New methods to analyse social media data provide a powerful way to know publics and capture what they say and do. At the same time, access to these methods is uneven, with corporations and governments tending to have best access to relevant data and analytics tools. Critics raise a number of concerns about the implications dominant uses of data mining and analytics may have for the public: they result in less privacy, more surveillance and social discrimination, and they provide new (...) ways of controlling how publics come to be represented and so understood. In this paper, we consider if a different relationship between the public and data mining might be established, one in which publics might be said to have greater agency and reflexivity vis-à-vis data power. Drawing on growing calls for alternative data regimes and practices, we argue that to enable this different relationship, data mining and analytics need to be democratised in three ways: they should be subject to greater public supervision and regulation, available and accessible to all, and used to create not simply known but reflexive, active and knowing publics. We therefore imagine conditions in which data mining is not just used as a way to know publics, but can become a means for publics to know themselves. (shrink)

Avoiding partisan diatribe, Left Wing, Right Wing, People, and Power traces the historical development of the left wing and the right wing to reveal that the core of politics is the conflict over power. Despite specific differences of time and place, political actions are consistently efforts to preserve or change the structure and dynamics of power. With this insight, we can better understand political positions and actions. -/- Written in an accessible style, this book will inform readers regardless of where (...) they see themselves on the political spectrum. With clear but nuanced definitions of political ideologies and movements, the author shows how politics is people seeking to express and expand their power in the social space around them. Thus, the clash of the left and right wings is not about grand ideologies but instead is about power relations and the flow of power among people. (shrink)

The experience of being famous was investigated through interviews with 15 well-known American celebrities. The interviews detail the existential parameters of being famous in contemporary culture. Research participants were celebrities in various societal categories: government, law, business, publishing, sports, music, film, television news and entertainment. Phenomenological analysis was used to examine textural and structural relationship-to-world themes of fame and celebrity. The study found that in relation to self, being famous leads to loss of privacy, entitization, demanding expectations, gratification of ego (...) needs, and symbolic immortality. In relation to other, or world, being famous leads to wealth, access, temptations, and concerns about family impact. Areas of psychological concern for celebrity mental health include character-splitting, mistrust, isolation, and an unwillingness to give up fame. Being-in-the-world of celebrity is a process involving four temporal phases: love/hate, addiction, acceptance, and adaptation. Findings are presented in the form of a Composite Textural Description and two Individual Structural Descriptions. (shrink)

The use of lay members on research ethics committees has for some time been felt to be an example of good practice in ethical review processes. In this paper, written by a lay member, the author considers what the recruitment process for lay members might be and argues how this process should largely be shaped by what role the lay member is recruited to undertake. In considering the advantages and disadvantages of lay members, the author shows that defining the role (...) of a lay member is not straightforward but is necessary to the good working of a research ethics committee. (shrink)

_Beyond Solidarity_ is an impassioned argument for a sharable morality in a world increasingly fractured along lines of difference. Giles Gunn asks how human solidarity can be reconceived when its expressions have become increasingly exceptionalist and outmoded, and when the pressures of globalization divide as much as they unify. He finds the terms for answering these questions in a more inclusive, cosmopolitan pragmatism—one willing to explore fundamental values without recourse to absolutist arguments. Drawing on the work of William and (...) Henry James, John Dewey, Primo Levi, Richard Rorty, and many others, as well as postcolonial writing, Jewish literature of the Holocaust, and the cultural and religious experience of African Americans in slavery, Gunn points pragmatism in a transnational direction and shows how it can better account for the consequences of diversity. _Beyond Solidarity_, then, is a study of the difference that difference makes in a globalized world. (shrink)

We develop and test a trickle-down model of how authentic leadership at the department level flows down the organizational hierarchy to encourage team leader authentic leadership and consequently, promotes team and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Analyses of multi-level and multi-source data collected from a total of 487 employees comprising 122 teams, 47 departments, and 4 different working areas of a major public sector organization in Taiwan show that team leaders’ authentic leadership mediates the relationship between departmental authentic leadership and individual-level (...) leader–member exchange. We also found that intra-team trust completely mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on both team helping behavior and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Finally, the results reveal that self-concordance mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on individual-level supervisor helping behavior as well as the influence of individual-level LMX on individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

In an earlier paper entitled _Harm is all you need?_, I used an analysis of English law to claim that the harm threshold was an unsuitable mediator of the best interests test when deciding if parental decisions should be overruled. In this paper I respond to a number of commentaries of that paper, and extend my discussion to consider the claim that the harm threshold gives appropriate normative weight to the interests of parents. While I accept that parents have some (...) rights over their children, I argue these are dependent on parents’ duties to benefit their children. While many such benefits are understood pluralistically, and are thus within parents’ ambit to decide, I claim that health benefits are ordinally different, because they play a foundational role in the flourishing of an individual. In the light of this, clinicians have the moral authority to override parental refusals, although in some cases abstaining from exercising this authority may be a pragmatic way to maintain parental engagement and ensure our ability to benefit the child in future. (shrink)

Best known for having declared the death of God, Nietzsche was a thinker thoroughly absorbed in the Christian tradition in which he was born and raised. Yet while the atheist Nietzsche is well known, the pious Nietzsche is seldom recognised and rarely understood. Redeeming Nietzsche examines the residual theologian in the most vociferous of atheists. Fraser demonstrates that although Nietzsche rejected God, he remained obsessed with the question of human salvation. Examining his accounts of art, truth, morality and eternity, Nietzsche's (...) thought is revealed to be a series of experiments in redemption. (shrink)

[1. Without special title] -- [2]. Anastatica.

SummaryThe Enlightened theory of civilisation was expressed through the formula of ‘doux commerce’, a form of commerce which acknowledged the need for the European conquest of non-European lands and nations, and the opportunity to bring European civilisation to other peoples without violence. Montesquieu was the first to express this idea, condemning the Spanish conquest and empire. In the Histoire des deux Indes, this idea was dramatically discussed: Raynal wanted to defend it; Diderot dismantled this project showing that civilisation was but (...) the mask of violent conquest. In this way the latter offered an extraordinary refutation of both Enlightened ideology and its strategy of civilisation. (shrink)

This letter responds to the essay “If Not Now, Then When? Taking Disability Seriously in Bioethics,” by Debjani Mukherjee, Preya S. Tarsney, and Kristi L. Kirschner, in the May‐June 2022 issue of the Hastings Center Report.

Smart-home technologies, comprising environmental sensors, wearables and video are attracting interest in home healthcare delivery. Development of such technology is usually justified on the basis of the technology’s potential to increase the autonomy of people living with long-term conditions. Studies of the ethics of smart-homes raise concerns about privacy, consent, social isolation and equity of access. Few studies have investigated the ethical perspectives of smart-home engineers themselves. By exploring the views of engineering researchers in a large smart-home project, we sought (...) to contribute to dialogue between ethics and the engineering community. Either face-to-face or using Skype, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 early- and mid-career smart-home researchers from a multi-centre smart-home project, who were asked to describe their own experience and to reflect more broadly about ethical considerations that relate to smart-home design. With participants’ consent, interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using a thematic approach. Two overarching themes emerged: in ‘Privacy’, researchers indicated that they paid close attention to negative consequences of potential unauthorised information sharing in their current work. However, when discussing broader issues in smart-home design beyond the confines of their immediate project, researchers considered physical privacy to a lesser extent, even though physical privacy may manifest in emotive concerns about being watched or monitored. In ‘Choice’, researchers indicated they often saw provision of choice to end-users as a solution to ethical dilemmas. While researchers indicated that choices of end-users may need to be restricted for technological reasons, ethical standpoints that restrict choice were usually assumed and embedded in design. The tractability of informational privacy may explain the greater attention that is paid to it. However, concerns about physical privacy may reduce acceptability of smart-home technologies to future end-users. While attention to choice suggests links with privacy, this may misidentify the sources of privacy and risk unjustly burdening end-users with problems that they cannot resolve. Separating considerations of choice and privacy may result in more satisfactory treatment of both. Finally, through our engagement with researchers as participants this study demonstrates the relevance of ethics as a critical partner to smart-home engineering. (shrink)

Desire is a central concept in Aristotle's ethical and psychological works, but he does not provide us with a systematic treatment of the notion itself. This book reconstructs the account of desire latent in his various scattered remarks on the subject and analyses its role in his moral psychology. Topics include: the range of states that Aristotle counts as desires ; objects of desire and the relation between desires and envisaging prospects; desire and the good; Aristotle's three species of desire: (...) epithumia, thumos and boulêsis ; Aristotle's division of desires into rational and non-rational; Aristotle and some current views on desire; and the role of desire in Aristotle's moral psychology. The book will be of relevance to anyone interested in Aristotle's ethics or psychology. (shrink)

A growing number of bioethics papers endorse the harm threshold when judging whether to override parental decisions. Among other claims, these papers argue that the harm threshold is easily understood by lay and professional audiences and correctly conforms to societal expectations of parents in regard to their children. English law contains a harm threshold which mediates the use of the best interests test in cases where a child may be removed from her parents. Using Diekema9s seminal paper as an example, (...) this paper explores the proposed workings of the harm threshold. I use examples from the practical use of the harm threshold in English law to argue that the harm threshold is an inadequate answer to the indeterminacy of the best interests test. I detail two criticisms: First, the harm standard has evaluative overtones and judges are loath to employ it where parental behaviour is misguided but they wish to treat parents sympathetically. Thus, by focusing only on ‘substandard’ parenting, harm is problematic where the parental attempts to benefit their child are misguided or wrong, such as in disputes about withdrawal of medical treatment. Second, when harm is used in genuine dilemmas, court judgments offer different answers to similar cases. This level of indeterminacy suggests that, in practice, the operation of the harm threshold would be indistinguishable from best interests. Since indeterminacy appears to be the greatest problem in elucidating what is best, bioethicists should concentrate on discovering the values that inform best interests. (shrink)

SummaryThe problem of converting the Amerindian world to Catholicism was given a radically new solution, both at a theoretical and a missionary level, by the Jesuit Acosta: since American societies were of a completely different nature to Mediterranean ones, the preaching of the Gospel, too, had to be different from the classical approach. He gave a new definition to both preaching and American societies, especially the latter's religion and social organisation. Acosta's approach to American sauvagerie was pioneering; he conceptualised ideas (...) that had never been thought of before. There existed societies which were neither barbarous nor political (like the empires of Incan Peru and Aztec Mexico), which nonetheless had social organisation. With regard to their religious life, Acosta maintained that cult and belief without faith was not a sign of atheism, but of an early form of religion. These two reassessments gave rise to a new image of the savage society, which attained enormous success, even outside the missionary world. Fitting the theological structure into the secularised theories of radical enlightenment, both Locke and Hume had recourse to the ethnologic aspects which Acosta had set out. (shrink)

Background Best interests is a ubiquitous principle in medical policy and practice, informing the treatment of both children and adults. Yet theory underlying the concept of best interests is unclear and rarely articulated. This paper examines bioethical literature for theoretical accounts of best interests to gain a better sense of the meanings and underlying philosophy that structure understandings. Methods A scoping review of was undertaken. Following a literature search, 57 sources were selected and analysed using the thematic method. Results Three (...) themes emerged. The first placed best interests within the structure of wider theory, noting relationships with consequentialism, deontology, prudential value theory, rights and political philosophy. The second mapped a typology of processes of decision-making, among which best interests was ambiguously positioned. It further indicated factors that informed best interests decision-making, primarily preferences, dignity and quality of life. The final theme considered best interests from a relational perspective. Conclusions Characterisation of best interests as strictly paternalist and consequentialist is questionable: while accounts often suggested a consequentialist basis for best interests, arguments appeared philosophically weak. Deontological accounts, found in law and Kantianism, and theories of political liberalism influenced accounts of best interests, with accounts often associating best interests with negative patient preferences (i.e. individual refusals). There was much more emphasis on negative interests than positive interests. Besides preference, factors like dignity and quality of life were held to inform best interests decisions, but generally were weakly defined. To the extent that preferences were unable to inform decision making, decisions were either made by proxy authority or by an intersubjective process of diffuse authority. Differing approaches reflect bifurcations in liberal philosophy between new liberalism and neo-liberalism. Although neither account of authority appears dominant, bias to negative interests suggests that bioethical debate tends to reflect the widespread ascendancy of neo-liberalism. This attitude was underscored by the way relational accounts converged on private familial authority. The visible connections to theory suggest that best interests is underpinned by socio-political trends that may set up frictions with practice. How practice negotiates these frictions remains a key question. (shrink)

Abstract‘Dogwhistles’ and microtargeted political advertisements are objects of widespread moral and political concern. With a few notable exceptions in the case of dogwhistles (and none in the case of microtargeting) moral criticism of these speech act types generally focuses on problematic content—that a dogwhistle is, for instance, racist, or a microtargeted advertisement misleading. I argue that these practices are additionally morally wrongful on content-neutral grounds—regardless of their content. My argument proceeds from a deliberative conception of democracy according to which only (...) a vote which follows from an adequate deliberative process confers democratic legitimacy on its results. I claim that both dogwhistles and microtargeting threaten to prevent adequate democratic deliberation from taking place, and therefore that these practices are anti-democratic and, additionally, morally impermissible. I then discuss potential objections and how my argument relates to existing work. (shrink)

As everybody knows, advances in medicine and medical technology have brought enormous benefits to, and created vexing choices for, us all – choices that can, and occasionally do, test the very limits of thinking itself. As everyone also knows, we live in the age of consultants, i.e., of professional experts who are ready, willing, and able to give us advice on any and every conceivable question. One such consultant is the medical ethics consultant, or the medical ethicist who consults.Medical ethics (...) consultants involve themselves in just about every aspect of health care decision making. They help legislators and judges determine law, hospitals formulate policies, medical schools develop curricula, etc. In addition to educating physicians, nurses, and lawyers, amongst others, including medical, nursing, and law students, they participate in clinical decision making at the bedside. (shrink)

Benedetto Croce was the author of the most important and original theory of history in the 20th century. His theory was that of ‘absolute historicism’, and this necessarily entailed an acute critique of inherited ideas about the Enlightenment. This article studies both Croce's theoretical analysis of Enlightenment and his historical analysis of the Neapolitan Enlightenment. Croce's interest in the Enlightenment had political as well as philosophical roots. All over Europe in the 1920s and 1930s historical and theoretical research was occurring (...) into in the Age of Enlightenment. The broad goal of such research was to bring forth a new concept of reason, which would have purchase in the contemporary debate about rationalism and irrationalism. This debate, which flourished in the era of totalitarian regimes, raised a series of further questions: What was culture? What was the task of culture in the fight against political irrationalism? What was the relationship between culture and the growth of public opinion? With respect to the latter relationship an important role was played by intellectuals, as evinced by the works of Benda, Max Weber and Croce himself. The genealogy of the modern intelligentsia led again to Enlightenment. In the third part of the article Croce's position on this issue is discussed in the light of his historical researches on Enlightenment by reference to his correspondence with two young historians, Delio Cantimori and Franco Venturi. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article outlines the concept of the early modern idea of religion through the notion of sacrifice, from Socinus on through Grotius and Spinoza to Diderot’s Encyclopedia. It is generally held that the philosophical representation of religion of the seventeenth century ‘set the stage’ for later Enlightenment philosophers. My argument runs in a different direction. I intend to show that the Enlightenment philosophers’ concept of religious history stemmed not only from the philosophical tradition, but also from their knowledge of (...) antiquarianism. In order to understand the genealogy of the Enlightenment idea of religion it is essential to acknowledge its roots in the antiquarian history of religions of the seventeenth century when a new idea of religious belief emerged with practice of sacrifice at its core. Grotius and the antiquarians inquired into whether religion was a universal phenomenon, what were its categories – such as belief and sacrifice – and the truth and falsehood of these. Diderot considered this history of sacrifice and ceremonies as the fundamental ‘deed’ of the religious experience, which he analysed employing both the philosophical and the historical perspectives through the category of fetishism. (shrink)

One of the key concepts in XVIII century political thought was despotism. Also Diderot utilised this complex idea. According to him, who followed Hobbes and Montesquieu, despotism was the result of the love of power, which was able to bring forth the passion of fear in the society. In this sense, Machiavelli belonged to this line of reflection: like that of Hobbes, his system was intended to show the danger of despotism and to learn the true foundation of natural law. (...) But rethinking this paradox Diderot was led to elaborate a new theory of despotism, no longer based on the mechanism of power. His interpretation of Machiavelli – and Hobbes – had opened up a new perspective, which did not move from the enigma of power – Machiavelli's and Hobbes’ chief concern – but from the nature of subjection. Along this path Diderot came across de la Boëtie's Discours de la servitude volontaire, which explained the origin of despotism in a different way. Despotism was not the result of the passion of fear, but of that of interest. The discussion of these two different ideas of despotism led Diderot to a new perspective from which he answered the problem of liberty in an original way. (shrink)

This paper examines the political and ethical problems which arise in the course of undertaking participatory research in developing countries. It argues that, rather than supplanting relationships of power within the knowledge creating process, most participatory research actually strengthens them. Instead a more complete form of dialogic research is required, which will involve struggles within our academies as well as in those other organisations in which our research is situated.

This paper examines the political and ethical problems which arise in the course of undertaking participatory research in developing countries. It argues that, rather than supplanting relationships of power within the knowledge creating process, most participatory research actually strengthens them. Instead a more complete form of dialogic research is required, which will involve struggles within our academies as well as in those other organisations in which our research is situated.

As everybody knows, advances in medicine and medical technology have brought enormous benefits to, and created vexing choices for, us all – choices that can, and occasionally do, test the very limits of thinking itself. As everyone also knows, we live in the age of consultants, i.e., of professional experts who are ready, willing, and able to give us advice on any and every conceivable question. One such consultant is the medical ethics consultant, or the medical ethicist who consults.Medical ethics (...) consultants involve themselves in just about every aspect of health care decision making. They help legislators and judges determine law, hospitals formulate policies, medical schools develop curricula, etc. In addition to educating physicians, nurses, and lawyers, amongst others, including medical, nursing, and law students, they participate in clinical decision making at the bedside. (shrink)

In the western healthcare, shared decision making has become the orthodox approach to making healthcare choices as a way of promoting patient autonomy. Despite the fact that the autonomy paradigm is poorly suited to paediatric decision making, such an approach is enshrined in English common law. When reaching moral decisions, for instance when it is unclear whether treatment or non-treatment will serve a child’s best interests, shared decision making is particularly questionable because agreement does not ensure moral validity. With reference (...) to current common law and focusing on intensive care practice, this paper investigates what claims shared decision making may have to legitimacy in a paediatric intensive care setting. Drawing on key texts, I suggest these identify advantages to parents and clinicians but not to the child who is the subject of the decision. Without evidence that shared decision making increases the quality of the decision that is being made, it appears that a focus on the shared nature of a decision does not cohere with the principle that the best interests of the child should remain paramount. In the face of significant pressures toward the displacement of the child’s interests in a shared decision, advantages of a shared decision to decisional quality require elucidation. Although a number of arguments of this nature may have potential, should no such advantages be demonstrable we have cause to revise our commitment to either shared decision making or the paramountcy of the child in these circumstances. (shrink)

The experience of being in love involves a longing for union with the other, where an important part of this longing is sexual desire. But what is the relation between being in love and sexual desire? To answer this it must first be seen that the expression ‘in love’ normally refers to a personal relationship. This is because to be ‘in love’ is to want to be loved back. This much would be predicted by equity and social exchange theories of (...) interpersonal attraction. Findings suggest however that love differs fundamentally from liking and, consequently, distinct approaches to the theory of love have been developed. A phenomenological theory is then put forward which suggests that the experience of being in love involves a complex of desires for reciprocal vulnerability in order to care and be cared for. Sexual desire is then seen to involve the physical expression of these desires in the form of desires for mutual baring in order to caress and be caressed. Unlike love, however, sexual desire need not refer to the other person's desires. This is supported by the existence of sexual desires like fetishism. It is concluded that other desires which often appear in instances of being in love are not basic to the experience of being in love. (shrink)

v. 1. Compendium logicae. Apologeticus de ratione poeticae artis. Trattato contra li astrologi -- v. 2. Compendium philosophiae naturalis, Compendium philosophiae moralis.

Sarah Angelina Acland is one of the most important photographers of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Daughter of the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, she was photographed by Lewis Carroll as a child, along with her close friend Ina Liddell, sister of Alice of Wonderland fame. The critic John Ruskin taught her art and she also knew many of the Pre-Raphaelites, holding Rossetti's palette for him as he painted the Oxford Union murals. At the age of nineteen (...) she met the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, whose influence is evident in her early work.Following in the footsteps of Cameron and Carroll Miss Acland first came to attention as a portraitist, photographing the illustrious visitors to her Oxford home. In 1899 she then turned to the challenge of colour photography, becoming, through work with the 'Sanger Shepherd process', the leading colour photographer of the day. Her colour photographs were regarded as the finest that had ever been seen by her contemporaries, several years before the release of the Lumière Autochrome system, which she also practised.This volume provides an introduction to Miss Acland's photography, illustrating more than 200 examples of her work, from portraits to picturesque views of the landscape and gardens of Madeira. Some fifty specimens of the photographic art and science of her peers from Bodleian collections are also reproduced for the first time, including four unrecorded child portraits by Carroll. Detailed descriptions accompany the images, explaining their interest and significance. The photographs not only shed important light on the history of photography in the period, but also offer a fascinating insight into the lives of a pre-eminent English family and their circle of friends. (shrink)