Interpretation of first four sutras of Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa on the basis of Śaṅkarācārya's commentary on Vedanta.

Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm, and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics andcontemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to (...) mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitaryand autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of thecorrespondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuzeshow that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowingmovement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating andaccomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thusresembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux thatgenerates and carries it away in a single movement with matter. **************************************************************************************************** ***********************Para além das diferenças de terminologia e de background cultural, tenta-se aqui mostrar que o físico quântico David Bohm e o filósofo pós-estruturalista Gilles Deleuze tiverem um objetivo comum de pensamento: substituir a imagem clássica da realidade, ainda dominante em nossa época, por uma metafísica finalmente de acordo com os conceitos e resultados da relatividade, da mecânica quântica e da biologia contemporânea. Para estes dois pensadores, o mundo das coisas bem individuadas no espaço e no tempo, e ordenadas conforme as relações mecânicas de causa e efeito, não é nada outro que a expressão momentânea de uma “Totalidade indivisa em devir” que constitui seu verdadeiro fundamento ontológico. Pelo meio desta nova metafisica, o mundo da experiência cotidiana e da ciência clássica aparece como a manifestação explicita ou desenvolvida da ordem implícita que a totalidade indivisa contém virtualmente nela mesma em níveis de envolvimento e de imbricação sempre mais profundos. O mundo explícito é o resultado de um processo de repetição, desaceleração e estabilização temporal, desencadeado pela interação de nossos instrumentos de medição -- aparelhos técnicos, órgãos sensoriais e motores, formas “a priori” e categorias do entendimento – com uma totalidade movente no qual o sujeito pensante e observante representa um reflexo momentâneo e parcial ao invés de um fragmento solitário e autônomo. Ao criticar a imagem clássica da correspondência/adequação entre o ser e o pensamento, Bohm e Deleuze mostram finalmente que o pensamento que intenta capturar esta Totalidade em devir interage inevitavelmente com ela, modificando-a, recriando-a e realizando-a em uma direção ao invés de outra. O pensamento se aparenta assim a uma dança que tenta se harmonizar com o flux universal que o gera e o leva em um movimento só com a matéria.Palavras-chave: Bohm; Deleuze; totalidade indivisa em devir; física quântica; pós-estruturalismo; ontologia. (shrink)

This essay looks closely at metaphors and other figures of speech that often feature in how Americans talk about dementia, becoming part of cultural narratives: shared stories that convey ideas and values, and also worries and fears. It uses approaches from literary studies to analyze how cultural narratives about dementia may surface in conversations with family members or health care professionals. This essay also draws on research on a notable social effect of legalizing medical aid in dying: patients may find (...) it easier to bring up a range of concerns, regardless of whether they have any interest in hastening their own death. The essay proposes that health care professionals rethink an idea prominent within their own culture: that conversations about the end of a person's life are inherently difficult. This framing may make it hard for people facing dementia to bring up their concerns about what lies ahead. We suggest a different way to think about these conversations, using the metaphor of “opening the door” to represent inviting a patient to bring up issues of deepest concern. (shrink)

The global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has considerably accelerated the adoption of teleconsultation—a form of consultation between patient and health care professional that occurs via videoconferencing platforms. For this reason, it is important to investigate the way in which this form of interaction modifies the nature of the clinical encounter and the extent to which this modification impacts the healing process. For this purpose, I will refer to insights into the clinical encounter as a face-to-face encounter drawn from the (...) phenomenology of medicine (R. Zaner, K. Toombs, E. Pellegrino). I will also take into account a criticism that has been expressed by various contemporary phenomenologists (H. Dreyfus, T. Fuchs, L. Dolezal, H. Carel), namely, that due to the lack of physical proximity to the other in all types of online encounters, such encounters lack significant features that are present in face-to-face encounters, with the most important of these being the possibility of attaining an empathetic perception of the other and a sense of embodied risk. As these elements are essential features of the clinical encounter, the aim of this paper is to determine whether teleconsultation exhibits these features. To do that, I will integrate phenomenological philosophy with qualitative research drawing materials from both the philosophical tradition, particularly with respect to the concepts of the face-to-face encounter and embodied risk (A. Schutz and H. Dreyfus), and qualitative research study regarding patient experiences of teleconsultation. I will argue that teleconsultation does involve both the possibility of perceiving the other empathetically and the possibility of experiencing a sense of embodied risk. (shrink)

"Science is rooted in conversations," wrote Werner Heisenberg, one of the twentieth century's great physicists. In Quantum Dialogue, Mara Beller shows that science is rooted not just in conversation but in disagreement, doubt, and uncertainty. She argues that it is precisely this culture of dialogue and controversy within the scientific community that fuels creativity. Beller draws her argument from her radical new reading of the history of the quantum revolution, especially the development of the Copenhagen interpretation. One of several (...) competing approaches, this version succeeded largely due to the rhetorical skills of Niels Bohr and his colleagues. Using extensive archival research, Beller shows how Bohr and others marketed their views, misrepresenting and dismissing their opponents as "unreasonable" and championing their own not always coherent or well-supported position as "inevitable." Quantum Dialogue, winner of the 1999 Morris D. Forkosch Prize of the Journal of the History of Ideas, will fascinate everyone interested in how stories of "scientific revolutions" are constructed and "scientific consensus" achieved. "[A]n intellectually stimulating piece of work, energised by a distinct point of view."—Dipankar Home, Times Higher Education Supplement "[R]emarkable and original. . . . [Beller's] arguments are thoroughly supported and her conclusions are meticulously argued. . . . This is an important book that all who are interested in the emergence of quantum mechanics will want to read."—William Evenson, History of Physics Newsletter. (shrink)

Bioethical concerns about the potential for abuse in medical aid in dying (MAID) have focused primarily on the risk of coercion (Battin et al. 2007; Foley and Hendin 2002). Accordingly, the require...

A key topic within the field of the phenomenology of medicine has been the relationship between body and self in illness, including discussions about the otherness and mineness of the body. The aim of this article is to distinguish between different meanings of bodily otherness and mineness in illness with reference to the interpretation of the body as “saturated phenomenon,” inspired by the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion. With the help of Marion’s ideas it is possible to distinguish between two meanings (...) of bodily otherness and of mineness (objective and non-objective forms). These distinctions support and elaborate on ideas already found in the phenomenology of medicine and offer further insights into the nature of the experience of illness. (shrink)

Stresses on healthcare systems and moral distress among clinicians are urgent, intertwined bioethical problems in contemporary healthcare. Yet conceptualizations of moral distress in bioethical inquiry often overlook a range of routine threats to professional integrity in healthcare work. Using examples from our research on frontline physicians working during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article clarifies conceptual distinctions between moral distress, moral injury, and moral stress and illustrates how these concepts operate together in healthcare work. Drawing from the philosophy of healthcare, we (...) explain how moral stress results from the normal operations of overstressed systems; unlike moral distress and moral injury, it may not involve a sense of powerlessness concerning patient care. The analysis of moral stress directs attention beyond the individual, to stress-generating systemic factors. We conclude by reflecting on how and why this conceptual clarity matters for improving clinicians’ professional wellbeing, and offer preliminary pathways for intervention. (shrink)

Background Bioethical debates about privacy, big data, and public health surveillance have not sufficiently engaged the perspectives of those being surveilled. The data justice framework suggests that big data applications have the potential to create disproportionate harm for socially marginalized groups. Using examples from our research on HIV surveillance for individuals incarcerated in jails, we analyze ethical issues in deploying big data in public health surveillance. -/- Methods We conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 24 people living with HIV who had (...) been previously incarcerated in county jails about their perspectives on and experiences with HIV surveillance, as part of a larger study to characterize ethical considerations in leveraging big data techniques to enhance continuity of care for incarcerated people living with HIV. -/- Results Most participants expressed support for the state health department tracking HIV testing results and viral load data. Several viewed HIV surveillance as a violation of privacy, and several had actively avoided contact from state public health outreach workers. Participants were most likely to express reservations about surveillance when they viewed the state’s motives as self-interested. Perspectives highlight the mistrust that structurally vulnerable people may have in the state’s capacity to act as an agent of welfare. Findings suggest that adopting a nuanced, context-sensitive view on surveillance is essential. -/- Conclusions Establishing trustworthiness through interpersonal interactions with public health personnel is important to reversing historical legacies of harm to racial minorities and structurally vulnerable groups. Empowering stakeholders to participate in the design and implementation of data infrastructure and governance is critical for advancing a data justice agenda, and can offset privacy concerns. The next steps in advancing the data justice framework in public health surveillance will be to innovate ways to represent the voices of structurally vulnerable groups in the design and governance of big data initiatives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:COVID-19 revealed health-care systems in crisis. Intersecting crises of stress, overwork, and poor working conditions have led to workforce strain, under-staffing, and high rates of job turnover. Bioethics researchers have responded to these conditions by investigating the ethical challenges of pandemic response for individuals, institutions, and health systems. This essay draws on pandemic findings to explore how empirical bioethics can inform post-pandemic translational bioethics. Borrowing from the concept of translational science in medicine, this essay proposes that translational bioethics should communicate (...) knowledge about ethical challenges in health-care work to support health systems change. The authors draw from their experience with the Study to Examine Physicians' Pandemic Stress (STEPPS), an interdisciplinary research project that investigates physicians' experiences at the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using STEPPS as an example of empirical bioethics with potential for translation, the authors review their research and discuss the ongoing process for translating their findings, focusing on how bioethics research and practice can contribute to supporting the health-care workforce. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a novel skeptical view about moral disgust. I argue that much recent discussion of moral disgust neglects an important ontological question: is there a distinctive psychological state of moral disgust that is differentiable from generic disgust, and from other psychological states? I investigate the ontological question and propose two conditions that any aspiring account of moral disgust must satisfy: it must be a genuine form of disgust, and it must be genuinely moral. Next, I examine (...) two prominent accounts of moral disgust by John Kekes and Victor Kumar and argue that neither successfully establishes the existence of genuinely moral disgust: Kekes’ account does not satisfy the second condition, and Kumar’s view does not meet the first. I claim that an important general lesson can be drawn from my critiques of Kekes’ and Kumar’s accounts: to establish the existence of moral disgust, one must provide unequivocal evidence that genuinely moral disgust, not generic disgust or anger, is being elicited in response to relevant moral violations. I conclude by considering why we ought to be skeptical about the general prospect of giving a positive answer to the ontological question, given the available evidence. (shrink)

La révolution par d’autres moyensLa politique féministe en tant que réinstitution dans la pensée de Merleau-PontyCet essai est une tentative pour surmonter l’impasse qui a été relevée par de nombreuses critiques féministes de Merleau-Ponty, à savoir que sa dernière ontologie bloque certaines perspectives de changement politique. De fait, comme le soutenait Luce Irigaray, l’ontologie de la chair semble être un discours normalisant et totalisant dépourvu de toute différence. « Il n’y a pas d’Autre, écrit-elle, pour garder le monde ouvert ». (...) Étant donné que Merleau-Ponty développe une ontologie qui opère en amont du niveau des personnes et des choses proprement dites, on a souvent supposé prima facie que les projets féqministes, qui cherchent à fournir des fondements pour éliminer l’oppression basée sur le genre, n’y ont rien à faire.Malgré la longue tradition de débat féministe avec la centralisation du corps dans des textes tels que la Phénoménologie de la perception, je cherche ici à rediriger les philosophes féministes vers la dernière ontologie de Merleau-Ponty. Je le fais en lisant son ouvrage politique trop souvent négligé, Les aventures de la dialectique, ainsi que les notes de cours, récemment traduites en anglais, de l’année 1954-1955 sur L’institution et la Passivité. Non seulement, ces textes émergent à un moment critique dans le corpus merleau-pontien, mais encore, ils contiennent des possibilités politiques qui résultent de ce moment particulier. Dans ces textes et à travers eux, je propose une réexamen de l’engagement féministe dans l’oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty, libéré du discours sur le corps et dirigé, en revanche, vers un désir de changement politique enraciné dans le cadre institutionnel que l’on pourrait appeler aussi l’« intermonde ». Pour ce faire, lepremier pas, comme je le montre dans cet essai, est de prendre au sérieux le concept de “revolution” et ses développements dans l’ensemble du corpus merleau-pontien.La rivoluzione con altri mezziLa politica femminista come reistituzione nel pensiero di Merleau-PontyQuesto saggio è un tentativo di chiarire come molte critiche rivolte a Merleau-Ponty da parte del femminismo rischino di condurre in un vicolo cieco. Il problemafondamentale è il seguente: se la tarda ontologia di Merleau-Ponty precluda, o meno, le strade del cambiamento politico. Effettivamente, come Luce Irigaray ha argomentato, l'ontologia della carne sembra essere un discorso tristemente normalizzatore e totalizzatore della differenza. “Non [c'è] nessun Altro,” scrive Irigaray, “capace di tenere il aperto mondo.” Dato che Merleau-Ponty sviluppa un'ontologia che opera al di sotto del livello delle persone e delle cose, molti hanno presunto prima facie che i progetti femministi, che si mettono in cerca di una fondazione in grado di cancellare l’oppressione basata sull’identità di genere, non possano in alcun modo appartenerle.Nonostante l’ormai lunga serie di critiche che il femminismo ha mosso all’accentramento del corpo che Merleau-Ponty opererebbe in testi come Fenomenologia della Percezione, cercheremo in questa sede di reindirizzare il pensiero femminista verso la tarda ontologia di Merleau-Ponty a partire da un suo testo politico largamente trascurato, Avventure della dialettica, e dalle notes de cours del 1954-1955, recentemente tradotte col titolo Istituzione e Passività. Questi testi non solo emergono ad una svolta critica nel corpus di Merleau-Ponty, nel corso della quale egli muove dal primato della percezione alla dimensione dell’istituzione, ma contengono possibilità politiche direttamente derivanti da questo slittamento teorico. È in questi testi e attraverso questi testi che proponiamo di riavviare il dibattito femminista su Merleau-Ponty, mostrando come il pensatore francese risulti, in questa fase della sua opera, libero dai vincoli del discorso sul corpo e incamminato in direzione di un pensiero del cambiamento politico radicato nella struttura istituzionale di quello che potremmo chiamare l’“intermondo.” Il primo passo per fare questo, come mostreremo in questo saggio, consiste nel prendere sul serio il concetto di rivoluzione ed i suoi sviluppiall’interno dell’intero corpus merleau-pontyano. (shrink)

Razzismo e schiavitů sono fenomeni appartenenti ai processi socioculturali occidentali ed esprimono una logica identitaria esclusiva. Nella societÀ contemporanea sono in fase di graduale riaffermazione ed č da tale constatazione che prende le mosse questo saggio, il cui obiettivo consiste nello sviluppare alcune considerazioni sull'evoluzione storico-filosofica del concetto di razzismo - a partire dalle riflessioni di Joseph Arthur de Gobineau e Julius Evola - al fine di mostrare come esso sia alla base di un nuovo tentativo di divisione della societÀ (...) e degli individui, tramite la quale la progressiva emersione di nuove forme di schiavismo tende a essere facilitata. (shrink)

L'evoluzione del concetto di educazione ha risentito e risente dei cambiamenti che si sono succeduti all'interno della societÀ civile. Nell'etÀ contemporanea il mutamento piů significativo riguarda la presenza di una pluralitÀ di culture all'interno dei moderni Stati-nazione. In particolare in ambito educativo, il multiculturalismo pone sfide importanti alla stessa concezione di paideia nella sua connotazione classica di "educazione del cittadino": occorre quindi riconsiderarne le fondamenta. L'articolo riflette su tale problematica con riferimento alle principali posizioni della pedagogia interculturale, fino a prendere (...) in considerazione l'effettiva esistenza di una nuova "paideia" interculturale e la sua potenzialitÀ nel contesto scolastico italiano. (shrink)

Using a simulated two-party negotiation, we examined how trustworthiness and power balance affected deception. In order to trigger deception, we used an issue that had no value for one of the two parties. We found that high cognitive trust increased deception whereas high affective trust decreased deception. Negotiators who expressed anxiety also used more deception whereas those who expressed optimism also used less deception. The nature of the negotiating relationship (mutuality and level of dependence) interacted with trust and negotiators’ affect (...) to influence levels of deception. Deception was most likely to occur when negotiators reported low trust or expressed negative emotions in the context of nonmutual or low dependence relationships. In these relationships, emotions that signaled certainty were associated with misrepresentation whereas emotions that signaled uncertainty were associated with concealment of information. Negotiators who expressed positive emotions in the context of a nonmutual or high dependence relationship also used less deception. Our results are consistent with a fair trade model in which negotiator increases deception when contextual and interpersonal cues heighten concerns about exploitation and decrease deception when these cues attenuate concerns about exploitation. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have looked to empirical findings about psychopaths to help determine whether moral agency is underwritten by reason, or by some affective capacity, such as empathy. Since one of psychopaths’ most glaring deficits is a lack of empathy, and they are widely considered to be amoral, psychopaths are often taken as a test case for the hypothesis that empathy is necessary for moral agency. However, people with autism also lack empathy, so it is reasonable to think that (...) any empirically-informed attempt to answer the question of whether empathy is necessary for moral agency should give due attention to autism as well as psychopathy. Jeanette Kennett’s thought-provoking paper ‘Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency’ (2002) is an early and arguably the most notable example of such an attempt. Kennett argues that although autistic people and psychopaths both lack empathy, autistic people possess a ‘reverence for reason’ that enables them to become capable moral agents. By contrast, psychopaths lack this rational capacity, and it is this defect of reason rather than an empathic impairment that explains why they are amoral. Kennett thus concludes that empathy is not necessary for moral agency. In this chapter, I challenge Kennett’s argument. First, I review the empirical evidence in order to demonstrate that there is a component of empathy called affective empathy that is impaired in psychopaths but largely preserved in autistics. As such, the claim that psychopaths and autistics share a common lack of empathy is unjustified. Second, I challenge Kennett’s claim that empathy plays no role in explaining the moral difference between psychopaths and autistics. Instead, I contend that the intact affective empathy of autistic people is a crucial component of their capacity to act from reverence for reason. (shrink)

An intellectual history of the philosophers who grappled with the problem of evil, and the case for why pessimism still holds moral value for us today In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers engaged in heated debates on the question of how God could have allowed evil and suffering in a creation that is supposedly good. Dark Matters traces how the competing philosophical traditions of optimism and pessimism arose from early modern debates about the problem of evil, and makes a (...) compelling case for the rediscovery of pessimism as a source for compassion, consolation, and perhaps even hope. Bringing to life one of the most vibrant eras in the history of philosophy, Mara van der Lugt discusses legendary figures such as Leibniz, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and Schopenhauer. She also introduces readers to less familiar names, such as Bayle, King, La Mettrie, and Maupertuis. Van der Lugt describes not only how the earliest optimists and pessimists were deeply concerned with finding an answer to the question of the value of existence that does justice to the reality of human suffering, but also how they were fundamentally divided over what such an answer should look like. A breathtaking work of intellectual history by one of today's leading scholars, Dark Matters reveals how the crucial moral aim of pessimism is to find a way of speaking about suffering that offers consolation and does justice to the fragility of life. (shrink)

The ethical allocation of scarce medical resources has received significant attention, yet a key question remains unaddressed: how should scarce, divisible resources be allocated? We present a case from the COVID-19 pandemic in which scarce resources were divided among patients rather than allocated to some patients over others. We assess how widely accepted allocation principles could be applied to this case, and we show how these principles provide insufficient guidance. We then propose alternatives that may help guide decision-making in such (...) cases, and we evaluate the possibility of treating patients equally by dividing resources equally. Resource scarcity is not limited to pandemic situations, and many healthcare resources are divisible. This question—how to allocate these divisible resources—deserves greater attention from bioethics. (shrink)

In this paper, classical pragmatism is used as a method, not as a substantial ethical theory, to develop “moral pragmatics.” Moral pragmatics offers a constructive approach for making progress where traditional ethical theories converge, and it innovates ethical deliberation. Assuming widespread agreement that real moral problems need practical solutions, the paper addresses two related problems: the missing link between ethical theories and moral practice, and the question of who is in charge of finding such solutions. It argues that “conscience” can (...) create a link between ethical knowledge and moral practice, and that this partly discharges “the ethicist” from the task of solving problems that are not really, or not only, hers. Two specific methodological innovations are suggested that go beyond admonitions to render ethics sensitive to context. Instead, a reevaluation of “casuistry” and a sensitivity for “finding the right words” give an idea of how to achieve this goal. (shrink)

Since its outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic has generated discourses and practices that directly refer to the semantic universe usually connected to disability and illness. Words such as ‘pre-existing conditions’, ‘risk groups’, ‘accessibility’, and ‘vulnerability’ have become everyday elements of official and informal communications across the globe. In this article, I explore the contradictions that arise from such uses through the lens of crip studies. In the first part, I observe how the idea of vulnerability became mainstream, moving from being usually (...) attached to disability and illness to being depicted as a universal condition. Such a shift serves the double purpose of reinstating the predominance of able-bodiedness as the preferable normalcy and invisibilising the particular conditions of disabled and chronically ill people in the pandemic. In the second part, I discuss the perverse use of the expressions ‘risk group’ and ‘underlying conditions’ as biopolitical tools to reinforce already existing forms of oppression. The third part comprises a reflection on accessibility and the sudden advent of working-from-home. Finally, I reflect on confinement and interdependence as key concepts to draft a politics of transformation that moves from disability and chronic illness to include all experiences of intersectional oppression. As other markers of oppression, illness and disability can determine the possibilities of survival through the crisis, not only because they are linked to bodily fragility but also because of the systemic violence they are immersed in. The knowledge produced from a place of vulnerability can hence show interesting elements to better understand the challenges of this pandemic through an intersectional perspective. (shrink)

Argument-mapping software abounds, and one of the reasons is that using the software has been shown to teach/promote/improve critical thinking skills. These positive results are very encouraging, but they also raise the question of whether the computer tutorial environment is producing these results, or whether learning argument mapping, even with just paper and pencil, is sufficient. Based on the results of two empirical studies, I argue that the basic skill of being able to represent an argument diagrammatically plays an important (...) role in the improvement of critical-thinking skills. While these studies do not offer a direct comparison between the two methods, it is important for anyone wishing to employ argument mapping in the classroom to know that significant results can be obtained even with the most rudimentary of tools. (shrink)

Responsibilist epistemic virtues, such as intellectual humility, thoroughness, and inquisitiveness, motivate and inform behaviour to acquire, assess, and share epistemic goods. While existing accounts primarily emphasise the virtues' role in knowledge acquisition, I argue for casting a wider net by redefining responsibilist virtues in their connection to wisdom. I draw upon Sosa's AAA structure of competence – which he employs to support the direct and constitutive relation between reliabilist virtues (e.g., memory and perception) and knowledge – proposing that the same (...) structure can be applied to responsibilist virtues, establishing their direct and constitutive relation to wisdom. The resulting framework provides us with an account of how epistemic agents can responsibly engage with our current sociotechnical environment. The first half of the thesis establishes this framework, arguing for its implementation. The value of this framework is, in part, its ability to uphold the claim that responsibilist virtues are admirable traits of character that aid one’s epistemically responsible engagement with the environment. The AAA structure of competence entails that a performance is Adroit, i.e., resulting from a reliable competence, Accurate, whereby the performance hits the intended target or the functional goal given the competence, and Apt, whereby it is Accurate as it is Adroit. Applying this to responsibilist virtue, an act is adroit when it results from an acquired, admirable, epistemically motivated, and stable disposition to perform behaviour characteristic of the relevant intellectual virtue. This act is accurate when it is successfully virtuous, i.e., admirable. Within this framework, an act from an admirable, virtuous disposition (i.e., an adroit act) can fail to be virtuous by undermining another virtue, or successfully virtuous when it does not. An apt act of intellectual virtue is thereby an act performed from an intellectual virtue (e.g., attentiveness or intellectual humility), that is admirable because it is adroit (e.g., as it was performed from a virtuous disposition to be attentive or intellectually humble, without the act undermining another virtue). The second half of the thesis applies this framework to various phenomena within the digital epistemic environment. It explores how increasingly prevalent epistemic emotions, such as an epistemic fear of missing out (epistemic FOMO) and morbid curiosity, can shape epistemic behaviour to be unwise, despite the knowledge one may acquire through acts motivated by these emotions. For example, ‘doombehaviour’ – entailing the frequent or long-lasting consumption of distressing news – is examined in light of its impact on mental health and other prudential concerns. Moreover, our digital environment supplies us with novel epistemic responsibilities in relation to consuming attention-grabbing information, as well as inadvertently distributing misinformation. By applying the framework of apt intellectually virtuous action on these and similar phenomena, we can give an account of wise engagement with our sociotechnical environment. (shrink)

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness that presents a complex variety of perceptual alterations and somatic sensations. These alterations occur at the level of (1) bodily representations and (2) bodily experiences. The alterations are widespread, and they involve multiple cognitive functions. We reviewed the current literature linking the psychiatric literature on AN with the philosophical debate on the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception (CPP). We describe the alterations in perception, starting from the most widespread and studied, i.e., those concerning distortions (...) in the estimation of the dimensions of one's body (“dysmorphophobia” or “body image disturbance”) to then describe those of more recent analysis involving alterations in bodily experiences. Body image disturbances in AN have been linked to alexithymia, emotional dysregulation, and altered interoceptive awareness, highlighting the complex interaction between emotion, cognition, and perception in AN. We show how the recent debate on CPP can benefit from the empirical investigations in AN, and can, in turn, serve to outline new lines of research. (shrink)

Na palestra proferida no ano de 1967, Theodor W. Adorno, um dos grandes pensadores da Escola de Frankfurt, começa ressaltando que não intenciona apresentar uma visão da direita radical na completude que o tema exige, mas sim apontar algumas das características de uma nova direita mais radical do que ele havia abordado em uma palestra no ano de 1959. Dessa forma, frente aos novos elementos socioeconômicos da recente queda do nazifascism, o filósofo alemão considerou necessário abordar novos aspectos do que (...) ele chamou de novo radicalismo de direita. (shrink)

The global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has considerably accelerated the use of teleconsultation (consultation between the patient and the doctor via video platforms). While it has some obvious benefits and drawbacks for both the patient and the doctor, it is important to consider—how teleconsultation impacts the quality of the patient-doctor relationship? I will approach this question through the lens of phenomenology of the body, focusing on the question—what happens to the patient objectification in teleconsultation? To answer this question I will (...) adopt a phenomenological approach combining both insights drawn from the phenomenological tradition, i.e., the concepts of the lived body and the object body, and the results from the phenomenologically informed qualitative research study on the patient experience of teleconsultation. The theoretical background against which I have developed this study comprises discussions within the field of phenomenology of medicine regarding the different sources of patient objectification within clinical encounter and the arguments concerning the negative impact that objectification has on the quality of care. I will argue that a factor that has frequently been identified within phenomenology of medicine as the main source of patient objectification in clinical encounters, namely, the internalized gaze of the clinician, is diminished during teleconsultation, increasing patient’s sense of agency, decreasing her sense of alienation and opening up the possibility for a closer relationship between the patient and the health care provider, all of which lead to the transformation of the hierarchical patient-health care professional relationship. (shrink)

This essay considers how we are to understand the decision to end one’s life under medical aid-in-dying (MAID) statutes and the role of influencing others. Bioethical concerns about the potential for abuse in MAID have focused predominantly on the risk of coercion and other forms of undue influence. Most bioethical analyses of relational influences in MAID have been made by opponents of MAID, who argue that MAID is unethical, in part, because it cannot cleanly accommodate relational influences. In contrast, proponents (...) of MAID have downplayed the role of relational influences because they may threaten the pillars of autonomy and voluntariness on which the ethics of MAID rest. Drawing on a case study collected as part of an ethnographic study of MAID in Vermont, we show how relations of care are central to MAID decision-making. Such relations may muddle motives for assisted death, exposing the limits of conventional bioethics thinking on MAID and relational influence. Here, we argue that ethical frameworks for MAID should account for the role of relational influences in decision-making, and acknowledge that relational influences may support, as well as undermine, a decision for MAID. We then outline an evaluative framework for determining whether relational influences are undue that identifies six key domains for consideration: mental competence, authenticity, relationship context, having an adequate range options, financial considerations and irremediability. We conclude by suggesting that social relationships may constitute an important source of value in end-of-life decision-making and not only a liability. (shrink)

Stichter’s The Skillfulness of Virtue provides an original and contemporary discussion of virtue-acquisition from an interdisciplinary standpoint. By equating virtues to skills, he offers an empirically informed progression towards virtue expertise. With the focus on gaining proficiency, there is little room to analyse the status of the virtue-novice, who is equated to a novice in any other skill: an agent consciously following simple rules, gaining experience in order to respond to normatively-laden situations with more automaticity in the following stages of (...) skill-acquisition. This paper argues for a disanalogy between the virtue novice and novices in other skills, resulting from the understanding that follows from learning virtue words such as ‘kindness’ and ‘honesty’. Our brains are structured to find and subsequently use patterns to skilfully move around in our environment. These patterns can be represented in what Stichter calls ‘schemas’ or mental models of categorisations. Virtue words refer to patterns that would be difficult to categorise without linguistic labels, as instances of these categories are highly divergent. Virtue words are thus learned through examples of virtuous behaviour. Moreover, as virtue words are thick ethical concepts, they contain a normative load. I argue that due to these characteristics, novices who use virtue vocabulary are in a more advanced position than novices in other skills. So, a kindness novice who understands the word ‘kind’ has a better idea of how to act kindly than the chess novice has an idea of how to play chess by understanding the word ‘chess’. (shrink)

In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell (2022) provide an ambitious and compelling history of the evolution of human morality. Informed by evidence from an impressively vast multidisciplinary literature, they offer a rich bio-cultural evolutionary explanation of how the human moral mind arose and developed over time that has wide appeal for philosophers and scientists alike. In this paper, I examine Kumar and Campbell’s novel moral psychology and raise questions about their account of the relationship between moral norms (...) and core moral emotions. I also argue that social essentialist cognition has a place alongside the moral emotions as a key ingredient in Kumar and Campbell’s view of the moral mind as well as in their normative account of how to work towards moral progress. (shrink)

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. We use a simulated negotiation to test how three dimensions of social context—dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust—interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception. Deception in all-male dyads was relatively unaffected by trust or the other negotiator’s strategy. In mixed-sex dyads, negotiators consistently increased their use of deception when three forms of trust were low and opponents used an accommodating strategy. However, in all-female dyads, negotiators (...) appeared to use multiple and shifting reference points in deciding when to deceive the other party. In these dyads, the use of deception increased when a competitive strategy combined with low benevolence-based trust or an accommodating strategy combined with high identity-based trust. Deception in all-female dyads decreased when a competitive strategy was used in the context of low deterrence-based trust. (shrink)

Knowing Nature brings together political ecologists and science studies scholars to showcase the key points of encounter between the two fields and how this ...

Today, in both theory and practice, the concepts of corporate social responsibility and ethics are not necessarily related. Organizations can demonstrate high levels of social proactivity in their CSR policies with or without having laudable levels of ethical quality or virtuousness. This article introduces the concepts of organizational ethical quality to evaluate the moral excellence of CSR actions and policies, identifying and categorizing varying levels ranging from the absence of ethical virtuousness, termed immoral CSR, to high levels of moral CSR, (...) or ethical virtuousness. High MCSR is the product of both high levels of OEQ in conjunction with more proactive CSR policies based on social action. (shrink)

This paper discusses the status of about childhood in Theodor Adorno’s critical theory, focusing on his reflections on the body, on technique and on play that mark childhood as another form of reason. Childhood is portrayed by Adorno as a place of the “first utopia,” that longed for and permanently uninhabited homeland that resists any rescue attempt, but illuminates the desire we once experienced, in a play between body and thought, dream and reality. Adorno’s child evokes the experience of another (...) order of reason that feeds on the memory of the human’s animal nature, without, however, being exempt from the dominant historical forces that affect the processes of subjectivation. These reflections start with the writings of Adorno and what his dialogues with interlocutors, such as Benjamin, Freud, and Huizinga, contribute to the analysis of the topic. In the second part of the article, in an effort to understand the potential and the limits of technologically-mediated play, we discuss several studies of virtual reality, especially electronic games. Conjectures about how contact with reality is already damaged in childhood by the relationship with technology, which establishes a desire for instant gratification, suggest a critique of the quality of attention that children receive in their education, and provide clues about the increasing appearance of socio-affective disorders, which culminate in the preference to dispense with time, the body, and real contact with other children in favor of electronic play. (shrink)