The digital surface in cinema has, throughout its relatively brief history, been subject to a familiar “iconophobic” tendency, documented by Rosalind Galt, to denigrate surface decoration as “empty spectacle”. In early scholarship on computer generated images in cinema, the digital surface's alleged seamlessness and “new depthlessness” frequently became an overdetermined nexus of loss: of material presence, of an indexical relation to the world and lived experience, and of the continuation of older traditions of narrative cinema. Today, digital visual effects sequences (...) in mainstream cinema continue to be framed by film reviewers in negative terms: as variously lacking imagination, realism, narrative depth, and affective power. Digital visual effects and digital media scholarship have done much to reclaim the cultural significance of mainstream digital visual effects sequences and their capacity to speak to a rapidly evolving and increasingly encompassing digital media ecology. Yet the f... (shrink)

We report on the case of a 2-year-old female, the youngest person ever to undergo ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC). This patient was diagnosed with a rare form of sickle cell disease, which required a bone-marrow transplant, and late effects included high risk of future infertility or complete sterility. Ethical concerns are raised, as the patient's mother made the decision for OTC on the patient's behalf with the intention that this would secure the option of biological childbearing in the future. Based (...) on Beauchamp and Childress's principlism approach of respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice, pursing OTC was ethically justified. (shrink)

In this paper, we attempt to de-naturalize the prevailing economistic imaginary of work that Max Weber and later commentators described as ‘protestant work ethic,’ epitomized in the figure of homo economicus. We do so by contrasting it with the imaginary of skillful work that can be found in vignettes about artisans in the Zhuangzi. We argue that there are interesting contrasts between these views concerning 1) direct goal achievement vs. indirect goal achievement through the cultivation of skills; 2) the hierarchization (...) of mental versus physical dimensions of work; 3) the crafting of non-dominating relationships between the working subject, their object, and their instruments of work, which leads to questions about the sustainability of these relationships; and 4) the relationship between work and well-being, which the Daoist texts conceptualize in a much more holistic, but also more presentist way than Western economic rationality. We conclude by pointing out the relevance of these differences for several contemporary debates about work, by denaturalizing a dominant imaginary of work, by distinguishing different forms of work, by suggesting a different relation between work and nature, and by raising questions about the desirability of the automation of work. (shrink)

The notion of subjective indistinguishability has long played a central role in explanations of the force of Cartesian sceptical hypotheses. I argue that sceptical hypotheses do not need to be subjectively indistinguishable to be compelling and I provide an alternative diagnosis of their force that explains why this is the case. My diagnosis focuses on the relation between one’s experiences and third-personal accounts of the circumstances in which these experiences occur. This relation is characterized by a distinctive gap that leaves (...) room for questions about the nature of one’s circumstances, providing sceptical hypotheses with a foothold. I argue that this gap lends sceptical hypotheses their force and renders the stipulation of subjective indistinguishability unnecessary. (shrink)

Genomic screening at population scale generates many ethical considerations. One is the normative role that people’s preferences should play in determining access to genomic information in screening contexts, particularly information that falls beyond the scope of screening. We expect both that people will express a preference to receive such results and that there will be interest from the professional community in providing them. In this paper, we consider this issue in relation to the just and equitable design of population screening (...) programs like reproductive genetic carrier screening (RGCS). Drawing on a pluralistic public health ethics perspective, we claim that generating and reporting information about genetic variants beyond the scope of the screening program usually lacks clinical, and perhaps personal, utility. There are both pragmatic and ethical reasons to restrict information provision to that which fits the stated purpose of the program. (shrink)

In Remnants of Auschwitz , Giorgio Agamben argues that the hidden structure of subjectivity is shame. In shame, I am consigned to something that cannot be assumed, such that the very thing that makes me a subject also forces me to witness my own desubjectification. Agamben’s ontological account of shame is problematic insofar as it forecloses collective responsibility and collapses the distinction between shame and humiliation. By recontextualizing three of Agamben’s sources – Primo Levi, Robert Antelme and Maurice Blanchot – (...) I develop an alternative account of shame as the structure of intersubjectivity , and of a collective responsibility that is more fundamental than the subject itself. On this basis, I sketch the preliminary outline of a biopolitics of resistance rooted in the ethics of alterity. The intuition driving this approach is that life is never bare ; even in situations of extreme affliction there remains a relation to alterity which provides a starting point for resistance. (shrink)

Neuroscience has long had an impact on the field of psychiatry, and over the last two decades, with the advent of cognitive neuroscience and functional neuroimaging, that influence has been most pronounced. However, many question whether psychopathology can be understood by relying on neuroscience alone, and highlight some of the perceived limits to the way in which neuroscience informs psychiatry. -/- Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience is a philosophical analysis of the role of neuroscience in the study of psychopathology. The book (...) examines numerous cognitive neuroscientific methods, such as neuroimaging and the use of neuropsychological models, in the context of a variety of psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, dependence syndrome, and personality disorders. -/- Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience includes chapters on the nature of psychiatry as a science; the compatibility of the accounts of mental illness derived from neuroscience, information-processing, and folk psychology; the nature of mental illness; the impact of methods such as fMRI, neuropsychology, and neurochemistry, on psychiatry; the relationship between phenomenological accounts of mental illness and those provided by naturalistic explanations; the status of delusions and the continuity between delusions and ordinary beliefs; the interplay between clinical and empirical findings in psychopathology and issues in moral psychology and ethics. -/- With contributions from world class experts in philosophy and cognitive science, this book will be essential reading for those who have an interest in the importance and the limitations of cognitive neuroscience as an aid to understanding mental illness. (shrink)

Thinking about oneself as a subject leaves unanswered fundamental questions about one’s identity as an object: about which thing one is, about what kind of thing one is, and about whether one exists at all. I put forward a new way of thinking about these questions by outlining the subject-as-object problem, a problem for inquiry directed at oneself qua subject. I argue that the source of the problem lies in the relationship between a basic precondition for inquiry – that something (...) be present – and a framework that enables us to conceive of ourselves as inquirers in an objective world – the framework of objectivity. Once the problem is recognized, we can explain why there is always room for questions about one’s identity in response to any account of oneself and one’s relation to the world. (shrink)

Pain research is still dominated by biomedical perspectives and the need to articulate pain in ways other than those offered by evidence based medical models is pressing. Examining closely subjective experiences of pain, this book explores the way in which pain is situated, communicated and formed in a larger cultural and social context. Dimensions of Pain explores the lived experience of pain, and questions of identity and pain, from a range of different disciplinary perspectives within the humanities and social sciences. (...) Discussing the acuity and temporality of pain, its isolating impact, the embodied expression of pain, pain and sexuality, gender and ethnicity, it also includes a cluster of three chapters discusses the phenomenon and experience of labour pains. This volume revitalizes the study of pain, offering productive ways of carefully thinking through its different aspects and exploring the positive and enriching side of world-forming pain as well as its limiting aspects. It will be of interest to academics and students interested in pain from a range of backgrounds, including philosophy, sociology, nursing, midwifery, medicine and gender studies. (shrink)

One of the deepest tensions in Locke’s Essay, a work full of profound and productive conflicts, is one between Locke’s metaphysical tendencies—his inclination to presuppose or even to argue for substantive metaphysical positions—and his devout epistemic modesty, which seems to urge agnosticism about major metaphysical issues. Both tendencies are deeply rooted in the Essay. Locke is a theorist of substance, essence, quality. Yet, his favorite conclusions are epistemically pessimistic, even skeptical; when it comes to questions about how the world is (...) constituted, our understandings cannot penetrate very far. Locke seems torn between metaphysics and modesty, between dogmatism and skepticism. This chapter will consider two specific examples of this sort of tension. The first involves the ontology of body, and the second, the ontology of mind. The conflict concerning bodily natures looks like this: As is well-known, Locke typically describes bodies in the terms of the corpuscularian science of his day, as exemplified especially by the natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Locke’s characterizations of the real essences of bodies are mechanist. He envisions them as corpuscularian textures-- spatial arrangements of particles possessing size. (shrink)

Delusions are symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia. By and large, delusions are characterized by their behavioral manifestations and defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. In this overview paper, we ask whether delusions can be adaptive notwithstanding their negative features. Can they be a response to a crisis rather than the source of the crisis? Can they be the beginning of a solution rather than the problem? Some of the psychological, psychiatric, and philosophical literature has (...) recently suggested that they can. We consider different types of delusions and different ways in which they can be considered as adaptive: psychologically (e.g., by increasing wellbeing, purpose in life, intrapsychic coherence, or good functioning) and biologically (e.g., by enhancing genetic fitness). Although further research is needed to map the costs and benefits of adopting and maintaining delusional beliefs, a more nuanced picture of the role of delusions in people's lives has started to emerge. (shrink)

In _Law’s Rule_, Gerald Postema provides a robust theoretical framework of the rule of law that technology scholars can use to analyze power in the digital world. He articulates how the rule of law can be concerned with private power, and not just public power. His emphasis on the ethos of fidelity allows us to see how the rule of law of law may be degraded in the digital era through the erosion of the informal institutions and practices needed to (...) sustain the rule of law. In addition to outlining these contributions, this paper argues that Postema’s account of digital power needs to focus more on digital power structures rather than digital power wielding, that digital power structures erode many informal constraints on power, and that addressing sociotechnical systems might require rethinking law’s distinctive instrumentalities in order to embrace the use of digital technologies to increase transparency and compliance. (shrink)

In October 2022, the International Association of Bioethics announced that the 17th World Congress of Bioethics (WCB) 2024 would be held in Doha, Qatar. The International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) traditionally holds its World Congress jointly with the WCB. As part of the ongoing debate about the ethics of bioethics conferencing, the FAB provided a detailed statement discussing concerns about choosing Qatar as the site for a feminist bioethics conference. In order to explore possible approaches towards the (...) FABs decision, the German Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics and Bioethics working group (FME) dedicated one of its meetings to the topic. In this commentary, we present two aspects that we consider particularly important for this current debate: (1) the participation of LGBTQIA+ people in the conference and (2) the possibility of racist and anti-Muslim bias in the evaluation of Qatar as the site for the WCB 2024. As members of the FME, we aim to contribute to an exchange of various perspectives within the international feminist bioethics community. (shrink)

In discussions concerning intersubjectivity the notion of expression has come to play a part of increasing significance. Expression shifts our point of departure away from subjectivity as something mysterious hidden within the body to subjectivity as altogether embodied and embedded in the world. In this article I engage writings by Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that expression is essentially something that happens in a communicative space in between self and other while at the same time giving rise to both. I show (...) how locating expression in a shared space between self and other is a way of emphasizing that self and other are not only expressive of selfhood, but are also expressed by one another and emerge in relation to one another. I point to this understanding of expression as a way of recognizing that there is both a fundamental reciprocity and asymmetry between self and other. (shrink)

The two-factor theory (Davies, Coltheart, Langdon & Breen 2001; Coltheart 2007; Coltheart, Menzies & Sutton 2010) is an influential account of delusion formation. According to the theory, there are two distinct factors that are causally responsible for delusion formation. The first factor is supposed to explain the content of the delusion, while the second factor is supposed to explain why the delusion is adopted and maintained. Recently, another remarkable account of delusion formation has been proposed, in which the notion of (...) “prediction error” plays the central role (Fletcher & Frith 2009; Corlett, Krystal, Taylor & Fletcher 2009; Corlett, Taylor, Wang, Fletcher & Krystal 2010). According to this account, the prediction-error theory, delusions are formed in response to aberrant prediction-error signals, those signals that indicate a mismatch between expectation and actual experience. -/- In this chapter, we examine the relationship between the two-factor theory and the prediction-error theory in some detail. Our view is that the prediction-error theory does not have to be understood as a rival to the two-factor theory. We do not deny that there are some important differences between them. However, those differences are not as significant as they have been presented in the literature. Moreover, the core ideas of the prediction-error theory may be incorporated into the two- factor framework. For instance, the aberrant prediction-error signal that is posited by prediction-error theorists can be (or underlie) the first factor contributing to the formation of some delusions, and help explain the content of those delusions. Alternatively, the aberrant prediction-error signal can be (or underlie) the second factor, and help explain why the delusion is adopted and maintained. (shrink)

The Anderson Station massacre highlights problems with both sovereignty's fragmentation and biopolitics. Sovereign entities have power over and determine the value of human life. Over and over, Belter life is reduced to bare life. They are exploited and then exterminated when their “usefulness” runs its course. What we often see in these reductions of Belters to bare life is the way that capitalism corrupts—both other sovereign entities and as a sovereign. In The Expanse, the problems with the uncontrolled capitalist sovereign (...) and the influence of capitalism on other sovereign entities are stark. Adding in the aspect of biopolitics, a people considered inferior like the Belters, makes these problems even more stark. Even Ceres police detective Joe Miller says the Belter political organization, the Outer Planets Alliance, is beloved by the people it helped and feared by the ones who got in its way. (shrink)

Decisions to override a parental request to withhold or withdraw treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit are often made based on the harm standard, with death being cast as the ultimate harm. However, often the treatment itself is not without harm, and the suffering engendered is undergone by an infant who is neither able to understand it nor express its presence. We can draw upon anticipated future quality of life to justify the present suffering, but are in a quandary (...) when that future is not guaranteed or is likely to hold little but further suffering. I propose that conflicts over continuing treatment are based both on disagreements about the desirability of possible futures, and on differing perceptions of the infant’s current level of suffering. Those of us who witness the suffering of these tiny, mute infants all bear some responsibility to insure that their suffering is not without purpose. (shrink)

While this paper does not explicitly define the concept of autonomy, the way Ubel et al describe clinicians’ failures to enhance their patients’ autonomy reflects a broader understanding of autonomy than the default account as free and informed choice. In this OPC I would demonstrate that the communication strategies the authors recommend reflects a more sophisticated conception of autonomy than the understanding that typically prevails in bioethics. I will also distinguish between weak and strong forms of paternalism, and argue that (...) a weak paternalistic approach is not only defensible but also aligns with the strategies the authors propose. Thus, by clarifying the concept of autonomy we can show how it can be enhanced in practice. (shrink)

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is expected to benefit the firm and attract employees, few have examined the effects of CSR on employees outside of work. Extending the organizational citizenship literature, we conceptualize employee engagement in CSR at work and outside of work as a form of “societal citizenship behavior.” Across two studies of working adults, we examine the relationship between identification with an employer that engages in CSR and different forms of employee societal citizenship behaviors (e.g., donations, volunteering) outside (...) of work. In Study 1 (N = 430 employees), we focus upon CSR donation programs and find that identification with an employer that engages in CSR and participating in employer CSR donation programs affect employee citizenship behavior (donations) outside of work. In Study 2 (N = 285 employees), we examine a broader set of citizenship behaviors inside and outside of work and find the relationships hold. Identification with an employer that engages in CSR relates positively to citizenship behavior at work and outside of work. In total, our study results suggest that employer CSR affects employee citizenship behaviors outside of work. We end with directions for future research. (shrink)

A Future of the History of Science Is in the Institution. In this article, I warn against a tendency seen in the history of science towards very particular and isolating microhistories. The call for contextualization should be more than mere lip service and taken seriously. I suggest that a stronger focus on the history of institutions could be one particularly productive way to contextualize knowledge. There are at least five benefits that an analysis of institutions might bring for the history (...) of science: The history of scientific institutions offers the potential for (1) entangled histories that (2) include longer time periods and pay not only attention to (3) the dissemination of knowledge but also to (4) the field of law and the mechanisms of vocational bureaucracy. In this way, (5) questions of power and politics come into view. (shrink)

Reproductive genetic carrier screening is increasingly being offered more widely, including to people with no family history or otherwise elevated chance of having a baby with a genetic condition. There are valid reasons to reject a prevention-focused public health ethics approach to such screening programs. Rejecting the prevention paradigm in this context has led to an emphasis on more individually-focused values of freedom of choice and fostering reproductive autonomy in RCS. We argue, however, that population-wide RCS has sufficient features in (...) common with other public health screening programs that it becomes important also to attend to its public health implications. Not doing so constitutes a failure to address the social conditions that significantly affect people’s capacity to exercise their reproductive autonomy. We discuss how a public health ethics approach to RCS is broader in focus than prevention. We also show that additional values inherent to ethical public health—such as equity and solidarity—are essential to underpin and inform the aims and implementation of reproductive carrier screening programs. (shrink)

The Football Association has been under pressure to allow girls to play in mixed teams since 1978, following 12-year old Theresa Bennett’s application to play with boys in a local league. In 1991, over a decade after Bennett’s legal challenge, the FA agreed to remove its ban on mixed football and introduced Rule C4 in order to permit males and females to play together in competitive matches under the age of 11. More recently, following a campaign by parents, coaches, local (...) Members of Parliament and the Women’s Sport Foundation, the FA agreed to trial mixed football for the under-12 to under-15 age categories in order to establish, among other things, the risk of injury to players in sex-integrated competitions. A series of exponential changes ensued: between 2010 and 2014, the age at which mixed football was permitted increased from U11 to U16. In 2015, the FA announced the decision to raise the age limit on mixed football from U16 to U18 for the forthcoming 2015–2016 season. We critically examine th... (shrink)

In healthcare broadly, and especially in genetic medicine, there is an ongoing debate about whether patients have a right not to know information about their own health. The extensive literature on this topic is characterised by a range of different understandings of what it means to have a RNTK,1–9 and how this purported right relates to patient autonomy. Ben Davies considers whether obligations not to place avoidable burdens on a publicly funded healthcare system might form the basis for an obligation (...) to acquire relevant health information, and hence refute the RNTK. He also makes the interesting argument that an obligation to know does not necessarily limit the RNTK. Davies summarises the more prominent arguments against the RNTK, including harm-to-others arguments that focus on potential harms to individuals related to the patient. However he then considers the RNTK in the context of the obligations that people have to each other within a publicly funded healthcare system. So rather than focusing on harms to specific individuals, Davies’ argument is instead based on the wrong of needlessly consuming public healthcare resources. If a person avoids health-related information and thereby exacerbates their health problems, this makes them more complex and expensive to treat. Davies argues that this constitutes …. (shrink)

In her anchor-piece on historicizing the canon, Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee appeals to professional philosophers to develop several tools that can be implemented in historicizing the canon. Amy Donahue, David H. Kim, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and Kris Sealey tessellate different aspects of this call. Donahue augments Rosenlee’s argument by braiding together Dharmakīrti’s “anyāpoha” theory and Charles Mills’ ruminations about “white ignorance”; Kim explores some of the nuances of Rosenlee’s account for a post-Eurocentric philosophy; Maldonado-Torres ruminates about the larger social context in (...) which thinking can be decolonized; and Sealey uses the work of Kristie Dotson to acknowledge the possibility of multiple canons. In putting on the table a number of questions, concepts, and approaches to canon-building, the symposium aims to contribute to what is by now a large array of similar reflections and engagements in different parts of the world. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue on “Medicine, Health, and Publics” argues that a rhetorical understanding of publics offers conceptual, methodological, and practical benefits to health and medical humanities scholars.

Commentary on the editorial by D Stein et al.'s "What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorder? From DSM-IV to DSM-V".

There is a long tradition, in the history and philosophy of science, of studying Kant’s philosophy of mathematics, but recently philosophers have begun to examine the way in which Kant’s reflections on mathematics play a role in his philosophy more generally, and in its development. For example, in the Critique of Pure Reason , Kant outlines the method of philosophy in general by contrasting it with the method of mathematics; in the Critique of Practical Reason , Kant compares the Formula (...) of Universal Law, central to his theory of moral judgement, to a mathematical postulate; in the Critique of Judgement , where he considers aesthetic judgment, Kant distinguishes the mathematical sublime from the dynamical sublime. This last point rests on the distinction that shapes the Transcendental Analytic of Concepts at the heart of Kant’s Critical philosophy, that between the mathematical and the dynamical categories. These examples make it clear that Kant's transcendental philosophy is strongly influenced by the importance and special status of mathematics. The contributions to this book explore this theme of the centrality of mathematics to Kant’s philosophy as a whole. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. (shrink)

Based upon flyers and advertisements for the contraceptive pill from 1961 until 2005, this paper discusses the ways in which the drug and its female users were represented in the marketing of two West European countries, France and the German Federal Republic. As my analysis suggests, national differences are only discernible in the marketing until the end of the 1970s. In West Germany, the pill was depicted from early on as a contraceptive, whereas, due to the restrictive legal situation, in (...) France the pill was marketed as a multi-purpose drug. Nevertheless, the sources in both countries emphasized the safety of the drug. Likewise the representations of women changed from the notion of the married mother to a more diverse image, including young, modern and active women. From the early 1980s on, French and German materials conformed to one another. Now more classification systems were developed, emphasizing the differences between types of pills and types of women. Lifestyle, leisure and fun became increasingly central topics. Correspondingly, the female user was often portrayed in a sexualized way and represented as an active consumer with individual needs and wishes. (shrink)

The “right not to know” has generated significant discussion, especially regarding genetic information. In this paper, I argue that this purported right is better understood as a preference and that treating it as a substantive right has led to confusion. To support this claim, I present three critiques of the way the right not to know has been characterized. First, I demonstrate that the many conceptualizations of this right have hampered debate. Second, I show that the way autonomy is conceptualized (...) in this literature is also problematic. Third, I examine the notion of a right in more detail, to support my third critique: that the right to know and the right not to know genetic information are often erroneously treated as having equivalent status. On my understanding, the claim being made is better thought of as a preference, not a right, and a preference not to know certain information becomes only one of several considerations relevant to medical decision making. (shrink)

Das Bose ist die zentrale Herausforderung fur das Denken der Freiheit. Die vorliegende Studie rekonstruiert historisch versiert den Problemzusammenhang von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit im Deutschen Idealismus und prazisiert den systematischen Losungsansatz Schellings um das Jahr 1809. Diese Neuinterpretation der Freiheitsschrift berucksichtigt auch die theologischen Fragen und die im Hintergrund wirksame Tradition des (Neu-)Platonismus.

The Cambridge Companion to Locke now joins the long list of titles available in this excellent series. As we have come to expect, the contributors to this Companion are distinguished and the result is comprehensive and eminently useful. This volume is one of the more accessible in the series, with most of the chapters pitched at a level accessible to advanced undergraduates and especially helpful to beginning graduate students. Many of the chapters will be of considerable interest to scholars; here (...) I myself think especially of Edwin McCann’s chapter on Locke’s philosophy of body, which considerably advances our understanding of the place of mechanism in Locke’s thought. In addition, the notes, selective bibliography, and index of passages cited will serve as resources for readers at all levels of expertise. (shrink)