There are few, if any, aspects of contemporary sport that do not raise ethical questions. From on-field relationships between athletes, coaches and officials, to the corporate responsibility of international sports organizations and businesses, ethical considerations permeate sport at every level. This important new collection of articles showcases the very best international scholarship in the field of sports ethics, and offers a comprehensive, one-stop resource for any student, scholar or sportsperson with an interest in this important area. It addresses cutting-edge contemporary (...) themes within sports ethics, such as gene doping, as well as introducing classic ethical debates that define our understanding of sport, sporting conduct and sport in practice. _The Ethics of Sports_ is arranged into seven thematic sections, each of which includes an introduction by the editor that highlights the key themes and places each article in context, and offers suggestions for further reading. _The Ethics of Sports _sheds new light on a wide range of issues within contemporary sports studies including doping, disability, gender and ethnicity; the practice of physical education and sports coaching; sports media; sports business and sports medicine. It is essential reading for all students with an interest in sport or applied ethics. (shrink)

A recent article in Anthropology of Consciousness entitled ‘Imaginal research for unlearning mastery: Divination with Tarot as a decolonizing methodology’ argues that the Western Tarot may be a useful tool to facilitate decolonization despite (or perhaps in spite) of the colonial and imperial imprints of the accumulating class. This response points out the Tarot is in fact a tool developed by the accumulating class, designed specifically to facilitate the imposition of elite master narratives. This letter calls into question the appropriateness (...) and effectiveness of using the Tarot as a tool for decolonization. (shrink)

New York Times best-selling author offers a groundbreaking approach to activate the subconscious brain to set yourself free from your past and create a terrific future. Can you remember a time in your life when you felt absolutely confident, happy, and free? Imagine what your life would be like if you could live in that space... In this book, Dr. Mike Dow shares a groundbreaking, life-changing program he created: Subconscious Visualization Technique (SVT). Now, if you think the subconscious brain (...) is some woo-woo pseudoscience, prepare to have your mind blown. The cutting-edge research, protocol, and audio tracks Mike offers will help you speak directly to your subconscious brain and tap into your greatest strengths, gifts, and resources. His program, the first of its kind, starts with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), then incorporates various types of subconscious tools: mindfulness, guided visualization, audio-visual entrainment, and bilateral stimulation of the brain and body. Your subconscious can change the way you digest food, help you access memories and repressed feelings, boost your immune system, and activate mindbody healing so that you don't have to constantly treat your symptoms. Some examples of syndromes that SVT can treat include chronic pain, fibromyalgia, leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, anxiety disorders, and more! SVT helps you access the best parts of yourself and move into your true self. In short, your subconscious brain can change your life!" -- ONIX annotation. (shrink)

Using the example of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism, and especially the writings of Sayyid Qutb, this article raises questions about discourse ethics as a mode of conflict resolution. It appears that discourse ethics is only relevant when all parties have already agreed to settle disputes deliberatively and already share the notions of rational deliberation and individual autonomy. This raises questions not only about the capability of discourse ethics to incorporate a deep plurality of worldviews, but also about its capability to successfully (...) solve disputes. When confronting situations where the willingness to deliberate is absent, discourse ethics is left standing empty handed. This, I argue, is due to both the conceptual distinction between communicative action and strategic action, as well as the abstracted nature of Habermas's discourse ethics. (shrink)

The first collective monograph on one of Plato’s most intriguing dialogues with interest for readers of ancient philosophy as well as those who study modern theories of language.

Inspiriert von den Vordenkern des amerikanischen Pragmatismus - William James, John Dewey und Richard Rorty - entwickelt Mike Sandbothe ein normativ nachhaltiges Konzept von Medien und Philosophie. Anhand exemplarischer Fallstudien zeigt er auf, wie sich dies in den Kultur- und Medienwissenschaften, den Bildungs- und Sozialwissenschaften sowie in der Psychologie nutzen lässt. Seine pragmatische Medienphilosophie kann dazu beitragen, die Betriebssysteme unserer Bildungsanstalten mit Hilfe von achtsamkeits- und körperbasierten sowie spirituellen Praktiken gesundheitsförderlich zu transformieren.

Roles and values -- Institutions and organisations -- Regulation and discipline -- The relationship -- Conflicts of interest -- Confidentiality and privilege -- Thir parties (non-clients) -- Social responsibility -- Professional responsibility -- Litigation and advocacy -- Settlement -- Commercial practice.

Though contemporary European philosophy and critical theory have long had a robust engagement with Christianity, there has been no similar engagement with Buddhism—a surprising lack, given Buddhism’s global reach and obvious affinities with much of Continental philosophy. This volume fills that gap, focusing on “nothing”—essential to Buddhism, of course, but also a key concept in critical theory from Hegel and Marx through deconstruction, queer theory, and contemporary speculative philosophy. Through an elaboration of emptiness in both critical and Buddhist traditions; an (...) examination of the problem of praxis in Buddhism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis; and an explication of a “Buddhaphobia” that is rooted in modern anxieties about nothingness, Nothing opens up new spaces in which the radical cores of Buddhism and critical theory are renewed and revealed. (shrink)

The storytelling monkey why do we see faces in clouds? -- The creative serpent where did science come from? -- The pitiful monster why do doctors wear white coats? -- The logical alien why are we so unreasonable? -- The clever horse -- The science graveyard why do we hold onto bad ideas? -- The tangled web who is in control of what we know? -- The progressive human what will intelligence mean in the future?

Mike Murray's excellent new book attacks the narrow high stakes accountability and marketized vision which has distorted our education system and offers a radical optimistic vision of how we can emerge from the current impasse.

Functional robustness refers to a system’s ability to maintain a function in the face of perturbations to the causal structures that support performance of that function. Modularity, a crucial element of standard methods of causal inference and difference-making accounts of causation, refers to the independent manipulability of causal relationships within a system. Functional robustness appears to be at odds with modularity. If a function is maintained despite manipulation of some causal structure that supports that function, then the relationship between that (...) structure and function fails to be manipulable independent of other causal relationships within the system. Contrary to this line of reasoning, I argue that functional robustness often attends feedback control, rather than failures of modularity. Feedback control poses its own challenges to causal explanation and inference, but those challenges do not undermine modularity—and indeed, modularity is crucial to grappling with them. (shrink)

Disagreement holds the key: the possibility of agreeing or disagreeing with a state of mind makes that state of mind act logically like accepting a claim. Charles Stevenson was quite right to begin his presentation of emotivism with disagreement.—Allan Gibbard.

Ethics 101 offers an exciting look into the history of moral principles that dictate human behavior. This easy-to-read guide presents the key concepts of ethics in fun, straightforward lessons and exercises featuring only the most important facts, theories, and ideas. Ethics 101 includes unique, accessible elements such as explanations of the major moral philosophies, including utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and eastern philosophers including Avicenna, Buddha, and Confucius; and unique profiles of the greatest characters in moral philosophy.

In show business lore, a “trouper” perseveres without complaint no matter how arduous or dangerous the circumstances. In the camaraderie-driven, show-must-go-on world of entertainment, the appellat...

Although current educational priorities tend to avoid strong moral positions, one of the world's most venerable yet persistently influential moral traditions not only lays out a number of major moral principles but also incorporates them into its pedagogy. Confucius teaches us about the importance of seeking knowledge, learning how to learn, applying ancient wisdom to contemporary situations, valuing virtue over material gain, following the Golden Rule, and living by our principles. He also has ways of assessing his own students' progress (...) in these matters. Confucius' pedagogy is an interesting model to consider and contrast with contemporary models. This chapter introduces these principles and assessments from the Analects and draws out some comparisons to and contrasts with two alternative theories in western moral thought, Augustine and John Dewey. -/- The accepted version of the paper is included here. Pagination does not match the published version. (shrink)

Thinking, making and doing -- Collective action -- Forms of repetition -- Discipline(s).

In his recent political writings, Habermas has opposed his cosmopolitan project to that of the Bushite neoconservatives. However, this article argues that in some respects Habermas's works come closer to the neoconservative agenda than he realizes and that this poses a potential danger of its being appropriated by precisely the camp he opposes. These problems particularly come to the fore in his analysis of Islamic fundamentalism, democracy and the Middle East, but also in his recommendations concerning UN-based internationalism and his (...) appeals to Woodrow Wilson. By tracking these problematic areas in Habermas's work, this article argues that Habermas needs to engage in a more carefully articulated, concrete and empirical analysis if he is to avoid these problems. (shrink)

We argue that multiple levels of trauma were present in Egypt before, during and after the 2011 revolution. Individual, social and political trauma constitute a triangle of traumatisation which was strategically employed by the Egyptian counter-revolutionary forces – primarily the army and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood – to maintain their political and economic power over and above the social, economic and political interests of others. Through the destruction of physical bodies, the fragmentation and polarisation of social relations and (...) the violent closure of the newly emerged political public sphere, these actors actively repressed the potential for creative and revolutionary transformation. To better understand this multi-layered notion of trauma, we turn to Habermas’ ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’ thesis which offers a critical lens through which to examine the wider political and economic structures and context in which trauma occurred as well as its effects on the personal, social and po... (shrink)

Are people rational? This question was central to Greek thought and has been at the heart of psychology and philosophy for millennia. This book provides a radical and controversial reappraisal of conventional wisdom in the psychology of reasoning, proposing that the Western conception of the mind as a logical system is flawed at the very outset. It argues that cognition should be understood in terms of probability theory, the calculus of uncertain reasoning, rather than in terms of logic, the calculus (...) of certain reasoning. (shrink)

In today's society some have argued that the legal profession's codes of conduct are a hodgepodge of rules without any clear ethical basis. In this text, Boon and Levin systematically address this compelling issue. Some of the major questions raised are as follows: Is self-regulation crucial to the survival of the legal profession? What fundamental philosophical principles govern ideas of professional conduct? Are the present codes regulating solicitors and barristers consistent with these principles? And, looking forward, are they appropriate when (...) the legal profession faces radical social, political and economic change? While this text focuses on the dynamics of the justice system in England and Wales, the overall issue of ethics and conduct in regards to law holds worldwide interest. Students, teachers and practitioners will find this the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary guide to and analysis of professional conduct and ethics. (shrink)

In The Politics of Vibration, cultural theorist Marcus Boon offers both an anthropological and theoretical account of vibrational ontology. Boon focuses on the work of three contemporary musicians-Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, Swedish drone composer and philosopher Catherine Christer Hennix, and Houston-based hip-hop creator, DJ Screw-each emerging from a different but entangled set of musical traditions or scenes, whose work is ontologically instructive. Written as a series of improvisations on the life and work of these musicians, The Politics of (...) Vibration expands in the direction of considering the vibrational nature of music more generally. Vibration is understood in multiple ways, as a mathematical and a physical concept, as a religious or ontological force, and as a psychological/psychoanalytic determinant of subjectivity. (shrink)

In response to calls for greater interdisciplinary involvement from the social sciences and humanities in the development, governance, and study of artificial intelligence systems, this paper presents one sociologist’s view on the problem of algorithmic bias and the reproduction of societal bias. Discussions of bias in AI cover much of the same conceptual terrain that sociologists studying inequality have long understood using more specific terms and theories. Concerns over reproducing societal bias should be informed by an understanding of the ways (...) that inequality is continually reproduced in society—processes that AI systems are either complicit in, or can be designed to disrupt and counter. The contrast presented here is between conservative and radical approaches to AI, with conservatism referring to dominant tendencies that reproduce and strengthen the status quo, while radical approaches work to disrupt systemic forms of inequality. The limitations of a conservative approach to racial bias are discussed through the specific example of biased criminal risk assessments and Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada’s criminal justice system. This illustrates the dangers of treating racial bias as a generalizable problem and equality as a generalizable solution, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in context. Societal issues can no longer be out of scope for AI and machine learning, given the impact of these systems on human lives. This requires engagement with a growing body of critical AI scholarship that goes beyond biased data to analyze structured ways of perpetuating inequality, opening up the possibility for interdisciplinary engagement and radical alternatives. (shrink)

I consider the most serious problem for the traditional account of divine creation in theistic actualism. According to van Inwagen's modal collapse argument, ultimate explanation entails that gratitude to God for one's existence is totally inappropriate. Ultimately, the actual world, and everything in it, is self-explanatory, and not a consequence of divine creation. I argue that van Inwagen's argument is unsound. It is consistent with an ultimate explanation for the world that the actual world is contingently necessary. If God actualizes (...) the world as a matter of contingent necessity, then gratitude to God for one's existence is perfectly appropriate. It is true that we exist as a matter of necessity, but that necessary existence is just a contingent fact. There are possible worlds in which we fail to exist altogether. (shrink)

Disinterring Kant -- Kant's first critique and the problem of reification -- The aesthetic, the beautiful and praxis -- The aesthetic and class interests -- The sublime in Kant's philosophical architecture -- Labour, the aesthetic, and nature -- On Marxism and metaphor -- In the laboratory of Kant's aesthetic.

This chapter summarizes much of the recent work in experimental philosophy. It begins with some background, introducing the philosophical dispute between descriptivists and causal‐historical accounts of reference that has served as the primary focus of experimental work. The chapter also reviews some reasons to think that understanding reference may have very general philosophical implications. It introduces preliminary experimental work on reference by Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich, which suggested the existence of cultural diversity in judgments about (...) the reference of proper names in a classic case. The chapter explains a range of responses to this work; responses that themselves advance and clarify the central issues at stake. The chapter briefly considers the related empirical research, some of it recent, some of it decades old, into the reference of kind terms rather than proper names. Finally, the chapter summarizes by considering the payoffs of this literature. (shrink)

Speculates on what the dead would say to the living if they could commuicate.

How can a critical analysis of entrepreneurial intention inform an appreciation of ethics in social enterprise business models? In answering this question, we consider the ethical commitments that inform entrepreneurial action and the hybrid organisations that emerge out of these commitments and actions. Ethical theory can be a useful way to reorient the field of social enterprise so that it is more critical of bureaucratic and market-driven enterprises connected to neoliberal doctrine. Social enterprise hybrid business models are therefore reframed as (...) outcomes of both ethical and entrepreneurial intentions. We challenge the dominant conceptualisation of social enterprise as a hybrid blend of mission and market by reframing hybridity in terms of the moral choice of economic system and social value orientation. We deconstruct the political foundations of charitable trading activities, co-operative and mutual enterprises and socially responsible businesses by examining the rationalities and ethical commitments that underpin them. Whilst conceptual modelling of social enterprise is not new, this paper contributes to knowledge by developing a theory of social enterprise ethics based on the moral/political choices that are made by entrepreneurs when choosing between systems of economic exchange and social value orientation, then expressing it through a legal form. (shrink)

The dead donor rule justifies current practice in organ procurement for transplantation and states that organ donors must be dead prior to donation. The majority of organ donors are diagnosed as having suffered brain death and hence are declared dead by neurological criteria. However, a significant amount of unrest in both the philosophical and the medical literature has surfaced since this practice began forty years ago. I argue that, first, declaring death by neurological criteria is both unreliable and unjustified but (...) further, the ethical principles which themselves justify the dead donor rule are better served by abandoning that rule and instead allowing individuals who have suffered severe and irreversible brain damage to become organ donors, even though they are not yet dead and even though the removal of their organs would be the proximal cause of death. (shrink)

This essay argues for the fruitfulness of Beck’s idea of cosmopolitanism for understanding the changing political, sociological and psychological attributes of climate change. This argument is illustrated through brief examinations of how climate change is contributing to the dissolution of three modern dualisms: nature-culture, present-future and global-local. Not only does the cosmopolitan perspective help to understand the ways in which science and society are mutually constructing the phenomenon of climate change, it also offers us a way of asking ‘what can (...) climate change do for us?’ rather than ‘what can we do for climate change?’ Sociologists are needed for answering this question. (shrink)

Part of understanding the meaning and power of algorithms means asking what new demands they might make of ethical frameworks, and how they might be held accountable to ethical standards. I develop a definition of networked information algorithms as assemblages of institutionally situated code, practices, and norms with the power to create, sustain, and signify relationships among people and data through minimally observable, semiautonomous action. Starting from Merrill’s prompt to see ethics as the study of “what we ought to do,” (...) I examine ethical dimensions of contemporary NIAs. Specifically, in an effort to sketch an empirically grounded, pragmatic ethics of algorithms, I trace an algorithmic assemblage’s power to convene constituents, suggest actions based on perceived similarity and probability, and govern the timing and timeframes of ethical action. (shrink)

Sports have long played an important role in society. By exploring the evolving link between sporting behaviour and the prevailing ethics of the time this comprehensive and wide-ranging study illuminates our understanding of the wider social significance of sport. The primary aim of _Sports, Virtues and Vices_ is to situate ethics at the heart of sports via ‘virtue ethical’ considerations that can be traced back to the gymnasia of ancient Greece. The central theme running through the book is that sports (...) are effectively modern morality plays: universal practices of moral education for the masses and - when coached, officiated and played properly - a valuable vehicle for ethical development. Including a wealth of contemporary sporting examples, the book explores key ethical issues such as: How the pursuit of sporting excellence can lead to harm Doping, greed and shame Biomedical technology as a challenge to the virtue of elite athletes Defining a ‘virtue ethical account’ in sport Family vices and virtues in sport Written by one of the world's foremost sports philosophers, this book powerfully unites the fields of sports ethics and medical ethics. It is essential reading for all students and scholars with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport. (shrink)