteen authors in this collection used phenomenology and hermeneutics to conduct deep inquiry into perplexing and wondrous events in their work and personal lives. These seasoned scholar-practitioners gained remarkable insight into areas such as health care and illness, organ donation, intercultural communications, high-performance teams, artistic production, jazz improvisation, and the integration of Tai Chi into education. All authors were transformed by phenomenology's expanded ways of seeing and being.

It's surprising that contemporary moral philosophers have not thought more about food. The rapidly expanding industrialized landscape of modern western agribusiness raises moral concerns about large-scale livestock production, the increased usage of genetically modified crops, and the effects these now common practices may have on long-term environmental and human health. Here Pence argues that biotechnology is more helpful than harmful, on the ground that it will abate world hunger. Positioning himself as an "impartialbioethicist" he sets about the task of sorting (...) through the extremism he thinks drives all environ- mental movements' opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops. His argu- ment is simple: the claim that GM foods are unsafe is the product of alarmism, not sound reason. Discarding what environmentalists have called the Precau- tionary Principle, he argues that GM foods are safe because they have not been proven unsafe. And GM foods have been tested more than many food products now on the market. (shrink)

O presente artigo trata da relação entre teoria e prática no pensamento de Theodor W. Adorno com o objetivo de analisar as possibilidades de emancipação do sujeito no âmbito da sociedade capitalista contemporânea, questionando sobre um suposto pessimismo do autor. Para tanto, serão contextualizadas as relações entre sujeito e objeto, natureza e razão, teoria e prática e formação e semiformação, com a finalidade de pensar a importância fundamental da teoria para a transformação do mundo a partir de uma análise crítica (...) da sociedade, bem como a pertinência dessa análise ao atual momento brasileiro. A transformação do mundo será pensada a partir das possibilidades de emancipação do sujeito e o papel da formação humana nesse processo no interior de um modelo educacional cada vez mais determinados pelos interesses do capital que direcionam a educação a aspectos meramente práticos de adaptação ao mercado de trabalho. A conclusão aponta no sentido da necessidade imperativa da manutenção da formação teórica e crítica diante dos constrangimentos de ordem prática de um mundo administrado pelos valores capitalistas. Palavras-chave: Theodor W. Adorno. Relação teoria e prática. Semiformação. Pessimismo teórico. Critical Theory and Educational Practice: On the relationship between theoretical pessimism and the transformation of the world to T.W. Adorno Abstract: This article deals with the relationship between theory and practice in the thought of Theodor W. Adorno with the aim of analyzing the possibilities of the subject's emancipation in the context of contemporary capitalist society, questioning the author's supposed pessimism. Therefore, the relationships between subject and object, nature and reason, theory and practice, and Bildung and Halbbildung will be contextualized, with the purpose of thinking about the fundamental importance of theory for the transformation of the world from a thought marked by a critical analysis of the society, as well as the relevance of this analysis to the current Brazilian moment. The transformation of the world will be thought from the possibilities of emancipation of the subject and the role of human formation in this process within an educational model increasingly determined by the interests of capital that led education to merely practical aspects of adaptation to the labor market. The conclusion points towards the imperative need to maintain theoretical and critical education in the face of practical constraints in a world managed by capitalist values. Key-words: Theodor W. Adorno. Theory and practice relationship. Semi-formation. Theoretical pessimism. Teoría, Crítica y Práctica Educativa: Sobre La Relación Entre Pesimismo Teórico Y Transformación Del Mundo En T.W. Adorno Resumen: Este artículo aborda la relación entre teoría y práctica en el pensamiento de Theodor W. Adorno con el objetivo de analizar las posibilidades de emancipación del sujeto en el contexto de la sociedad capitalista contemporánea, cuestionando el supuesto pesimismo del autor. Para eso, se contextualizarán las relaciones entre sujeto y objeto, naturaleza y razón, teoría y práctica, y formación y semiformación, con el propósito de pensar la importancia fundamental de la teoría para la transformación del mundo a partir de una análisis crítica de la sociedad, así como la relevancia de este análisis para el momento brasileño actual. La transformación del mundo se pensará desde las posibilidades de emancipación del sujeto y el papel de la formación humana en este proceso dentro de un modelo educativo cada vez más determinado por los intereses del capital que dirigen la educación a aspectos meramente prácticos de adaptación al mercado laboral. La conclusión apunta hacia la imperiosa necesidad de mantener una formación teórica y crítica frente a las limitaciones prácticas en un mundo gestionado por valores capitalistas. Palabras-clave: Theodor W. Adorno. Relación teoría y práctica. Semiformación. Pesimismo teórico. Data de registro: 08/09/2021 Data de aceite: 19/01/2022. (shrink)

La conclusione di Rosenzweig sul diverso modo dell’ebreo e del cristiano di lavorare alla «stessa opera» è una delle pagine più citate della Stella. Dio non può fare a meno di nessuno dei due. Ha dato al primo la vita eterna, accendendo nel suo cuore il fuoco della verità. Ha posto il secondo sulla via eterna, cosicché egli seguirà «fino alla fine» i raggi della sua luce. L’ebreo vede la stella, ma non i raggi. Il cristiano è destinato a vedere (...) sempre ciò che è illuminato, ma non la luce. Diverso sarà dunque il rischio, a partire dalla preghiera per quella «verità intera» che non appartiene in quanto tale né all’uno né all’altro e per questo ha bisogno di entrambi. Il cristiano che cammina «seguendo la corrente del tempo» è esposto alla triplice tentazione della spiritualizzazione del concetto di Dio, della apoteosi del concetto di uomo e della panteizzazione del concetto di mondo . L’ebreo contempla appunto nel suo cuore – ma nel suo cuore soltanto – la fedele immagine della verità. Egli si distoglie così «dalla vita nel tempo», come «la vita del tempo» si distoglie da lui. È significativo che per sottolineare il senso profondo di questo radicamento Rosenzweig ricorra ad un termine così hegeliano come la Erinnerung, che nella conclusione della Fenomenologia è la notte dell’autocoscienza nella quale lo spirito scende, ma per potersi distendere nel tempo facendone il suo tempo e dunque «la verità e la certezza del suo trono». (shrink)

LSJ s.v. A defines ἀληθινός as meaning ‘truthful, trusty’ of persons and ‘true, genuine’ of objects, and offers Amphis, fr. 26 as an example of the second sense:ὅστις ἀγοράζων ὄψον ἐξὸν ἀπολαύειν ἰχθύων ἀληθινῶνῥαφανῖδας ἐπιθυμεῖ πρίασθαι, μαίνεταιAnyone who, when shopping for dainties …wants to purchase radishes, when he has a chanceto enjoy alêthinoi fish, is crazy.The context of the fragment is unknown. But the speaker is patently drawing a contrast not between ‘real fish’ and something that resembles fish, as LSJ (...) would have it, but between a type of fish that any sensible person would buy for dinner, should the opportunity arise, and radishes, which are edible but unexciting fare. So too at Macho 28–32, when King Ptolemy's guests were served a variegated rockfish, three κωβιοί cut into steaks, and καράβων … ἀληθινῶν —literally ‘real crayfish’—they were astonished and delighted. The reaction suggests that the banqueters were happy because the crayfish Ptolemy served matched the quality of the other seafood he set before them, not because the king had declined to deceive them. (shrink)

The dramatic rise in inequality in the United States over the past generation has occasioned considerable attention from economists, but strikingly little from students of American politics. This has started to change: in recent years, a small but growing body of political science research on rising inequality has challenged standard economic accounts that emphasize apolitical processes of economic change. For all the sophistication of this new scholarship, however, it too fails to provide a compelling account of the political sources and (...) effects of rising inequality. In particular, these studies share with dominant economic accounts three weaknesses: they downplay the distinctive feature of American inequality —namely, the extreme concentration of income gains at the top of the economic ladder; they miss the profound role of government policy in creating this “winner-take-all” pattern; and they give little attention or weight to the dramatic long-term transformation of the organizational landscape of American politics that lies behind these changes in policy. These weaknesses are interrelated, stemming ultimately from a conception of politics that emphasizes the sway of the “median voter” in electoral politics, rather than the influence of organized interests in the process of policy making. A perspective centered on organizational and policy change —one that identifies the major policy shifts that have bolstered the economic standing of those at the top and then links those shifts to concrete organizational efforts by resourceful private interests —fares much better at explaining why the American political economy has become distinctively winner-take-all. (shrink)

Much of postmodern philosophy questions the assumptions of Modernity, that period in the history of the Western world since the Enlightment. These assumptions are that truth is discoverable through human reason; that certain knowledge is possible; and furthermore, that such knowledge will provide a basis for the ineluctable progress of Mankind. The Enlightenment project is underwritten by the conviction that knowledge gained through the scientific method is secure. In so far as biomedicine inherits these assumptions it becomes fair game for (...) postmodern deconstruction. Today, perhaps more than ever, plural values compete, and contradictory approaches to health, for instance, garner support and acquire supremacy through consumer choice and media manipulation rather than evidence-based science. Many doctors feel a tension between meeting the needs of the patient face to face, and working towards the broader health needs of the public at large. But if the very foundations of medical science are questioned, by patients, or by doctors themselves, wherein lies the value of their work? This paper examines the issues that the anti-foundationalist thrust of postmodernism raises, in the light of a case of mild hypertension. The strict application of medical protocol, derived from a nomothetic, statistical perspective, seems unlikely to furnish value in the treatment of an individual. The anything goes, consumerist approach, however, fares no better. The author argues that whilst value cannot depend on any rationally predetermined parameters, it can be rescued, and emerges from the process of the meeting with the patient. (shrink)

Kenneth Patton, a Unitarian minister, presents us with a celebration of the world in rambling free verse. Unfortunately, the reader wearies of the highly self-conscious, epigrammatic, and didactic approach. As poetry the book fails. It fares better if approached as a testimony to Mr. Patton's powerful convictions of the oneness of men with each other and the cosmos, of the essentially creative, joyful, and wondrous nature of human life. "Creator" deserves special mention for its rare, anti-Nietzschean insight into the (...) way in which a creator is necessarily both male and female.—S. A. S. (shrink)

Current DHHS regulations require that policies and procedures developed by institutions to handle allegations of scientific misconduct include provisions for “undertaking diligent efforts to protect the positions and reputations of those persons who, in good faith, make allegations.” Analogously, institutions receiving PHS funds are required to protect the confidentiality of those accused of such misconduct or, failing that, to restore their reputations if the allegations are not confirmed. Based on two surveys, one of whistleblowers and one of individuals accused but (...) exonerated of scientific misconduct, this paper examines how well the system works to protect both sets of participants in cases of alleged misconduct. Contrary to popular impressions created by notorious cases, substantial minorities of both whistleblowers and exonerated scientists experience no adverse outcomes at the time the allegations are made and pursued. During this period, however, whistleblowers report more negative outcomes and more severe negative outcomes than their accused but exonerated counterparts. In the longer run, majorities of both groups report little impact on different aspects of their careers or professional activities, though those who report any impacts generally report negative ones. The accused but exonerated, however, appear to fare worse than whistleblowers in impacts on several aspects of their personal lives; their mental health, physical health, self-esteem, and self-identity. (shrink)

Abstract Agent-based virtue ethics is a unitary normative theory according to which the moral status of actions is entirely dependent upon the moral status of an agent's motives and character traits. One of the problems any such approach faces is to capture the common-sense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right (or wrong) reason. In this paper I argue that agent-based virtue ethics ultimately fails to capture this kind of fine-grained distinction, and (...) to this extent ought to be rejected. I focus first on Michael Slote's agent-based theory, according to which the moral status of actions depends upon an agent's actual motives, and argue that this leads to a paradox. I then consider whether the ?counterfactual? version of agent-basing favoured by Rosalind Hursthouse and Linda Zagzebski fares any better, and conclude that it does not. (shrink)