The distinction between a type and its tokens is a useful metaphysical distinction. In §1 it is explained what it is, and what it is not. Its importance and wide applicability in linguistics, philosophy, science and everyday life are briefly surveyed in §2. Whether types are universals is discussed in §3. §4 discusses some other suggestions for what types are, both generally and specifically. Is a type the sets of its tokens? What exactly is a word, a symphony, a species? (...) §5 asks what a token is. §6 considers the relation between types and their tokens. Do the type and all its tokens share the same properties? Must all the tokens be alike in some or all respects? §7 explains some problems for the view that types exist, and some problems for the view that they don't. §8 elucidates a distinction often confused with the type-token distinction, that between a type (or token) and an occurrence of it. It also discusses some problems that occurrences might be thought to give rise to, and one way to resolve them. (shrink)

An ethic for wrongdoers -- Repaying moral debts : self-punishment and restitution -- Changing one's heart, changing the past : repentance and moral transformation -- Reforming relationships : the reconciliation theory of atonement -- Forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and redemption -- Making amends for crime : an evaluation of restorative justice -- Collective atonement : making amends to the Magdalen penitents.

This paper summarizes the findings of a three-year exploratory qualitative study of teenage childbearing in 20 low-income multigeneration black families. Teenage childbearing in these families is part of an alternative life-course strategy created in response to socioenvironmental constraints. This alternative life-course strategy is characterized by an accelerated family timetable; the separation of reproduction and marriage; an age-condensed generational family structure; and a grandparental child-rearing system. The implications of these patterns for intergenerational family roles are discussed.

When is one person entitled to sanction another for moral wrongdoing? When, instead, must one mind one’s own business? Stephen Darwall argues that the legitimacy of social sanctioning is essential to the very concept of moral obligation. But, I will argue, Darwall’s “second person” theory of accountability unfortunately implies that every person is entitled to sanction every wrongdoer for every misdeed. In this essay, I defend a set of principles for differentiating those who have the standing to sanction from those (...) who do not. (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 this paper I explore white attempts to move toward a proactive position against racism that will amount to more than self-criticism in the following three ways: by assessing the debate within feminism over white women's relation to whiteness; by exploring "white awareness training" methods developed by Judith Katz and the "race traitor" politics developed by Ignatiev and Garvey, and; a case study of white revisionism being currently attempted at the University of Mississippi.

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.

Dual loyalty issues confront health and welfare professionals in immigration detention centres in Australia. There are four apparent ways they deal with the ethical tensions. One group provides services as required by their employing body with little questioning of moral dilemmas. A second group is more overtly aware of the conflicts and works in a mildly subversive manner to provide the best possible care available within a harsh environment. A third group retreats by relinquishing employment in the detention setting. A (...) fourth group is activist in intent and actions. Derived from research and ethnography conducted in Australia, the article explores the moral dilemmas confronting those who are duty-bound by professional codes of ethics while also bound by loyalty to their employers and silenced by confidentiality statements. It provides particular focus on psychiatry, nursing and social work. We conclude by speculating whether a politics of compassion and acts of solidarity can forge a pathway through the ethical terrain. In doing so we draw upon human rights considerations as well as on the works of Joan Tronto and Elisabeth Porter. (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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

Wrong beliefs, known by some as ‘alternative facts’, have proliferated lately in important areas of human life, including social, political, and public health domains. This can be and has been damaging. This brief article proposes an epistemological category classification of these wrong beliefs, with the following mappings: a) ‘No-Information’ marked by willful blindness produces ‘Empty Beliefs’; b) ‘Mis-Information’ yields ‘Mis(taken) Beliefs’; and c) ‘Dis-Information’ predicated on blatant distortions produces ‘Dis(torted) Beliefs’. This simple classification system, is perhaps epistemologically satisfying, and moreover (...) could have positive policy implications. (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)

According to standard philosophical analyses, only victims can forgive. There are good reasons to reject this view. After all, people who are neither direct nor indirect victims of a wrong frequently feel moral anger over injustice. The choice to foreswear or overcome such moral anger is subject to most of the same sorts of considerations as victims’ choices to forgive. Furthermore, bystanders’ reactions to their experiences of moral anger often reflect either virtues or vices that are of a piece with (...) what we normally describe as a forgiving or unforgiving disposition. In this paper, I reject the view that only victims can forgive by comparing the experience and regulation of moral anger by victims and bystanders. The virtues of victims and bystanders with regard to moral anger are so similar that there is no good reason to apply different labels. However, the recognition of forgiveness in bystanders offers us more than simple consistency. It also leads us to think about the role moral bystanders play in the maintenance of the moral community, as well as the ways in which this role can be abused or overstepped. (shrink)

Is gossip ever appropriate as a response to other people’s misdeeds or character flaws? Gossip is arguably the most common means through which communities hold people responsible for their vices and transgressions. Yet, gossiping itself is traditionally considered wrong. This essay develops an account of social punishment in order to ask whether gossip can serve as a legitimate means of enforcing moral norms. In the end, however, I argue that gossip is most likely to be permissible where it resembles punishment (...) as little as possible. (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)

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)

BRISKIN L. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 285–296 Resistance, mobilization and militancy: nurses on strikeDrawing on nurses’ strikes in many countries, this paper explores nurse militancy with reference to professionalism and the commitment to service; patriarchal practices and gendered subordination; and proletarianization and the confrontation with healthcare restructuring. These deeply entangled trajectories have had a significant impact on the work, consciousness and militancy of nurses and have shaped occupation‐specific forms of resistance. They have produced a pattern of overlapping solidarities – occupational (...) solidarity, gendered alliances and coalitions around healthcare restructuring – which have supported, indeed promoted, militancy among nurses, despite the multiple forces arrayed against them. The professional commitments of nurses to the provision of care have confronted healthcare restructuring, nursing shortages, intensification of work, precarious employment and gendered hierarchies with a militant discourse around the public interest, and a reconstitution and reclamation of ‘caring’, what I call the politicisation of caring. In fact, nurses’ dedication to caring work in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries may encourage rather than dissuade them from going on strike. This paper uses a trans‐disciplinary methodology, qualitative material in the form of strike narratives constructed from newspaper archives, and references to the popular and scholarly literature on nursing militancy. (shrink)

This paper sketches elements of a theory of the ethics of autonomised harming: the phenomenon of delegating decisions about whether and whom to harm to artificial intelligence (AI) in self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems. First, the paper elucidates the challenge of integrating non-human, artificial agents, which lack rights and duties, into our moral framework which relies on precisely these notions to determine the permissibility of harming. Second, the paper examines how potential differences between human agents and non-human, artificial agents (...) might bear on the permissibility of delegating life-and death decisions to AI systems. Third, and finally, the paper explores a series of resulting complexities. These include the challenge of weighing autonomous systems’ promise to reduce harm against the intrinsic value of rectificatory justice as well as the peculiar possibility that delegating harmful acts to AI might render ordinarily impermissible acts permissible. By illuminating what happens when we extend normative theory beyond its traditional boundaries, this discussion offers a starting point for assessing the moral permissibility of delegating consequential decisions to non-human, artificial agents. (shrink)

Although tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is the only medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute ischemic stroke, there is no consensus about the need for informed consent for its use. As a result, hospitals throughout the U.S. have varying requirements regarding obtaining informed consent from patients for the use of tPA, ranging from no requirement for informed consent to a requirement for verbal or written informed consent. We conducted a study to (1) determine current (...) beliefs about obtaining patients’ informed consent for tPA among a large group of stroke clinicians and (2) identify the ethical, clinical, and organizational factors that influence tPA consent practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by trained and experienced investigators and research staff to identify key barriers to implementing acute stroke services. Part of the interview explored current beliefs and practices around informed consent for tPA.This was a multicenter study that included 38 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospital locations. Participants were 68 stroke team clinicians, serving primarily on the neurology (35 percent) or emergency medicine (41 percent) service. We conducted thematic analysis based on principles of grounded theory to identify codes about consent for tPA. We used interpretive convergence to ensure consistency among the individual investigators’ codes and to ensure that all of the investigators agreed on coding and themes.We found that 38 percent of the stroke clinicians did not believe any form of consent was necessary for tPA, 47 percent thought that some form of consent was necessary, and 15 percent were unsure. Clinicians who believed tPA required informed consent were divided on whether consent should be written (40 percent) or verbal (60 percent). We identified three factors describing clinicians’ attitudes about consent: (1) legal and policy factors, (2) ethical factors, and (3) medical factors.The lack of consensus regarding consent for tPA creates the potential for delays in treatment, uneasiness among clinicians, and legal liability. The identified factors provide a potential framework to guide discussions about developing a standard of care for acquiring the informed consent of patients for the administration of tPA. (shrink)

This essay asks whether restorative justice practices in criminal legal systems are consistent with the aims of a liberal state.

Just what sort of a theory is psychoanalytic theory? -- Did Kant precede Freud on a-rational thought? -- Why primary process is hard to know -- Representational a-rational thinking : a proper function account for phantasy and wish -- Drive theory and primary process -- Phantasies, neurotic-beliefs, and beliefs-proper -- Desire and the readiness-to-act -- Compare and contrast : Gardner, Lear, Cavell, and Brakel.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Will to Power in Nietzsche’s Published Works and the NachlassLinda L. WilliamsIt is universally acknowledged by scholars of Nietzsche’s work that will to power is one of the most important notions in Nietzsche’s writings, but strangely, like the other “central” notions of eternal recurrence and the Übermensch, there are relatively few aphorisms in either the published or unpublished material that include the term. In the case of will to (...) power, however, Nietzsche promises in a footnote in On the Genealogy of Morals to discuss and explore the notion of will to power in a book entitled The Will to Power. 1 Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, among others, have argued persuasively that Nietzsche abandoned this project. 2 Nevertheless, the phrase “will to power” remains the most notorious feature of Nietzsche’s philosophy, probably due to its unfortunate and mistaken connections with the Third Reich. As Walter Kaufmann notes, the notion of will to power did not “spring fully formed from Nietzsche’s brow like Pallas Athena.” 3 This was an idea that evolved over time. This paper examines both the published and his unpublished writings (the Nachlass) to gain a better understanding of how this important phrase developed.The Nachlass can be divided roughly into three different kinds of work. 4 The first kind is comprised of the works Nietzsche was editing right before his collapse. These works are Ecce Homo, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and The Antichrist, and they were so polished that we can safely take them as [End Page 447] equal in status to the works that Nietzsche had already published or, like Twilight of the Idols, were being published at the time of his collapse. The second kind are Nietzsche’s early, finished pieces that were never published, the so-called Schriften, primarily his lectures and writings while he was employed at Basel. These pieces are presumably complete and polished, although Nietzsche chose not to publish them, but they do not affect this inquiry, since will to power was a relatively late concept for Nietzsche.The third kind of work consists of Nietzsche’s notes, which vary from sentence fragments or single sentences to sketchy outlines of various projects to several long paragraphs in essay form. Nietzsche’s notebooks looked like anyone’s notebook, with passages lined out, words jotted in the margins, and overwriting. Some of the entries in the Nachlass can be found with only minor revisions in the books Nietzsche had published, and since he painstakingly recopied his books in his neatest handwriting right before he sent them to his editor, these strikingly similar entries are most probably the penultimate copy drafts of the published aphorisms.The writings that did not find their way into publication in any form are problematic. Are they rough drafts of some future work which Nietzsche was unable to complete due to his illness? If so, some of these controversial notes would have been waiting for years. Are they ideas that Nietzsche entertained but ultimately rejected? If so, we should not place them on par with the ideas in his published works. Even if we consider these notes rough drafts of future works, it remains unclear whether we should consider what is written in these notes to be as indicative of what Nietzsche thought as the works he authorized for publication. Sometimes what is written in the unpublished notes on a particular topic is very different from what is written on that topic in the published works. Bernd Magnus made this kind of case against the Nachlass notes concerning eternal recurrence, 5 and I want to make a similar claim about the notes concerning will to power. Reviewing the Nachlass notes in conjunction with the published aphorisms will give us a better understanding of how the published and unpublished notes differ.The term “will to power” (Wille zur Macht) first appeared in publication in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 6 In the aphorism “On 1001 Goals” Nietzsche describes a people’s tablets of good and bad as the voice of its will to power. Wille zur Macht appears in only two more aphorisms in the course of this long work, in “On Self-Overcoming” and in... (shrink)

The study examines the religious thought and aspirations of John Stuart Mill. Contrary to the conventional view of Mill as the prototypical "secular" liberal, it shows that religious preoccupations dominated Mill's thought and structured his endeavors throughout his life. What must be recognized for a proper appreciation of Mill's thought ell as and legacy is the depth of his animus toward traditional transcendent religion, as well the seriousness of his intent to found a new "secular" or non-theological religion to serve (...) as its replacement. Mill's "religious" aim was two-pronged---the evisceration of Christian belief and the social establishment of the allegedly superior morality and spirituality embodied in the "Religion of Humanity" he adopted, with revisions, from Auguste Comte. Mill intended his philosophical writings to assist in the realization of this aim, and they cannot adequately be comprehended without an awareness of their subterranean religious theme. ;The study examines the influence of James Mill, Bentham, Saint-Simon, and Comte on Mill's religious thought and aims. It examines Mill's Three Essays on Religion; discusses his participation in the "Mansel Controversy"; and offers an interpretation of On Liberty and Utilitarianism from the perspective developed in the study. Both essays are shown to have been employed by Mill as crucial instruments toward the accomplishment of his religious mission. ;The material brought to light in this study requires a far-reaching re-evaluation of Mill's contribution to the development of the liberal tradition. Through his influence the radical anti-Christianity of the French Revolution was incorporated into the Anglo-American tradition. Mill's "non-theological" utilitarianism also involved the equally important, if less dramatic, insinuation of Comtean "altruism" and its notion of the superiority of "social" to personal morality into Anglo-American consciousness. The "social morality" embodied in Mill's Religion of Humanity has been assimilated by large segments of contemporary Anglo-American society and is the ethos that has impelled the rise of modern-liberalism The intense intramundane religiosity that Mill incorporated into the Anglo-American political tradition also casts a new light on the nature of modern "secular" liberalism, the chief political carrier of the new secular religiosity in the American context. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real (...) ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Space Gender Knowledge is an innovative and comprehensive introduction to the geographies of gender and the gendered nature of spatial relations. It examines the major issues raised by women's movements and academic feminism, and outlines the main shifts in feminist geographical work, from the geography of women to the impact of post-structuralism. In making their selection, the editors have drawn on a wide range of interdisciplinary material, ranging across spatial scales from the body to the globe. The book presents influential (...) arguments for the importance of the intersection between space and gender. Looking both at geography and beyond the discipline, it explores the gendered construction of space and the spatial construction of gender. Divided into a number of conceptual sections, each prefaced by an editorial introduction, this reader includes extracts from both landmark texts and less well-known works, making it an indispensable introduction to this dynamic field of study. (shrink)

There is a dearth of research focused on the engagement of information technology (IT) professionals. This study analyzed the relationship between emotional and social competencies and the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment in an organization as they relate to employee engagement. Validated instruments were used and data was collected from 795 IT professionals in North America to quantitatively analyze the relationship between emotional and social competencies, role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), with the quality of the IT (...) professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment, and those perceptions with employee engagement. The study results indicate that specific emotional and social competencies and RBSE relate differently to the quality of the perceptions of the interpersonal environment. The study also reveals how the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment relates to how much they engage in the organization. The findings indicate that the relationship between achievement orientation and the perceived interpersonal environment was positive and the relationship between influencing others and the perceived interpersonal environment was negative. Understanding such relationships offers much needed insight to practitioners and can benefit organizations that wish to increase the engagement of their IT professionals. The findings also can support practitioners to more effectively select and develop talent with the desired motives and traits. By doing so, organizations can experience increased employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention, resulting in higher productivity, quality, and profitability. (shrink)

In order to be held responsible, it is not enough that you’ve done something blameworthy, someone else must also have the standing to hold you responsible. But a number of critics have claimed that this concept of ‘standing’ doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and that we should excise it from our analyses of accountability practices. In this paper, I examine James Edwards’ (2019) attempt to define standing. I pose objections to some key features of Edwards’ account and defend an alternative. (...) Reflecting on examples of meddling blame and privacy norms, I argue, helps us see that the concept of standing is useful after all. (shrink)

The article argues that theorists who try to justify 'ought'-claims, i.e., who try to show that a standard of behavior has normative authority, will run into a regress problem. The problem is similar in structure to the familiar regress in the justification of belief. The point of the paper is not skeptical. Rather, the aim is to help theorists better understand the challenges associated with formulating a theory of normative authority.