One of the most provocative projects in recent analytic philosophy has been the development of the doctrine of externalism, or, as it is often called, anti-individualism. While there is no agreement as to whether externalism is true or not, a number of recent investigations have begun to explore the question of what follows if it is true. One of the most interesting of these investigations thus far has been the question of whether externalism has consequences for the doctrine that we (...) have authoritative, a priori self-knowledge of our mental states. The selected works presented in this volume, some previously published, some new, are representative of this debate and open up new questions and issues for philosophical investigation, including the connection between externalism, self-knowledge, epistemic warrant, and memory. (shrink)

Feminist bioethics is a relatively new field, the major works in which only started to appear in the late 1980s. At first feminist bioethicists focused mainly on issues of particular concern to women such as reproduction. Recently, papers have begun to appear that show that a feminist analysis can be brought to bear on any subject traditional bioethics discusses. So far, however, feminist bioethics has not been brought to bear on psychiatry. There have been feminist critiques of psychiatry and feminist (...) discussions of certain diagnostic categories that disproportionately affect women, but these are concerned with womens issues within psychiatry and how psychiatry has been used to oppress women. Certainly these are important, but what has been missing is a discussion of psychiatry in the sense that feminist bioethics suggests a general critique of psychiatry and the rethinking of the practice of psychiatry, regardless of whether the specific instances involved are womens issues. In this paper I look at what such a feminist bioethical intervention into psychiatry would look like. (shrink)

This collection of papers by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral by developing theory that acknowledges the diversity of women.

"Active intervention" with suicidal callers to telephone crisis lines involves breaking confidentiality by dispatching emergency services, typically the police, to a suicidal person without that person's consent and sometimes without his or her knowledge.1 Those who oppose active intervention often refer to it as "nonvoluntary intervention." Active intervention is rapidly becoming the standard of practice for crisis centers and is required for certification by the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), the primary organization that certifies telephone crisis centers. A policy of (...) active intervention is also required for any crisis center affiliated with the Hope Line and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline .. (shrink)

“Active intervention” with suicidal callers to telephone crisis lines involves breaking confidentiality by dispatching emergency services, typically the police, to a suicidal person without that person’s consent and sometimes without his or her knowledge. In this paper I am concerned with the issue of whether active intervention is ethically justified from a feminist bioethical perspective, and if so, under what conditions.