This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

The recent Supreme Court decision upholding Roe v. Wade and in particular, the dissent by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, sheds new light on the issue of abortion. Let us consider any stage of a pregnancy when abortion is medically safe for the mother. If at that stage it is also medically viable to save the fetus, is an abortion performed at that stage of pregnancy morally justifiable? For example, if it is, or becomes, medically safe to perform (...) abortions after first trimester of pregnancy and at the same time saving a fetus is, or becomes, medically viable or not unusual during some stage of the second trimester, can abortions during and after that stage of pregnancy be justified? With a number of qualifications I shall argue the thesis that as a general rule, but not an absolute rule, abortion in these instances is not usually justifiable. For if it is, then one will also have to grant the moral justification for a number of other highly questionable medical practices. This thesis is not to be identified with the stronger claim that abortions of viable fetuses can never be performed. There are surely exceptions such as when the life or health of the mother is in danger. But, I shall argue, the justification for making such exceptions is on different grounds than is sometimes claimed because one must weigh the health of the mother against the life of another human being. (shrink)

Walter Conn's theory of Christian Conversion (1986) provides an illuminating lens for understanding Dorothy Day's conversion experience. Day's story, conversely, offers an opportunity to test selected features of Conn's theory, specifically the affective, cognitive, moral, and religious categories of analysis. The dialectic is a fruitful one, yielding insight into both Day's story and Conn's theory, while at the same time raising provocative questions about and contributing to the current debate regarding an "ethic of care" as distinct from an "ethic of (...) justice.". (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 55, Issue 1, Page 83-98, February 2021.

_Higher Education and the Color Line_ examines the role of higher education in opening up equal opportunity for mobility in American society--or in reinforcing the segregation between white and nonwhite America. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision upholding affirmative action, this comprehensive and timely book outlines the agenda for achieving racial justice in higher education in the next generation. Weaving together current research and a discussion of overarching demographic, legal, and political issues, the book focuses (...) on the racial transformation of higher education and the structural barriers that perpetuate racial stratification at the postsecondary level. _Higher Education and the Color Line_ includes chapters that outline the demographic changes in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary school enrollment; the evolving role of law and policy; the barriers faced by minority college students; and the kinds of programs that best serve them. Topics addressed include financial aid; the role of community colleges; nontraditional paths to postsecondary education; and the role of higher education in social and economic mobility. In addition to providing a thorough and up-to-date assessment of the state of racial integration in higher education, the book goes beyond the usual black-and-white analysis to provide a multiethnic perspective supported by extensive new data. Taken together, these discussions examine the role of higher education in opening up equal opportunity for mobility in American society--or in reinforcing the segregation between white and nonwhite America. It provides insight for how institutions, states, and the country should be thinking about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s hope that affirmative action will no longer be needed in 25 years. (shrink)

This essay is part of a symposium on affirmative action that took place at the University of Cincinnati with the distinguished legal scholar Ronald Dworkin. I argue against affirmative action. And I discuss at length the votes of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas. I develop the idea of idiosyncratic excellence; and I argue that diversity is a weakness insofar as it (a) an excuse for social myopia and (b)an impediment to (...) individuals seeing beyond their differences and affirming the excellences that they witness. The expected publication date, Univ of Cinn Law Review, is March 2004. (shrink)

We propose that revenge responses are often influenced more by affective reactions than by deliberate decision making as McCullough et al. suggest. We review social psychological evidence suggesting that justice judgments and reactions may be determined more by emotions than by cognitions.

Preoccupation with language is a notable feature of modern philosophy. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the influence of language on thought, and particularly its influence on philosophical thought, is a leading topic of philosophical discussion in this century. Every philosopher of any note, no matter what his general interests may be, has found it necessary to define his attitude to this problem. The attitude usually adopted consists of an admission that language does have a great influence (...) on thought, and on philosophical thought in particular. More accurately, it is claimed that the structure and grammatical categories, and perhaps the vocabulary, natural to a particular language, determine the lines of thought and speculation open to any thinker who uses that language .This determination is unimportant in many cases, because the results of our thinking are usually subject to check by appeal to empirical facts. In philosophical thinking, however, no such check is available by the very nature of the case. Accordingly, we cannot tell if the difficulty or apparent insolubility of a philosophical problem is due to the problem itself, or simply due to inadequacies in our language. In a different language, so it is suggested, the problem which is difficult for us might very easily be solved. Indeed, there might not then be any such problem, or its solution might be self-evident in this other language. This is the moderate attitude to the language difficulty in philosophy, and it is fair to say that it is almost universally adopted at the present day. In some circles it has acquired the prestige of an indisputable dogma. (shrink)

In this paper the border is evaluated as a fold of power relations in which sovereign capacity and competence is marshalled alongside strategies of control, surveillance, and risk management to constitute, what we call, a zone of frontier government. We advance the argument that the border is a site for both negative and positive power, for insertion and subtraction, and that the assemblage of surveillance and compliance regimes are "run" not so much in the furtherance of a precautionary or pre-emptive (...) end-state, but as intermediate values that are sufficiently malleable by an invigorated sovereign, expressed in the residue of discretion in and between the many border agencies. Our analysis is based on extensive policy and program documents, as well as twenty-five interviews with officials in various agencies engaged in the US-Canada and, particularly, the Windsor-Detroit corridor. Normal 0 false false false EN-CA X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

This conceptual paper explores the relationship between an organization’s exclusive talent management practices, employees’ perceptions of the fairness of exclusive TM practices, and the corresponding impact on employee engagement. We propose that in organizations pursuing exclusive TM programs, employee perceptions of organizational justice of the exclusive TM practices may affect their employee engagement, which may influence both organizational and employee outcomes. Building on extant research, we present a conceptual framework depicting the relationship between exclusive TM practices, organizational justice (...) and employee engagement, with social exchange theory and equity theory as the framework’s foundation. The propositions in the framework are each supported by the respective literature. The perceived organizational justice and potential ramifications of exclusive TM practices for employees who are not included in corporate talent pools is an under-researched topic. The paper considers the perspectives of employees not included in corporate talent pools and explores how exclusive TM practices, as inputs, could lead to negative employee engagement outputs. In unpacking how exclusive TM practices could impact on employee engagement, the implications for organizations are underlined. The ethics and perceived fairness of exclusive TM practices, which have the potential to marginalize employees and lead to their disengagement, are considered. (shrink)

Freedom and moral responsibility have one foot in the practical realm of human affairs and the other in the esoteric realm of fundamental metaphysics—or so we believe. This has been denied, especially in the metaphysics-bashing era occupying the first two-thirds or so of the twentieth century, traces of which linger in the present day. But the reasons for this denial seem to us quite implausible. Certainly, the argument for the general bankruptcy of metaphysics has been soundly discredited. Arguments from Strawson (...) and others that our moral practices are too deeply embedded in human life to rest on anything as tenuous as a metaphysical doctrine far from the thoughts of ordinary people would seem to prove too much: we can easily imagine fantastic scenarios far from the thoughts of ordinary people—involving, say, alien manipulation or massive deception—that, if true, would clearly undermine claims to freedom and responsibility. For still other philosophers, the separation of the moral life from (some) metaphysical issues is prescriptive, not descriptive: it is a recommendation that we revise ordinary moral thought by severing its allegedly problematic links to metaphysics. (Some philosophers appear to hover undecided between such a prescriptive project and a Strawsonian descriptive claim.) We suspect that the prospects of retaining the binding force of ordinary moral thought, were such a reconceived moral practice widely embraced, are bleak. A transition to something closer to moral nihilism seems at least as likely. In any case, our interest here is in descriptive metaphysics, not revisionary. -/- To say as we do that freedom and moral responsibility have a partly metaphysical character is not to suggest that they can be had only if some highly specific version of a particular metaphysical framework is correct. Instead, we suggest in what follows, it is a broadly neo-Humean metaphysics that is not hospitable to freedom (for reasons distinctive to the metaphysics), while a broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is. But we also think (and it is the main aim of our paper to show) that different versions of the neo- Aristotelian metaphysics lead to rather different metaphysical accounts of free and responsible action. Specifically, we will argue that (1) the most satisfactory account of human freedom within the broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is agent-causal, but that (2) two different versions of the general metaphysics will lead to important differences in the agent-causal account of freedom. Adjust the details of your general metaphysics, and the details of your account of freedom are transformed in significant ways. Action theory cannot properly be pursued in isolation from general metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper clarifies some of the longstanding difficulties in negotiating Do Not Resuscitate Orders by reframing the source of the dilemmas as not residing with either the patient or the physician but with their relationship. The recommendations are low cost and low-tech ways of making major improvements to the care and quality of life of the most ill patients in hospital. With impending physician-assisted death legislation there is an urgency to find more efficient and beneficial ways for clinicians and patients (...) to address resuscitation issues at the bedside. Paradigmatic shifts in the nature of the patient-physician relationship will need to be encouraged by the larger community. These encouraged shifts address the concepts of passive/inferior patient – active/superior physician, patient ownership of and access to all their health care information, and treating the patient as a major participant in the delivery of health care. These recommended changes will not in themselves make any patient, physician or other healthcare provider more humane and open in the patient’s final days. The goal, instead, is to have changes to the context of the discussion provide an encouraging environment for more open communication and a balanced relationship among participants with the patient being the most important. (shrink)

The study of social justice asks: what sorts of social arrangements are equitable ones? But also: how do we derive the inequitable arrangements we often observe in human societies? In particular, in spite of explicitly stated equity norms, categorical inequity tends to be the rule rather than the exception. The cultural Red King hypothesis predicts that differentials in group size may lead to inequitable outcomes for minority groups even in the absence of explicit or implicit bias. We test this (...) prediction in an experimental context where subjects divided into groups engage in repeated play of a bargaining game. We ran 14 trials involving a total of 112 participants. The results of the experiments are statistically significant and suggestive: individuals in minority groups in these experiments end up receiving fewer resources than those in majority groups. Combined with previous theoretical findings, these results give some reason to think that the cultural Red King may occur in real human groups. (shrink)

It was a great privilege to know Professor Charity Scott. I first met her when I was finishing Emory University’s joint law and public health program in the early 2000s, through the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the early days of CDC’s Public Health Law Program, now the Office of Public Health Law Services. In those days, introductions were generous and frequent for excited students beginning their careers, but meeting Professor Scott made (...) an impression on me. She was the first and only female health law professor in the field that I had the opportunity to know in the early years of my career. (shrink)

The original essays in this volume, while written from diverse perspectives, share the common aim of building a constructive dialogue between two currents in philosophy that seem not readily allied: Wittgenstein, who urges us to bring our words back home to their ordinary uses, recognizing that it is our agreements in judgments and forms of life that ground intelligibility; and feminist theory, whose task is to articulate a radical critique of what we say, to disrupt precisely those taken-for-granted agreements in (...) judgments and forms of life. Wittgenstein and feminist theorists are alike, however, in being unwilling or unable to "make sense" in the terms of the traditions from which they come, needing to rely on other means—including telling stories about everyday life—to change our ideas of what sense is and of what it is to make it. For both, appeal to grounding is problematic, but the presumed groundedness of particular judgments remains an unavoidable feature of discourse and, as such, in need of understanding. For feminist theory, Wittgenstein suggests responses to the immobilizing tugs between modernist modes of theorizing and postmodern challenges to them. For Wittgenstein, feminist theory suggests responses to those who would turn him into the "normal" philosopher he dreaded becoming, one who offers perhaps unorthodox solutions to recognizable philosophical problems. In addition to an introductory essay by Naomi Scheman, the volume’s twenty chapters are grouped in sections titled "The Subject of Philosophy and the Philosophical Subject," "Wittgensteinian Feminist Philosophy: Contrasting Visions," "Drawing Boundaries: Categories and Kinds," "Being Human: Agents and Subjects," and "Feminism’s Allies: New Players, New Games." These essays give us ways of understanding Wittgenstein and feminist theory that make the alliance a mutually fruitful one, even as they bring to their readings of Wittgenstein an explicitly historical and political perspective that is, at best, implicit in his work. The recent salutary turn in philosophy toward taking history seriously has shown how the apparently timeless problems of supposedly generic subjects arose out of historically specific circumstances. These essays shed light on the task of feminist theorists—along with postcolonial, queer, and critical race theorists—to "rotate the axis of our examination" around whatever "real need[s]" might emerge through the struggles of modernity’s Others. Contributors are Nancy E. Baker, Nalini Bhushan, Jane Braaten, Judith Bradford, Sandra W. Churchill, Daniel Cohen, Tim Craker, Alice Crary, Susan Hekman, Cressida J. Heyes, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Christine M. Koggel, Bruce Krajewski, Wendy Lynne Lee, Hilda Lindemann Nelson, Deborah Orr, Rupert Read, Phyllis Rooney, and Janet Farrell Smith. (shrink)

Philosophy and Kafka is a collection of original essays interrogating the relationship of literature and philosophy. The essays either discuss specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings, or examine Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom.

We are currently facing global healthcare crisis that has placed unprecedented stress on healthcare workers as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019. It is imperative that we develop novel tools to assist healthcare workers in dealing with the significant additional stress and trauma that has arisen as a result of the pandemic. Based in research on the effects of immersive environments on mood, a neuroscience research laboratory was rapidly repurposed using commercially available technologies and materials to create a nature-inspired (...) relaxation space. Frontline healthcare workers were invited to book 15-min experiences in the Recharge Room before, during or after their shifts, where they were exposed to the immersive, multisensory experience 496 Recharge Room users completed a short survey about their experience during an unselected, consecutive 14-day period. Average self-reported stress levels prior to entering the Recharge Room were 4.58/6. After a single 15-min experience in the Recharge Room, the average user-reported stress level was significantly reduced 1.85/6. Net Promoter Score for the experience was 99.3%. Recharge Rooms such as those described here produce significant short-term reductions in perceived stress, and users find them highly enjoyable. These rooms may be of general utility in high-stress healthcare environments. (shrink)

Readers expecting a history of nineteenth‐century pathology are in for a surprise. They will find instead a self‐conscious example of cultural studies, critical of some assumptions made in this field and of some feminist writing, but containing some alarming sentences like “My goal has been to give shape to the accidental palimpsests of an inveterately verbal, and increasingly visual, culture; to assemble a particular series of hermeneutic loose ends into a coherent account of how an extraordinarily bizarre system of signification (...) came into being” . With learned English like that, who needs Latin? But once we get into the main part of the book, things get much better. We are confronted with a study of the fringes of science, in popular writings, in literature, and in raree‐shows, one working from sources that the more austere scientifics of the Victorian period despised and that historians of science are prone to ignore. Metaphor and analogy are everywhere, and sensitive stomachs will be churned by vivid accounts of disease, deformity, and surgery.The first chapter is concerned with the cholera morbus, the plague of the nineteenth century, and with the way it could be perceived as an indicator of social ills. John Ruskin's word “illth” as an opposite of health is revived, and the terrible blackness of the shriveled and dehydrated victims of this disease imported from the East is linked with colonial and racist notions. The theme that a healthy body is like a well‐run state leads into the next chapter, on breast cancer. Surgery was not only agonizing but ineffective in the first half of the nineteenth century, but then the survival rate after three years rose gradually from 4.7 percent to 45 percent by 1900. O'Connor asks whether this saga, with cancer seen as cellular overproduction, reveals close connections with gender construction and the symbolic importance of breasts, concluding that it does not and that the language used really was neutral rather than sexual.She then looks at amputations and artificial limbs, seeing amputation as a threat to the whole masculine body that could be countered by prostheses almost undetectable to the observer. This allows reflection on illustration, where curiously disembodied hands are shown carrying out amputations; on dissembling and artificiality; on materialism; and on metaphors of wholeness and replacement and of extending senses and capacities. We see some extraordinary advertisements where men with artificial legs climb ladders and skate, perhaps on thin ice. The final chapter examines deformity, with monsters and freaks . P. T. Barnum is prominent here, but interesting links are also made to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace and its successors and the numerous museums that were such a feature of the Victorian period. They are strikingly placed in a continuum, rather than opposed, in a discussion of chaos and order, capitalism and health, deformity and degeneration. Wonder is presented as the key to modern sensibility, and there is a nice quotation on page 152: “If Beauty and the Beast should be brought into competition in London at the present day, Beauty would stand no chance against the Beast in the race for popularity.” Readers will have been led into a fascinating world at the periphery of the respectable science that most of us study and will rejoice in the extraordinary sights they see. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Annual Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesSandra Costen Kunz and Jonathan A. SeitzThe Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS) is one of more than two dozen scholarly societies that have been formally recognized by the American Academy of Religion as Related Scholarly Organizations. The pattern for many years has been for the SBCS to hold its annual meeting in conjunction with the annual meeting of the AAR. On (...) the Friday before the AAR’s Annual Meeting begins, the Society’s board meets in the morning and early afternoon, followed by an AAR-advertised session late that afternoon. On Saturday, another paper session or panel is followed by the Society’s annual members’ meeting.A highlight of the 2012 SBCS annual meeting was the unanimous approval, first by the governing board and later by the membership in attendance, of a major revision of the society’s bylaws. This revision focused largely on updates necessitated by changes in the ways scholars communicate day-to-day and in scholarly publications, and in international banking practices, because of the expanding use of electronic media. This revision was well over a year in the making, with particularly generous input of time and thought by former board member Grace Burford and Treasurer Guy McCloskey, and with efficient guidance by President Terry Muck.Another highlight of this 2012 gathering was the announcement at the board meeting that the SBCS’s reapplication for formal status as a Related Scholarly Organization of the AAR was accepted for another five years. Among other privileges, this status makes it possible for us to communicate our calls for papers, session plans, and annual meeting schedule through AAR’s website and print publications.At the governing board meeting, Treasurer McCloskey noted an increase of more than 7 percent in paying members, but it was agreed that the society could carry [End Page 193] out its purposes more effectively if we were to welcome more new members. One especially notable new member is C. Denise Yarbrough (University of Rochester), who was unanimously approved at the members meeting as the Christian co-editor of this journal, along with Buddhist co-editor Wakoh Shannon Hickey (Notre Dame of Maryland University), who signed on in 2011.Rita Gross, who formerly co-edited the journal and was president of the Society, was elected to the board, replacing Amos Yong, whose term ended in 2012. We are extremely grateful for his leadership in many areas, including the Streng Book Award Committee. Abraham Vélez de Cea was unanimously approved to chair the Streng Book Award Committee, with Mary Jeanne Larabee continuing on the committee and David Gardiner being approved as the third member. Alice Keefe, in her vice presidential role as program chair, took note of the lively discussion about possible topics for next year’s panel sessions.The Friday afternoon seminar was titled “Contemplative Pedagogy: Pitfalls and Potentials.” Panelists included John D. Copenhaver (Shenandoah University), Kristine T. Utterback (University of Wyoming), Andrew O. Fort (Texas Christian University), and Judith Simmer-Brown (Naropa University). The respondent was William H. Green (Tougaloo College), and Wakoh Shannon Hickey (Notre Dame of Maryland University) presided. Versions of the four panelists’ papers are included in this volume of the journal, as well as additional papers on the topic by other authors.In lieu of its customary field trip, this year the SBCS encouraged participants to attend the new film Jesus & Buddha: Practicing across Traditions (Old Dog Documentaries, 2012), screened on Friday night before the AAR Annual Meeting. In the film, three leading figures in Buddhist-Christian dialogue were interviewed: Paul F. Knitter (Union Theological Seminary), Robert Kennedy, SJ (St. Peter’s College), and Chung Hyun Kyung (Union Theological Seminary). A discussion, over which Knitter presided, followed the film.The Saturday panel was “The Ethics of Wealth in a World of Economic Inequality: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives.” Panelists included Joerg Rieger (Southern Methodist University), Alan Jay Richard (Realistic Living, Inc.), and Carol S. Anderson (Kalamazoo College). The respondent was Mark Wood (Virginia Commonwealth University), and Alice A. Keefe (University of Wisconsin) presided. At the end of this session, before the member’s meeting, we enjoyed P. J. Johnston’s... (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore neonatal nurses’and mothers of preterm infants’experiences of daily challenges. Interviews took place asking for good, bad and challenging experiences. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and findings were clustered in two categories: good and challenging experiences, each containing three themes. The good experiences were: managing with success as a nurse, small things matter for mothers, and a good day anyhow for mothers and nurses. The challenging experiences were: mothering in public, being (...) pulled between responsibilities, and adverse things stick under the nurses’skin. The study shows that small daily clinical matters become big issues and could lead to moral distress, and that nurses integrate ethics of justice and ethics of care while mothers are concerned about health and well-being of their specific infant only. The challenge for nursing to integrate fairness and sensitive care in family-oriented neonatal care is discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Full Collection of Personal NarrativesGianna O'Leary, Paul Hostovsky, Yilu Ma, Leo Almazan, Hilda Sanchez-Herrera, Marisa Rueda Will, Elaine Hsieh, Manuel Patiño, Felicity Ratway, Liliana Crane, Laisson DeSouza, Nilsa Ricci, Linda Pollack-Jackson, Kelley Cooper, Mateo Rutherford-Rojas, Rosa C. Moreno, Maja Milkowska-Shibata, Patricia Coronado, and Catalina Meyer• A Day in the Life of a Spanish Interpreter• Deaf Interpreter• "Call me Dr. XXX!"• Translating Care for the Voiceless Patient• Are We There (...) Yet? A Narrative of Firsthand Interpreter Experiences in the Medical Field and Insights to Aid Language Access Compliance• One Interpreter's Journey of Interpreting for Pregnancy Loss• More Than Words: Communicating for the Quality of Care• From Linguistic Bridge Builder to Aspiring Physician• Towards Language Justice: A Call to Identify and Overcome Structural Barriers• Voices in the Shadows: The Hidden Complexities of Being a Medical Interpreter• The Voice of Patients: The Exclusive Work of a Human Who Can Advocate• Don't Mute the Messenger• The Ramp and the Stop Sign• How Policies and Practices in Medical Settings Impact Communication Access with Deaf Patients and Caregivers• And When May I Cry? Juggling Emotions in Healthcare Interpreting• To Engage or Not to Engage: An Interpreter and a Mother's Need for Connection in the Cardiothoracic Unit• Witnessing Trauma: Emotional Challenges in Medical Interpretation• Being an Interpreter—Beyond Linguistics• 1-800-Quit-NowCopyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Living a morally good life today is a challenge. But we become fully and authentically human precisely by the decisions we make every day—some of them relatively simple, others complex and difficult. Once a choice is made, we still must claim the moral resolve and strength of character to implement it. Virtues are precisely the sustained habits that help us maneuver life’s many choices and to become the good people that we want to be. St. Thomas Aquinas offers the classic (...) Christian presentation of the four principal virtues of prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. But these are precisely cardinal or “hinge” virtues that provide the foundational framework for Aquinas’s much broader presentation of a multitude of other virtues. Neglect of this larger array of moral attitudes for good living would miss the breadth of Aquinas’s insights into a human life truly well-lived. Virtues Abounding explores, in contemporary language, the practical insights that Aquinas offers for the moral life today. Whether in university, seminary, or adult faith formation settings—whether for a deeper intellectual understanding of virtues or for personal reflection and growth—Virtues Abounding will provide new insight into a classic but too often overlooked storehouse of moral riches. (shrink)

'Two things', wrote Kant, 'fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within'. Many would argue that since Kant's day, the study of the starry heavens has advanced while ethics has stagnated, and in particular that Kant's ethics offers an empty formalism that tells us nothing about how we should live. In Acting on Principle Onora O'Neill shows that Kantian ethics has practical as well as philosophical importance. First published (...) in 1975, the book is regarded as a classic account and defence of the Kantian ethical position. It addresses Kant's account of reasoning about action, in particular his controversial claim that the Categorical Imperative guides action and is basic to ethics and justice. This second edition offers a substantial new introduction and updated bibliography, and will be valuable for a wide readership in Kant studies and those studying ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 135-157 [Access article in PDF] "That We May Know Each Other": The Pluralist Hypothesis as a Research Program Paul O. Ingram Pacific Lutheran University When an African American Muslim named Siraj Wahaj served as the first Muslim "Chaplain of the Day" in the Unites States House of Representatives on 25 June 1991 he offered the following prayer, the first Muslim prayer in the in the (...) history of the House of Representatives: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most merciful. Praise belongs to thee alone; O God, Lord and Creator of all the worlds. Praise belongs to Thee Who shaped us as and colored us in the wombs of our mothers; colored us black and white, brown, red, and yellow. Praise belongs to Thee who created us from males and females and made us into nations and tribes that we may know each other.1Siraj Wahaj's prayer is a direct reference to one of the most cited verses of the Qur'an: "Do you not know, O people, that I have made you into tribes and nations that you may know each other." Of course, "knowing each other" is an important goal in the practice of interreligious dialogue, but Muslims often move on to cite further Qur'anic advice about religious pluralism: "If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people," the verse reads, "But His plan is to test you in what He hath given you; so strive as in a race in all virtues."2 According to Siraj Wahaj and many like-minded American Muslims, Islam and pluralism go hand in hand and respect for the dignity for each person, no matter what religious or secular label he or she wears, rests on Islamic foundations. Of course, this interpretation of the Qur'an is rejected by radical communities within the House of Islam as well as by fundamentalist communities within Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish traditions. Nor are the foundations of pluralism only found in the Qur'an; Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, and aboriginal traditions support religious pluralism as well.This essay's thesis, what John Hick first posited as the "pluralist hypothesis," offers us the most coherent theoretical framework—minus Hick's Kantian epistemology—from which to interpret contemporary postmodern experiences of religious [End Page 135] diversity. Furthermore, I shall argue that the pluralist hypothesis constitutes a coherent history-of-religions research program from which to investigate and interpret the facts of religious diversity.3 In order to demonstrate the adequacy of my thesis and argument, I shall appropriate the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos's account of the methodology and structure of scientific research programs, guided by Nancy Murphy's application of Lakatos's work in the construction of theological research programs. But first, some preliminary clarifications about what I mean by "religious pluralism" and "religious diversity."4 The Structure of the Experience of Religious Pluralism In a recent book on the lives of four Catholic writers—Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy—Paul Elie provides one of the most accurate descriptions of the structure of postmodern experience of religious diversity in English print: We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, and are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto ourselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty, but the problem of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it should be.5Assuming that Elie's description is an accurate one, certain implications follow that will serve as working assumptions of this essay."Pluralism" is not just another name for "diversity." Diversity names the fact of the existence of differing... (shrink)

For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and (...) effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. -/- Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir). -/- O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation. (shrink)

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very (...) closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1.). (shrink)

All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a (...) living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:358 BOOK REVIEWS ing and his arguments seem more tentative and relativistic than those offered in his previously published works (Truth and Other Enigmas, 1978; The Interpretation of Frege's Phuosophy, 1981, etc.). Yet he uses his mastery of powerful logical techniques in order to support the chosen positions. This fact might give great satisfaction to a logician, hut the metaphysician may he somewhat disappointed by the meager results attained, (...) though Dummett himself modestly restricts his goals to those of forming only " a base camp for an assault on the metaphysical peaks...". One may also wonder whether Dummett remained faithful to his methodological requirement of the priority of meaningtheory with regard to logic and metaphysics. Doesn't Dummett's acceptance of intuitionistic logic (with its rejection of the principle of bivalence) dictate his preference for a certain meaning-theory, and not the other way around? To distill and extract metaphysical beliefs and insights which are contained (perhaps tacitly) in the working of our language is undoubtedly a legitimate goal of any philosophical enterprise. But our ambitions go beyond this goal: we are reaching after reality itself, not just after our opinions about reality and their semantical elucidation. In this respect Dummett's programmatic conception of metaphysics may face serious difficulties in attempts to climb the ahovementioned metaphysical peaks. On the other hand, is any metaphysical program exempt from such difficulties? The hook is beautifully printed; Harvard University Press has done an excellent job! The Index, which combines names and subjects, is a hit too economical, omitting certain references (for example, important remarks on God's omniscience on pp. 75-76). AUGUSTIN RISKA Saint John's University New York, New York Ethical Practice in Clinical Medicine. By WILLIAM J. ELLOS. New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. 190. Medical ethics is an integral part of the science and art of medicine. Rather than being a set of norms or regulations added from external sources, such as the legal norms regulating the medicare program, the norms and maxims of medical ethics are integral elements of medicine arising from the relationship between physician and patient. In one way or another, most philosophers of ethics and medicine would agree with the foregoing statements. But once the role of ethics in medicine has BOOK REVIEWS 359 been established, a serious difficulty arises: What method should he used to define and delineate ethical norms for particular cases? More to the point, how should one go about solving problems in medical ethics? Father William Ellos, S.J., is concerned with resolving the difficulty of method in medical ethics. He seeks to develop and explain a method in medical ethics that will be both clinical and pragmatic. Joining with other specialists in the field, he opts for a virtue-centered approach to solving issues in medical ethics, as opposed to a rulecentered duty-based approach. While not rejecting the ethical method featuring the principles of autonomy, beneficence, and justice derived from W. D. Ross (an approach favored by so many contemporary scholars in the field of medical ethics), he does maintain that these principles are greatly overworked as well as simplistic. He proposes virtue-centered reasoning as a better method of ethical endeavor, especially attuned to the complexity and problematics of clinical ethics. In developing the notion of virtue·centered ethics, Ellos considers the contributions of the past and present thinkers to this method of ethical decision making. Hence, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas, the Scottish Enlightenment Philosophers, and American Pragmatists are the main sources of his reflections upon virtue ethics. Ellos finds a culmination of virtue ethics in the present-day tendency of many consultants in medical ethics to classify themselves as casuists, indicating that they are eclectic and pragmatic in their efforts to solve clinical cases. In the course of the historical and analytical sections of this work, Ellos demonstrates not only a wide acquaintance with classical and contemporary authors but also an ability to discern continuity of thought among these well.known philosophers and theologians. Especially significant is his recognition of the too often neglected contemporary authors Collen Clements and Roger Sider, whose accurate indictment of the principle of autonomy as interpreted by present-day medical ethicists restores the... (shrink)

Many philosophers are persuaded by familiar arguments that free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Yet, notoriously, past attempts to articulate how the right type of indeterminism might secure the capacity for autonomous action have generally been regarded as either demonstrably inadequate or irremediably obscure. This volume gathers together the most significant recent discussions concerning the prospects for devising a satisfactory indeterministic account of freedom of action. These essays give greater precision to traditional formulations of the problems associated with indeterministic (...) accounts and to the range of theoretical avenues for pursuing resolutions. The first four essays set out different challenges (from both compatibilists and those skeptical of the possibility of free will) to the adequacy of standard indeterministic theories. The next seven essays meet one or more of these challenges. Each of the fundamental types of approach--simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism, and agent causation--is represented in these novel and sophisticated proposals. The collection finishes with two essays that debate whether compatibilism entails that freedom of choice is a comparatively rare phenomenon within an individual's life. Eloquently presenting some of the most compelling and accessible arguments surrounding this central philosophical issue, Agents, Causes, and Events makes a valuable contribution to courses in free will/action theory and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper raises objections to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism.

In almost every human society some people get more and others get less. Why is inequity the rule in human societies? Philosopher Cailin O'Connor reveals how cultural evolution works on social categories such as race and gender to generate unfairness.