In this study, we investigated endorsement of two types of prescriptive views of aging, namely active aging and altruistic disengagement. The study comprised a large international sample of middle-aged and older adults, covering the age range from 40 to 90 years. Participants rated their personal endorsement of prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement targeting older adults in general. Findings showed that endorsement was higher for prescriptions for active aging than for prescriptions for altruistic disengagement. Age groups in the (...) sample differed regarding their endorsement of both prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement with older adults showing higher endorsement than middle-aged adults did. Prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement related positively to each other and to the superordinate social belief that older adults should not become a burden, which attests to their functional similarity. In contrast, prescriptive views of active aging and altruistic disengagement were associated with psychological adjustment in opposite ways, with endorsement of active aging being related to better adjustment outcomes such as life satisfaction and subjective health. Our findings highlight the internalization of prescriptive views of aging in older people and their implications for their development and well-being. (shrink)

By definition, pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is felt in a particular part of the body. The precise relationship between somatic events at the site where pain is experienced, and central processing giving rise to the mental experience of pain remains the subject of debate, but there is little disagreement in scholarly circles that both aspects of pain are critical to its experience. Recent experimental work, however, suggests a public view that is at odds with this conceptualisation. (...) By demonstrating that the public does not necessarily endorse central tenets of the “mental” view of pain (subjectivity, privacy, and incorrigibility), experimental philosophers have argued that the public holds a more “body-centric” view than most clinicians and scholars. Such a discrepancy would have important implications for how the public interacts with pain science and clinical care. In response, we tested the hypothesis that the public is capable of a more “mind-centric” view of pain. Using a series of vignettes, we demonstrate that in situations which highlight mental aspects of pain the public can, and does, recognize pain as a mental phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the public view is subject to context effects, by showing that the public’s view is modified when situations emphasizing mental and somatic aspects of pain are presented together. (shrink)

The focus on translational research in clinical trials has the potential to generate clinically relevant genetic data that could have importance to patients. This raises challenging questions about communicating relevant genetic research results to individual patients. An exploratory pharmacogenetic analysis was conducted in the international ovarian cancer phase III trial, AGO-OVAR 16, which found that patients with clinically important germ-line BRCA1/2 mutations had improved progression-free survival prognosis. Mechanisms to communicate BRCA results were evaluated, because these findings may be beneficial to (...) patients and their families. Communicating individual BRCA results was not anticipated during clinical trial design. Consequently, options were not available for patients to indicate their preference for receiving their individual results when they signed pharmacogenetic informed consent. Differences in local requirements, clinical practice, and opinion regarding the ethical aspects of how to convey genetic results to patients are all potential barriers to returning individual BRCA results to patients. Communicating the aggregate BRCA result from this study provided clinical investigators with a mechanism to disseminate the overall study finding to patients while taking individual circumstances, local guidelines and clinical practice into account. This study illustrates the importance of increasing the clarity and scope of informed consent and the need for patient engagement to ensure clinical trial participants can indicate their preference regarding receipt of potentially important individual pharmacogenetic results. This study was registered in the NCT Clinical Trial Registry under NCT00866697 on March 19, 2009, following approval from participating ethics committees. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend relies on a flat tax on the use of natural resources to fund the eradication of world poverty. Hillel Steiner's Global Fund taxes the full rental value of owned natural resources and distributes the proceeds equally. The paper compares the Dividend and the Fund and defends the Global Share, a novel proposal that taxes either use or ownership, does so (when possible) progressively, and distributes the revenue according to a prioritarian rather than a sufficientarian (...) or egalitarian principle. (shrink)

Thomas & Karmiloff-Smith (T&K-S) raise an issue of considerable theoretical importance: Are developmental disorders like cases of adult brain damage? However, a related question: Are developmental disabilities the same in children and adults? is rarely addressed. Failure to consider the cumulative and differing effects of aberrant development across the life span confounds the current literature on both developmental dyslexia and Specific Language Impairment.

Dando continuidade às discussões iniciadas em “O ‘sentido da vida’ em Schopenhauer e Nietzsche”, o presente artigo analisa o problema do “sentido da vida” na filosofia contemporânea, tomando como referência sobretudo o pensamento de um autor pouco debatido no Brasil: Thomas Nagel. Inicia-se com uma breve retomada do tema em Schopenhauer e Nietzsche (1); indica-se em que medida ele surge apenas nas últimas décadas como uma preocupação da filosofia contemporânea de língua inglesa (2); analisa-se como Nagel trata do mesmo (...) em seu pensamento, sobretudo na obra Visão a partir de lugar nenhum(3); conclui-se comparando as posições de Nagel, Schopenhauer e Nietzsche (4). (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone analizar la relación entre teología y política en el pensamiento de Ernst Bloch y Walter Benjamin, particularmente en los inicios de la década del veinte, período en el que ambos encuentran en el mesianismo una respuesta política frente a la crisis que enfrentaba Alemania. El marco de discusión se plantea a partir de Thomas Münzer, teólogo de la revolución [1921] de Bloch, en vistas de cotejarlo con los escritos de Benjamin de la época. Se pondrá (...) a prueba la hipótesis de que sus reapropiaciones del mesianismo convergen en sus consideraciones sobre la historia, aunque no obturan sus diferencias en relación al sujeto histórico; éstas se traducen en distancias políticas que dan cuenta del escenario heterogéneo al interior de la izquierda alemana en el período 1920-1921. (shrink)

This paper considers the obligation higher income countries have to lower and middle income countries during a global pandemic. Further considers which reforms are needed to the global supply-chain of medical resources. The short-comings in distribution and medical infrastructure have exacerbated the health crisis in developing countries. Global justice demands radical redistribution of medical resources in order to prevent mass casualties. This is argued first by highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic should be acknowledged as an issue of global justice, secondly, (...) higher income countries ought to account for distribution inequity as a matter of rectifying past injustices, and thirdly argue for reform in distribution while considering the vaccine rollout as a prime example. We aim to show how the differences from country to country in response capabilities are a result of the economic foundation colonialism established and a direct result of cyclical poverty, which wealthy countries perpetuate to this day. (shrink)

A hipótese do artigo é que o dilema da constituição da representação política, que não tem por função refletir, mas interferir e operar uma unidade de “vontade política” a um povo ou uma nação, foi enfrentado pelos primeiros pensadores da representação moderna em diferentes contextos de grande transformação política e social: na Inglaterra absolutista no século XVII, por Thomas Hobbes, e na França pós-revolucionaria no século XVIII, pelo Abade Sieyès. O artigo procura identificar nos argumentos dos respectivos filósofos os (...) primeiros esforços teóricos sobre a representação moderna, através de uma comparação que evidencia dilemas e constrangimentos semelhantes em diferentes contextos teóricos. Um dos principais desafios da representação política, nos dois autores, permanece sendo a busca dos mecanismos capazes de transformar vontades dispersas e múltiplas de indivíduos numa só vontade unificada do corpo social. Embora os argumentos de legitimidade possam variar, para ambos os autores, a “vontade” do representante político é produto de uma elaboração conceitual e de uma produção racional que se dá com a constituição de um corpo, que no caso de Hobbes se dá com a criação do Estado, e em Sieyès com a representação nacional. (shrink)

Two of the greatest challenges facing humanity are environmental degradation and the persistence of poverty. Both can be met by instituting a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) that would slow pollution and natural-resource depletion while collecting funds to avert poverty worldwide. Unlike Hillel Steiner's Global Fund, which is presented as a fully just regime governing the use of planetary resources, the GRD is meant as merely a modest but widely acceptable and therefore realistic step toward justice. Paula Casal has set (...) forth various ways in which this step might be improved upon. Solid counter-arguments can be given to her criticisms and suggestions. But to specify the best (effective and realizable) design of an appropriate global institutional mechanism with some confidence, economists, political scientists, jurists, environmental scientists, and activists would need to be drawn in to help think through the immense empirical and political complexities posed by this urgent task. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ergodic hypothesis in the context of Boltzmann’s late work in statistical mechanics, where Boltzmann lays the foundations for what is today known as the typicality account. I argue that, based on the concepts of stationarity (of the measure) and typicality (of the equilibrium state), the ergodic hypothesis, as an idealization, is a consequence rather than an assumption of Boltzmann’s account. More precisely, it can be shown that every system with a stationary measure and an equilibrium state (...) (be it a typical state with respect to the phase space or the time average) behaves essentially as if it were ergodic. I claim that Boltzmann was aware of this fact as it grounds both his notion of equilibrium, relating it to the thermodynamic notion of equilibrium, and his estimate of the fluctuation rates. (shrink)

Forty years on, G. A. Cohen’s reconstruction and defence of Marx’s theory of history is still widely, and justifiably, considered the best of its kind, and it remains unsurpassed in clarity, argumentation and textual support. This article presents an under-explored critique of the theory that arises once we recognize that it is meant to apply to the circumstances of women as well as men. The article argues that, when extended to women, the reconstructed theory’s predictions fail to materialize, its characterizations (...) of historical stages fall apart, and its functional explanations appear implausible. In addition, although the theory claims to be able to explain the emergence and diffusion of different ideologies by their effects on productive development, it cannot plausibly explain the presence of sexist ideologies despite their pervasive and profound impact across history. The article concludes by showing that these flaws highlight the many respects in which Cohen’s orthodox version of Marxism is a conservative ideology, and one that egalitarians in particular should view with suspicion. Once we analyse the different components of the theory, the idea of a right-wing Marxism no longer seems as odd as it sounds. (shrink)

In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.

This volume brings together for the first time a significant number of Reid's manuscript papers on natural history, physiology and materialist metaphysics. An important contribution not only to Reid studies but also to our understanding of eighteenth-century science and its context.

This chapter contains section titled: I Welfarist and Resourcist Egalitarianism II Resource Egalitarianism and Procreation III Equality of Fortune IV Procreation and the Appeal to Fairness V Internalizing the Effects of Procreation VI Tolerating Externalities Acknowledgement.

This article aims to contribute to a (post)extractivist aesthetics at a time of ontological shifts, meaning an aesthetics that focuses on the role of art in struggles for (post)extractivist worlds. First, it argues for a contextualized approach to the use of the extractivism framework and proposes that this framework is particularly productive for approaching the socio-environmental crisis due to the way it allows us to engage with the ontological basis of this crisis. The article then builds on empirical research conducted (...) in Argentina to develop the concept of prefigurative ontological design, one of the key functions, it is proposed, of artistic practice in anti- and post-extractivist movements. In this way, the article aims to expand our understanding of the potential of extractivism as a framework of analysis and contributes to the theorization of the relationship between art and extractivism through the lens of political ontology, offering new concepts for developing a (post)extractivist aesthetics. (shrink)

The need to use green taxes to protect the environment is urgent, particularly because of climate change, and can be justified via sound deontological and consequence-based arguments. One very influential criticism of such taxes, however, claims that they disproportionately burden relatively poor individuals who tend to contribute to environmental problems far less than wealthier persons. Critics can also object that because of the link between economic inequality and environmental destruction it is preferable to adopt environmental measures that impede rather than (...) accelerate the growth of inequality. Defusing these criticisms, the article argues that various types of green fiscal reform can both avoid disproportionally burdening those who pollute least and reduce the economic inequalities that income taxes leave behind, and slow down the collectively self-defeating consumption arms race that currently besets so many affluent societies. Global progressive environmental taxation is also a possibility, and even easier to justify. (shrink)

This narrative scoping review examines ethical practice in educational and school psychology from a bioecological systems’ perspective. A search of four databases yielded 34 articles in the final narrative synthesis. Informed by Bronfenbrenner and Morris’ bioecological systems theory, the ethical experiences of educational and school psychologists were analyzed using the concepts of Process, Person, Context and Time. The complexity, intensity and frequency of ethical dilemmas are reviewed in Process. The demand, resource, and force characteristics impacting on psychologists as Person are (...) reviewed. Within Context, studies identified dilemmas that arose for psychologists across systems. In Time, issues including implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on psychologists’ ethical practice with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence are examined. This paper demonstrates the synergies and the interrelated influences on psychologists’ ethical practices arising from a systematic review of their experiences and their professional training needs. (shrink)

This paper is a response to H. Siegel’s “Arguing with Arguments” from a rhetorical perspective on argumentation. First I address Siegel’s concept of ‘argument in its abstract propositional sense’ and attempt to show that it is not at all an obvious object that should unquestionably be the privileged focus of argumentation theory. I then defend C. W. Tindale’s rhetorical perspective on argumentation against some of Siegel’s misreadings and also some of his legitimate disagreements regarding the relations between _persuasion_ and _rational_ (...) _justification_ and the way we should understand the source of argumentative normativity. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Dangerous Sport of Social Climbing Not a Doe but a Roe The Belly of the Beast Notes.

Xenotransplantation is often deemed morally objectionable because of the costs it imposes on the organ donor and the risks it imposes on the recipient. For some, involving human–pig chimeras as donors makes the practice more objectionable or even abhorrent from the start. For others, by contrast, using such chimeras weakens recipient-based objections because it reduces the risk of organ rejection and malfunctioning, and cancels donor-based objections because the practice does not harm chimeras but instead gives them valuable lives they would (...) not otherwise have. The paper examines and eventually rejects the latter defense. It also discusses the additional risks of chimeric xenotourism in countries with less demanding procedural guidelines and reflects on two very different futures for humanity that may emerge from supporting or rejecting chimeric xenotransplantation. (shrink)

Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

Die aktuellen Geschehnisse zeigen, dass eine rasche und entschiedene Wende hin zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung unumgänglich ist, wenn wir uns und unseren Planeten retten wollen. Gerade Unternehmen können hier einen großen Beitrag leisten. Trotzdem kommen wir oft nicht ins Handeln oder es fehlen die Mitstreiter: innen im Unternehmen. Das essential stellt die wichtigsten Strategien für eine erfolgreiche Veränderung hin zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit vor und zeigt, wie Mitstreiter: innen für diese Transformation gewonnen werden. Es geht konkret der Frage nach, was wir (...) aus der Psychologie für die Nachhaltigkeitstransformation lernen können. So werden psychologische Theorien verständlich vorgestellt, inspirierende Fallbeispiele gezeigt und konkrete Impulse für die Umsetzung im eigenen Unternehmen (und privatem Umfeld) gegeben.Der Inhalt Nachhaltigkeitstransformation - eine psychologische Perspektive Der Einstellungs- und Verhaltenswandel - seine Möglichkeiten und Grenzen Gemeinsam ins Handeln kommen - Chancen, Risiken und neue Wege Die Rolle des Experimentierens - new ways of doing, thinking and organizing im Unternehmen ausprobieren Die Zielgruppen Nachhaltigkeits-Manager: innen und Verantwortliche in Unternehmen Alle, die sich für Veränderungen hin zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit interessieren Die AutorinProf.in Dr.in Paula Maria Bögel ist seit 2022 Professorin (W1) für Transformationsmanagement in ländlichen Räumen an der Universität Vechta und seit 2023 Gastprofessorin an der Universität Groningen. Sie beschäftigt sich vor allem mit den Akteuren in Nachhaltigkeitstransformationen und deren Verhalten. (shrink)

Social robots are an increasingly integral part of society, already appearing as customer service assistants, care-home helpers, teaching assistants and personal companions. This book argues that the wider inclusion of social robots in our society is having a revolutionary impact on some of our key intuitions regarding ethics, metaphysics and epistemology and, as such, will put pressure on many of our best theories. Social robots elicit an emotional and social response in humans that some have taken to be evidence that (...) robots deserve moral consideration. Others have argued that, as robots are only machines, we should avoid designing robots that encourage emotional engagement. The fictional dualism model provides a new way for us to view social robots and a new route for our continued relationship with them. When we engage with a social robot, we create a fictional overlay that has wants, needs and desires. Our emotional attachment to social robots is a natural continuation of our relationship to fiction: a life-enhancing and important connection, but not one that prompts moral consideration for the fictional entity. In this book, Paula Sweeney shows how the fictional dualism model of social robots differs from other popular models. In addition to providing a distinctive and ethically appropriate framework for emotional engagement without moral consideration, the model provides conditions for trusting social robots and, uniquely, allows us to individuate social robots as distinct persons, even in contexts in which they share a collective mind. (shrink)

This paper discusses Philippe Van Parijs’ claim that men’s lack of female longevity constitutes an injustice, whether this is caused by asocial factors or by gendered lifestyles. This response argues that, like others, such as John Kekes and Shlomi Segall, Van Parijs underestimates the resources of egalitarian liberalism to avoid this implication. One explanation treats individuals as liable for gendered life-shortening behavior, for example, when they value either life-shortening lifestyles or the choice between lifestyles, and one ca nnot say society (...) has not “done enough” for them. A second explanation claims a trait is not a relative advantage when it is systematically part of a package of traits that do not constitute a relative advantage. A third explanation claims a trait is not an advantage when its value to the trait bearer is conditional, and the relevant conditions are unlikely to be fulfilled. (shrink)

Introduction to special issue on justice and gender (in)equality in Law, Ethics and Philosophy.

In this article, the author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have had little incentive to take on female activities or jobs. The gender egalitarianism that gained traction was the notion that women should have access to upward mobility and to all areas of schooling and jobs. But persistent (...) gender essentialism means that most people follow gender-typical paths except when upward mobility is impossible otherwise. Middle-class women entered managerial and professional jobs more than working-class women integrated blue-collar jobs because the latter were able to move up while choosing a “female” occupation; many mothers of middle-class women were already in the highest-status female occupations. The author also notes a number of gender-egalitarian trends that have stalled. (shrink)

The animal entertainment industry includes different practices. Some consist in torturing an animal to death, as in bullfighting and countless other popular traditions, while others involve watching an animal in captivity, which can be another form of torture. Perhaps the most profitable practice is forcing very intelligent animals to perform the same routine several times daily in zoos and aquariums containing marine mammals, or in circuses containing terrestrial mammals. These businesses then present the animals in whatever way that makes the (...) practice appear less immoral, claim to have education and conservation as their mission, and present their entertainment businesses as altruistic charities. Disseminating their misleading discourse is unethical. (shrink)

The relationship between law and morality is a topic which receives special importance and attention, especially in "liberal democracies" in which the law is supposed to regulate highly pluralized and fragmented societies. Under conditions of plurality of values, many social forces and legal theories require a certain kind of neutrality from the legal system, a means of compatibility of the many "world views" and "moral systems" that are present within the same social space. Such a conciliating commitment sounds particularly relevant (...) in times of the doctrinal ubiquity of ideas such as "peace based on human rights". This was the title of the 28th World Congress of the IVR in Lisbon, with the special workshop "Law and Morals" on which this book is based. It is divided into four parts: "Law and Practical Reason", "Conceptual Approaches on Law and Morals", "Legal versus Moral Normativity", and "Morals and Legal Positivism". (shrink)

Le sens dépend-il de la sensibilité? De quelle manière ou en quel sens? La phénoménologie reconnaît au sens une part de sensibilité, contre la thèse de son autonomie. Le sens ne serait pas un phénomène de connaissance, ni un phénomène de langage, mais un phénomène sensible : un contenu de perception, propre au rapport que le corps sentant entretient au monde senti. Nos discours, nos actes et nos existences perdraient alors leur sens à mesure qu’ils s’autonomisent et se trouvent partiellement (...) privés de leur dimension sensible, corporelle et mondaine. Mais cette thèse ne s’impose pas d’un seul tenant dans l’histoire de la phénoménologie. De l’autonomie à la sensibilité et de la sensibilité à l’autonomie, l’analyse phénoménologique du sens implique chaque fois des régressions qui, en retour, ouvrent de nouvelles avancées. C’est ce mouvement que cet ouvrage se propose de retracer, de Husserl à la phénoménologie française, via les principales conceptions du sens qui s’y trouvent développées. (shrink)

Merit has very little to do with the increasing dominance of men in the modern Liberal Party. Yet Liberal women continue to defend it. Until now. ON MERIT explores this imbalance, its implications for the party's future, and how a pair of red shoes may spark a rebellion against the merit myth.

Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of Aquinas's (...) moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

In this paper, I present two presumed alternative definitions of metavalidity for metainferences: Local and Global. I defend the latter, first, by arguing that it is not too weak with respect to metainference-cases, and that local metavalidity is in fact too strong with respect to types. Second, I show that although regarding metainference-schemas Local metavalidity is always stable, Global metavalidity is also stable when the language satisfies reasonable expressibility criteria.