Should financial incentives be offered to mothers for breastfeeding? Given the significant socioeconomic and sociodemographic differences in breastfeeding in the USA, researchers and policymakers are exploring the role of financial incentives for breastfeeding promotion with the objective of increasing uptake and reducing disparities. Despite positive outcomes in other health domains, the acceptability of financial incentives is mixed. Financial incentives in the context of infant feeding are particularly controversial given the complex obligations that characterize decisions to breastfeed. After situating the specific (...) ethical tensions related to personal responsibility, fairness, and intrusiveness, we argue that exploring carefully designed financial incentives can be ethically justified to support breastfeeding uptake particularly given established medical guidelines that support breastfeeding benefits, wide socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities and notable influences in the broader choice architecture of infant feeding in the USA. Additional empirical research is warranted to better understand effectiveness, cost and specific ethical concerns related to free and informed choice. (shrink)

In this book Philippa Hoskin offers an account of the pastoral theory and practice of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253, within his diocese. Grosseteste has been considered as an eminent medieval philosopher and theologian, and as a bishop focused on pastoral care, but there has been no attempt to consider how his scholarship influenced his pastoral practice. Making use of Grosseteste's own writings - philosophical and theological as well as pastoral and administrative - Hoskin demonstrates how Grosseteste's famous interventions (...) in his diocese grew from his own theory of personal obligation in pastoral care as well as how his personal involvement in his diocese could threaten well-developed clerical and lay networks. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 34th International Social Philosophy Conference (2017), an annual event sponsored by the North American Society for Social Philosophy. The theme of the conference was "Justice: Social, Criminal, Juvenile"; this volume invites wider discussion of the issues explored at the conference.

"This collection is the first book-length examination of the various epistemological issues underlying legal trials. Trials are, among other things, centrally concerned with determining truth: whether a criminal defendant has in fact culpably committed the act of which they are accused, or whether a civil defendant is in fact responsible for the damages alleged by the plaintiff. But are trials truth-conducive? Assessing the value of trials as truth-seeking endeavors requires that we consider a host of underlying social epistemological questions. The (...) contributors to this volume address a number of these pressing questions, including but not limited to the following: How much credence should they give to eyewitness testimony? How should we balance the relative epistemic value of testimony offered by defense witnesses and prosecution witnesses? Are juries an effective means of arriving at justified beliefs about a defendant's guilt or innocence? When, if ever, is statistical information about a defendant's character relevant? What degree of certainty should we require to support a verdict of 'guilty'? How should standards of proof be interpreted for allegations that contain numerous discrete components? The Social Epistemology of Legal Trials will be of interest to scholars and upper-level students working on issues at the intersection of epistemology and philosophy of law"--. (shrink)

This historical study aims to explain how the transition from student nurse service to fully qualified “graduate nurse” service in the United States in the 20th century affected assumptions about fundamental patient care in hospital wards and provide historical context for current apprenticeship programs. Through analysis of documents from 1920 when student nurse service, a nurse apprentice model, was the norm to 1960 when the nurse apprentice model was waning in favor of registered nurse service, this study found that the (...) replacement of student nurses with registered nurses led to weakened standardization of fundamental bedside care and the introduction of large numbers of unlicensed nursing assistants. While student nurses could perform all the functions of fully qualified graduate nurses, nursing assistants could not, resulting in a separation of fundamental nursing care from the professional nurse role and changes in assumptions and attitudes toward fundamental care. These changes had a negative effect on fundamental nursing care. New apprenticeship programs provide opportunities for improvement. (shrink)

Women most fully experience the consequences of human reproductive technologies. Men who convene to evaluate such technologies discuss "them": the women who must accept, avoid, or even resist these technologies; the women who consume technologies they did not devise; the women who are the objects of policies made by men. So often the input of women is neither sought nor listened to. The privileged insights and perspectives that women bring to the consideration of technologies in human reproduction are the subject (...) of these volumes, which constitute the revised and edited record of a Workshop on "Ethical Issues in Human Reproduction Technology: Analysis by Women" (EIRTAW), held in June, 1979, at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Some 80 members of the workshop, 90 percent of them women (from 24 states), represented diverse occupations and personal histories, different races and classes, varied political commitments. They included doctors, nurses, and scientists, lay midwives, consumer advocates, historians, and sociologists, lawyers, policy analysts, and ethicists. Each session, however, made plain that ethics is an everyday concern for women in general, as well as an academic profession for some. (shrink)

International Criminal Law and Philosophy is the first anthology to bring together legal and philosophical theorists to examine the normative and conceptual foundations of international criminal law. In particular, through these essays the international group of authors addresses questions of state sovereignty; of groups, rather than individuals, as perpetrators and victims of international crimes; of international criminal law and the promotion of human rights and social justice; and of what comes after international criminal prosecutions, namely, punishment and reconciliation. International criminal (...) law is still an emerging field, and as it continues to develop, the elucidation of clear, consistent theoretical groundings for its practices will be crucial. The questions raised and issues addressed by the essays in this volume will aid in this important endeavor. (shrink)

What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

This paper attempts to establish that, and explain why, the practice of punishing offenders is in principle morally permissible. My account is a nonstandard version of the fair play view, according to which punishment 's permissibility derives from reciprocal obligations shared by members of a political community, understood as a mutually beneficial, cooperative venture. Most fair play views portray punishment as an appropriate means of removing the unfair advantage an offender gains relative to law-abiding members of the community. Such views (...) struggle, however, to provide a plausible account of this unfairly gained benefit. By contrast, on my account punishment 's permissibility follows more straightforwardly from the fair play view of political obligation: Specifically, the rule instituting punishment is itself among those rules with which members of the political community are obliged to comply. For criminal offenders, compliance requires submitting to the prospect of punishment. (shrink)

Individuals convicted of crimes are often subject to numerous restrictions — on housing, employment, the vote, public assistance, and other goods — well after they have completed their sentences, and in some cases permanently. The question of whether — and if so, when — ex-offender restrictions are morally permissible has received surprisingly little philosophical scrutiny. This article first examines the significance of completing punishment, of paying one's debt to society, and contends that when offenders' debts are paid, they should be (...) restored to full standing as citizens. Thus all ex-offender restrictions are presumptively unjustified. Nonconsequentialist defences of these restrictions are ultimately unsuccessful in defeating the presumption against them. In a limited range of cases, consequentialist considerations — namely, of risk reduction — may be sufficient to override the presumptive case against these restrictions. The article concludes by suggesting a number of criteria for assessing whether particular restrictive measures are permissible on grounds of risk reduction. (shrink)

People convicted of crimes are subject to a criminal sentence, but they also face a host of other restrictive legal measures: Some are denied access to jobs, housing, welfare, the vote, or other goods. Some may be deported, may be subjected to continued detention, or may have their criminal records made publicly accessible. These measures are often more burdensome than the formal sentence itself. -/- In Beyond Punishment?, Zachary Hoskins offers a philosophical examination of these burdensome legal measures, called (...) collateral legal consequences. Drawing on resources in moral, legal, and political philosophy, Hoskins analyzes the various kinds of collateral consequences imposed in different legal systems and the important moral challenges they raise. Can collateral legal consequences ever be justified as forms of criminal punishment or as civil measures? Hoskins contends that, considered as forms of punishment, such restrictions should be constrained by considerations of proportionality and offender reform. He also argues that they may in a limited range of cases be permissible as risk-reductive civil measures. Whether considered as criminal punishment or civil measures, however, collateral legal consequences are justifiable in a far narrower range of cases than we find in current legal practice. -/- Considering just how pervasive collateral legal consequences have become and their dramatic effects on offenders' lives, Beyond Punishment? sheds valuable light on whether these restrictive measures are ever morally justified. (shrink)

This article defends deterrence as an aim of punishment. Specifically, I contend that a system of punishment aimed at deterrence (with constraints to prohibit punishing the innocent or excessively punishing the guilty) is consistent with the liberal principle of respect for offenders as autonomous moral persons. I consider three versions of the objection that deterrent punishment fails to respect offenders. The first version, raised by Jeffrie Murphy and others, charges that deterrent punishment uses offenders as mere means to securing the (...) social good of crime reduction. The second and third are developed by R.A. Duff. The second holds that deterrent punishment inappropriately excludes offenders from the moral community. The third charges that deterrent punishment offers community members the wrong sorts of reasons to comply with the law. I conclude that each of these objections fails. A system of punishment aimed at deterrence (suitably constrained) is consistent with respect for offenders as moral persons. (shrink)

Chad Flanders has argued that retributivism is inconsistent with John Rawls’s core notion of public reason, which sets out those considerations on which legitimate exercises of state power can be based. Flanders asserts that retributivism is grounded in claims about which people can reasonably disagree and are thus not suitable grounds for public policy. This essay contends that Rawls’s notion of public reason does not provide a basis for rejecting retributivist justifications of punishment. I argue that Flanders’s interpretation of public (...) reason is too exclusionary: on it, public reason would rule out any prominent rationale for punishment. On what I contend is a better interpretation of public reason, whether retributivism would be ruled out as a rationale for punishment depends on whether a retributivist account can be constructed from shared political commitments in a liberal democracy. Some prominent versions of retributivism meet this requirement and so are consistent with public reason. (shrink)

Chad Flanders has argued that retributivism is inconsistent with John Rawls’s core notion of public reason, which sets out those considerations on which legitimate exercises of state power can be based. Flanders asserts that retributivism is grounded in claims about which people can reasonably disagree and are thus not suitable grounds for public policy. This essay contends that Rawls’s notion of public reason does not provide a basis for rejecting retributivist justifications of punishment. I argue that Flanders’s interpretation of public (...) reason is too exclusionary: on it, public reason would rule out any prominent rationale for punishment. On what I contend is a better interpretation of public reason, whether retributivism would be ruled out as a rationale for punishment depends on whether a retributivist account can be constructed from shared political commitments in a liberal democracy. Some prominent versions of retributivism meet this requirement and so are consistent with public reason. (shrink)

This paper objects to certain forms of punishments, such as supermax confinement, on grounds that they are inappropriately contemptuous. Building on discussions in Kant and elsewhere, I flesh out what I take to be salient features of contempt, features that make contempt especially troubling as a form of moral regard and treatment. As problematic as contempt may be in the interpersonal context, I contend that it is especially troubling when a person is treated contemptuously by her political community’s institutions -- (...) such as by certain forms of punishment. Punishment is contemptuous if it fails to respect offenders as moral persons, who as such are always capable of moral reform. Respect for offenders therefore requires, at least, that punishment not tend to undermine the prospect of offenders’ reform. I flesh out this constraint by considering various ways in which punishments may tend to undermine offenders’ reform. In particular, I discuss ways in which supermax confinement tends to violate the reform-based constraint. Finally, I address several potential objections to my account. (shrink)

Philosophical writing about the legal practice of punishment has traditionally focused on two central questions: what (if anything) justifies the practice of tr.

Convicted offenders face a host of so-called “collateral” consequences: formal measures such as legal restrictions on voting, employment, housing, or public assistance, as well as informal consequences such as stigma, family tensions, and financial insecurity. These consequences extend well beyond an offender’s criminal sentence itself and are frequently more burdensome than the sentence. This essay considers two respects in which collateral consequences may be relevant to the question of what the state should, or may, criminalize. First, they may be relevant (...) according to specific accounts of criminalization, including plausible versions of the harm principle and legal moralism. Second, they may be relevant to the legitimacy of state criminalization more generally. Thus for legal theorists concerned with the issue of legitimate criminalization, normative questions raised by collateral consequences are of central importance. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of twelve new essays, authored by leading philosophers and legal theorists, examining the central conceptual and normative questions underlying our institutions of criminal law.

Proponents of punishing states often claim that such punishment would not distribute to members of the state, and so it would not subject innocent citizens – those who did not participate in the crimes, or dissented, or even were among the victims – to guilt by association. This essay examines three features of state punishment that might be said not to distribute to citizens: it is burdensome, it is intentionally so, and it expresses social condemnation. Ultimately, I contend that when (...) a state is punished, the burdens do distribute to citizens as intended, condemning burdens – that is, as punishment. Thus the nondistribution of punishment thesis fails as a response to the guilt-by-association objection. (shrink)

The “Scientific Revolution” of the seventeenth century cannot adequately be assessed without an appreciation of the achievements and limitations of those, whether giants or dwarfs, on whose shoulders Galileo and his contemporaries stood. And since for many historians Galileo's main contribution lies in the mathematization of the natural world and especially of time and motion, particular interest attaches to medieval treatises dealing with these questions, above all to those which were in widespread demand early in the sixteenth century.

A criminal conviction can trigger numerous burdensome legal consequences beyond the formal sentence. Some charge that these “collateral” legal consequences (CLCs) constitute additional measures of punishment, which raises the further question of whether judges should consider these CLCs when making sentencing decisions, reducing the formal sentence in proportion to the severity of the CLCs the defendant will face. The idea that all CLCs constitute forms of punishment reflects a particular conception of punishment, which I call the “minimalist view.” In this (...) paper, I argue against the minimalist view. I contend that on a more adequate conception of punishment, some but not all CLCs constitute punishment. I also argue that whether judges should consider CLCs in sentencing decisions depends on whether the relevant CLCs constitute punishment. (shrink)

Meira Levinson’s No Citizen Left Behind is a thoughtful, accessible, philosophically rich look at civic education in U.S. schools. The book’s central claims are, on the whole, quite persuasive. In the interests of fostering further discussion, this essay raises some questions about the book’s accounts of racial microaggressions in schools, the extent of authenticity in student experiences, and the practice of code-switching.

This chapter examines one intuitively appealing legal practice for which retributivist accounts struggle to find justification: multiple-offense sentencing discounts. It also considers several proposed strategies for justifying bulk discounts on the basis of retributivism. Three strategies are discussed: those that appeal to an absolute punishment maximum, those that appeal to interpersonal practices of blame and making amends, and those that suggest that perpetrators of multiple offenses sometimes have reduced culpability. The chapter argues that each of these strategies either is implausible (...) as a ground for bulk-sentencing discounts or is plausible only insofar as it incorporates nonretributivist considerations into its account — thus is in fact a hybrid view. It concludes by looking at hybrid theories as an alternative, suggesting that such approaches not only can provide justification for bulk-sentencing discounts, but are also more plausible in general than is generally assumed. (shrink)

This paper examines whether religious reasons have a legitimate place in a liberal democracy's policy debates. Robert Audi, building from Rawlsian themes, contends that civic virtue obliges religious citizens who advocate for public policies to have sufficiently motivating secular reasons. Others contend it's unfair to exclude reasonable citizens from policy debates merely because their only reasons are religious ones. This essay seeks to reconcile the intuitions behind these competing views. I examine Audi's account of the differences between religious and secular (...) reasons to determine why he believes religious reasons are inappropriate to justify coercive policies. Of the distinctions he discusses, only one -- religious reasons are often grounded in an infallible authority -- is relevant for distinguishing suitable from unsuitable policy justifications. I develop an alternative to Audi's account: Individuals should refrain from bringing reasons held to be infallibly true to policy debates. On this view, not all religious reasons will warrant exclusion, though some may. (shrink)