The author considers the way in which psychic life is generated by the social operation of power, and how that social operation of power is concealed and fortified by the psyche that it produces. Power is no longer understood to be 'internalized' by an existing subject, but the subject is spawned as an ambivalent effect of power, one that is staged through the operation of conscience. To claim that power fabricates the psyche is also to claim that there is a (...) fictional and fabricated quality to the psyche. The figure of a psyche that 'turns against itself' is crucial to this study, and offers an alternative to describing power as 'internalized'. Although most readers of Foucault eschew psychoanalytic theory, and most thinkers of the psyche eschew Foucault, the author seeks to theorize this ambivalent relation between the social and the psychic as one of the most dynamic and difficult effects of power. (shrink)

In a series of memorable exchanges, three eminent theorists engage in a dialogue on central questions of contemporary philosophy and politics.

Revisiting Edward Said's late proposals for a one-state solution, Butler has come to a startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to realize the ethical ...

Thomas Carson offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date investigation of moral and conceptual questions about lying and deception. Part I addresses conceptual questions and offers definitions of lying, deception, and related concepts such as withholding information, "keeping someone in the dark," and "half truths." Part II deals with questions in ethical theory. Carson argues that standard debates about lying and deception between act-utilitarians and their critics are inconclusive because they rest on appeals to disputed moral intuitions. He defends (...) a version of the golden rule and a theory of moral reasoning. His theory implies that there is a moral presumption against lying and deception that causes harm — a presumption at least as strong as that endorsed by act-utilitarianism. He uses this theory to justify his claims about the issues he addresses in Part III: deception and withholding information in sales, deception in advertising, bluffing in negotiations, the duties of professionals to inform clients, lying and deception by leaders as a pretext for fighting wars, and lying and deception about history, and cases of distorting the historical record by telling half-truths. The book concludes with a qualified defence of the view that honesty is a virtue.Readership: Scholars and advanced students of philosophy, as well as historians and students of history. (shrink)

How should we distinguish between ethical and unethical ways of pursuing profit in a market? The market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics purports to provide an answer to this question. I argue that it fails to do so. The source of this failure is the MFA’s reliance on Pareto efficiency as a core ethical principle. Many ethically “preferred” tactics for seeking profit cannot be justified by appeal to Pareto efficiency. One important reason for this is that Pareto efficiency, as (...) understood by the theory of welfare economics upon which the MFA relies, assumes a static conception of efficiency. This is a problem because many ethically “preferred” tactics can only be justified by appeal to dynamic efficiency considerations. I argue that, instead of Pareto efficiency, we should look to the value of wealth creation to understand the ethical constraints on how market actors may pursue profit. (shrink)

The celebrated author of _Gender Trouble_ here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's _Oedipus,_ has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power that she (...) opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life. Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophers have produced an enormous amount of rich and varied published work on virtually all the issues falling within the scope of ethics and moral philosophy. Morality and the Good Life is a comprehensive survey of contemporary ethical theory that collects thirty-four selections on morality and the theory of value. Emphasizing value theory, metaethics, and normative ethics, it is non-technical and accessible to a wide range of readers. Selections are organized under six main topics: Concepts of Goodness What (...) Things are Good? Virtues and Ethics Realism vs. Anti-Realism Value and Obligation The Value and Meaning of Life The text includes both a substantial general introduction featuring explanatory summaries of all the selections and an extensive topical bibliography, which enhance the volume's research and pedagogical utility. The most up-to-date and wide-ranging survey of its kind, Morality and the Good Life is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in contemporary ethical theory, moral philosophy, and theory of value. (shrink)

Many business ethicists assume that if a type of conduct is illegal, then it is also unethical. This article scrutinizes that assumption, using the rideshare company Uber’s illegal operation in the city of Philadelphia as a case study. I argue that Uber’s unlawful conduct was permissible. I also argue that this position is not an extreme one: it is consistent with a variety of theoretical commitments in the analytic philosophical tradition regarding political obligation. I conclude by showing why business ethicists (...) would have a better rejoinder to the “dominant view” of business ethics associated with Milton Friedman if they dispensed with the assumption that illegal implies unethical. (shrink)

Interpreters are less univocal than one might think in assessing Søren Kierkegaard's attitude toward eudaimonism. Through an analysis of several key texts from across Kierkegaard's authorship, I argue that existing interpretations do not convincingly address the relationship between Kierkegaard's critique of eudaimonism and his mid-nineteenth-century context, which was dominated by post-Kantian idealists. While I am sympathetic to aspects of deontological and aretaic interpretations, a contextual reading shows that his critique centers on what he diagnoses as the enclosure of the modern (...) self. This puts his critique of eudaimonism in the purview of his moral psychology and in continuity with his critique of romanticism. (shrink)

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_ represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does—or should—religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of (...) "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)

Buying local is a prominent form of ethical consumption. We commonly assume that products that are local are in some respect ethically superior to ones that are not. This article contributes to research on local food by scrutinizing this assumption in light of some central values of the locavore movement. It identifies four central ethical causes from prior literature on locavorism: protecting the environment, promoting community, promoting small business, and contributing to the prosperity of one’s local economy. It then analyzes (...) whether the contribution of buying local to these causes can justify the general perception that buying local is a good way to be an ethical consumer. Its main finding is that these justifications fail to provide a strong positive ethical reason for consumers in general to adopt the practice of buying local. (shrink)

In his article “On Teaching Logic,” Peter Geach reminds us of a distinction that will prove convenient in the present context, despite the ambiguity on both sides of the distinction.

“Logic” nominally belongs to the classical trivium, the common ground, the crossroads of traditional liberal education, through which all educated persons would travel. But what sort of “logic” should or could fill that role today? Many teachers of logic today feel pulled in what seem two different directions: towards the more apparently practical utility of the emerging “informal logic” agenda; and towards the more apparently rigorous canon of formal logic, be it deductive or inductive. These alternatives are neither mutually exclusive (...) nor exhaustive of the possibilities of what might constitute an organon for the liberally educated person today. I will review some salient approaches to teaching logic, and some salient issues attending those approaches, focusing on issues regarding the utility of formal deductive logic in modern symbolic guise. (shrink)

This paper examines the use of case studies in ethics education. While not dismissing their value for specific purposes, the paper shows the limits of their use. While agreeing that case studies are narratives, although rather thin stories, the paper argues that the claim that case studies could represent reality is difficult to sustain. Instead, the paper suggests a way of using stories in ethics teaching that could be more real for students, while also giving them a way of thinking (...) about their own professional practices. The paper shows how the method can be used to develop a more critical and reflective practice for students in the health care professions. Some immediate problems with the method are discussed. (shrink)

The celebrated author of _Gender Trouble_ here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's _Oedipus,_ has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power that she (...) opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life. Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be. (shrink)

Moral theory -- Abortion -- Genetic engineering, cloning, and stem cell research -- Euthanasia and assisted suicide -- The death penalty -- Drug and alcohol use -- Sexual intimacy and marriage -- Feminism, motherhood, and the workplace -- Freedom of speech -- Racial discrimination and global justice.

In ____Bodies That Matter,__ Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in _Gender_ _Trouble,_ Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She (...) offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in _Gender Trouble_ and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. (shrink)

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a (...) reiterated social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a (...) reiterated social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

Ever since feminist theory introduced the distinction between sex and gender, the question of what it means to be a woman has preoccupied feminist thought. In ____Gender__ ____Trouble ____ Judith Butler questions whether it is possible to "be" a woman at all or, for that matter, any gender.

In ____Bodies That Matter,__ Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in _Gender_ _Trouble,_ Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She (...) offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in _Gender Trouble_ and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. (shrink)

Since 9/11, citizens of all nations have been searching for a democratic public philosophy that provides practical and inspiring answers to the problems of the twenty-first century. Drawing on the wisdom of past and present pragmatist thinkers, Judith M. Green maps a contemporary form of citizenship that emphasizes participation and cooperation and reclaims the critical role of social movements and nongovernmental organizations. Starting with empowering processes of storytelling, truth and reconciliation, and collaborative vision-questing that allow individuals to give voice (...) and new meaning to their loss, anxiety, and hope, Green frames cooperative inquiries to guide transformative actions. From this "second strand" of the democratic experience, leaders and participating citizens can help to shape a more desirable democratic future. In dialogue with Richard Rorty, Judith Butler, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl, Cornel West, and other contemporary thinkers, Green defines the need for deeper understanding and fulfillment of the potentials of the democratic ideal. Drawing insights from Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, William James, John Dewey, Jane Adams, and other earlier thinkers, Green frames a pragmatist understanding of emerging realities and possibilities, growing wells of shared truths, multifaceted histories, and mutually transformative experiences of citizenship. Employing examples from America's complex history and from recent world events, Green locates four sites for effective citizen activism: government at all levels, nonprofit organizations, issue-focused campaigns and social movements, and daily urban living. Green shows how citizens can revive social hope and deepen the democratic experience by drawing on their own knowledge and developing their capabilities through inclusive civic participation. (shrink)

In ____Bodies That Matter,__ Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in _Gender_ _Trouble,_ Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She (...) offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in _Gender Trouble_ and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. (shrink)

Psychiatric practice is often faced with complex situations that seem to pose serious moral dilemmas for practitioners. Methods for solving these dilemmas have included the development of more objective rules to guide the practitioner such as utilitarianism and deontology. A more modern variant on this objective model has been 'Principlism' where 4 mid level rules are used to help solve these complex problems. In opposition to this, there has recently been a focus on more subjective criteria for resolving complex moral (...) dilemmas. In particular, virtue ethics has been posited as a more sensitive method for helping doctors to reason their way through difficult ethical issues. Here the focus is on the character traits of the practitioner. Bloch and Green advocated another way whereby more objective methods such as Principlism and virtue ethics are combined to produce what they considered sound moral reasoning in psychiatrists. This paper points out some difficulties with this approach and instead suggests that a better model of ethical judgment could be developed through the use of narratives or stories. This idea puts equal prima facie value on the patient's and the psychiatrist's version of the dilemma they are faced with. It has the potential to lead to a more genuine empathy and reflective decision-making. (shrink)

Offers an outline for a new ethical practice - one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject. The author demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 19 Heft: 1 Seiten: 231-252.

Philosophical treatments of natural kinds are embedded in two distinct projects. I call these the philosophy of science approach and the philosophy of language approach. Each is characterized by its own set of philosophical questions, concerns, and assumptions. The kinds studied in the philosophy of science approach are projectible categories that can ground inductive inferences and scientific explanation. The kinds studied in the philosophy of language approach are the referential objects of a special linguistic category—natural kind terms—thought to refer directly. (...) Philosophers may hope for a unified account addresses both sets of concerns. This paper argues that this cannot be done successfully. No single account can satisfy both the semantic objectives of the philosophy of language approach and the explanatory projects of the philosophy of science approach. After analyzing where the tensions arise, I make recommendations about assumptions and projects that are best abandoned, those that should be retained, and those that should go their separate ways. I also recommend adopting the disambiguating terminology of “scientific kinds” and “natural kinds” for the different notions of kinds developed in these different approaches. (shrink)

Offers an outline for a new ethical practice - one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject. The author demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human.

Three experiments investigated the processing of the implicature associated with some using a “gumball paradigm.” On each trial, participants saw an image of a gumball machine with an upper chamber with 13 gumballs and an empty lower chamber. Gumballs then dropped to the lower chamber and participants evaluated statements, such as “You got some of the gumballs.” Experiment 1 established that some is less natural for reference to small sets and unpartitioned sets compared to intermediate sets. Partitive some of was (...) less natural than simple some when used with the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 2, including exact number descriptions lowered naturalness ratings for some with small sets but not for intermediate size sets and the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 3, the naturalness ratings from Experiment 2 predicted response times. The results are interpreted as evidence for a Constraint-Based account of scalar implicature processing and against both two-stage, Literal-First models and pragmatic Default models. (shrink)

With the same intellectual courage with which she addressed issues of gender, Judith Butler turns her attention to speech and conduct in contemporary political life, looking at several efforts to target speech as conduct that has become subject to political debate and regulation. Reviewing hate speech regulations, anti-pornography arguments, and recent controversies about gay self-declaration in the military, Judith Butler asks whether and how language acts in each of these cultural sites.

With the same intellectual courage with which she addressed issues of gender, Judith Butler turns her attention to speech and conduct in contemporary political life, looking at several efforts to target speech as conduct that has become subject to political debate and regulation. Reviewing hate speech regulations, anti-pornography arguments, and recent controversies about gay self-declaration in the military, Judith Butler asks whether and how language acts in each of these cultural sites.

Background Informed consent is an integral component of good medical practice. Many researchers have investigated measures to improve the quality of informed consent, but it is not clear which techniques work best and why. To address this problem, we propose developing a core outcome set to evaluate interventions designed to improve the consent process for surgery in adult patients with capacity. Part of this process involves reviewing existing research that has reported what is important to patients and doctors in the (...) informed consent process. Methods This qualitative synthesis comprises four phases: identification of published papers and determining their relevance; appraisal of the quality of the papers; identification and summary of the key findings from each paper while determining the definitiveness of each finding against the primary data; comparison of key themes between papers such that findings are linked across studies. Results Searches of bibliographic databases returned 11,073 titles. Of these, 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were published between 1996 and 2016 and included a total of 367 patients and 74 health care providers. Thirteen studies collected data using in-depth interviews and constant comparison was the most common means of qualitative analysis. A total of 94 findings were extracted from the primary papers and divided into 17 categories and ultimately 6 synthesised findings related to: patient characteristics, knowledge, communication, the model patient, trust and decision making. Conclusions This qualitative meta-aggregation is the first to examine the issue of informed consent for surgery. It has revealed several outcomes deemed important to capture by patients and clinicians when evaluating the quality of a consent process. Some of these outcomes have not been examined previously in research comparing methods for informed consent. This review is an important step in the development of a COS to evaluate interventions designed to improve the consent process for surgery. Registration The study protocol was registered on the international prospective register for systematic reviews. (shrink)

This short review summarizes what is known, and points out some of the unknown features, about the molecular biology of the natural spread of cauliflower mosaic virus into a susceptible host and its subsequent replication in that host.

Diversity is both an unavoidable aspect of twenty-first century living and a powerful challenge to older philosophical traditions that still assume as normatively universal a set of values, ways of thinking, institutions, and habits of living that emerged within earlier eras of more homogeneous cultures, less developed technologies, and more accepted forms of linguistic, legal, religious, economic, political, and military domination. Within recent years, new styles of philosophical discourse, including deconstruction, postmodernism, feminism, post-colonialism, and critical race theory, have persuasively challenged (...) these universalistic assumptions to reveal the important human differences they marginalize. Experience-based appreciation of the mutually educative potential of diverse standpoints as well as sober concern about the perils of our present times have led many thinkers to look for contemporary forms of pragmatism and cosmopolitanism as hospitable intellectual gathering places for urgently needed cross-difference conversations that may reflect and give substance to shared visions of democratic diversity. The eight authors in this volume engage in cross-difference conversations with other thinkers from earlier periods and other philosophical traditions, as well as with each other, in order to reconstruct pragmatism and cosmopolitanism in ways that are more attuned to our lived experience of diversity as well as our hopes for a diversity-appreciating democratic future. (shrink)