This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

Opposites in the drama.--Opposites in myself.

Can animals be regarded as part of the moral community? To what extent, if at all, do they have moral rights? Are we wrong to eat them, hunt them, or use them for scientific research? Can animal liberation be squared with the environmental movement? Taylor traces the background of these debates from Aristotle to Darwin and sets out the views of numerous contemporary philosophers—including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Anne Warren, J. Baird Callicott, and Martha Nussbaum—with ethical theories (...) ranging from utilitarianism to eco-feminism. The new edition also includes provocative quotations from some of the major writers in the field. As the final chapter insists, animal ethics is more than just an “academic” question: it is intimately connected both to our understanding of what it means to be human and to pressing current issues such as food shortages, environmental degradation, and climate change. (shrink)

Can animals be regarded as part of the moral community? To what extent, if at all, do they have moral rights? Are we wrong to eat them, hunt them, or use them for scientific research? Can animal liberation be squared with the environmental movement? Taylor traces the background of these debates from Aristotle to Darwin and sets out the views of numerous contemporary philosophers – including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Anne Warren, J. Baird Callicott, and Martha Nussbaum (...) – with ethical theories ranging from utilitarianism to eco-feminism. The new edition also includes provocative quotations from some of the major writers in the field. As the final chapter insists, animal ethics is more than just an "academic" question: it is intimately connected both to our understanding of what it means to be human and to pressing current issues such as food shortages, environmental degradation, and climate change. (shrink)

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks (...) a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation. The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of capabilities. She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all. (shrink)

In this volume based on her 2014 Locke Lectures, Martha C. Nussbaum provides a bracing new view that strips the notion of forgiveness down to its Judeo-Christian roots, where it was structured by the moral relationship between a score-keeping God and penitent, self-abasing, and erring mortals.

The ethical foundations of the “animal liberation” movement are compared with those of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic,” which is taken as the paradigm for environmental ethics in general. Notwithstanding certain superficial similarities, more profound practical and theoretical differences are exposed. While only sentient animals are moraIly considerable according to the humane ethic, the land ethic includes within its purview plants as weIl as animals and even soils and waters. Nor does the land ethic prohibit the hunting, killing, and eating ofcertain (...) animal species, in sharp contrast to the humane ethic. The humane ethic rests upon Benthamic foundations: pain is taken to be the ultimate evil and it is reductive or atomistic in its moral focus. The land ethic, on the other hand, is holistic in the sense that theintegrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community is its summum bonum. A classical antecedent of some of the formal characteristics of the land ethic is found in Plato’s moral philosophy. Special consideration is given to the differing moral status of domestic and wild animals in the humane and land ethics and to the question of moral vegetarianism. (shrink)

Despite Christopher Stone’s recent argument on behalf of moral pluralism, the principal architects of environmental ethics remain committed to moral monism. Moral pluralism fails to specify what to do when two or more of its theories indicate inconsistent practical imperatives. More deeply, ethical theories are embedded in moral philosophies and moral pluralism requires us to shift between mutually inconsistent metaphysics of morals, most of which are no Ionger tenable in light of postmodern science. A univocal moral philosophy-traceable to David Hume’s (...) and Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments, grounded in evolutionary biology by Charles Darwin, and latterly extended to the environment by Aldo Leopold-provides a unified, scientifically supported world view and portrait of human nature in whichmultiple, lexically ordered ethics are generated by multiple human, “mixed,” and “biotic” community memberships. (shrink)

The central and most recalcitrant problem for environmental ethics is the problem of constructing an adequate theory of intrinsic value for nonhuman natural entities and for nature as a whole. In part one, I retrospectively survey the problem, review certain classical approaches to it, and recommend one as an adequate, albeit only partial, solution. In part two, I show that the classical theory of inherent value for nonhuman entities and nature as a whole outlined in part one is inconsistent with (...) a contemporary scientific world view because it assumes the validity of the classical Cartesian partition between subject and object which has been overturned by quantum theory. Based upon the minimalistic Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, I then develop a theory of inherent value which does not repose upon the obsolete subject/object and ancillary fact/value dichotomies. In part three, I suggest that a more speculative metaphysical interpretation of quantum theory--one involving the notion ofreal internal relations anda holistic picture of nature-permits a principle of “axiological complementary,” a theory of “intrinsic”-as opposed to “inherent”-value in nature as a simple extension of ego. (shrink)

Although ecology is neither a universal nor foundational science, it has metaphysical implications because it profoundly alters traditional Western concepts of terrestrial nature and human being. I briefly sketch the received metaphysical foundations of the modem world view, set out a historical outline of an emerging ecological world view, and identify its principal metaphysical implications. Among these the most salient are a field ontology, the ontological subordination of matter to energy, internal relations, and systemic (as opposed to oceanic) holism. I (...) treat moral psychology as a special case of the metaphysical implications of ecology. Ecology undermines the concept of a separable ego or social atom and thus renders obsolete any ethics which involves the concepts of “self” and “other” as primitive terms. (shrink)

Recent deconstructive developments in ecology (doubts about the existence of unified communities and ecosystems, the diversity-stability hypothesis, and a natural homeostasis or “balance of nature”; and an emphasis on “chaos,” “perturbation,” and directionless change in living nature) and the advent of sociobiology (selfish genes) may seem to undermine the scientific foundations of environmental ethics, especially the Leopold land ethic. A reassessment of the Leopold land ethic in light of these developments (and vice versa) indicates that the land ethic is still (...) a viable environmental ethic, if judiciously updated and revised. (shrink)

Central to Holmes Rolston’s Environmental Ethics is the theoretical quest of most enviromnental philosophers for a defensible concept of intrinsic value for nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole. Rolston’s theory is similar to Paul Taylor’s in rooting intrinsic value in conation, but dissimilar in assigning value bonuses to consciousness and self-consciousness and value dividends to organic wholes andelemental nature. I argue that such a theory of intrinsic value flies in the face of the subject/object and fact/value dichotomies of (...) the metaphysical foundations of modem science—a problem Rolston never directly confronts. The modern scientific world view is obsolete. A post-modem scientific world view provides for a range of potential values in nature actualizable upon interaction with consciousness. The bestthat a modem scientific world view can provide are subject-generated—though not necessarily subject-centered—values in nature. (shrink)

“Would you like to contribute to XYZ charity by adding a dollar to your bill today?” Point-of-sale campaigns for fundraising are common to grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants and warehouse clubs. Commonly referred to as ‘checkout charity,’ these fundraisers have generated over $4.1 billion in contributions for nonprofits over the past three decades. Yet little research has focused on the ethicality of this type of campaign. To address this need, we analyze the issue using behavioral ethics and normative theory. We consider (...) three stakeholder perspectives, including the nonprofit initiating the campaign, the business hosting the campaign, and the donor. Often ethical theories are seen as competing for primacy rather than being complementary perspectives in choosing the best action. We demonstrate that ethical discernment results in a richer analysis when consulting multiple frameworks. The purpose of this paper is to provide a set of ethical considerations for individuals to draw upon when devising and donating to checkout charity campaigns. This analysis will serve as a conceptual resource for scholars, practitioners, and students of nonprofit and for-profit management. (shrink)

A generalized traditional Western world view is compared with a generalized traditional American Indian world view in respect to the practical relations implied by either to nature. The Western tradition pictures nature as material, mechanical, and devoid of spirit (reserving that exclusively for humans), while the American Indian tradition pictures nature throughout as an extended family or society of living, ensouled beings. The former picture invites unrestrained exploitation of nonhuman nature, while the latter provides the foundations for ethical restraint in (...) relation to nonhuman nature. This conclusion is defended against disclaimers by Calvin Martin and Tom Regan. (shrink)

Widely hailed as one of the most significant works in modern political philosophy, John Rawls's _Political Liberalism_ defended a powerful vision of society that respects reasonable ways of life, both religious and secular. These core values have never been more critical as anxiety grows over political and religious difference and new restrictions are placed on peaceful protest and individual expression. This anthology of original essays suggests new, groundbreaking applications of Rawls's work in multiple disciplines and contexts. Thom Brooks, Martha (...) Nussbaum, Onora O'Neill, Paul Weithman, Jeremy Waldron, and Frank Michelman explore political liberalism's relevance to the challenges of multiculturalism, the relationship between the state and religion, the struggle for political legitimacy, and the capabilities approach. Extending Rawls's progressive thought to the fields of law, economics, and public reason, this book helps advance the project of a free society that thrives despite disagreements over religious and moral views. (shrink)

Kentridge and Heywood (this issue) extend the concept of metacognition to include unconscious processes. We acknowledge the possible contribution of unconscious processes, but favor a central role of awareness in metacognition. We welcome Shimamura's (this issue) extension of the concept of metacognitive regulation to include aspects of working memory, and its relation to executive attention.

Modern agriculture is subject to a metaphysical as well as an ethical critique. As a casual review of the beliefs associated with food production in the past suggests, modern agriculture is embedded in and informed by the prevailing modern world view, Newtonian Mechanics, which is bankrupt as a scientific paradigm and unsustainable as an agricultural motif. A new holistic, organic world view is emerging from ecology and the new physics marked by four general conceptual features: Each level of organization from (...) atoms to ecosystems (1) exhibits emergent properties, (2) exerts downward causation from whole to part, (3) is a systemically integrated whole, (4) the parts of which are internally related. Organic agriculture has been favourably compared with industrial agriculture by the United States National Academy of Science's Board on Agriculture. Aldo Leopold was among the first to criticize industrial agriculture and to envision a new motif for agriculture informed by ecology. A future post-modern ecological agriculture will help to solve the ethical problems engendered by modern mechanical agriculture. (shrink)

The case of Dr. Nancy Olivieri, the Hospital for Sick Children, the University of Toronto, and Apotex Inc. vividly illustrates many of the issues central to contemporary health research and the safety of research participants. First, it exemplifies the financial and health stakes in such research. Second, it shows deficits in the ways in which research is governed. Finally, it was and remains relevant not only in Toronto but in communities across Canada and well beyond its borders because, absent appropriate (...) policies, what happened in Toronto could have happened (and could well still happen) elsewhere. In Part One of this paper, we review the facts of the Olivieri case relevant to the issues we wish to highlight: first, the right of participants in a clinical trial to be informed of a risk that an investigator had identified during the course of the trial and the obligation of the investigator to inform participants (both her own and those of other investigators); and second, the obligation of institutions to protect and promote the well-being of research participants as well as academic freedom and research integrity, the obligations of research sponsors to inform participants, research regulators, and others about unforeseen risks, and the obligations of research regulators to ensure that participants are informed of unforeseen risks and to otherwise protect and promote research integrity. In Part Two, we relate these facts and issues to New Zealand and Australia. We also make detailed recommendations for changes to the various instruments used for the governance of research involving humans in Australasia. (shrink)

Environmental ethics in its modem classical expression by Aldo Leopold appears to fall afoul of Hume’s prohibition against deriving ought-statements from is-statements since it is presented as a logical consequence of the science of ecology. Hume’s is/ought dichotomy is reviewed in its historical theoretical context. A general formulation bridging is and ought, in Hume’s terms, meeting his own criteria for sound practical argument, is found. It is then shown that Aldo Leopold’s land ethic is expressible as a special case of (...) this general formulation. Hence Leopold’s land ethic, despite its direct passage from descriptive scientific premises to prescriptive normative conclusions, is not in violation of any logical strictures which Hume would impose upon axiological reasoning. (shrink)

Western philosophers have traditionally concentrated on theory as the means for expressing knowledge about a variety of phenomena. This absorbing book challenges this fundamental notion by showing how objects themselves, specifically scientific instruments, can express knowledge. As he considers numerous intriguing examples, Davis Baird gives us the tools to "read" the material products of science and technology and to understand their place in culture. Making a provocative and original challenge to our conception of knowledge itself, _Thing Knowledge _demands that (...) we take a new look at theories of science and technology, knowledge, progress, and change. Baird considers a wide range of instruments, including Faraday's first electric motor, eighteenth-century mechanical models of the solar system, the cyclotron, various instruments developed by analytical chemists between 1930 and 1960, spectrometers, and more. (shrink)

Martha Nussbuam is one of the most prolific and original philosophers working today. Influenced by ancient philosophy, she has written on the relationship between fiction, the emotions and moral reasoning. With Amartya Sen she developed the capabilities approach to human well-being, which helped shape the UN’s Human Development Index. She is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.

Given that as much as half of human thought arises in a stimulus independent fashion, it would seem unlikely that such thoughts would play no functional role in our lives. However, evidence linking the mind-wandering state to performance decrement has led to the notion that mind-wandering primarily represents a form of cognitive failure. Based on previous work showing a prospective bias to mind-wandering, the current study explores the hypothesis that one potential function of spontaneous thought is to plan and anticipate (...) personally relevant future goals, a process referred to as autobiographical planning. The results confirm that the content of mind-wandering is predominantly future-focused, demonstrate that individuals with high working memory capacity are more likely to engage in prospective mind-wandering, and show that prospective mind-wandering frequently involves autobiographical planning. Together this evidence suggests that mind-wandering can enable prospective cognitive operations that are likely to be useful to the individual as they navigate through their daily lives. (shrink)

Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most remarkable women of her day. From early childhood she experienced religious visions, and at the age of eight she entered a cloistered religious life in the Benedictine monastery of Disibondenberg. Eventually she not only became abbess of the community, but presided over the establishment of an important new convent near Bingen. All but forgotten for hundreds of years, Hildegard was rediscovered in the 1980s and since then her visionary writings have been widely (...) read and studied. Even more surprisingly, music that she composed has been performed and recorded to great acclaim. She has come to be seen by some as a proto-feminist icon -- a woman of great accomplishments who made her own way in a man's world and exerted extraordinary influence over some of the most powerful figures of her time. Much of Hildegard's correspondence has been preserved. It reveals that for more than 30 years this cloistered nun was an unflinching adviser and correspondent to all levels of church and society, from popes and kings to ordinary lay persons, from Jerusalem to England. With the 2004 OUP publication of Volume III of Joseph Baird and Radd Ehrman's translation, the complete correspondence became available for the first time in English. For this new abridgement, Baird has selected 75 of the most interesting and revealing of the letters from Volumes I, II, and III. Freed from the organizational restraints of the Latin edition of the letters, he has arranged them in roughly chronological order and provided greatly expanded, accessibly written introductory notes that contextualize the letters and explain their significance. As a result, this fascinating collection serves as a kind of life in letters that makes an ideal introduction ot this exceptional woman, her world, and her work. This book is the first to give a thorough and definitive illlumination of the personal life of Hildegard of Bingen as viewed through the defining lens of her personal correspondence: her early, hesitant bid for recognition of her spiritual gifts; her courageous, and ultimately futile, fight to retain the companionship of her close personal friend and the poignant outcome of that struggle; her vehement defiance of the male hierarchy in her bid to establish her own communities under her personal governance; her impudent challenge to contemporary conservatives views by the dress and customs she established in her community; her paean of praise for the power of music; and her adamant refusal, even at the advanced age of eighty, to give in to the demands of the male authorities even in the face of excommunication. (shrink)

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek (...) thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

Visual Agnosia is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of disorders of higher vision that relates these disorders to current conceptions of higher vision from cognitive science, illuminating both the neuropsychological disorders and the nature of normal visual object recognition.Brain damage can lead to selective problems with visual perception, including visual agnosia the inability to recognize objects even though elementary visual functions remain unimpaired. Such disorders are relatively rare, yet they provide a window onto how the normal brain might accomplish the (...) complex task of vision. Visual Agnosia reviews a century of case studies of higher-level visual deficits following brain damage, places them in the general context of current neuroscience, and draws relevant conclusions about the organization of normal visual processing. It is unique in drawing on research in cognitive psychology, computational vision, visual neurophysiology, and neuropsychology to interpret the agnosias and draw inferences from them about visual object recognition.Following a historical account of agnosia research, Visual Agnosia offers a taxonomy of a wide range of agnosia syndromes, describing and interpreting the syndromes in terms of the latest theoretical models of visual processing and ultimately bringing them to bear as evidence on a variety of questions in the study of higher vision.Martha J. Farah is Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Visual Agnosia is included in the Issues in Biology of Language and Cognition series, edited by John Marshall. (shrink)

Tanto la filosofía como la literatura, en cuanto búsquedas de la verdad, de respuestas frente a un núcleo de preguntas vitales, recurren a una estructura formal que necesariamente es la expresión de una actitud frente a la vida. Se plantea que la forma literaria no puede separarse del contenido filosófico, pues es el resultado de una indagación que intenta dar respuestas a asuntos particulares sobre la vida humana, así como el contenido filosófico halla expresión en una estructura formal que transmite (...) un sentido de la vida. La forma y el contenido no pueden separarse sin fracturar la visión de la vida que ofrecen tanto el texto literario como el texto filosófico. Sin embargo ¿cómo escribir, qué formas, qué estructuras, qué lenguaje utilizar para hablar de asuntos tan particulares como el amor? ¿Hasta dónde es posible escribir filosóficamente sobre la vida y sus interrogantes particulares? ¿Cuáles han sido los aportes de la literatura en la búsqueda de visiones alternativas frente a la experiencia humana? Tal es el punto de partida en la elaboración de este ensayo que intenta, por lo demás, concederle a la literatura y a sus formas de expresión, un lugar más central en el campo de la reflexión sobre el sentido de la vida y otros interrogantes importantes acerca de los asuntos humanos. (shrink)