Critics have claimed that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a primitivist who was uncritically preoccupied with "noble savages" and that he remained oblivious to the African slave trade. Fugitive Rousseau demonstrates why these charges are wrong and argues that a fresh, "fugitive" perspective on political freedom is bound up with the themes of primitivism and slavery in Rousseau's political theory. Rather than trace Rousseau's arguments primarily to the social contract tradition of Hobbes and Locke, Fugitive Rousseau places Rousseau squarely in two imperial (...) contexts: European empire in his contemporary Atlantic world and Roman imperial philosophy. Anyone who aims to understand the implications of Rousseau's famous sentence "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" or wants to know how Rousseauian arguments can support a radical democratic politics of diversity, discontinuity, and exodus will find Fugitive Rousseau indispensable. (shrink)

This essay examines Arendt’s descriptions of “Hottentots” in The Origins of Totalitarianism, especially the comparisons and contrasts she frequently draws between Hottentots and other peoples. In particular, Arendt highlights dehumanization of presumptively “civilized” people in comparing them to African “savages.” Close reading of such analogies demands that we look beyond the racial explanations that other scholars have offered and focus instead on how Arendt’s conception of humanity is bound up with a specific sense of culture that is antiprimitivist—exclusive of peoples (...) without history, primitives. Analysis of her moral anthropology uncovers the Cape Colony discourses and postenlightenment German philosophical supports that inform her antiprimitivism. However, Arendt’s antiprimitivism may not remain confined to Origins. In later essays, Arendt analyzes the various aspects of culture in instructive ways.Yet she also synthesizes culture concepts into a schema that introduces problems for her. (shrink)

This article addresses some ambiguities and normative problems with the concept of mature care in professional relationships and in health care priorities. Mature care has recently been introduced in the literature on care ethics as an alternative to prevailing altruistic conceptions of care. The essence of mature care is an emphasis on reciprocity, where the mature agent has the ability to balance the concerns of self with those of others and act from a principle of not causing harm. Our basic (...) claim is that the prevailing concept of mature care does not capture the real nature of professional relationships and role obligations in health care. As the focus of attention in professional care is and must be the patient’s particular medical and care needs, such care must principally be altruistic. Furthermore, we argue that mature care cannot adequately address moral conflict in health care without accepting some more principle-based approaches and a richer notion of partiality. (shrink)

Student teachers’ experiences of professional ethics, as lived practice, need to be visualized and verbalized to support their ability to develop an ethical practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the lived experiences of professional ethics from beginning teachers’ internship, based on a phenomenological study. Some of the essential meanings are interpreted in relation to the tension between responsibility and accountability that is emerging from neoliberal influences in teacher education. Inspired by Reflective Life World Research, interviews were conducted (...) with student teachers specializing in preschool and elementary school. The empirical data was analyzed in order to determine the meanings that constitute the lived experience of professional ethics for early career teachers. By identifying the implications of professional ethics in neoliberal times, teacher educators can more easily observe and communicate the manifestations this has for teaching. Discussions and observations of professional ethics can stimulate student teachers’ learning as part of teacher education discourse. (shrink)

This article draws attention to a self-created survey designed for the purposes and needs of an empirical study for a dissertation on emotional intelligence and burnout in psychiatric practice. The survey was used as part of a complex research methodology including standardized tests. The information obtained and the results of the survey are intended to describe the profile of employees in the same organization in psychiatric practice at the time of the study. The questions are focused on the following aspects: (...) subjective perception of the respondents regarding their work; leisure activities, annual leave and the attitude towards it, sports, healthy eating, and influence of the pandemic situation on emotions. (shrink)

The history of the sciences and humanities follows cycles in some of which there is greater emphasis on the continuity of developments, in others on the breaks in continuity. In recent years the main focus of research for the 20th century has been on the continuities extending beyond the boundaries of 1933 and 1945. The main aim of this study, however, is to examine the impulses for the internationalization of German universities provided by a transnational group of academic migrants. These (...) migrants, whose origins were in the German academic community, represented an alternative continuity beyond the boundaries of this period: they were visiting academics who were the conveyors and interpreters of ideas from Germany into the USA and Britain and vice versa. The study of this group therefore combines remigration history and the history of universities as institutions, focussing on actors, networks and innovations in teaching, with the history of individual subjects and disciplines. (shrink)

In the late 1980s and 1990s, American popular culture has been increasingly rife with conspiracy narratives of recent historical events. Among cultural producers, filmmaker Oliver Stone has had a significant impact on popular understanding of American culture in the late twentieth century through a series of docudramas which reread American history through the lens of conspiracy theory and paranoia. This paper examines the films of Oliver Stone-in particular Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, and Nixon-asking why they have (...) achieved popularity and brought about catharsis, why they are the subject of attack, and why it is useful to look beyond the debate about truth and falsehood that has surrounded them. It analyzes the ways in which Stone's status as a Vietnam veteran allowed Platoon to be accorded the authenticity of survivor discourse, whereas JFK and Nixon were subject to almost hysterical attack, not only because of Stone's assertions of conspiracy, but also because of his cinematic style of tampering with famous images. Taking these films as its point of departure, this paper examines the role of images in the construction of history, the form of the docudrama, the reenactment of historical images, fantasies of history, and ways in which paranoia is part of the practice of citizenship. (shrink)

Following the global financial crisis, banks have become more regulated to advance ethical sales cultures throughout the sector. Based on case studies of three retail banks, we find that they construct the ‘appropriate advisor’ in different ways. Inspired by Bakhtin’s work on ethics, we propose a vocabulary of relational ethics centered on the ‘answerable self.’ We argue that this vocabulary is apt for studying and discussing how organizations advance ethical sales cultures in ways that instead of encouraging value congruence and (...) alignment allow for ethical openness. In such cultures, employees—as moral agents—are morally questioning, critically self-reflexive, and answerable for their own actions toward others in their social relationships. Our paper makes three theoretical contributions, namely, problematizing the idea of cultural alignment and value congruence, demonstrating that identity regulation can both comprise and support the ‘answerable self,’ and advancing our understanding of the interdependence of ethical openness and ethical closure in fostering ethical sales cultures. (shrink)

"A quoi bon les poètes?" le texte de Heidegger destiné à faire l'éloge de Rilke, semble à certains égards faire plutôt l'éloge d'un autre poète, Hölderlin. Le présent ouvrage déploie l'interprétation équivoque de Rilke par Heidegger, en mobilisant en outre ses lectures de Hölderlin et de Nietzsche. L'enjeu se situe dans la conception de la poésie et de son rapport au "temps de détresse", où la trace des dieux enfuis est perdue. Un commentaire critique du texte de Heidegger montre que (...) l'interprétation même constitue son sujet implicite et qu'il ouvre un nouveau sens de l'interprétation. (shrink)

Michel Foucault gilt als einer der wichtigsten Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Marita Rainsborough untersucht die aktuelle Relevanz seiner Philosophie unter Bezug auf die post- und dekolonialen Theorien von Mbembe, Bhabha und Mignolo im globalen Kontext. Dabei bezieht sie auch die Philosophie von Judith Butler und Byung-Chul Han sowie den Neuen Realismus in ihre kritische Lektüre mit ein und macht die bislang in der Rezeption vernachlässigten philosophischen Bezüge zu Bloch und Kant stark. Mit der Betrachtung des Subjekts zwischen Wissen, Macht, (...) Ethik und Ästhetik ergeben sich so eine Gesamtschau des Foucault'schen Werkes sowie neue Aspekte für die philosophische Auseinandersetzung mit diesem französischen Klassiker. (shrink)

Interkultureller Austausch geht von der Gleichwertigkeit der Kulturen aus und ist vom Gedanken des produktiven Dialogs, der gegenseitigen Anregung und der Korrektur bestimmt. Ein solcher Dialog mit Immanuel Kant und Michel Foucault bietet eine anregende Perspektive auf die afrikanische Philosophie. Marita Rainsborough untersucht vor diesem Hintergrund die Auseinandersetzung afrikanischer Philosophen wie Anthony Appiah und Achille Mbembe mit philosophischen Grundfragen. Ihre Visionen einer afrikanischen Zukunft machen deutlich, dass sich akute Probleme wie Machtmissbrauch und Menschenrechtsverletzungen - unter Berücksichtigung der lokalen Besonderheiten (...) - nur im globalen Kontext lösen lassen. (shrink)

RESUMO: No centro da filosofia de Kwame A. Appiah encontra-se a questão da identidade. Partindo do conceito da liberdade de Mill, ele considera a criação de uma identidade pessoal, no sentido de individualidade particular, uma tarefa permanente - como projeto individual. Nesse contexto, os planos de vida não devem ser concebidos como genericamente rigorosos, mas sim incoerentes e muitas vezes mutantes. Com isso, a identidade não se deve entender como algo fixo e cerrado, porém, como uma espécie de mosaico de (...) vários elementos que se encontram em reprogramação contínua - como formação híbrida. A construção da identidade encerra a narração de histórias de vida, tanto individual como coletiva. Os respectivos elementos podem recorrer a diferentes experiências transculturais, consoante a história coletiva e a história de vida do indivíduo. Assim, a transculturalidade é importante, não só para identidades coletivas, como também sempre em nível de identidade pessoal. O filósofo africano Achille Mbembe alude ao nomadismo do ser humano e à imersão e dispersão culturais associadas que se deixam ler como processos da transculturalidade. Na arte africana contemporânea, esses processos da formação da identidade refletem-se no transcultural. Como exemplos, devem ser apresentados os artistas Edson Chagas, Kehinde Wiley, Yinka Shonibare e Romuald Hazoumè, com obras selecionadas.ABSTRACT: The issue of identity is at the heart of Kwame Appiah's philosophy. Taking Mill's concept of liberty as his starting point, he views the development of a personal identity in the sense of a particular individuality as an ongoing task - as an individual project. In this context, life plans should not be understood as strictly linear but rather as disparate and continuously changing. Identity is thus not something which is fixed and closed but rather similar to a mosaic, consisting of various elements which are always shifting - a hybrid entity. The construction of identity includes the telling of life stories, both of a collective and of a personal nature. When doing so, each element may refer to diverse, transcultural experiences in keeping with the history of the collective and the life story of the individual. Transculturality is thus of significance not only for collective identities but also always on the level of personal identity. The African philosopher Achille Mbembe speaks of human nomadism and the associated cultural immersion and dispersion, which can be interpreted as transcultural processes. These processes of identity formation are reflected in the transculturality of contemporary African art. Selected works of artists Edson Chargas, Kehinde Wiley, Yinka Shonibare and Romuald Hazoumè will be presented as examples of this. (shrink)

This book sets up a rich intercultural dialogue between the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault, and that of key African thinkers such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Achille Mbembe, Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Tsenay Serequeberhahn, and Henry Odera Oruka. The book challenges western-centric visions of an African future by demonstrating the richness of thought that can be found in African and Afrodiasporic philosophy. The book first shows how thinkers such as Serequeberhan have criticised the inconsistencies in Kant's work, whereas (...) others such as Wiredu, Gyekye, Appiah and Mbembe also referred to his work positively and used it to develop progressive political concepts such as the metanational state; partial cosmopolitanism and Afropolitanism. The book goes on to consider how Mbembe and Mudimbe have responded to Foucault's ideas in deciphering the various Western, African and Afrodiasporic discourses of knowledge on Africa. The book concludes by considering various theories of intercultural exchange, from Gyekye's cultural borrowing, to Appiah's conversation across boundaries, Wiredu's cross cultural dialogue, Mbembe's thinking outside the frame, Serequeberhan's dialogue at a distance, and Oruka's call for global re-distribution and a new ecophilosophical attitude to safeguard human existence on the planet. This book invites us all to engage in intercultural dialogue and mutual respect for different cultural creations. It will be an important read for researchers in Philosophy wherever they are in the world. (shrink)

This research involves a review of the submissions to a 2005/06 Australian Government Inquiry into Corporate Social Responsibility. The Inquiry was established to investigate whether corporate social responsibilities and accountabilities should be regulated, or left to be determined by market forces. Our results show that the business community overwhelming favour an anti-regulation approach whereby corporations should be left with the flexibility to determine their social responsibilities and associated accountabilities and ‘enlightened self-interest’ should be retained as the guiding mechanism for social (...) responsibility initiatives. In stark contrast, the submissions from social and environmental organisations and individuals provided counter-arguments in favour of a pro-regulation view. Ultimately Government embraced the ‘free market perspective’ promoted by the business community and decided against the introduction of national legislation pertaining to corporate social responsibilities. (shrink)

Motivated by a deep sense that injustice and inequality are wrong, liberals and reformers in the Western political tradition have focused their energies on policies and programs which seek inclusion: extending the suffrage to those without property; seeking to treat women the same as men, and blacks the same as whites; trying to ensure that as few as possible are excluded from economic opportunity due to lack of resources. Under current conditions, such demands for inclusion take two primary forms, especially (...) in the United States. One is a commitment to using the state to equalize the life chances of individuals. The other is a call for treating groups which have experienced discrimination with full respect. The former leads to the welfare state, while the latter is produced by, and in turn produces, what is commonly called identity politics, the politics of recognition, or the politics of presence. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the recent public scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo and Dominique Strauss-Kahn to offer an account of the role affectability imbalances play in process-based invisibility. Process-based invisibilities, in this paper, refer to predictable narrative gaps within public narratives that can be aptly described as disappearances. We demonstrate that compromised, complex social identities, maladjusted webs of reciprocity, and a failure to fully appreciate basic affectability in large part cause affectability imbalances. Ultimately, we claim that affectability imbalances and the (...) three imbricated conditions that facilitate such imbalances—complex social identities, reciprocity, and basic affectability—are integral features of process-based invisibility. (shrink)

This essay examines Arendt's descriptions of "Hottentots" in The Origins of Totalitarianism, especially the comparisons and contrasts she frequently draws between Hottentots and other peoples. In particular, Arendt highlights dehumanization of presumptively "civilized" people in comparing them to Africa "savages." Close reading of such analogies demands that we look beyond the racial explanations that other scholars have offered and focus instead on how Arendt's conception of humanity is bound up with a specific sense of culture that is antiprimitivist—exclusive of peoples (...) without history, primitives. Analysis of her moral anthropology uncovers the Cape Colony discourses and postenlightenment German philosophical supports that inform her antiprimitivism. However, Arendt's antiprimitivism may not remain confined to Origins. In later essays,Arendt analyzes the various aspects of culture in instructive ways. Yet she also synthesizes culture concepts into a schema that introduces problems for her. (shrink)

Nudging is a concept in behavioural science, political theory and economics that proposes indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance and to influence the decision making and behaviour of groups and individuals. Researchers in medical ethics are currently discussing whether nudging is ethically permissible in healthcare. In this article, we examine current knowledge about how different decisions are made and how this decision-making process pertains to patients. We view this knowledge in light of the nursing project and the ongoing (...) debate regarding the ethical legitimacy of nudging in healthcare. We argue that it is insufficient to discuss nudging in nursing and healthcare in light of free will and patient autonomy alone. Sometimes, nurses must take charge and exhibit leadership in the nurse–patient relationship. From the perspective of nursing as leadership, nudging becomes a useful tool for directing and guiding patients towards the shared goals of health, recovery and independence and away from suffering. The use of nudging in nursing to influence patients’ decisions and actions must be in alignment with the nursing project and in accordance with patients’ own values and goals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacrificial "As-If" and Avuncular HilarityLiving by MéconnaissanceWiel Eggen (bio)INTRODUCTION: THE CURIOUS QUESTIONAt my departure for anthropological fieldwork in the Central African Republic (RCA), just after Girard's seminal work La Violence et le sacré had come to upset my structuralist tutors in Paris, I was given a list of penetrating questions to probe in the field, since my research was to be conducted in an area known for its (...) a-cephalous traditions with little or no political or religious centralization.1 The prime critique concerned Girard's apparent return to a bluntly utilitarian vision of myth and religion as the mental framework of society's ritual foundations, in line with Durkheim's functionalist analysis of archaic religion, which was finely reworded in Lord Raglan's recent preface to a cluster of Hocart's articles titled The Life-Giving Myth.2 The approach had come to dominate, as a way of unraveling outdated transcendentalist claims, and also underpinned Freudian and Marxist attacks on religion. After Kant's Critique of Pure Reason had given the lie to any claims of access to transcendent realms, the deontological view of religion as society's functionalist toolbox for orderly [End Page 69] conduct became dominant. But, inspired also by such "masters of suspicion" in human sciences, structuralism had set out even beyond that utilitarian perspective. In a decisive bolt of relativism, it took myths to be a mere mental ordering of daily observations into a logical frame, independent of any ritual or social utility. So, how could Girard once again declare social control via rituals to be religion's true aim, allot a prime role to sacrificial rites, and, most alarmingly, thereby raise the suspicion of aiming to rehabilitate Christian dogmas?I was urged to go and check this theory on sacrifices, scapegoating, social rivalry, and on the shaping of archaic society, its forms of authority, and even sacred kingship. Reflecting on the questions, though, I noted that they overlooked a critical point in Girard's hypothesis, which I read as reverse functionalism. In fact, Girard viewed religion's social function and the issuing cultural regulations as rooted in a radical "lie," or in what he labels méconnaissance. Worded in evolutionary terms, he hypothesized not so much a kind of Darwinian utilitarian adaptation, but rather the alternative of "exaptation," or what has been called an oblique functionalism.After I had learned enough of the Banda language to start my research, though, my schedules were thrown in disarray on my first evening in the village that was to be my starting point. It presented me with a curious quandary. The village of Wademi, some 25 km north of Ippy, in the sparsely populated wooded savannah, was home to two exogamous patrilineal clans that straddle a little river and sit on a dirt road constructed by the colonial power for the collection of cotton. To oversee this two-clan unit a chief had been appointed with the title of makonji, a loanword from the national Sango language. This gentle, friendly man had offered to host me in his own cemented house and organized a welcome for me in the customary way of staging a pleasant storytelling session, punctuated with joyous songs and dances, lasting well into the night. Most of the stories and songs figured Tere, the famous trickster figure, who resembles Ture in neighboring Azande-land, well documented by E. Evans-Pritchard.3 The enjoyable, moonlit session was shot through with outbursts of laughter. It brought the two clans together, including the women and children. Before turning in, the makonji's junior son, who had been assigned my assistant and interpreter, came to convey his father's sincere but puzzling query, whether Tere actually was the same as Jesus Christ. Actually, his French name in Banda phonetics implied so: Christ Jésu = Tre se te jesu; and "Jesu Christ = Jesu Tre."4 Taken by surprise and much in need of some rest after a rather demanding day, I politely asked to let the issue rest till the morning.This question was all the more disturbing, as Christians were wont to call Jesus the Lord, and relate this to chieftaincy... (shrink)

Knowledge about human wellbeing is a central part of ethical knowledge. But it is a neglected topic not only in ethics in general, but also in wellbeing theorizing, which has focused on enumerating the basic elements of wellbeing rather than on how to gauge, foster and maintain wellbeing in actual human lives. I consider the prospects for a procedural approach to wellbeing that sees it as depending on a process of continual adjustment between values, preferences, actions and emotions. The value-fulfilment (...) theory of Valerie Tiberius provides a model for such an approach, but needs to be corrected and supplemented in certain respects. I propose a version of the approach that is only partly, but still significantly procedural, and which does not privilege higher-order mental states. Considering the relevance of such an approach for ethics, I finally suggest that (certain forms of) moral agency may be best analyzed as an intersubjective process of adjustment and fulfilment of values and desires (etc.), and as a process of acquiring and exercising collective moral knowing how. (shrink)

Free political speech – understood as (1) the right to publicly criticize the government, (2) the right to represent theories and ideologies that are contrary to the ruling one, (3) the right to advocate political and institutional changes, etc. – is the speech that enables a fundamental distinction between democratic and non-democratic systems. As part of the discussions on free political speech, the discussions related to the very content of the freedom of political speech that incites rebellion against the political (...) order are particularly important; they advocate racism, hate speech or, for example, the disclosure of state secrets. In this context, we will open a discussion about the freedom of political speech in Rawls’s political liberalism with special emphasis on the idea of the public reason, and so that the discussion does not remain at the level of theoretical analysis, we will analyze Rawls’s understanding of the freedom of political speech additionally through the case of Trump vs. Twitter. (shrink)

This article examines the impact that the interplay between workplace, the welfare state and global working life has on female workers when they become pregnant. By focusing on two highly educated Norwegian female workers, it explores how this change process takes place in two companies operating in the global market located in different countries: Norway and the US. Pregnancy contributes to transforming the neutralized bodiless female worker into an embodied worker with gender. The female workers' experiences and negotiations represent forms (...) of global action on local stages. This is illustrated by four processes: `married to work', `pregnant and still married to work', `negotiating separation from work' and `excluding mothering'. The findings indicate the significance of taking welfare state and workplace policy approaches into consideration in studies of global effects on employees. (shrink)

Girard counts as a Durkheimian for viewing religion as the social force that underpins society's cultural institutions. A basic difference, though, should be heeded. No doubt, he argues that the bloody solution of the originary mimetic crisis initiated traditions of sacrificial rituals with mythical justifications that crystallized in society's legal codes, ethical rules, and cultural habits, on which daily events of scapegoating rely. However, if this suggests that religion's basic aim is to be a buttress of the cultural order, it (...) must be noticed that Girard's core conviction points in a different direction with a curious ambiguity, which asks for a seldom effectuated two-pronged analysis. In fact, his crucial... (shrink)

Twenty years ago, Slobodan Milosevic uttered a sentence which was afterwards repeated in the literature about the Yugoslav tragedy innummerable times. The sentence "Niko ne sme da vas bije" was directed to the Serb demonstrators in Kosovo. In this text, the author analyzes the ways this sentence was translated in factional literature and shows that different versions, apart from being different lexically and semantically, influence the political interpretation and understanding of the Yugoslav conflict. This text poses another, maybe even more (...) important question: are unprecise and wrong translations of Milosevic's words a proof of what Georg Johannesen claimed - that faction is fiction.. Pre dvadeset godina Slobodan Milosevic je izgovorio jednu recenicu koja je ponavljana nebrojeno puta u literaturi o jugoslovenskoj tragediji. Ta recenica je izgovorena u neposrednom kontaktu sa demonstrantima srpske nacionalnosti na Kosovu i glasi "Niko ne sme da vas bije". U ovom tekstu autor istrazuje nacine na koje je ova recenica prevodjena u strucnoj literaturi i/ili faktivnoj prozi i pokazuje kako njene razlicite verzije, osim sto se odlikuju velikim jezickim i semantickim razlikama, usmeravaju politicko tumacenje i razumevanje jugoslovenskog konflikta. Ovim tekstom postavlja se jos jedno, mozda i vaznije pitanje: da li je neprecizno i pogresno navodjenje Milosevicevog iskaza potvrda onoga sto je o faktivnoj prozi i/ili strucnoj literaturi govorio Georg Johanesen - da se radi o izmisljanju - fikciji sklopljenoj od reci.. (shrink)

Cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) is the type member of the comovirus group, which contains 14 different plant viruses that have the same structural organization of genomic RNAs and virions and use the same mechanism for expression of the viral RNAs. The combined structure and organization of the two CPMV genomic RNAs is strikingly similar to that of the single genome of animal picornaviruses. This suggests a common ancestry and similar replication mechanisms. CPMV is by far the best‐studied comovirus and we (...) shall limit this review to some recent data on this virus. For additional general information the reader is referred to other recent reviews on CPMV and comoviruses1,2. (shrink)

Propositional attitudes are often classified as non-phenomenal mental states. I argue that there is no good reason for doing so. The unwillingness to view propositional attitudes as being essentially phenomenal stems from a biased notion of phenomenality, from not paying sufficient attention to the idioms in which propositional attitudes are usually reported, from overlooking the considerable degree to which different intentional modes can be said to be phenomenologically continuous, and from not considering the possibility that propositional attitudes may be transparent, (...) just like sensations and emotions are commonly held to be: there may be no appropriate way of describing their phenomenal character apart from describing the properties and objects they represent. (shrink)

This paper aims at addressing some questions considering the conflicting normative claims of partiality, i.e. to provide for the caring needs of the particular patient, and impartial claims of treating all patients with a relevant need equally. This ethical conflict between different conceptions of moral responsibilities within professional ethics relates to debates between an ethics of care and an ethics of justice. An ethics of care is a particularistic position that endorses some form of partiality, i.e. favouring persons to whom (...) one stands in particular relationships. This paper argues that also a professional ethics must endorse some kind of partiality at the clinical level of health care. In fact, consideration of care for particular patients is a prerequisite for giving proper and attentive care towards the individual patient. This paper will discuss how partial concerns might be balanced against claims of distributive justice within the frame of the formal principle of justice. It is concluded that there is an urgent need for the recognition of the consequences of macro-level decisions for the possibility of the discharge of moral responsibility on a clinical level of health care. This would mean that health care institutions should adapt for the possibility of a basic standard of proper care and attention for the individual patient. (shrink)

In spite of the booming interest in social epistemology, explicit analyses of group knowledge remain rare. Most existing accounts are based on theories of joint intentionality. I argue that this approach, though not without merit or useful applications, is inadequate both when it comes to accounting for actual group knowledge attributions and for purposes of meliorative social epistemology. As an alternative, I outline a liberal, de-intellectualized account, which allows for the complex distribution of epistemic states typical of most real-world collectives, (...) and makes minimal requirements as to the psychological underpinnings of collective states of knowing and the formal features of groups. The account is inspired by theories of distributed and extended cognition. It is guided by the principle that we should use the same standard when dealing with social and individual epistemology. Careful attention to what is normally required—and, in particular, not required—for attributing knowledge to individuals lends support the more liberal view. (shrink)