On Tuesday evenings at New York University School of Medicine, the anatomy lab is transformed into an art studio. Medical students gather with a spirit of creative enterprise and a unique goal: to turn anatomy into art. They are participants in Art & Anatomy, an innovative drawing course within the Master Scholars Program in Humanistic Medicine —a component of NYUSoM, which offers elective courses across a range of interdisciplinary topics in medical humanities. Art & Anatomy has had approximately four hundred (...) fifty participants since its inception in 2009. The educational intention of the course is to use drawing as an active mode of learning that enhances visual-perceptual ability and three-dimensional spatial understanding of the body's interior; however, the course also opens a creative space for participants to process the emotional complexities of cadaver dissection and the anatomy lab experience. The anatomy lab can be the training ground for clinical detachment, but many U.S. medical schools are beginning to attend more closely to the emotional aspects of dissection. The authors maintain that the inherently expressive nature of drawing makes the Art & Anatomy course a novel and effective approach to this endeavor. Select student artwork and a curriculum overview are provided. (shrink)

Since the introduction of drugs to prevent vertical transmission of HIV, the purpose of and approach to HIV testing of pregnant women has increasingly become an area of major controversy. In recent years, many strategies to increase the uptake of HIV testing have focused on offering HIV tests to women in pregnancy-related services. New global guidance issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) specifically notes these services as an entry point for (...) provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling (PITC). The guidance constitutes a useful first step towards a framework within which PITC sensitive to health, human rights and ethical concerns can be provided to pregnant women in health facilities. However, a number of issues will require further attention as implementation moves forward. It is incumbent on all those involved in the scale up of PITC to ensure that it promotes long-term connection with relevant health services and does not result simply in increased testing with no concrete benefits being accrued by the women being tested. Within health services, this will require significant attention to informed consent, pre- and post-test counseling, patient confidentiality, referrals and access to appropriate services, as well as reduction of stigma and discrimination. Beyond health services, efforts will be needed to address larger societal, legal, policy and contextual issues. The health and human rights of pregnant women must be a primary consideration in how HIV testing is implemented; they can benefit greatly from PITC but only if it is carried out appropriately. (shrink)

Over the last decade, our appreciation of the importance of the nucleolus for cellular function has progressed from the ordinary to the extraordinary. We no longer think of the nucleolus as simply the site of ribosome production, or a dynamic subnuclear body noted by pathologists for its changes in size and shape with malignancy. Instead, the nucleolus has emerged as a key controller of many cellular processes that are fundamental to normal cell homeostasis and the target for dysregulation in many (...) human diseases; in some cases, independent of its functions in ribosome biogenesis. These extra‐nucleolar or new functions, which we term “non‐canonical” to distinguish them from the more traditional role of the nucleolus in ribosome synthesis, are the focus of this review. In particular, we explore how these non‐canonical functions may provide novel insights into human disease and in some cases new targets for therapeutic development. (shrink)

It is often assumed that morally permissible acts are morally better than impermissible acts. We call this claim Betterness of Permissibility. Yet, we show that some striking counterexamples show that the claim’s truth cannot be taken for granted. Furthermore, even if Betterness of Permissibility is true, it is unclear why. Apart from appeals to its intuitive plausibility, no arguments in favour of the condition exist. We fill this lacuna by identifying two fundamental conditions that jointly entail betterness of permissibility: ‘reasons (...) monotonicity of permissibility’ and the ‘weak classical view’. We then argue that there are good reasons for accepting both of the fundamental conditions. We note that there exist plausible moral theories that reject one of the fundamental conditions. However, the way in which those theories reject the fundamental conditions does not allow them to endorse the counterexamples that motivate the belief that Betterness of Permissibility might be false. (shrink)

Scientists typically use a variety of representations, including different kinds of figures, to present and defend hypotheses. In order to understand the justification of scientific hypotheses, it is essential to understand how visual representations contribute to scientific arguments. Since the logical understanding of arguments involves the truth or falsity of the representations involved, visual representations must have the capacity to bear truth in order to be genuine components of arguments. By drawing on Goodman's analysis of symbol systems, and on Tarski's (...) work on truth, I show that the figures used in science meet this criterion. (shrink)

In this chapter, Kyle Ferguson argues for an individualist account of Sellarsian we-intentions. According to the individualist account, we-intentions’ intersubjective form renders them shareable rather than requiring that they be shared. Contrary to collectivist accounts, one may we-intend independently of whether and without presupposing that one's community shares one's we-intentions. After providing textual support, Ferguson proposes and implements a strategy of reportorial ascent, which strengthens the case for the individualist account. Reportorial ascent involves reflecting on the sentences one (...) would use to report or self-ascribe we-intentions. As Ferguson argues, we-intention-reporting sentences have ‘I’ as their subjects, which reveals that their truth conditions, like the performance conditions of their expressive counterparts, are satisfied by the individual who reports or expresses those intentions rather than by the host community. We-intention-reporting sentences, which make explicit both dimensions of independence and shareability, also reveal that intersubjective form is a feature of we-intentions qua mental states rather than a feature of their contents. Ferguson concludes that although the individualist account needs further development, the sketch provided in this chapter is compelling enough to demand that individualism and independence be moved from the periphery to the core of our study of we-intentions in Sellars's practical philosophy. (shrink)

According to Weyl, “‘inexhaustibility’ is essential to the infinite”. However, he distinguishes two kinds of inexhaustible, or merely potential, domains: those that are “extensionally determinate” and those that are not. This article clarifies Weyl's distinction and explains its enduring logical and philosophical significance. The distinction sheds lights on the contemporary debate about potentialism, which in turn affords a deeper understanding of Weyl.

How to find freedom from fear: Buddhist teachings that really work, from a respected contemporary teacher. Fear is something that's such a part of our lives that it doesn't seem it would be possible to live without it. This book disputes that claim in a powerful way. Gaylon Ferguson presents traditional Buddhist teachings to show that the fear that so often wreaks havoc on us is in fact quite insubtantial—and it's mostly something we create ourselves. If we can learn (...) to see that, it becomes pretty simple to un-create it, and we also discover that there's a natural fearlessness in us that goes far deeper than fear. With this natural bravery as our foundation, we can live our own lives more effectively and also be a better help and comfort to others. (shrink)

Leading scholars traverse the wide range of political action when "no" is in the picture, analyzing topics such as collective action, antisocialism, empirical science, the negative and the affirmative in Deleuze and Derrida, the "real" and the "clone," Native sovereignty, and Afropessimism.

Like many intensional logics, William Parry’s logic of analytic implication PAI admits extensions determined by imposing semantic conditions on its account of modality. PAI is unique, however, in its allowing a second dimension—a topic-theoretic dimension—along which extensions can be defined. The recent introduction by Francesco Berto of topic-sensitive intentional modals (TSIMs)—which disagree with PAI on this type of condition—provide further motivations to examine such topic-theoretic extensions. In this paper, we introduce, motivate, and characterize a number of such extensions of PAI, (...) paying special attention to applications to Berto’s framework and to ways in which the modal and topic-theoretic dimensions influence one another. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception have a notoriously difficult time trying to account for hallucinatory experiences. One surprisingly quite popular move, and one that cross-cuts the representationalism/relationalism divide, is to say that hallucinations involve an awareness of uninstantiated properties. In this paper, I provide a new argument against this view. Not only are its proponents forced to classify many hallucinations as veridical, such experiences turn out to be necessarily veridical. In addition, I show that representationalists who endorse the uninstantiated property view must (...) reject the common fundamental kind claim and adopt disjunctivism, and naïve realists/relationalists must radically modify their disjunctivism: The distinction between ‘veridical’ and ‘hallucinatory’ will no longer track a metaphysical distinction between the relevant experiences. (shrink)

Although the work of G.F.C. Griss is commonly understood as a program of negationless mathematics, close examination of Griss’s work suggests a more fundamental feature is its executability, a requirement that mental constructions are possible only if corresponding mental activity can be actively carried out. Emphasizing executability reveals that Griss’s arguments against negation leave open several types of negation—including D. Nelson’s strong negation—as compatible with Griss’s intuitionism. Reinterpreting Griss’s program as one of executable mathematics, we iteratively develop a pair of (...) bilateral constructive logics and argue for their adequacy as accounts of the propositional basis of Griss’s work. We conclude by observing connexive features exhibited by the two bilateral logics and by investigating the difficulties connexive principles reveal for the development of executable mathematics. (shrink)

This book brings together recent work on the topic of exploitation from philosophy, political science, and economics in one volume, organised around three main questions: what is exploitation?, why is exploitation wrong?, and what should we do about it? These questions are increasingly relevant in public policy discussions. The past decade has witnessed the rise of populism and an increasing sense that politics is a game rigged to benefit certain classes of persons at the expense of others. Interestingly, this sense (...) of unfairness has been shared across the political spectrum though, of course, the left and right differ in both their moral diagnosis and their political prescription. Current debates over minimum wage laws, immigration reform, and undue corporate influence on politics can all be understood as drawing on and developing these concerns over exploitative political treatment. This book also draws upon the natural opportunities for interdisciplinary engagement that the topic of exploitation presents. Questions about exploitation often involve not only philosophical issues, but economic and political ones as well. The contributors to this volume add to that breadth of knowledge. With the re-emergence of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) as a burgeoning field of academic inquiry, now is the perfect time to explore issues of exploitation in an interdisciplinary, public-policy focused context. This books is essential reading for anyone interested in exploitation theory, and in PPE more generally. (shrink)

In this paper, the notion of structural completeness is explored in the context of a generalized class of superintuitionistic logics involving also systems that are not closed under uniform substitution. We just require that each logic must be closed under D-substitutions assigning to atomic formulas only ∨\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\vee $$\end{document}-free formulas. For these systems we introduce four different notions of structural completeness and study how they are related. We focus on superintuitionistic inquisitive logics (...) that validate a schema called Split and have the disjunction property. In these logics disjunction can be interpreted in the sense of inquisitive semantics as a question forming operator. It is shown that a logic is structurally complete with respect to D-substitutions if and only if it includes the weakest superintuitionistic inquisitive logic. Various consequences of this result are explored. For example, it is shown that every superintuitionistic inquisitive logic can be characterized by a Kripke model built up from D-substitutions. Additionally, we resolve a conjecture concerning superintuitionistic inquisitive logics due to Miglioli et al.. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Northern researchers and service providers espousing modernist theories of development in order to understand and aid countries and peoples of the South ignore their own non-universal starting points of knowledge and their own vested interests. Universal ethics are rejected in favor of situated ethics, while a modified empowerment development model for aiding women in the South based on poststructuralism requires building a bridge identity politics to promote participatory democracy and challenge Northern power knowledges.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason remains one of the most opaque of Kant's published writings. Though this opacity belongs, partly, to the text itself, a key claim of this article is that this opacity stems also from the narrow lenses through which his readers view this text. Often read as part of Kant's moral philosophy or his universal history, the literature has thus far neglected a different vantage point on the Religion, one that does not refute the utility (...) of these lenses but complements them. This paper places the Religion alongside parts of Kant's corpus that it is less typically paired with, namely his natural history writings—in particular, his writings on the concept of race and the development of the human races. I argue that by doing so, we can shed much light on Kant's infamous claim that there is a radical evil in the human species. More precisely, we will come to appreciate that this evil is not, as it is usually understood, a static property or fixed characteristic of human beings. Instead, radical evil concerns a dynamic, changing defect in human nature that increasingly threatens our aspirations to collective moral perfection. (shrink)

Welches Verhältnis besteht zwischen „Bild" und menschlichem Denken? Welche Rolle spielt das Konzept der „Form" im menschlichen Wissen? Forscher aus Philosophie, Kulturwissenschaften, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Ästhetik, Literatur, Anthropologie, Mathematik und Biologie untersuchen aus historischer und theoretischer Perspektive den Zusammenhang zwischen der Aktivität des Denkens und den Konzepten von Bild und Form.

The Fold is a book of practical philosophy that takes a radical new approach to aesthetics. Laura U. Marks calls this philosophy "enfolding-unfolding aesthetics," based in ideas derived from Gilles Deleuze and others (G.F.W. Leibniz, David Bohm, and Édouard Glissant) that the universe is folded in on itself. She proposes a theory of mediation as contact and connection across the folds and a set of embodied methods for detecting such cosmic connections. In drawing out this aesthetics, Marks considers the (...) embodied and sensuous dimensions of engaging with audiovisual works and works of art-dimensions that Marks suggests are composed of the very folds that compose everything and everyone: all living beings, from humans to particles, sandwiches to stars, technologies, thoughts and images, in the present, the past, and the future. Making use of art and film, with a focus on African diaspora and Arab cinema, Marks opens ways to strengthen connections to the cosmos and to better trace processes of becoming that are immanent within the fold. (shrink)

What is wrong with colonialism? The standard—albeit often implicit—answer to this question has been that colonialism was wrong because it violated the territorial rights of indigenous peoples, where territorial rights were grounded on acquisition theories. Recently, the standard view has come under attack: according to critics, acquisition based accounts do not provide solid theoretical grounds to condemn colonial relations. Indeed, historically they were used to justify colonialism. Various alternative accounts of the wrong of colonialism have been developed. According to some, (...) colonialism involved a violation of territorial rights grounded on legitimate state theory. Others reject all explanations of colonialism's wrongfulness based on territorial rights, and argue that colonial practices were wrong because they departed from ideals of economic, social, and political association. In this article, we articulate and defend the standard view against critics: colonialism involved a procedural wrong; this wrong is not the violation of standards of equality and reciprocity, but the violation of territorial rights; and the best foundation for such territorial rights is acquisition based, not legitimacy based. We argue that this issue is not just of historical interest, it has relevant implications for the normative evaluation of contemporary inequalities. (shrink)

The volume provides a thorough look into Marina Sbisà’s distinctive, Austinian-inspired approach to speech acts. By gathering original essays from a world-class lineup of philosophers of language, linguists, social epistemologists, action theorists, and communication scholars, the collection provides the first comprehensive critical treatment of Sbisa’s outstanding contribution to speech act theory.

Background: According to the Declaration of Helsinki, patients who take part in a clinical trial must be adequately informed about the trial's aims, methods, expected benefits, and potential risks. The declaration does not, however, elaborate on what “adequately informed” might amount to, in practice. Medical researchers and Local Research Ethics Committees attempt to ensure that the information which potential participants are given is pitched at an appropriate level, but few studies have considered whether the patients who take part in such (...) trials feel they have been given adequate information, or whether they feel able to understand that information.Objectives: To explore trial participants' views on the amount of information provided, and of their own understanding of that information.Design: Structured interviews of patients participating in clinical trials for the treatment of chronic medical condition.Findings: Patients generally felt they were given an appropriate amount of information, and that they were able to understand all or most of it. They felt they were given adequate time to ask questions before agreeing to take part. In comparison with treatment given outwith the research setting, patients generally felt they received more information when participating in a clinical trial.Conclusions: Researchers sometimes complain that patients are given too much information during clinical trials, and have limited understanding of that information. The present study shows that this perception is not necessarily shared by patients. More research is needed in this area, particularly to gauge whether patient understanding is indeed accurate. (shrink)

Recent debates in metaphysics have highlighted the significance of type theories, such as Simple Type Theory (STT), for our philosophical analysis. In this chapter, I present the salient features of a constructive type theory in the style of Martin-Löf, termed CTT. My principal aim is to convey the flavour of this rich, flexible and sophisticated theory and compare it with STT. I especially focus on the forms of quantification which are available in CTT. A further aim is to argue that (...) a comparison between a plurality of theories is beneficial to the philosophical analysis. We may, for example, discover helpful features of one theory that we may want to import into another context, thus enriching our repertoire of formal tools. Or, through comparison with a less well-known theory, we may gain a better understanding of the characteristics of the theories we are familiar with. As argued in this chapter, CTT has much to offer in all of these respects. (shrink)

Exploitation: Perspectives from Philosophy, Politics, and Economics brings together recent work on the topic of exploitation from philosophy, political science, and economics in one volume, organized around three main questions: What is exploitation? Why is exploitation wrong? What should we do about it? These questions are increasingly relevant in public policy discussions. The past decade has witnessed the rise of populism and an increasing sense that politics is a game rigged to benefit certain classes of persons at the expense of (...) others. Interestingly, this sense of unfairness has been shared across the political spectrum though, of course, the left and right differ in both their moral diagnosis and their political prescription. Current debates over minimum wage laws, immigration reform, and undue corporate influence on politics can all be understood as drawing on and developing these concerns over exploitative political treatment. At the same time, the literature on exploitation has blossomed. What was once a topic of relatively narrow interest to philosophers working in the tradition of analytical Marxism has been reinvigorated and diversified. The essays in this book both represent and extend that diversity. While the condition of labor remains an important and central topic, the current volume extends the analysis to such neglected topics as the relationship between children and parents, interactions between states, and interactions between generations. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to rethink classic issues of freedom and moral responsibility in the context of feminist and antiracist theories of male and white domination. If personal identities are socially constructed by gender, race and ethnicity, class and sexual orientation, how are social change and moral responsibility possible? An aspects theory of selfhood and three reinterpretations of identity politics show how individuals are morally responsible and nonessentialist ways to resist social oppression.

Predicativity is a notable example of fruitful interaction between philosophy and mathematical logic. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century from methodological and philosophical reflections on a changing concept of set. A clarification of this notion has prompted the development of fundamental new technical instruments, from Russell's type theory to an important chapter in proof theory, which saw the decisive involvement of Kreisel, Feferman and Schütte. The technical outcomes of predica-tivity have since taken a life of their own, (...) but have also produced a deeper understanding of the notion of predicativity, therefore witnessing the " light logic throws on problems in the foundations of mathematics. " (Feferman 1998, p. vii) Predicativity has been at the center of a considerable part of Feferman's work: over the years he has explored alternative ways of explicating and analyzing this notion and has shown that predicative mathematics extends much further than expected within ordinary mathematics. The aim of this note is to outline the principal features of predicativity, from its original motivations at the start of the past century to its logical analysis in the 1950-60's. The hope is to convey why predicativity is a fascinating subject, which has attracted Feferman's attention over the years. (shrink)

Laura Nader is a towering figure as anthropologist, teacher, and public intellectual. Her letters give a glimpse of academic life mostly unseen by academics and by the general public. The collection includes letters from academic colleagues, but it also contains correspondence from lawyers, politicians, citizens, people on death row, Peace Corps workers, members of the military, scientists, and more.

Machine generated contents note: -- List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionImmanent authorship: From the Living Theatre to Cage and Goat IslandDisorganizing language, voicing minority: From Artaud to Carmelo Bene, Robert Wilson & Georges LavaudantImmanent imitations, animal affects: From Hijikata Tatsumi to Marcus CoatesPaying attention, participating in the whole: Allan Kaprow alongside Lygia ClarkEthical durations, opening to other times: Returning to Goat Island with WilsonIn-Conclusion: What 'good' is immanent theatre? Immanence as an ethico-aesthetic valueCodaBibliographyIndex.

Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and (...) nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species. (shrink)

This systematic review identifies and critically evaluates instruments that have been developed to measure clinical trial informed consent comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults.Literature searches were carried out on Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, CINHAL, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library for English language articles published between January 1980 and September 2008. Instruments were excluded if they focused on consent onto paediatric trials, the construct under study was primarily capacity or competency, or the instrument was developed specifically for psychiatric or cognitively-impaired populations. Instruments selected for (...) review were evaluated against the following criteria: (1) method of item generation; (2) type and format of test items; (3) administration and interpretation of test results; and (4) psychometric properties.Three instruments met our defined inclusion criteria: the Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test (DICCT), the Quality of Informed Consent (QuIC) questionnaire and the Brief Informed Consent Protocol (BICEP). Each instrument varied in terms of content measured. Significantly, these are the first standardized instruments developed to assess comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults. Yet, each instrument had its own set of limitations such as the lack of generalizability and the absence of details pertaining to how test results should be used to guide clinical decision-making.Standardized clinical trial informed consent comprehension assessments have been developed to identify gaps in research participants' understanding and ensure that respect for patient autonomy is satisfied. (shrink)

The notion of exploitation is prominent in political discourse and policy debates. It is central in analyses of labour relations, especially focusing on the weakest segments of the labour force including women and children. It features in controversies on surrogate motherhood, and on drug-testing and the price of life-saving drugs, especially in developing countries.

Introduction: "we are all Egypt" -- The allure of commonality -- Sharing the world in common with others -- Imagining the demos: sharing identity in feminist and democratic theory -- Politicizing the demos: sharing affect as self-conscious world-building -- Pluralizing the demos: sharing agency and the dilemma of democratic exclusion -- "This is what democracy looks like": protests as democratic imaginary.

In his Letter on the Blind, Denis Diderot describes, based on mathematical physics, a method for evaluating hypotheses in situations where certainty cannot be reached. This article's thesis is that the author of the Letter extends this method to metaphysical questions of finalism and idealism. Diderot presents each pair of antagonistic positions (finalism-antifinalism and idealism-realism) in such a way that readers are invited to carefully weigh the arguments and to choose the one that appears to be the best, or most (...) probable, position. (shrink)

Lovescapes introduces the reader to the various meanings and manifestations of love and its many cognates such as compassion, caring, altruism, empathy, and forgiveness. It addresses how love and compassion have been understood in history and the religions of the world. It goes on to explore the ways that our environments and heredity influence our capacity to love and suggests ways to cultivate love and compassion in one's life. The book shows how the values of love and compassion are integral (...) to finding humane solutions to the daunting problems we face as individuals, as a human family, and as an earth community--a world in crisis. (shrink)

Neoliberal Techniques of Social Suffering: Political Resistance and Critical Theory from Latin America and Spain is the result of the critical and political commitment of various Latin American and Spanish philosophers who share a critical approach to the global “stealth revolution” in recent decades, where neoliberalism has forced the well-being and reproduction of life to adapt to a system devastating for both humans and non-humans. The authors voice the shared concern of contemporary Spanish and Latin American societies to build new (...) conceptions of the public and the common through mobilizing affects usually disavowed in political theory. If, in Ancient Greece, the idea of strengthening the most vulnerable and weakest was deplored as the art of sophists, this collection edited by Laura Quintana and Nuria Sánchez Madrid explores the other side of our social world to revive grassroots strategies of resistance and emancipation, which are able to bring about new distributions of power, welfare, and discursive legitimation and to extend our goal of creating a radically democratic world. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem that afflicts Fitting-Attitude analyses of value. I argue that we can distinguish reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind by being clear about what our reasons are for. In Wrong Kind of Reason cases, our reason to have a certain affective attitude is a reason for an action, and it is this category-mistake that is the source of the problem.

The so-called bottoming-out problem is considered one of the most serious problems in Stuart Glennan's mechanistic theory of causality. It is usually argued that such a problem cannot be overcome with the acknowledgement of the non-causal character of fundamental phenomena. According to such a widespread view, in the mechanistic account causation must go all the way down to the bottom level; a solution to the bottoming-out problem, therefore, requires an appeal to an ancillary account of causation that covers fundamental phenomena. (...) In this paper I reconsider the arguments that led to this conclusion and criticize them. I argue that the no-causality-at-the-fundamental-level solution is in harmony with the causal anti-fundamentalism that characterizes the mechanistic theory. Moreover, contrarily to the dualistic solution put forward by Glennan, the no-causality-at-the-fundamental-level is not an ad-hoc solution.Finally, I provide the sketch for an account of the existence of an order in nature at the fundamental level that is consistent with the singularist and ontologically parsimonious spirit of the mechanistic account. (shrink)