This paper examines the relation between philosophy and literature through an analysis of claims made by Martha Nussbaum regarding the contribution novels can make to moral philosophy. Perhaps her most controversial assertion is that some novels are themselves works of moral philosophy. I contrast Nussbaum’s view with that of Iris Murdoch. I discuss three claims which are fundamental to Nussbaum’s position: the relation between writing style and content; philosophy’s inadequacy in preparing agents for moral life because of its reliance (...) on rules; and the usefulness of the moral work engaged in by readers of novels. The evaluation of these claims requires a discussion of the nature of philosophy. I find that Murdoch and Nussbaum agree on the ability of literature to contribute to moral understanding, but disagree on the issue of what philosophy is. Therefore, they disagree on the question of whether certain works of fiction are also works of philosophy. I argue that the task Nussbaum assigns philosophy is too broad. Through the use of critical and reflective methods, philosophy should examine and sort moral claims. Literary, philosophical and religious texts contribute to moral eduction; keeping them separate helps us appreciate their distinct contributions, as well as respect their distinct aims and methods. Therefore, I conclude that Nussbaum’s inclusion of certain novels in philosophy cannot be sustained. (shrink)

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks (...) a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation. The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of capabilities. She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all. (shrink)

Should laws about sex and pornography be based on social conventions about what is disgusting? Should felons be required to display bumper stickers or wear T-shirts that announce their crimes? This powerful and elegantly written book, by one of America's most influential philosophers, presents a critique of the role that shame and disgust play in our individual and social lives and, in particular, in the law.Martha Nussbaum argues that we should be wary of these emotions because they are associated (...) in troubling ways with a desire to hide from our humanity, embodying an unrealistic and sometimes pathological wish to be invulnerable. Nussbaum argues that the thought-content of disgust embodies "magical ideas of contamination, and impossible aspirations to purity that are just not in line with human life as we know it." She argues that disgust should never be the basis for criminalizing an act, or play either the aggravating or the mitigating role in criminal law it currently does. She writes that we should be similarly suspicious of what she calls "primitive shame," a shame "at the very fact of human imperfection," and she is harshly critical of the role that such shame plays in certain punishments.Drawing on an extraordinarily rich variety of philosophical, psychological, and historical references--from Aristotle and Freud to Nazi ideas about purity--and on legal examples as diverse as the trials of Oscar Wilde and the Martha Stewart insider trading case, this is a major work of legal and moral philosophy. (shrink)

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy. The papers, many of them previously inaccessible to non-specialist readers, explore such fundamental issues as the relationship between style and content in the exploration of ethical issues; the nature of ethical attention and ethical knowledge and their relationship to written forms and styles; and the role of the emotions in deliberation and self-knowledge. Nussbaum investigates and defends a conception of ethical understanding which involves (...) emotional as well as intellectual activity, and which gives a certain type of priority to the perception of particular people and situations rather than to abstract rules. She argues that this ethical conception cannot be completely and appropriately stated without turning to forms of writing usually considered literary rather than philosophical. It is consequently necessary to broaden our conception of moral philosophy in order to include these forms. Featuring two new essays and revised versions of several previously published essays, this collection attempts to articulate the relationship, within such a broader ethical inquiry, between literary and more abstractly theoretical elements. (shrink)

This paper looks at some of the ways in which environmental philosophers have sought to press ecological concepts into the service of environmental ethics. It seeks to show that although ecology plays a major role in opening our eyes to sources of value in the natural world, we should not necessarily attempt to build our account of nature’s value upon the concepts which ecology supplies. No description is going to capture nature’s essence; no formula is going to demonstrate its value. (...) We should recognise the natural world as a particular historic individual and relate to it accordingly. This means acknowledging its value in a contingent, conditional and provisional way, and recognizing its value as a precondition of the value of our own lives. (shrink)

Shepherd propounds a theory of mind with a fair claim to be better than Hume’s at explaining the sources of commonly held human beliefs about causal necessity due largely to her relational theory of sense perception. In comparison with Hume’s account, it incorporates a more sophisticated treatment of mental representation, especially the role of relational structure and logical form. Most important, perhaps, Shepherd’s theory enforces the division, obscured by Hume, between the evidence of necessity and the metaphysical foundation of necessity.

Recent investigations on how people derive meaning from language have focused on task‐dependent shifts between two cognitive systems. The symbolic (amodal) system represents meaning as the statistical relationships between words. The embodied (modal) system represents meaning through neurocognitive simulation of perceptual or sensorimotor systems associated with a word's referent. A primary finding of literature in this field is that the embodied system is only dominant when a task necessitates it, but in certain paradigms, this has only been demonstrated using nouns (...) and adjectives. The purpose of this paper is to study whether similar effects hold with verbs. Experiment 1 evaluated a novel task in which participants rated a selection of verbs on their implied vertical movement. Ratings correlated well with distributional semantic models, establishing convergent validity, though some variance was unexplained by language statistics alone. Experiment 2 replicated previous noun‐based location‐cue congruency experimental paradigms with verbs and showed that the ratings obtained in Experiment 1 predicted reaction times more strongly than language statistics. Experiment 3 modified the location‐cue paradigm by adding movement to create an animated, temporally decoupled, movement‐verb judgment task designed to examine the relative influence of symbolic and embodied processing for verbs. Results were generally consistent with linguistic shortcut hypotheses of symbolic‐embodied integrated language processing; location‐cue congruence elicited processing facilitation in some conditions, and perceptual information accounted for reaction times and accuracy better than language statistics alone. These studies demonstrate novel ways in which embodied and linguistic information can be examined while using verbs as stimuli. (shrink)

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek (...) thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

A revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.

It is sometimes held that rules of inference determine the meaning of the logical constants: the meaning of, say, conjunction is fully determined by either its introduction or its elimination rules, or both; similarly for the other connectives. In a recent paper, Panu Raatikainen argues that this view—call it logical inferentialism—is undermined by some “very little known” considerations by Carnap (1943) to the effect that “in a definite sense, it is not true that the standard rules of inference” themselves suffice (...) to “determine the meanings of [the] logical constants” (p. 2). In a nutshell, Carnap showed that the rules allow for non-normal interpretations of negation and disjunction. Raatikainen concludes that “no ordinary formalization of logic [... ] is sufficient to ‘fully formalize’ all the essential properties of the logical constants” (ibid.). We suggest that this is a mistake. Pace Raatikainen, intuitionists like Dummett and Prawitz need not worry about Carnap’s problem. And although bilateral solutions for classical inferentialists—as proposed by Timothy Smiley and Ian Rumfitt—seem inadequate, it is not excluded that classical inferentialists may be in a position to address the problem too. (shrink)

A pathbreaking new study of women and morality How do people decide what is "good" and what is "bad"? How does a society set moral guidelines -- and what happens when the behavior of various groups differs from these guidelines? Martha Saxton tackles these and other fascinating issues in Being Good , her history of the moral values prescribed for women in early America. Saxton begins by examining seventeenth-century Boston, then moves on to eighteenth-century Virginia and nineteenth-century St. Louis. (...) Studying women throughout the life cycle -- girls, young unmarried women, young wives and mothers, older widows -- through their diaries and personal papers, she also studies the variations due to different ethnicities and backgrounds. In all three cases, she is able to show how the values of one group conflicted with or developed in opposition to those of another. And, as the women's testimonies make clear, the emotional styles associated with different value systems varied. A history of American women's moral life thus gives us a history of women's emotional life as well. In lively and penetrating prose, Saxton argues that women's morals changed from the days of early colonization to the days of westward expansion, as women became at once less confined and less revered by their men -- and explores how these changes both reflected and affected trends in the nation at large. (shrink)

This study argues both that the proofs are ultimately unconvincing and that Plato was aware of the problems. The Phaedo is shown as a truly dialectical philosophical conversation about the immortality of the soul.

Modality is a category of linguistic meaning having to do with the expression of possibility and necessity. A modalized sentence locates an underlying or prejacent proposition in the space of possibilities. Sandy might be home says that there is a possibility that Sandy is home. Sandy must be home says that in all possibilities, Sandy is home. The counterpart of modality in the temporal domain should be called “temporality”, but it is more common to talk of tense and aspect, the (...) prototypical verbal expressions of temporality. Together, modality and temporality are at the heart of the property of “displacement” that enables natural language to talk about affairs beyond the actual here and now. (shrink)

This paper presents a sequential search model where consumers look for several products and multiproduct …rms compete in prices. In such a multiproduct search market, both consumer behavior and …rm behavior exhibit di¤erent features from the single-product case: a consumer often returns to previously visited …rms before running out of options; and prices can decrease with search costs and increase with the number of …rms. The framework is then extended in two directions. First, by introducing both single-product and multiproduct searchers, (...) the model can explain the phenomenon of countercyclical pricing, i.e., prices of many retail products decline during peak-demand periods. Second, by allowing …rms to use bundling strategies, the model sheds new light on how bundling a¤ects market performance. In a search environment, bundling tends to reduce consumer search intensity, which can soften competition and reverse the usual welfare assessment of competitive bundling in a perfect information setting. (shrink)

The phrase 'beyond historicism' is usually associated with Bielefeld historians like Hans Ulrich Wehler and Jürgen Kocka, who attempted to turn the study of history into a social science, but a better candidate would be the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who happened to teach as well in Bielefeld during the 1970's and 1980's. Luhmann had little affinity with the project of his colleagues from the history department. He took the opposite view that the social sciences suffered from a naive enlightenment view (...) and should become more history minded. Like the historicists of the early nineteenth century Luhmann was indirectly inspired by the philosophy of Leibniz. Although Luhmann's theory of social systems may seem miles away from the daily interests of most historians, it can be interpreted as an Aufhebung of historicism. This will be demonstrated for two important concepts, the autopoietic system which incorporates the historicist notion of individuality and the concept of second order observation which can be read as an abstract redescription of what historicists meant by the historical method. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Because of the existence of severely defective humans it is commonly held that whatever consideration is due to all humans is also due to many other animals, and that therefore speciesism, or the readiness to prefer the interest of humans to those of other animals, is unjustified. After criticism of this reasoning a ‘naturalised’ speciesism, acknowledging, for example, the affinities between species, is articulated and defended. A key to this defence is the separation of the task of specifying morally (...) significant differences between humans and other animals from the task of justifying the extension of consideration to defective humans. The conclusion is that more traditional vices than speciesism are chiefly to blame for the shabby treatment of animals by humans. (shrink)

Die ersten Überlegungen zu diesem Text entstanden bereits im Wintersemester 1994/95, als ich noch am Otto-Suhr-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin gearbeitet habe. Die wissenschaftlich äu­ ßerst anregende Atmosphäre und die stets spannenden Seminardis­ kussionen, für die ich mich noch einmal herzlich bedanken möch­ te, bilden den impliziten Grundstein meiner demokratietheoreti­ schen Überlegungen. Die äußeren Begleitumstände des Schreibens waren dagegen leider nicht durchgängig erfreulich. Ich möchte deshalb ganz be­ sonders denjenigen danken, die sich die Zeit genommen haben, den Großteil des Manuskripts (...) in einer frühen Phase gründlich zu lesen und positiv zu kommentieren: Christine Bauhardt, Tanja Berg, Karin Meißenburg und Uta Ruppert. Ein ganz herzliches Dankeschön für Unterstützung, Ermutigung, solidarische Rat­ schläge und ungezählte Telefoneinheiten Geduld! Besonderer Dank geht an Christine Bauhardt, die sich professionell mit dem Manuskript befaßte. Die Zusammenarbeit hat, trotz der Umstände, Freude gemacht. Ein Dankeschön ebenfalls an Josef Esser für sei­ ne aufmunternde Beratung aus der US-amerikanischen Ferne. Gleichfalls Ermutigung und Unterstützung sowie wichtige inhaltliche Anregungen verdanke ich einmal mehr meiner langjäh­ rigen Theoriearbeitsgruppe: Lieben Dank an Michela Betta, Ursula Hornung und Christi ne Kruse. Auch Erich Weiß stand mit Rat und Tat, mit Trost, Aufmunterung und großer Geduld unermüdlich zur Seite: Merci! Siegrid Wieczorek hat schnell und zuverlässig Literatur re­ cherchiert, die auf unterschiedliche Weise in diesen Text oder sei­ ne Vorfassungen und -überlegungen eingegangen ist. Herzlichen Dank dafür. Ein herzliches Dankeschön ebenfalls an Andrea 7 Herrmann, die als Computerfachfrau dem Manuskript die endgül­ tige Form gegeben hat. (shrink)

Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, and The Seafarer are among the greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poems. They, and many other treasures, are included in The Anglo-Saxon World: chronicles, laws and letters, charters and charms, and above all superb poems. Here is a word picture of a people who came to these islands as pagans and yet within two hundred years had become Christians, to such effect that England was the centre of missionary endeavour and, (...) for a time, the heart of European civilization. Kevin Crossley-Holland places poems and prose in context with his skilful interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon world; his translations have been widely acclaimed, and of Beowulf the poet Charles Causley has written, 'the poem has at last found its translator'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

To address the burden of maternal morbidity and mortality in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), research with pregnant women in these settings is increasingly common. Pregnant women in LMIC‐context may experience vulnerability related to giving consent to participate in a clinical trial. To recognize possible layers of vulnerability this study aims to identify factors that influence the decision process towards clinical trial participation of pregnant women in an urban middle‐income setting. This qualitative research used participant observation, in‐depth interviews, and focus (...) group discussion with medical staff and pregnant women eligible for trial participation, at a regional hospital in Accra, Ghana. Besides lack of familiarity with modern scientific concepts, specific factors influencing the decision‐making process were identified. These include a wide power difference between health provider and patient, and a different perception of risk through externalization of responsibility of risk management within a religious context as well as a context shaped by authority. Also, therapeutic misconception was observed. The combination of these factors ensued women to rely on the opinion of the medical professional, rather than being guided by their own motivation to participation. Although being a (pregnant) woman per se should not render the label of being vulnerable, this study shows there are factors that influence the decision process of pregnant woman towards trial participation in a LMIC context that can result in vulnerability. The identification of context‐specific factors that can create vulnerability facilitates adaptation of the design and conduct of research in a culturally competent manner. (shrink)

The doctor patient relationship starts with a story. Doctors' notes, a patient's chart, the recommendations of ethics committees and insurance justifications all hinge on written and verbal narrative interaction. The "practice" of narrative profoundly affects decision making, patient health and treatment and the everyday practice of medicine. In this edited collection, the contributors provide conceptual foundations, practical guidelines and theoretical considerations central to the practice of narrative ethics.

Using data collected from 280 full-time employees from a variety of organizations, this study examined the effects of employee perceptions of the behavioral integrity (BI) of their supervisors on job tension. The moderating effect of procedural justice (PJ) on this relationship also was examined. Substitutes for leadership theory (Kerr and Jermier, 1978) and psychological contract theory (Rousseau, Empl Responsib Rights J 2:121–139, 1989) were used as the theoretical foundations for the hypothesized relationships. Results indicated a negative relationship between BI and (...) job tension. PJ moderated this relationship such that it was weakened under conditions of high PJ. Implications for research and managers are discussed. (shrink)

Visual Agnosia is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of disorders of higher vision that relates these disorders to current conceptions of higher vision from cognitive science, illuminating both the neuropsychological disorders and the nature of normal visual object recognition.Brain damage can lead to selective problems with visual perception, including visual agnosia the inability to recognize objects even though elementary visual functions remain unimpaired. Such disorders are relatively rare, yet they provide a window onto how the normal brain might accomplish the (...) complex task of vision. Visual Agnosia reviews a century of case studies of higher-level visual deficits following brain damage, places them in the general context of current neuroscience, and draws relevant conclusions about the organization of normal visual processing. It is unique in drawing on research in cognitive psychology, computational vision, visual neurophysiology, and neuropsychology to interpret the agnosias and draw inferences from them about visual object recognition.Following a historical account of agnosia research, Visual Agnosia offers a taxonomy of a wide range of agnosia syndromes, describing and interpreting the syndromes in terms of the latest theoretical models of visual processing and ultimately bringing them to bear as evidence on a variety of questions in the study of higher vision.Martha J. Farah is Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Visual Agnosia is included in the Issues in Biology of Language and Cognition series, edited by John Marshall. (shrink)

The ethics of Aristotle , and virtue ethics in general, have enjoyed a resurgence of interest over the past few decades. Aristotelian themes, with such issues as the importance of friendship and emotions in a good life, the role of moral perception in wise choice, the nature of happiness and its constitution, moral education and habituation, are finding an important place in contemporary moral debates. Taken together, the essays in this volume provide a close analysis of central arguments in Aristotle's (...) Nicomachean Ethics and show the enduring interest of the questions Aristotle raises. (shrink)

The biology of early life adversity explores how social experiences early in life affect physical and psychological health and well-being throughout the life course. In our previous work, we argued that narratives emerging from and about this research field tend to focus on harm and lasting damage with little discussion of reversibility and resilience. However, as the Science and Technology Studies literature has demonstrated, scientific research can be actively taken up and transformed as it moves through social worlds. Drawing on (...) fieldwork with actors in education and juvenile corrections in the US Pacific Northwest, we found that they employed the biology of early life adversity not only to promote prevention but also to argue for changes within their own institutions that would allow them to better serve children and youth who have experienced adversity and trauma. Our study shows that biosocial narratives are neither inherently liberatory nor inherently oppressive but that the situated narrative choreographies in which they are enrolled are essential for their political effects. In our case, we show how these biosocial narratives have been articulated with knowledge and practices from restorative justice and trauma-informed care to reimagine the social meaning of the biology of early life adversity. (shrink)