Increasing societal concerns regarding the potential deleterious effects of future climate change have galvanized efforts to manage the problem both through reduction of greenhouse gases and through development of plans to reduce the impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided. These critical activities require making decisions under conditions of considerable uncertainty regarding future conditions in physical and human systems. As the focus on providing information about future climate for taking actions to cope with climate change, the science of uncertainty (...) of climate change will develop more and more with the needs of decision makers in mind. (shrink)

In this paper we consider some questions surrounding whether or not regional climate models “add value,” a controversial issue in climate science today. We highlight some objections frequently made about regional climate models both within and outside the community of modelers, including several claims that regional climate models do not “add value.” We show that there are a number of issues involved in the latter claims, the primary ones centering on the fact that different research questions are being pursued by (...) the modelers making the complaints against regional climate models. Further issues focus on historical deficiencies of particular—but not generalizable—failures of individual regional models. We provide tools to sort out these different research questions and particular failures, and to improve communication and understanding surrounding added value in climate modeling and philosophy of climate science. (shrink)

1. Introduction; Elisabeth A. Lloyd and Eric Winsberg.- Section 1: Confirmation and Evidence.- 2. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?; Naomi Oreskes.- 3. Satellite Data and Climate Models Redux.- 3a. Introduction to Chapter 3: Satellite Data and Climate Models; Elisabeth A. Lloyd.- Ch. 3b Fact Sheet to "Consistency of Modelled and Observed Temperature Trends in the Tropical Troposphere"; Benjamin D. Santer et al..- Ch. 3c Reprint of "Consistency of Modelled and Observed Temperature Trends (...) in the Tropical Troposphere"; Benjamin D. Santer et al..- 4. The Role of ’Complex’ Empiricism in the Debates about Satellite Data and Climate Models; Elisabeth A. Lloyd.- 5. Reconciling Climate Model/Data Discrepancies: The Case of the Trees That Didn’t Bark; Michael Mann.- 6. Downscaling of Climate Information; Linda O. Mearns et al..- Section 2: Uncertainties and Robustness.- 7. The Significance of Robust Model Projections; Wendy S. Parker.- 8. Building Trust, Removing Doubt? Robustness Analysis and Climate Modeling; Jay Odenbaugh.- Section 3: Climate Models as Guides to Policy.- 9. Climate Model Confirmation: From Philosophy to Predicting Climate in the Real World; Reto Knutti.- 10. Uncertainty in Climate Science and Climate Policy; Jonathan Rougier and Michel Crucifix.- 11. Communicating Uncertainty to Policy Makers: The Ineliminable Role of Values; Eric Winsberg.- 12. Modeling Climate Policies: A Critical Look at Integrated Assessment Models; Mathias Frisch.- 13. Modelling Mitigation and Adaptation Policies to Predict their Effectiveness: The Limits of Randomized Controlled Trials; Alexandre Marcellesi and Nancy D. Cartwright. (shrink)

This was published in Cultural Critique (Winter 1991-92), pp. 5-32; revised and reprinted in Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity edited by Judith Roof and Robyn Wiegman, University of Illinois Press, 1996; and in Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds edited by Susan Weisser and Jennifer Fleischner, (New York: New York University Press, 1994); and also in Racism and Sexism: Differences and Connections eds. David Blumenfeld and Linda Bell, Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

Contemporary defenders of autonomy and traditional defenders of authority generally assume that they have so little in common as to make it hopeless to attempt a dialogue on the defensibility of epistemic, moral, or religious authority. In this paper I argue that they are mistaken. Under the assumption that the ultimate authority over the self is the self, I defend authority in the realm of belief on the same grounds as Joseph Raz uses in his well-known defense of political authority (...) in the tradition of political liberalism. The acceptance of authority over certain beliefs extends to moral and religious beliefs and is not only consistent with autonomy, but is entailed by rational self-governance. (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)

This book provides an accessible comprehensive exploration of phenomenological theory and research methods and is geared specifically to the needs of therapists ...

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.

This volume is the first collection of original essays on the related issues of gender and feminism approached phenomenologically.

On what basis should we make an epistemic assessment of another’s authority to impart knowledge? Is social identity a legitimate feature to take into account when assessing epistemic reliability? This paper argues that, in some cases, social identity is a relevant feature to take into account in assessing a person’s credibility.

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)

Five experiments explored how source reliability influences people’s tendency to rate statements as more credible when they were encountered earlier . Undergraduates read statements from one reliable source and one unreliable source. Statements read multiple times were perceived as more valid and were more often correctly identified on a general knowledge test than statements read once or not at all. This occurred at varying retention intervals whether the statements originated from a reliable or unreliable source, when people had little memory (...) for the statements themselves or their source, and when the discrediting information about the sources came either before or after reading the facts. While repetition aided recognition and source accuracy, both were unaffected by the reliability of the source. Consistent with the source monitoring framework, familiarity may create an illusion of truth for statements when people lack source-specifying cues, especially cues regarding the reliability of the source. (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)

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)

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)

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)

Women, Art, and Power?seven landmark essays on women artists and women in art history?brings together the work of almost twenty years of scholarship and speculation.

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)

Much has been written on Michel Foucault's reluctance to clearly delineate a research method, particularly with respect to genealogy (Harwood, 2000; Meadmore, Hatcher & McWilliam, 2000; Tamboukou, 1999). Foucault (1994, p. 288) himself disliked prescription stating, ‘I take care not to dictate how things should be’ and wrote provocatively to disrupt equilibrium and certainty, so that ‘all those who speak for others or to others’ no longer know what to do. It is doubtful, however, that Foucault ever intended for researchers (...) to be stricken by that malaise to the point of being unwilling to make an intellectual commitment to methodological possibilities. Taking criticism of ‘Foucauldian’ discourse analysis as a convenient point of departure to discuss the objectives of poststructural analyses of language, this paper develops what might be called a discursive analytic; a methodological plan to approach the analysis of discourses through the location of statements that function with constitutive effects. (shrink)

Several robotic automation systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are being used in combat today. This evokes ethical questions. In this paper, it is argued that UAVs, more than any other weapon, may determine which normative theory the interpretation of the laws of war (LOW) will be based on. UAVs have advantages in terms of reducing casualties for the UAV possessor, but they may at the same time make war seem more like a risk-free enterprise, much like a computer (...) game, lowering the threshold for starting a war. This indicates the importance of revising the LOW, or adding some rules that focus specifically on UAVs. (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)

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)

What purpose is served by renovation or redesign of professionalism, and how successful a process is it likely to be? This article addresses these questions by examining the effectiveness as a professional development mechanism of the imposition of changes to policy and/or practice that require modification or renovation of professionalism. The 'new' professionalisms purported to have been fashioned over the last two or three decades across the spectrum of UK education sectors and contexts have been the subject of extensive analysis, (...) and this article avoids going over old ground and revisiting issues that have already been much debated. Nevertheless, the example of UK government education policy during this period is used as a basis for considering the pitfalls associated with mechanisms for modifying professionalism through a reform and standards agenda. The article's analysis incorporates redefinition and examination of the concept and substance of professionalism and offers new perspectives in the form of three distinct conceptions: demanded, prescribed and enacted professionalism. Exploring the existentialist status of 'new' or 'modified' professionalisms and the relationship between professionality, professional culture and professionalism, it examines how professionalism may be interpreted and utilised for the development of education professionals. (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)

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)

A feminist phenomenological analysis of voice, rooted in both the feminist understanding of the role of voice in identity, agency, and the creation of meaning, and the phenomenological thematization and theorization of phenomenal, lived experience, leads to a deeper understanding of the importance of the materiality of the voices with which we speak, and their role in both subjective and intersubjective experience. Starting from an analysis of the intertwined associations and imageries of the feminine, voice, and embodiment, I discuss the (...) denaturalization and abstraction of voice in standard narratives of voice and voice metaphorization, and the corresponding forgetting of the living, bodily voice. In looking to recall a re-naturalized and immanent corporeality and retrieve the material voice through an account of embodied vocality, I consider examples of the power and immediacy of the corporeal voice in the female operatic voice, and in contrast, the compromised agency and attenuated (inter)subjectivity which attends the impaired or lost physical voice. These vocal counterpoints of presence and absence are often separated by corporeal disturbance or limitation, underscoring the importance of corporeality and the material voice as intermediary between the individual and the social world. This sets the contours of a phenomenology of embodied voice and vocality, holding implications for accounts of identity and intersubjectivity, gendered vocality and expressive agency, and an intercorporeality mediated by the living material voice. (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)

Discourses of public education reform, like that exemplified within the Queensland Government's future vision document, Queensland State Education‐2010 , position schooling as a panacea to pervasive social instability and a means to achieve a new consensus. However, in unravelling the many conflicting statements that conjoin to form education policy and inform related literature , it becomes clear that education reform discourse is polyvalent . Alongside visionary statements that speak of public education as a vehicle for social justice are the visionary (...) or those reflecting neoliberal individualism and a conservative politics. In this paper, it is argued that the latter coagulate to form strategic discursive practices which work to secure dominant relations of power. Further, discussion of the characteristics needed by the ‘ideal’ future citizen of Queensland reflect efforts to ‘tame change through the making of the child’ . The casualties of this vision and the refusal to investigate the pathologies of ‘traditional’ schooling are the children who, for whatever reason, do not conform to the norm of the desired school child as an ‘ideal’ citizen‐in‐the‐making and who become relegated to alternative educational settings. (shrink)

“It is certainly true, as nominalists have been concerned to acknowledge, that judgements about kinds are determined in part by human interests, projects, and practices. But the possibility that human interests, projects, and practices sometimes develop as they do because the real (physical or social) world is as it is suggests that this sort of dependence is not by itself an argument against essentialism.”.

This paper focuses on disagreement spaces fused with emotion. Following Gilbert’s emotional mode of argumentation (1997), further expansions of the mode are made here, specifically for the purposes of being able to classify different types of emotional arguments. First, general concerns with arguments that stray from the traditional approach are addressed. Then a classification system for different types of emotional arguments is developed. Some of the criteria that help determine emotional arguments include dialogue types, arguers involved, as well as the (...) use of emotion. (shrink)

To guide treatment decisions for incompetent patients who have no advance directives, health care institutions should look to the preferences of their own communities of patients. That is the best way to ensure that incompetent patients' wishes will be followed.

Research has shown that men and women are similar in their capabilities and management competence; however, there appears to be a glass ceiling which poses invisible barriers to their promotion to management positions. One explanation for the existence of these barriers lies in stereotyped, biased attitudes toward women in executive positions. This study supports earlier findings that attitudes of men toward women in executive positions are generally negative, while the attitudes of women are generally positive. Additionally, we found that an (...) individual's level of cognitive moral development correlates significantly with attitudes toward women executives. Limitations of the present study and implications for ethics and diversity training in organizations are discussed. (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)

While the scientific discourse on astrobiology—the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe—leans toward optimism about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, optimistic thinking is tempered by the limits of evidence and observations gathered thus far. Most astrobiologists assume that “first contact” with extraterrestrial life, if it is ever to occur, will likely be the discovery of microbial life elsewhere in our solar system. But in popular culture, “first contact” tends to be characterized as contact with (...) extraterrestrial intelligence. This article will touch on theory and research relating to the origins and evolution of life and intelligence on Earth and speculation about extraterrestrial life and intelligence. (shrink)

In phenomenological research, layered understandings emerge from a complex process of experiencing and reflection, engaged in by both researcher and participant. Researcher and participant engage in a dance, moving in and out of experiencing and reflection while simultaneously moving through a shared intersubjective space that is the research encounter. If researchers are to empathise - imaginatively project themselves into participants’ experience - they need to be open to this intersubjective space. First, I describe and reflect upon two particular moments of (...) empathy which have arisen in two different phenomenological research interviews. I then attempt to make sense of these encounters with reference to phenomenological theory and philosophy related to empathy and intersubjectivity. A final section discusses some dilemmas we face as researchers when we apply empathy in our phenomenological research practice and considers the epistemological status of our empathic findings. (shrink)

Discourses of public education reform, like that exemplified within the Queensland Government's future vision document, Queensland State Education‐2010 (QSE‐2010), position schooling as a panacea to pervasive social instability and a means to achieve a new consensus. However, in unravelling the many conflicting statements that conjoin to form education policy and inform related literature ( ), it becomes clear that education reform discourse is polyvalent ( ). Alongside visionary statements that speak of public education as a vehicle for social justice are (...) the (re)visionary or those reflecting neoliberal individualism and a conservative politics. In this paper, it is argued that the latter coagulate to form strategic discursive practices which work to (re)secure dominant relations of power. Further, discussion of the characteristics needed by the ‘ideal’ future citizen of Queensland reflect efforts to ‘tame change through the making of the child’ (, p. 201). The casualties of this (re)vision and the refusal to investigate the pathologies of ‘traditional’ schooling are the children who, for whatever reason, do not conform to the norm of the desired school child as an ‘ideal’ citizen‐in‐the‐making and who become relegated to alternative educational settings. (shrink)