Contrary to the popular belief that feminism has gained a foothold in the many disciplines of the academy, the essays collected in Theorizing Backlash argue that feminism is still actively resisted in mainstream academia. Contributors to this volume consider the professional, philosophical, and personal backlashes against feminist thought, and reflect upon their ramifications. The conclusion is that the disdain and irrational resentment of feminism, even in higher education, amounts to a backlash against progress.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:720 Feminist Studies 42, no. 3. © 2016 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Julie R. Enszer “She Who Shouts Gets Heard!”: Counting and Accounting for Women Writers in Literary Grants and Norton Anthologies In 1979, the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (CCLM), a New York-based nonprofit that supported literary magazines through technical assistance and grant-making, announced a new program: CCLM editor fellowships.1 Editor fellowships came with a $5,000 grant. (...) Members of the literary community nominated editors to CCLM for the award. Adrienne Rich nominated Ellen Marie Bissert, editor of the feminist journal 13th Moon, and Mab Segrest, editor of Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South Emphasizing the Lesbian Vision, for the editor fellowships. In 1979, the inaugural year of the prize, among the ten winners, not one was a woman. Bissert was one of three honorable mentions. Bissert rejected the distinction with a public letter to Maureen Owen, the only woman on the CCLM board of directors. Bissert deplored “the sexism inherent in the panelists’ decisions.”2 Several feminist publications reprinted Bissert’s letter while “the male small press gave it scant 1. The work of CCLM continues today, although now the organization is called the Council for Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Under the leadership of Jeffrey Lependorf, the nonprofit organization continues to be a vital advocate for small magazines and publishers. 2. Open letter from Ellen Marie Bissert to Maureen Owen, June 28, 1980, CCLM Editors’ Grant 1980 folder, box 6, 13th Moon records, New York Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division (hereafter, CCLM folder). Julie R. Enszer 721 coverage.”3 As a result of Bissert’s objections, CCLM released the application statistics: 225 people were nominated, forty (18%) were women, and fifteen (7%) were non-white men. Of the 124 people who completed the applications, twenty-three (19%) were women and eleven (9%) were nonwhite men. There were thirty-three semifinalists, five (15%) women and four (12%) non-white men. These numbers shocked and outraged Bissert and other feminists. Adrienne Rich wrote to Maureen Owen, “I am appalled by the blatant sexism evidenced in the Council’s decision to fund ten male editors.”4 The attention that Bissert brought to the grant process resulted in a special meeting of the CCLM board to “discuss the controversy” and the awards.5 The next year, the CCLM editor fellowships went to five journals run by women and five run by men; one of the winners of the $5,000 award in 1980 was the editorial collective of Conditions, a magazine of writing by women with an emphasis on writing by lesbians.6 In a letter to readers of Conditions, the three editors, Elly Bulkin, Jan Clausen, and Rima Shore, noted that the “feminist protest following the announcement of the 1979 awards no doubt had an impact on the decision-making process” and that the award “represents the only substantial payment we have received, or seem likely to receive, for our editorial work, and we were greatly encouraged by it.”7 Maureen Owen acknowledged the importance of Bissert’s protests saying it “strengthened my position on the board at CCLM and the position of women editors and writers in general. She who shouts, get heard!”8 In 1979, Bissert, Rich, and other feminists demonstrated the importance of shouting about the inclusion of women in systems of literary appraisal; they recognized the important economic consequences of grants for feminist publishers and feminist authors. Thirty years later, in 2009, Cate Marvin and Erin Belieu founded VIDA: Women in Literary Arts to promote “conversations regarding the critical reception 3. Open letter from Bissert to Owen. 4. Rich to Owen, August 7, 1979, CCLM folder. 5. Open letter from Bissert to Owen. 6. Press release, June 11, 1980, CCLM folder. 7. Elly Bulkin, Jan Clausen, and Rima Shore, Conditions 7, unnumbered front matter. 8. Postcard from Owen to Bissert, undated, CCLM folder. 722 Julie R. Enszer of women’s creative writing in our current culture.”9 Each February or March since 2010, VIDA releases “the count”: a compilation of the gender breakdown of prizes, reviews, and literary journals in the United States. VIDA’s numbers demonstrate bias toward men in... (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 28-30.

Background We aimed to examine the ethical concerns Singaporeans have about sharing health-data for precision medicine and identify suggestions for governance strategies. Just as Asian genomes are under-represented in PM, the views of Asian populations about the risks and benefits of data sharing are under-represented in prior attitudinal research. Methods We conducted seven focus groups with 62 participants in Singapore from May to July 2019. They were conducted in three languages and analysed with qualitative content and thematic analysis. Results Four (...) key themes emerged: nuanced understandings of data security and data sensitivity; trade-offs between data protection and research benefits; trust in the public and private sectors; and governance and control options. Participants were aware of the inherent risks associated with data sharing for research. Participants expressed conditional support for data sharing, including genomic sequence data and information contained within electronic medical records. This support included sharing data with researchers from universities and healthcare institutions, both in Singapore and overseas. Support was conditional on the perceived social value of the research and appropriate de-identification and data security processes. Participants suggested that a data sharing oversight body would help strengthen public trust and comfort in data research for PM in Singapore. Conclusion Maintenance of public trust in data security systems and governance regimes can enhance participation in PM and data sharing for research. Contrary to themes in much prior research, participants demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the inherent risks of data sharing, analysed trade-offs between risks and potential benefits of PM, and often adopted an international perspective. (shrink)

The common assumption is that if a group comprising moral agents can act intentionally, as a group, then the group itself can also be properly regarded as a moral agent with respect to that action. I argue, however, that this common assumption is the result of a problematic line of reasoning I refer to as “the collective fallacy.” Recognizing the collective fallacy as a fallacy allows us to see that if there are, in fact, irreducibly joint actors, then some of (...) them will lack the full-fledged moral agency of their members. The descriptivist question of whether a group can perform irreducibly joint intentional action need not rise and fall with the normative question of whether a group can be a moral agent. (shrink)

Sex selection in India and China is fostered by a limiting social structure that disallows women from performing the roles that men perform, and relegates women to a lower status level. Individual parents and individual families benefit concretely from having a son born into the family, while society, and girls and women as a group, are harmed by the widespread practice of sex selection. Sex selection reinforces oppression of women and girls. Sex selection is best addressed by ameliorating the situations (...) of women and girls, increasing their autonomy, and elevating their status in society. One might argue that restricting or prohibiting abortion, prohibiting sex selection, and prohibiting sex determination would eliminate sex selective abortion. But this decreases women's autonomy rather than increases it. Such practices will turn underground. Sex selective infanticide, and slower death by long term neglect, could increase. If abortion is restricted, the burden is placed on women seeking abortions to show that they have a legally acceptable or legitimate reason for a desired abortion, and this seriously limits women's autonomy. Instead of restricting abortion, banning sex selection, and sex determination, it is better to address the practice of sex selection by elevating the status of women and empowering women so that giving birth to a girl is a real and positive option, instead of a detriment to the parents and family as it is currently. But, if a ban on sex selective abortion or a ban on sex determination is indeed instituted, then wider social change promoting women's status in society should be instituted simultaneously. (shrink)

This book is the most comprehensive and rigourous critique of the ways disciplinary boundaries still inhibit knowledge-production and integration.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs are increasingly popular corporate marketing strategies. This paper argues that CSR programs can fall along a continuum between two endpoints: Institutionalized programs and Promotional programs. This classification is based on an exploratory study examining the variance of four responses from the consumer stakeholder group toward these two categories of CSR. Institutionalized CSR programs are argued to be most effective at increasing customer loyalty, enhancing attitude toward the company, and decreasing consumer skepticism. Promotional CSR programs are (...) argued to be more effective at generating purchase intent. Ethical and managerial implications of these preliminary findings are discussed. (shrink)

The dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity represents multidisciplinarity as ‘lower’ or ‘less interesting’ than interdisciplinarity. In this paper, it is argued that this unfavorable representation of multidisciplinarity is ungrounded because it is an effect of the theory being incomplete. It is also explained that the unfavorable, ungrounded representation of multidisciplinarity is problematic: when someone adopts the dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity, the unfavorable representation supports the development of a preference for interdisciplinarity over multidisciplinarity. However, being ungrounded, the support the representation provides for (...) a preference for interdisciplinarity, is invalid. The issue is even more pressing because research policy makers and funding bodies are among the adopters of the theory, which means that there is a risk of policies reflecting an unjustified preference for interdisciplinarity over multidisciplinarity. This paper presents an improved version of the dominant theory of cross-disciplinarity, obtained by completing the original version with the information it was missing. Because the improved version is more neutral regarding the value of different types of cross-disciplinarity, it is better suited for use by research policy makers and funding bodies. (shrink)

Kant’s effort to defend the co-existence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will – the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold’s attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon (...) was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte’s theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: the key lies in what I call Fichte’s Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome. (shrink)

I take it as given that we manage to linguistically refer to objects we can neither perceive nor uniquely describe. Kripke accounts for this fact by appeal to causal-historical chains of communication. But Evans famously presented what has seemed to many a devastating counterexample to Kripke’s view: the phenomenon of reference-shifting. Here, I’ll agree with critics that Kripke’s view is insufficient to handle cases of reference shift, but I’ll argue for an alternative version of the causal-historical account that is immune (...) to Evans’ counterexample. The key move will be at the foundations; it will require a change in what it is we’re giving a causal-historical account of. Critically, I’ll argue that we should reject two claims associated with the causal-historical picture. First, we should reject the claim that names are used to think of their referents. Second, we should reject the claim that later speakers defer to earlier ones. (shrink)

Our study in corpus linguistics shows how phraseological units allow us to distinguish between literary genres. In order to do so, we propose to analyze in detail two textual motifs and specific to fantasy novels, the second one being moreover transversal. By studying the discursive functions of these two motifs, we show the contribution of this phraseological modeling to the generic analysis.

A part of Aquinas’s argument against occasionalism is that creatures like human beings must be true causes in order to be able to grow and be perfected. Were humans not true causes, God’s promises and exhortations to humankind are for naught. Here, I explore the role of virtue in habit and the perfection of human beings in Aquinas, with the larger goal of using this discussion of virtue to address secondary causation. Virtue is relevant because a) creatures can act as (...) secondary causes because of the powers God has imbued in their nature and b) humans must be secondary causes or else they could not strive toward the good by attaining proper habits. To pursue a clearer understanding of Aquinas’s theory of secondary causes, then, it is necessary to further explore how virtue acquisition works. To that end, I will discuss the role of habit, which is the basis of virtue, the notion of virtue itself and how it is acquired by these secondary causes, the importance of the acquisition of virtues through proper habits, and the connection virtue has to secondary causes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers by Gloria FrostJulie Loveland SwanstromFROST, Gloria. Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. xii + 239 pp. Cloth, $99.99; paper, $32.99; eBook, $32.99Reconstructing Aquinas’s premodern approach to causation in which causation is an ontological rather than logical relationship is Frost’s goal in Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers. Uniting components of Aquinas’s discussions of (...) causation across his corpus, Frost focuses on the cause–effect relationship, the ontological elements involved in efficient causation, and complicated cases of efficient causation. [End Page 715]Throughout, Frost provides background information from Aristotle, Avicenna, and other thinkers used by Aquinas while delving deeply into Aquinas’s views. She addresses interpretive issues while remaining focused on Aquinas’s own ideas. Frost identifies topics that prefigure historical and contemporary philosophical debates and interjects Aquinas’s thought into those conversations.In part 1, Frost elucidates Aquinas’s standard efficient causation and the corresponding causal powers. Chapter 1 reviews Aquinas’s theories of efficient causation and briefly compares them with competing theories, identifying eight elements included in per se instances of efficient causation: the agent, the action, the active power, the natural inclination giving rise to the active power, the patient, the passive power of the patient, the motion caused by the agent, and the passion undergone by the patient. Chapter 2 further examines the paradigmatic per se efficient cause, the elemental qualities of hot, cold, wet, and dry adapted from Aristotle and used to explain change, and the ontological (rather than temporal) dependence of effects upon their causes. An agent acts by powers that stem from its nature. Frost addresses several medieval puzzles such as natural causes being considered generally unimpeded and no action being caused at a distance.Active and passive powers feature heavily in Aquinas’s account. In chapter 3, Frost teases out the distinction between potentiality and actuality. The relationship of matter and form in material substances relates to this distinction in various, complex ways. “Actuality” applies to form or to action that completes active potentiality. Frost addresses the communicability of forms, conceptually connecting active powers to nature and goodness. Active powers’ relations to elemental qualities, quantitative forms, and qualitative forms also appear in this chapter. Chapter 5 covers what agents operate on, passive powers in the patient. Frost addresses complexities regarding the relationship of qualities of matter to passive potentiality and adjudicates an interpretive difficulty about the relation of active potentiality and passive potentiality. She clarifies how passive potentialities do not correspond to only one active power and how different qualitative forms can give rise to the same passive potentiality. She also explains the uniqueness of creaturely passive potentiality to undergo divine action. Engaging in interpretive debate, she asserts that the passive potentiality for undergoing action and for existence differ in concept but are the same in reality.In chapter 4, Frost explains natural inclination: An agent’s actions are determined to particular ends by its form. Natural inclination explains causal regularity. Both rational and natural agents possess natural inclination. God, as creator, is the source of natural inclination. Frost notes difficulties with Aquinas’s views, including some later raised by Spinoza.Action and passion are discussed in chapter 6, wherein Frost connects action and passion to motion. Explaining how the patient’s passive potentiality is no longer passive upon actualization, she argues that this [End Page 716] change simply is motion: The mover causes, and the same motion immediately actualizes passive potentiality in the patient. Responding to challenges, Frost argues that “actuality” is an analogous term. Patients experience actuality as completing that in which thing it inheres while agents experience actuality as arising from them. Aquinas makes seemingly inconsistent statements about action and passion in terms of Aristotelian categories. Frost clarifies that if motion in the patient is passion and motion from the agent is action, then the categories explaining how motion belongs to the patient and the agent will be different.Frost turns to nonparadigmatic efficient causation in part 2. In chapter 7, she introduces additional causal scenarios. Preparing causes, advisory causes, and assisting causes highlight the interdependent... (shrink)

A leading contemporary theory of consciousness in theoretical neuroscience apparently shares significant common ground with a philosophical system of thought from Antiquity. Although chronologically disparate, the integrated information theory of consciousness and Aristotelian metaphysics seem to be akin with regards to fundamental ontology, epistemic priority, and causal powers. In this article, I explore these areas of common ground. Additionally, I consider an apparent dissimilarity regarding panpsychism and suggest that an Aristotelian understanding of powers provides a natural way for IIT to (...) reasonably regulate its ascription of consciousness. (shrink)

In this piece I have stated my case for the importance of the inclusion of subjectivity in the study of women's poverty. The relevance of the ideas discussed herein is not confined to this one research area, for the project of incorporation is crucial to any field of research which has a pertinence to the practical realities of women's lives. I have noted how through talking and prioritising principles we run the danger of evacuating the subject, for principles cannot take (...) into account the diversity of women's experiences based upon class, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual affiliation. I have also outlined the benefits that accrue to both researcher and participant, with the researcher gaining better insight and understanding of the women she is concerned with and accountable to in her work, and the participant being given the opportunity to tell her own story of her life, rather than have it told solely by the outsider interpreting it. As such she is actively participating in her life rather than simply being led through it, resulting in a form of empowerment that might otherwise be denied her. Subscription has been made to interviewing as a means of incorporating subjectivity into the research project. But the interview as a technique has been problematised, for only through problematisation can we hope to improve our research and strive to ensure that we heed the lessons we and others have learned through our practical activities. I am indebted to those more experienced feminist researchers whose work has influenced this project. And finally, this piece serves as a reminder to others engaged in work about or with women, that women in all diversity are the subjects we should be concerned with in debates on the subject of poverty. Lest we forget .. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 67-69, December 2011.

This paper explores the vulnerability of Latin American human subjects, and how their vulnerability is ignored due to the complexities and inconsistencies of oversight committees and institutional policies. Secondly, the concept of apology is examined and its meaning to victims of past research abuses.

The argument from multiple realization is currently considered the argument against intertheoretic reduction. Both Little and Kincaid have applied the argument to the individualism-holism debate in support of the antireductionist holist position. The author shows that the tenability of the argument, as applied to the individualism-holism debate, hinges on the descriptive constraints imposed on the individualist position. On a plausible formulation of the individualist position, the argument does not establish that the intertheoretic reduction of social theories is highly unlikely. Nonetheless, (...) the reductive project may run into other potential obstacles. For this reason, it is concluded that the prospect of intertheoretic reduction is uncertain rather than unlikely. Key Words: argument from multiple realization • intertheoretic reduction • reductionism • individualism • holism. (shrink)

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ seminal 1969 work, On Death and Dying, opened the door to understanding individuals’ emotional experiences with serious illness and dying. Patient’s emotions, however, are on...

Reactivity in qualitative data collection occurs when a researcher generates data about a situation with reactivity, that is, a situation in which the ongoing research affects the research participants such that they, say, diverge from their routines when the researcher is present, or tell the researcher what they think she wants to hear. In qualitative research, there are two basic approaches to reactivity. The traditional position maintains that data should ideally be collected in situations without any reactivity. In other words, (...) good data are reactivity free. By contrast, the more recent view holds that data from situations with reactivity are fine as long as the researcher is aware of the occurring reactivity so that she can take it into account when interpreting her data. In this fashion, good data are reactivity transparent. In this paper, I first spell out and defend the more recent approach to reactivity. I argue that qualitative data are reactivity transparent when conjoined with true reactivity assumptions and that, thus supplemented, data are informative about social life independently of its being studied. Next, I examine various issues raised by the requirement to put forth true reactivity assumptions. Lastly, I use my discussion of reactivity transparency as a basis for providing a framework for thinking about good qualitative data. (shrink)

Must a society aim indefinitely for continued economic growth? Proponents of economic growth advance three central challenges to the idea that a society, having attained high levels of income and wealth, may justly cease to pursue further economic growth: if environmentally sustainable and the gains fairly distributed, first, continued economic growth could make everyone within a society and globally, and especially the worst off, progressively better off; second, the pursuit of economic growth spurs ongoing innovation, which enhances people’s opportunities and (...) protects a society against future risks; and third, continued economic growth fosters attitudes of openness, tolerance, and generosity, which are essential to the functioning of a liberal democratic society. This article grants these challenges’ normative foundations, to show that, even if one accepts their underlying premises as requirements of justice, a society may still justly cease to aim for economic growth, so long as it continues to aim for and realize gains on other dimensions. I argue that, while continued economic growth might instrumentally serve valuable ends, it is not necessary for their realization, as a society can achieve these ends through other means. (shrink)

Let me make it clear from the outset that my main point isnoteither of the following: one, that there should be more women economists and research on “women's issues”, or two, that women as a class do, or should do, economics in a manner different from men. My argument is different and has to do with trying to gain an understanding of how a certain way of thinking about gender and a certain way of thinking about economics have become intertwined (...) through metaphor – with detrimental results – and how a richer conception of human understanding and human identity could broaden and improve the field of economics for both female and male practitioners. (shrink)

Silicon Valley and its innovation center counterparts have come upon food and agriculture as the next frontier for their unique style of innovation and impact. But what exactly can the tech sector, with expertise in information and communication technologies, bring to a domain in which the biophysical materiality of soil, plants, animals and human bodies have most challenged farmers and food companies? Based on a detailed analysis of all of the companies that have pitched their products at events sponsored by (...) the Silicon Valley-based convener, Foodbytes!, we show that a large proportion of tech-driven solutions are digital technologies transferred from other domains. These technologies at best inform decision-making on the ecological processes of food and farming, but do not provide tools to treat them, and otherwise provide business solutions not even aimed at major challenges in food and farming. Drawing on a small set of interview data, we additionally suggest that tech entrepreneurs migrate to food and agriculture because it seems purposeful, exciting, or lucrative, but sometimes lack a clear understanding of the problems they might solve with their digital technologies. In making our case about the mismatch of problem and solution, we bring into conversation recent critiques of digital solutionism with abiding concerns in agrarian political economy and critical food studies regarding the role of the biological in both challenging food production and spurring technological intervention. (shrink)

Ethics instructors often use cases to help students understand ethics within a corporate context, but we need to know more about the impact a case-based pedagogy has on students’ ability to make ethical decisions. We used a pre- and post-test methodology to assess the effect of using cases to teach ethics in a finance course. We also wanted to determine whether recent corporate ethics scandals might have impacted students’ perceptions of the importance and prevalence of ethics in business, so we (...) used in-depth case studies of several of the major scandals (e.g., Enron, Tyco, Adelphia). Our results are somewhat surprising since studying ethics scandals positively impacts students’ ethical decision making and their perceptions of the ethics of businesspeople. (shrink)

Some interesting exceptions notwithstanding, the traditional logic of economic efficiency has long favored hierarchical forms of organization and disfavored democracy in business. What does the balance of arguments look like, however, when values besides efficient revenue production are brought into the picture? The question is not hypothetical: In recent years, an ever increasing number of corporations have developed and adopted socially responsible behaviors, thereby hybridizing aspects of corporate businesses and social organizations. We argue that the joint pursuit of financial and (...) social objectives warrants significant rethinking of organizational democracy’s merits compared both to hierarchy and to non-democratic alternatives to hierarchy. In making this argument, we draw on an extensive literature review to document the relative lack of substantive discussion of organizational democracy since 1960. And we draw lessons from political theory, suggesting that the success of political democracy in integrating diverse values offers some grounds for asserting parallel virtues in the business case. (shrink)

Building upon the foundations laid by Russell, Donnellan, Chastain, and more recently, Almog, this paper addresses key questions about the basic mechanism by which we think of worldly objects, and (in contrast to many connected projects), does so in isolation from questions about how we speak of them. I outline and defend a view based on the notion of bound cognition. Bound cognition, like perception, is world-to-mind in the sense that it is generated by the item being thought of rather (...) than by the mind doing the thinking. It is a direct, two-place, non-representational relation, and it is prior to any epistemic connection between the thinker and the object of thought. Although the paradigm case for bound cognition involves sensory perception of an individual, I argue that the cognitive relations falling under the heading of bound cognition also include non-perceptual cognitive relations (such as the relation between a thinker and a historical individual) as well as cognitive relations to non-individuals (such as pairs, pluralities, species, and features). Four illustrative cases are discussed, and anticipated worries about abstract and empty cases are addressed. (shrink)

This brief critique of Frances Kamm’s Bioethical Prescriptions (Oxford University Press, 2013) focuses on the phenomenon of philosophers taking on roles outside of academia, which Kamm discusses in chapter 24, “The Philosopher as Insider and Outsider: How to Advise, Compromise, and Criticize.” Kamm discusses various conflicts that can arise for philosophers who serve as advisors on governmental commissions. One goal many philosophers have in joining such commissions is (a) to promote the public good (p. 527), but this can come into (...) conflict with (b) the goals and norms governing one as a philosopher, as well as with (c) the goals and norms governing philosophers qua advisors to the governmental commissions. Kamm’s view is that (c) has precedence, up to a point, over (a) and (b). Questions that I explore are (1) what are the norms constitutive of being a philosopher; (2) how do the norms constitutive of other roles philosophers enter into differ from those of advisors to commissioners; and (3) when and why do some of the norms and goals outlined by Kamm take precedence over others? (shrink)

As much as we can be squeamish and angry over what was being done in these studies, they force us to consider how we tell these stories and the policy we make now, as so much of our research is global and the risks and benefits of experimentation always in need of recalibration.Susan M. ReverbyA growing distrust exists among Latin American populations as past abuses in medical research have rightly been publicized, and as researchers continue to intentionally and unintentionally circumvent (...) the systems of regulation and oversight. Beyond the cultural gaps between researcher and subject, the Latin American people have their own perspectives about responsible conduct of research formed by sociopolitical thought and familial and community identity, which may be overlooked or ignored by the U.S. and other foreign nations. Just as the Havasupai Tribe in Arizona have challenged us to think about the role of culture and the need for improved regulations and practices in conducting research within the United States, through past abuses in human experimentation and the emergence of discourse between our Latin American neighbors, similar challenges confront us. (shrink)

This article argues that the practical difficulties and normative dilemmas at stake in the European refugee crisis as a crisis of EU integration extend beyond refugee policies into what we may call ‘the citizenship regime’ of the European Union in ways that are consequential for refugees, member states, and the European Union. It advances arguments for the relatively rapid access to citizenship of refugees, demonstrates that this norm has at least some acknowledgment in the policies of EU member states and (...) considers what further differentiation of refugees from other classes of migrant might be a part of developing a just and legitimate Common European Asylum Regime. It argues that there are some reasons to favour a CEAS in which refugees receive EU citizenship prior to national citizenship in a member state. (shrink)

In this paper the authors argue that the exploration of the nature of needs and rights should begin with the actually existing organization of care and of justice in society. The authors raise two key concerns with this organization: 1) the invisibility of care to some, and 2) the inaccessibility of rights to others. Recent work by care scholars has called attention to the ways the current organization of care work perpetuates the myth of self-sufficiency for some, while reducing others (...) to mere dependents. Law and Society scholars have demonstrated the problems of uneven access to legal remedies within the current organization of the legal system. Addressing these concerns simultaneously reveals both the problems of the current organization of needs and rights as well as illuminating alternative possibilities. The authors argue, first, that a justice perspective, based on rights is inadequate because its presumed universality is belied by the reality of the inaccessibility of rights to many. Second, the authors argue that a care perspective, currently formulated upon the assumption that only some people have needs, is also flawed because its presumed particularity distorts the human experience and subsequent policies. Instead, the authors need to conceive of care in a public way that permits both rights and needs to be understood as applicable to all. The authors propose some initial thoughts about how to create such a public concept of care. (shrink)

Projections of future climate change cannot rely on a single model. It has become common to rely on multiple simulations generated by Multi-Model Ensembles (MMEs), especially to quantify the uncertainty about what would constitute an adequate model structure. But, as Parker points out (2018), one of the remaining philosophically interesting questions is: “How can ensemble studies be designed so that they probe uncertainty in desired ways?” This paper offers two interpretations of what General Circulation Models (GCMs) are and how MMEs (...) made of GCMs should be designed. In the first interpretation, models are combinations of modules and parameterisations; an MME is obtained by “plugging and playing” with interchangeable modules and parameterisations. In the second interpretation, models are aggregations of expert judgements that result from a history of epistemic decisions made by scientists about the choice of representations; an MME is a sampling of expert judgements from modelling teams. We argue that, while the two interpretations involve distinct domains from philosophy of science and social epistemology, they both could be used in a complementary manner in order to explore ways of designing better MMEs. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can be seriously considered (...) as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)

We investigate if private family firms have a greater environmental performance focus than nonfamily firms, and if this relationship is moderated by the strength of the firms’ social embeddedness. We empirically test these issues using a representative sample of 1452 private Australian small and medium-sized enterprises. Contrary to prevailing assumptions and previous indicative findings in the public firm context, our results show that family firms have a lower environmental performance focus than nonfamily firms. However, in cases where the firm is (...) highly embedded in the social community, we find that family firms have a higher environmental performance focus. We explain our unexpected results by considering the role of financial risk in publicly held family firms. Accordingly, we posit that prior findings in the public firm context may be evidence of families expropriating wealth from nonfamily shareholders rather than altruistic pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

In this article I examine the view, common amongst several contemporary legal positivists, that rules of recognition are to be understood as conventional rules of some kind. The article opens with a discussion of H.L.A. Hart's original account of the rule of recognition in the 1st edn of The Concept of Law and argues that Hart did not view the rule of recognition as a conventional rule in that account. I then discuss Hart's apparent turn towards a conventionalist understanding of (...) the rule of recognition in the ‘Postscript’ to the 2nd edn of The Concept of Law, and attempt to cast doubt on the strength of Hart's commitment to such a turn, and on the reasons prompting him to make it. Finally, I consider one of the most interesting contemporary conventionalist accounts of rules of recognition, namely Andrei Marmor's view that such rules should be understood as the constitutive conventions of partly autonomous social practices. My aim in this part of the article is to compare Marmor's account with my earlier interpretation of Hart's views, and to consider whether Marmor's account truly is conventionalist in character and whether it provides us with a persuasive conventionalist understanding of rules of recognition. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to determine how Locke understands suspension and the role it plays in his view of human liberty. To this end I, 1) discuss the deficiencies of the first edition version of ‘Of Power’ and why Locke needed to include the ability to suspend in the second edition, then 2) analyze Locke’s definitions of the power to suspend with a focus on his use of the terms ‘source’, ‘hinge’, and ‘inlet’ to describe the power. I (...) determine from these descriptions that the ability to suspend is a passive power and is a necessary condition for the rational deliberation that Locke takes to be necessary for acting as a free agent. In 3) I connect Locke’s view of the power to suspend to his discussion in the sections that precede ‘Of Power.’ I argue that the kind of judgment that Locke endorses in his discussion of the Molyneux problem is also at work in acts of suspension. In 4) I apply my interpretation to Locke’s description of the connection between the power to suspend and liberty. In 5) I conclude with a discussion of a passage from the fifth edition of the Essay. Locke adds this passage to address worries raised by Limborch over the course of their correspondence. According to Chappell, it lends evidence to the view that Locke takes suspensions to be caused by undetermined volitions. (shrink)

Philosophers of mind and language who advance causal theories face a sort of conjunction problem. When we say that the thing had in mind or the thing referred to is a matter of what causally impacted the thinker or speaker, we must somehow narrow down the long conjunction of items in a causal chain, all of which contributed to the having in mind, but only one of which becomes the object of thought or the linguistic referent. Here, I sketch a (...) notion of cognitive focus intended to do this narrowing. The notion borrows three key aspects from visual focus and some technological aides—causation, amplification, and suppression. I suggest a broader application of this framework to address the conjunction problem not only in ordinary contexts of perceptual focus but also in evidence cases involving non-perceptual cognitive focus. I further suggest cognitive focus is helpful in distinguishing referential vs. attributive thought. (shrink)

I explore methods for the explicit instruction of critical thinking in a topics-based philosophy course. These methods make the classroom more experiential and less didactic and involve students in the philosophical process, allowing them to learn content while using the methods of philosophy to work through, explain, or produce similar content. Experiential learning—approaching learning as a “continuous process grounded in experience” involving the acquisition of practices, the specialization in those practices, and the integration of oneself into the learning process—enhances traditional (...) philosophy classrooms, and explicitly teaching critical thinking skills involves the methods of experiential learning. After an overview of relevant aspects of experiential learning and addressing how experiential learning methods can be used for the explicit teaching of critical thinking skills, I explain four methods I use to explicitly teach critical thinking in my introductory classes. (shrink)