In this new collection of previously unpublished papers, Daoism is a philosophy, and it is presented not exclusively as a religion but as a practical way of life related to all aspects of human beings and the natural environment. Since its origins in China thousands of years ago, Daoism has meant harmony with nature and other human beings. Its principles may be applied successfully by those with any or no religion who seek a world of greater understanding, harmony, and peace. (...) Addressed to a broad audience ranging from newcomers to seasoned professionals, this book introduces the concepts of Dao, Daoism, and its pioneering philosophers (e.g., Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi). The book describes the importance of Dao and Daoist ideas for scientists, humanists, and practitioners while offering practical steps and guidance for our lives today. Like the familiar taiji (also known as tai chi) symbol associated with Daoism, this book is divided into two complementary sections. The first explores how Dao and Daoist ideas are related to science, humanities, and the arts. The second part focuses on Daoist practices and applications. The essays, written by experts in their fields of study, address a number of topics, including the Dao of sciences (e.g., statistics) and arts, similarities between natural Dao and Darwin's evolutionary science, and Daoist contribution to sciences and technology. Other subjects include the growing interest in Daoist ideas in the West, Daoist cognitive science and the yin-yang dialectical mind, Daoism's relationship to peace psychology and ecology psychology (via self-observation and self-understanding), and Zhuangzhou's aesthetic view on the naturalness of things (i.e., the most beautiful entities are those that are naturally created by the Dao). In addition to these theoretical explorations, the book offers abundant practical applications of Daoist ideas to our lives and work. Practical guidance is offered in applying Daoist principles to physical and mental health, meditation and dantian cultivation, classroom learning, and diversity management. Clear-cut directions offer insight into applying Daoist ideas to leadership training, clinical therapy, and administration. The book provides readers with the universal applicability of Daoist principles and the benefit of living in harmony with nature, Dao, and others. This book is unique in its appeal to a wide range of readers. On the one hand, it provides an introduction for those with minimal knowledge of Daoism. On the other hand, sophisticated Daoist scholars, researchers, or practitioners may also be enriched and enlightened by its presentation of recent research findings, scholarly discussions, and hands-on applications. Years in the making, this book project represents a milestone of achievement for its writers and editors. Nova Science Publishers is pleased to offer readers this long-overdue compendium of Daoist wisdom, from basic information to tools for transformation in the 21st century. Happy reading! (shrink)

Knowledge is a highly valued state in which a person is in cognitive contact with reality. It is, therefore, a relation. On one side of the relation is a conscious subject, and on the other side is a portion of reality to which the knower is directly or indirectly related. While directness is a matter of degree, it is convenient to think of knowledge of things as a direct form of knowledge in comparison to which knowledge about things is indirect. (...) The former has often been called knowledge by acquaintance since the subject is in experiential contact with the portion of reality known, whereas the latter is propositional knowledge since what the subject knows is a true proposition about the world. Knowing Roger is an example of knowledge by acquaintance, while knowing that Roger is a philosopher is an example of propositional knowledge. Knowledge by acquaintance includes not only knowledge of persons and things, but also knowledge of my own mental states. In fact, the knower's own mental states are often thought to be the most directly knowable portion of reality. (shrink)

A compelling contribution to the field, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge will appeal to students and scholars of theistic philosophy and the philosophy ...

Abstract:Previous research has identified multiple approaches to the design and implementation of corporate ethics programs (Paine, 1994; Weaver, Treviño, and Cochran, in press b; Treviño, Weaver, Gibson, and Toffler, in press). This field survey in a large financial services company investigated the relationships of the values and compliance orientations in an ethics program to a diverse set of outcomes. Employees’ perceptions that the company ethics program is oriented toward affirming ethical values were associated with seven outcomes. Perceptions of a compliance (...) orientation were associated with four of these outcomes. The interaction of values and compliance orientations was associated with employees’ willingness to report misconduct. In general, a values orientation makes a greater unique contribution to the measured outcomes when compared to a compliance orientation. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper outlines three conceptions of the relationship between normative and empirical business ethics, views we refer to asparallel, symbiotic, andintegrative. Parallelism rejects efforts to link normative and empirical inquiry, for both conceptual and practical reasons. The symbiotic position supports a practical relationship in which normative and/or empirical business ethics rely on each other for guidance in setting agenda or in applying the results of their conceptually and methodologically distinct inquiries. Theoretical integration countenances a deeper merging ofprima faciedistinct forms of (...) inquiry, involving alterations or combinations of theory, metatheoretical assumptions, and methodology. This paper explicates these positions, summarizes arguments for and against each, and considers their implications for the future of business ethics research. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in disability is rapidly expanding. Philosophers are beginning to grasp the complexity of disability--as a category, with respect to well-being and as a marker of identity. However, the philosophical literature on justice and human rights has often been limited in scope and somewhat abstract. Not enough sustained attention has been paid to the concrete claims made by people with disabilities, concerning their human rights, their legal entitlements and their access to important goods, services and resources. This book discusses (...) how effectively philosophical approaches to distributive justice and human rights can support these concrete claims. It argues that these approaches often fail to lend clear support to common disability demands, revealing both the limitations of existing philosophical theories and the inflated nature of some of these demands. Moving beyond entitlements, the author also develops a unique conception of dignity, which she argues illuminates the specific indignities experienced by people with disabilities in the allocation of goods, in the common experience of discrimination and in a wide range of interpersonal interactions. Disability with Dignity offers an accessible and extended philosophical discussion of disability, justice and human rights. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the benefits and pitfalls of theories of human rights and justice for advancing justice for the disabled. It brings the moral importance of dignity to the centre, arguing that justice must be pursued in a way that preserves and promotes the dignity of people with disabilities. (shrink)

This paper defends the possibility of dirty hands against the longstanding skepticism that an action cannot be simultaneously right and wrong and that dirty hands cases are therefore impossible. While skeptics are right to recognize that prima facie reasons against violating moral duties may be overridden, they are wrong to deny that actions required by necessity may nevertheless remain wrong. Dirty hands cases capture the simultaneous necessity of disregarding moral duties in certain circumstances and the reprehensibility of wronging people even (...) in cases in which this is all-things-considered permissible. Rather than indicating any deficiency in our moral reasoning, the capacity to accommodate the possibility of dirty hands, along with the reality of moral conflict, is a strength of a moral theory. (shrink)

In Virtues of the Mind I object to process reliabilism on the grounds that it does not explain the good of knowledge in addition to the good of true belief. In this paper I wish to develop this objection in more detail, and will then argue that this problem pushes us first in the direction of two offspring of process reliabilism—faculty reliabilism and proper functionalism, and, finally, to a true virtue epistemology.

Now available from Rowman & Littlefield, the third edition of this introductory critical thinking text features streamlined chapters, Think for Yourself activities, and a complete glossary of critical thinking terms.

Philosophers and bioethicists are typically sceptical about invocations of dignity in ethical debates. Many believe that dignity is essentially devoid of meaning: either a mere rhetorical gesture used in the absence of good argument or a faddish term for existing values like autonomy and respect. On the other hand, the patient experience of dignity is a substantial area of research in healthcare fields like nursing and palliative care. In this paper, it is argued that philosophers have much to learn from (...) the concrete patient experiences described in healthcare literature. Dignity is conferred on people when they are treated as having equal status, something the sick and frail are often denied in healthcare settings. The importance of equal status as a unique value has been forcefully argued and widely recognised in political philosophy in the last 15 years. This paper brings medical ethics up to date with philosophical discussion about the value of equal status by developing an equal status conception of dignity. (shrink)

The social scientific study of ethical-unethical behavior in work organizations is in an early stage of development. This paper discusses some of the problems of conducting social scientific research in this area and explores the potential contribution of experimental research approaches. Both laboratory and field experimentation allow the investigator to test theory-based hypotheses and to study causal relations. Examples are provided of investigations that have applied these methods to the study of business ethics.

This paper examines whether the prospect of compensation may render otherwise disproportionate harms proportionate. It argues that we should reject this possibility. Instead, it distinguishes duties of compensation as a requirement of rectificatory justice from a harm’s degree of compensability, and argues that only the latter is relevant to proportionality. On this view, failing to compensate constitutes a distinct wrong, while harms that are not adequately compensable carry extra weight in proportionality calculations. This explains how the prospect of compensation affects (...) permissions to harm, without relying on the dubious assumption that disproportionate harms may be rendered proportionate by future compensation. (shrink)

Ethics support is called for to improve the quality of care in elderly institutions. Various forms of ethics support are presented, but the needs for ethics support remain unknown. Using a mixed-methods design, this article systematically investigates the specific needs for ethics support in elderly care. The findings of two surveys, two focus groups and 17 interviews demonstrate that the availability of ethics support is limited. There is a need for ethics support, albeit not unconditionally. Advice-based forms of ethics support (...) are less appropriate as they are removed from practice. Ethics support should be tailored to the often mundane and easily overlooked moral issues that arise in long-term care. Attention should also be given to the learning styles of nurses who favour experiential learning. Raising awareness and developing a climate of openness and dialogue are the most suitable ways to deal with the mundane moral issues in elderly care. (shrink)

Sometimes we should mind our own business. But at other times it would be wrong to mind one's own business. This paper explores the tension between these two claims by presenting a tendency to mind one's own business as an Aristotelian-style virtue. It is furthered argued that this is a different virtue than tolerance.

Every day, in many situations, we use expressions which seem only vaguely to provide us with information. The weather forecaster tells us that "some showers are likely in Northern regions during the night", a statement which is vague with respect to number of showers, location, and time. Yet such messages are informative, and often it is not possible for the producer of the message to be more precise. A tutor tells his students that "only a few students fail their exams (...) outright". This does not give a precise incidence. Yet it might be equally misleading to do so. For example, to say that 12% failed outright last year says nothing about other years, while to say an average of 8% over the last five years says nothing about variability. We argue that a precise, numerical statement can be sometimes more misleading in reality than a vague statement. Many researchers in psychology have attempted to capture the meaning of quantities by relating them to scales of quantity. The book explores this idea in detail and shows with original studies how these expressions also serve to control attention and to convey information about the expectations held by those involved in the communication. The book works towards a psychological theory of the meaning of quantifiers and similarly vague terms. New links are drawn between formal theories of quantification and psychological experimentation. (shrink)

The literature in ethics is filled with theories of what makes an action wrong, what makes an actor responsible and blamable for his wrongful actions and what we are justified in doing to wrongdoers (e.g., may we punish them? must we forgive them?). However, there is relatively little discussion of what wrongdoers themselves must do in the aftermath of their wrongful acts. This essay attempts to remedy that problem by critically evaluating some competing accounts of the moral obligations of wrongdoers. (...) It argues for a conception of atonement that highlights the value of reconciliation, as opposed to repentance or self-punishment. (shrink)

Individuals with ‘severe’ cognitive disabilities are primarily discussed in philosophy and bioethics to determine their moral status. In this paper it is argued that theories of moral status have limited relevance to the unjust ways in which people with cognitive disabilities are routinely treated in the actual world, which largely concerns their relegation to an inferior social status. I discuss three possible relationships between moral and social status, demonstrating that determinate answers about the moral status of individuals with ‘severe’ cognitive (...) disabilities are neither necessary nor sufficient for defending the imperative that they be treated as our social equals. (shrink)

This essay presents a moral argument for the rationality of theistic belief. If all I have to go on morally are my own moral intuitions and reasoning and those of others, I am rationally led to skepticism, both about the possibility of moral knowledge and about my moral effectiveness. This skepticism is extensive, amounting to moral despair. But such despair cannot be rational. It follows that the assumption of the argument must be false and I must be able to rely (...) on more than my own human powers and those of others in attempting to live a moral life. The Christian God has such a function. Hence, if it is rational to attempt a moral life, it is rational to believe in the Christian God. (shrink)

Particular conceptions of reconciliation vary across a number of dimensions. As section 1 explains, the kind of relationship at issue in a specific context affects the type of improvement in relations that might be necessary in order to qualify as reconciliation. Reconciliation is widely taken to be a scalar concept. Section 2 discusses the spectrum of intensity along which kinds of improvement in relationships fall, and indicates why, in particular contexts, theorists often disagree about the point along this spectrum that (...) is morally or politically most significant. Section 3 provides an overview of the processes commonly cited as contributing to reconciliation. These processes are often controversial; those praised by some commentators as appropriate and constructive responses to past conflict are dismissed by others as undermining the moral or political conditions for just and peaceful relations. Section 4 concentrates on the relationship between reconciliation and justice. While some see these values as compatible and mutually supporting, others argue that, especially in the immediate wake of conflict, parties must often choose between reconciliation and justice. (shrink)

This essay examines the ethics of boycotting as a social response to injustice or wrongdoing. The boycotts in question are collective actions in which private citizens withdraw from or avoid consumer or cultural interaction with parties perceived to be responsible for some transgression. Whether a particular boycott is justified depends, not only on the reasonableness of the underlying moral critique, but also on what the boycotters are doing in boycotting. The essay considers four possible interpretations of the kind of act (...) in which boycotting consists: the avoidance of complicity, protest speech, social punishment, or social coercion. Each interpretation provides a plausible account of at least some cases of boycotting, yet each raises distinct challenges to justifying boycotting activities. (shrink)

The statistical interpretation introduced by Born in mid-1926 is not the interpretation now associated with his name. Born's own understanding of that interpretation is revealed by looking at some of its roots in Born's earlier work with Franck on collisions, his collaboration with Jordan on that topic, his contributions to matrix mechanics, his attempt in collaboration with Wiener at an operator formulation of quantum mechanics, and at the exposition of the interpretation in Born's first papers on a wave mechanical treatment (...) of collisions. (shrink)

Hojjat Soofi develops a modified version of Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach, which he offers as a conception of dignity for people living with dementia.1 He argues that this modified version can address what he identifies as four main criticisms of the concept of dignity. The first and most substantial criticism was developed by Macklin: that appeals to ‘dignity’ add little to moral debates or to the rich field of existing moral values.1 Soofi’s account of dignity does not evade this criticism: (...) to the contrary, it represents another clear example of what Macklin complained about, namely, a moral proposal in which the concept of ‘dignity’ plays no substantive role. We have much to learn from Soofi’s rich account of how to ensure the flourishing or well-being of people living with dementia, but it has little to do with dignity as such. According to Soofi, Macklin’s argument is that ‘dignity’ is just another word for respect for persons or their autonomy. This is a rather truncated representation of Macklin’s argument, which is in fact broader. Her argument is that the concept of ‘dignity’ adds nothing to the vast array of rich moral values that already populate the field of ethics, mainly because it is a less precise restatement of these existing values.2 She explicitly …. (shrink)

This paper challenges one line of argument which has been advanced to justify imposing risks of collateral harm on prospective beneficiaries of armed humanitarian interventions. This argument - the ‘Beneficiary Principle’ - holds that non-liable individuals’ immunity to being harmed as a side effect of just armed humanitarian interventions may be diminished by their prospects of benefiting from the intervention. Against this, I defend the view that beneficiary status does not morally distinguish beneficiaries from other non-liable individuals in such a (...) way as to permit exposing them to greater risks of being harmed. The argument proceeds in four steps. I first show that the BP can neither be grounded in liability-based nor in lesser-evil justifications for harming. I then argue that a standalone justification for unintended harming based on beneficiary status would face at least two critical challenges. The first concerns the BP’s applicability to collectives; the second questions the normative weight we can plausibly ascribe to beneficiary status when beneficiaries are such by virtue of being victims of wrongful threats of harm. I argue that standing to benefit is morally irrelevant when the benefit consists in the mitigation or prevention of wrongful harms, and consequently suggest that the BP may only serve as a distributive principle in allocating risks of harm if it is disambiguated in a number of critical aspects and applied in a more narrowlydefined set of circumstances. (shrink)

Most democratic countries either limit or deny altogether voting rights for people with cognitive impairments or mental health conditions. Against this weight of legal and practical exclusion, disability advocacy and developments in international human rights law increasingly push in the direction of full voting rights for people with cognitive impairments. Particularly influential has been the adoption by the UN of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007. Article 29 declares that states must ‘ensure that persons with (...) disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected’. This article also argues for the right of all people to vote, including people with cognitive impairments, by adopting a uniquely strategic approach. Firstly, some of the strategic limitations of existing arguments in favour of extending the franchise are highlighted. Most such arguments are flawed because they run the risk of inviting disparaging philosophical commentary which compares disabled people to animals, or because they are based on implausible empirical claims, or because they inadvertently tie the case for voting rights for the disabled to other cases unlikely to ever enjoy widespread acceptance. This article, instead, justifies extending voting rights to all people with cognitive impairments based on a simple cost-benefit analysis that avoids all of these problems. (shrink)

Peirce illustrated the type-token distinction by means of the definite article: there is only one word type “the,” but there are likely to be about twenty tokens of it on this page. Not all tokens are inscriptions; some are sounds, whispered or shouted, and some are smoke signals. The type “the” is neither written ink nor spoken sound; it is an abstract object. Or consider the Grizzly Bear, Ursus arctos horribilis. At one time its U.S. range was most of the (...) area west of the Missouri River and it numbered 10,000 in California alone. Today it numbers less than 1,000. Of course no particular bear numbers 1,000 and no particular bear ever had a range comprising most of the area west of the Missouri. It is a type of bear, a species of bear, that has both properties.We are all familiar with this way of talking about types of things. But—aside from being universals—what are types? What makes a token of one type rather than another? How do we know it is a token of that type? Do some types fail to have tokens? What, if anything, do all and only tokens of a particular type have in common other than being tokens of that type? The first half of the paper answers the last question (“Nothing beyond being a token of the type”). The second half contains sketches of answers to the other questions. (shrink)

This article explores the nature of "the phenomenological attitude," which is understood as the process of retaining a wonder and openness to the world while reflexively restraining pre-understandings, as it applies to psychological research. A brief history identifies key philosphical ideas outlining Husserl's formulation of the reductions and subsequent existential-hermeneutic elaborations, and how these have been applied in empirical psychological research. Then three concrete descriptions of engaging the phenomenological attitude are offered, highlighting the way the epoché of the natural sciences, (...) the psychological phenomenological reduction and the eidetic reduction can be applied during research interviews. Reflections on the impact and value of the researcher's stance show that these reductions can be intertwined with reflexivity and that, in this process, something of a dance occurs—a tango in which the researcher twists and glides through a series of improvised steps. In a context of tension and contradictory motions, the researcher slides between striving for reductive focus and reflexive self-awareness; between bracketing pre-understandings and exploiting them as a source of insight. Caught up in the dance, researchers must wage a continuous, iterative struggle to become aware of, and then manage, pre-understandings and habitualities that inevitably linger. Persistance will reward the researcher with special, if fleeting, moments of disclosure in which the phenomenon reveals something of itself in a fresh way. (shrink)

This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work profession. The paper discusses the stance taken by individuals and professional associations on participation (...) in controlled settings, including as participant, bystander and advocate, and asks when the provision of care becomes collusion with oppression. (shrink)

The meaning of dignity in health care has been primarily explored using interviews and surveys with various patient groups, as well as with health care practitioners. Philosophical analysis of dignity is largely avoided, as the existing philosophical literature is complex, multifaceted and of unclear relevance to health care settings. The aim of this paper is to develop a straightforward philosophical concept of dignity which is then applied to existing qualitative research. In health care settings, a patient has dignity when he (...) or she is able to live in accordance with his or her standards and values. Accordingly, health care practitioners respect a patient's dignity when they refrain from transgressing the patient's standards and values, or refrain from forcing the patient to transgress his or her standards and values. This concept is shown to explain and illuminate most of the key qualitative findings. It therefore provides a more coherent and synthesised concept of dignity in health care. (shrink)

Recent discussions of genetic enhancement have argued that unregulated access to genetic enhancement technology will have a mainly negative impact on equality, a development that an egalitarian approach to distributive justice should be concerned with and seek to address. I argue that the extent to which egalitarians should be concerned about unequal access to genetic enhancement therapies has been overplayed. Many of the genetic differences that exist between people, including those that arise from differential access to genetic enhancement technology, are (...) simply irrelevant to egalitarian concerns. I also argue that most commentators have failed to appreciate that an egalitarian-inspired program of equal access to genetic enhancement technology may not be altogether favourable for the genetically disadvantaged in any case. The true implications of egalitarian justice in the genetic future have not been adequately explored. (shrink)

The last twenty-five years or so of thought about tort law have been remarkably productive and dynamic, as the dominance of the law and economics model has been challenged by theories that reintroduce the language of corrective justice. Over this same time period, theorizing about corrective justice has sprung up in response to a wide range of social, political and moral issues. I have in mind work on restorative theories in criminal justice; on postwar justice; on truth commissions, political reconciliation (...) and transitional justice in contexts of regime change; on official apologies as responses to international crises, institutionalized abuse and historical injustices; and on interpersonal apology, the making of amends, and forgiveness as responses to everyday moral transgressions. In these writings, theorists explore what people owe to one another in the aftermath of various kinds of wrongdoing, and thereby subtly challenge our ideas about what should be included under the heading of corrective justice. One new strand of thought, which appears in many of these debates, suggests that corrective justice requires a form of reconciliation or relational repair. My goal in this chapter is to introduce this idea and explore what it might offer to the philosophy of tort law. (shrink)

This paper describes the lifeworld of one individual, Ann, in an attempt to elucidate the existential impact of early stage multiple sclerosis. Drawing on Ann's own reflections captured in a relatively unstructured interview, I construct a narrative around her first year of living with the diagnosis. Then, existential-phenomenological analysis reveals how Ann's life - lived in and through a particular body and lifeworld context - is disrupted. The unity between her body and self can no longer be taken for granted. (...) The existential possibilities inherent in her lived body are diminished and have to be renegotiated. Her sense of identity, project, relations with others and present/future plans are threatened. Ann's illness is encountered in the context of her life activities and relationships. This is the intertwining of body, self and world. To live with multiple sclerosis is to experience a global sense of disorder - a disorder which incorporates a changed relation with one's body, a transformation in the surrounding world, a threat to the self, and a change in one's relation to others. (shrink)

Recent debates about supererogatory rescues have sought to explain how it can be wrong to perform a suboptimal rescue although it would be permissible not to rescue at all. This paper proposes a new solution to this puzzle. It argues that existing accounts have neglected two critical considerations. First, contrary to what is commonly assumed, a rescue’s supererogatory nature has no bearing on the duties that apply to agents who rescue in supererogatory fashion. Second, we cannot justify harms caused as (...) a side effect of supererogatory rescues by appealing to the fact that it would have been permissible not to rescue at all. Ultimately, the paper proposes, the same duties that apply in cases in which rescuing is required also apply in cases in which rescuing is supererogatory. A rescue’s supererogatory nature, it turns out, is not the game changer we thought it was. (shrink)

Multiple acoustic dimensions signal speech categories. However, dimensions vary in their informativeness; some are more diagnostic of category membership than others. Speech categorization reflects these dimensional regularities such that diagnostic dimensions carry more “perceptual weight” and more effectively signal category membership to native listeners. Yet perceptual weights are malleable. When short-term experience deviates from long-term language norms, such as in a foreign accent, the perceptual weight of acoustic dimensions in signaling speech category membership rapidly adjusts. The present study investigated whether (...) rapid adjustments in listeners’ perceptual weights in response to speech that deviates from the norms also affects listeners’ own speech productions. In a word recognition task, the correlation between two acoustic dimensions signaling consonant categories, fundamental frequency and voice onset time, matched the correlation typical of English, and then shifted to an “artificial accent” that reversed the relationship, and then shifted back. Brief, incidental exposure to the artificial accent caused participants to down-weight perceptual reliance on F0, consistent with previous research. Throughout the task, participants were intermittently prompted with pictures to produce these same words. In the block in which listeners heard the artificial accent with a reversed F0 × VOT correlation, F0 was a less robust cue to voicing in listeners’ own speech productions. The statistical regularities of short-term speech input affect both speech perception and production, as evidenced via shifts in how acoustic dimensions are weighted. (shrink)

People’s feelings about political issues are often experienced as moral convictions, that is, as rooted in beliefs about right and wrong, morality and immorality. The authors tested and found that morally convicted policy preferences are associated with positive as well as negative emotions among policy supporters and opponents, respectively, and that positive and negative emotions partially mediate the effects of moral convictions on relevant behavioral intentions (i.e., willingness to engage in activism).

The gendered division of labor is the major cause of gender inequality with respect to the broad spectrum of resources, occupations, and roles. Although many feminists aspire to an equality of outcome where there are no significant patterns of gender difference across these dimensions, many have also argued that liberal theories of social justice do not have the conceptual tools to justify a direct attack on the gendered division of labor. Indeed, many critics argue that liberalism positively condones it, presuming (...) that it arises from the free choices of individuals, which must be respected. In this paper I will accept the feminist goal of equality of outcome across roles, occupations, income, and wealth, but will argue that liberal theories of justice are consistent with strong measures aimed at promoting such equality. I will show that liberalism has the conceptual resources to justify a concrete policy measure that goes considerably beyond the measures usually championed by feminists. The example I focus on is “daddy quotas,” which refers to the tagging of a significant part of parental leave for the exclusive use of fathers. (shrink)

abstract In this paper I argue that the genetic manipulation of sexual orientation at the embryo stage could have a detrimental effect on the subsequent person's later capacity for autonomous agency. By focussing on an example of sexist oppression I show that the norms and expectations expressed with this type of genetic manipulation can threaten the development of autonomous agency and the kind of social environment that makes its exercise likely.

It has been argued by disability advocates that supported decision-making must replace surrogate, or substituted, decision-making for people with cognitive disabilities. From a moral perspective surrogate decision-making it is said to be an indefensible form of paternalism. At the heart of this argument against surrogate decision-making is the belief that such paternalistic action expresses something fundamentally disrespectful about those upon whom it is imposed: that they are inferior, deficient or child-like in some way. Contrary to this widespread belief, I will (...) argue that surrogate decision-making sometimes expresses more respect for people with life-long, ‘severe’ or ‘profound’ cognitive disabilities than does the adoption of supported decision-making.. Specifically, I argue that in some cases supported decision-making can arguably express that people with severe or profound cognitive disabilities lack equal moral value. I also argue that supported decision-making for people with profound cognitive disabilities can arguably express that they lack complex and rich inner lives. If our aim is to ensure our behaviour and practices express respect for people with life-long ‘severe’ or ‘profound’ cognitive disabilities, then sometimes surrogate rather than supportive decision-making will be a better option. (shrink)

Jean Hampton argues that we can detect exploitation in personal relationships by thinking about what we would agree to were we to set aside the emotional benefits we receive from those relationships. Hampton calls her account "feminist contractarianism," but it has recently been critiqued as decidedly unfeminist, on the grounds that it is hostile to women's interests and women's values. Furthermore, Hampton's requirement that we imaginatively distance ourselves from our emotional connections to our loved ones--the key element in her contractarian (...) test--is simply ad hoc. In this essay, I will evaluate these objections and offer a new justification for Hampton's test. I conclude that feminist contractarianism is not only a useful tool for detecting exploitation in the family, it is also deserving of its feminist label. (shrink)

Do future generations of a wrongdoing group have a responsibility to preserve the memory of the past? If so, what manner of responsibility is it? In this essay, I critically examine the categories of forward-looking and backward-looking collective responsibility to see what they might offer to this discussion. I argue that these concepts of responsibility are ambiguous in ways that threaten to prevent important questions from being raised. I draw my examples from contemporary German practices of preserving the memory of (...) the Holocaust and World War II, especially the stolpersteine, which are memorial plaques for individual victims embedded in the sidewalks of German cities. (shrink)

As medical technology becomes more sophisticate the ability to manipulate nature and manage disease forces the dilemma of when can becomes ought. Indeed, most bioethical discourse is framed in terms of balancing the values and interests and the benefits and burdens that inform principled decisions about how, when, and whether interventions should occur. Yet, despite advances in science and technology, one caregiver mandate remains as constant and compelling as it was for the earliest shaman—the relief of pain. Even when cure (...) is impossible, the physician's duty of care includes palliation. Moreover, the centrality of this obligation is both unquestioned and universal, transcending time and cultural boundaries.Although universally acknowledged, pain is a complex phenomenon for both the patient and the caregiver, influenced as much by personal values and cultural traditions as by physiological injury and disease. (shrink)