This paper investigates what choices teachers made and what rationales they offered related to the inclusion and exclusion of primary source photographs for a hypothetical unit about the U.S. Civil...

The dominant approach to conscience in contemporary bioethics presumes that conscience functions to promote personal moral integrity, and therefore presumes that the relevant values are inherently personal. This approach fails to demonstrate when and why claims of conscience should be taken seriously by others. I draw on Hannah Arendt’s deliberative model of conscience and Cheshire Calhoun’s social model of integrity to develop an alternative relational view of conscience—one that demonstrates that the relevant values are social as well as (...) personal. I show how the goal of improving ethical practice over time constrains which conscience claims should be taken seriously by others. (shrink)

InReference and Consciousness,1John Campbell attempts to a make a case that what he calls ‘the Relational View’ of visual experience, a view that he champions, is superior to what he calls ‘the Representational View’.2I argue that his attempt fails. In section 1, I spell out the two views. In section 2, I outline Campbell's case that the Relational View is superior to the Representational View and offer a diagnosis of where Campbell goes wrong. (...) In section 3, I examine the case in detail and argue that it fails. Finally, in section 4, I mention two very well-known problems for the Relational View that are unresolved in the book. (shrink)

This article explores humanity’s ontology of relationality and telos of the common good as not only inseparable but mutually constitutive, drawing on the work of Thomas Aquinas and looking into the debates between Charles De Koninck and Jacques Maritain.

Since the 1970s, the origin of cancer is being explored from the point of view of the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT), focusing on genetic mutations and clonal expansion of somatic cells. As cancer research expanded in several directions, the dominant focus on cells remained steady, but the classes of genes and the kinds of extra-genetic factors that were shown to have causal relevance in the onset of cancer multiplied. The wild heterogeneity of cancer-related mutations and phenotypes, along with the (...) increasing complication of models, led to an oscillation between the hectic search of 'the' few key factors that cause cancer and the discouragement in face of a seeming 'endless complexity'. To tame this complexity, cancer research started to avail itself of the tools that were being developed by Systems Biology. At the same time, anti-reductionist voices began claiming that cancer research was stuck in a sterile research paradigm. This alternative discourse even gave birth to an alternative theory: the Tissue Organization Field Theory (TOFT). A deeper philosophical analysis shows the serious limits of both reductionist and anti-reductionist positions and of their polarization. This book demonstrates that a radical philosophical reflection is necessary to drive cancer research out of its impasses. At the very least, this will be a reflection on the assumptions of different kinds of cancer research, on the implications of what cancer research has been discovering over 40 years and more, on a view of scientific practice that is most able to make sense of the cognitive and social conflicts that are seen in the scientific community (and in its results), and, finally, on the nature of living entities with which we entertain this fascinating epistemological dance that we call scientific research. The proposed Dynamic and Relational View of carcinogenesis is a starting point in all these directions. (shrink)

What is consciousness? brentano suggests that consciousness is a simple binary relation between a self and an object. in this paper, i offer a textual clarification and a qualified philosophical defense of brentano's suggestion. in part i, i indicate the ordinary facts of subjective experience that any adequate theory of consciousness must account for. in part ii, i argue on textual grounds that brentano's theory has been misunderstood by chisholm. in part iii, i argue that brentano's theory meets the conditions (...) of an adequate theory. (shrink)

This paper tries to meet the three basic constraints in the metaphysics of perception—that, following Schellenberg, I call here the particularity constraint, the indistinguishable constraint, and the phenomenological constraint—by putting forward a new combination of the two well-known contradictory views in this field: the relational view and the content view. Following other compatibilists, I do think that it is possible to reconcile the two views, recognizing that experience has both a relational and a representational dimension. However, (...) in opposition to the current ways of combining these two views, I reject the idea of gappy contents. Instead, my proposal is builds on Lewis’s famous semantic, according to which the content of sentences is best modeled as complex functions from context-index pairs to truth-values. In conformity with the content view, I want to suggest that perceptual experiences do represent complex properties or complex functions that are either veridical or falsidical of particulars in contexts and indexes. In this relativist framework, I can also accommodate the relational claim that our experience of particulars must be understood as a fundamental cognitive relation rather than as a representation. In this way, particulars also play a key role in individuating perceptual experiences. Two token experiences, e and e′, are different when one of the following conditions is met: first, if two different particulars, a and a′, are causally responsible for the token experiences e and e′, respectively, regardless of the time and location in which the perceptual experiences take place; second, if the same particular a, which is causally responsible for both e and e′, is either located in a different place or is in the same location but at a different time. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on recognition respect as a component of Anderson’s democratic equality – specifically, how it places certain requirements on the way political institutions such as states treat both citizens and non-citizens. I argue for two claims: that recognition respect is a plausible political (as well as ethical) value, and that it should be understood in large part as a matter of an agent’s material relational standing rather than as their merely being regarded in a certain (...) way by others. In particular, I argue that the second-personal emphasis of recognition respect, the conceptual requirement that recognising somebody as an agent involves recognising them as somebody to whom you are in principle accountable, requires that agents actually be able to hold you to account rather than merely that you see them as being the right sort of being to do so. In turn, this implies that recognition respect requires non-vulnerability. Together, these claims go some way towards further fleshing out democratic equality as a philosophical ideal, and determining what implications this ideal has for matters of theory and policy. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between a prominent version of the relational view of memory and recent work on forms of unsuccessful remembering or memory errors. I argue that unsuccessful remembering poses an important challenge for the relational view. Unsuccessful remembering can be divided into two kinds: misremembering and confabulating. I discuss each of these cases in light of a recent relational account, according to which remembering is characterized by an experiential relation to past events, (...) and I argue that experiential relations do not adequately distinguish between remembering and unsuccessful remembering. This is because there are, on the one hand, cases of remembering that do not instantiate the relevant experiential relations, and, on the other hand, cases of confabulation and misremembering that do instantiate the relevant experiential relations. I conclude by suggesting that any successful relationalist attempt to explain remembering needs to come to grips with unsuccessful remembering. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the limits of the mainstream individualistic notion of resilience and, in light of these limits, it advances a new, relational notion of the concept of resilience that contributes to the individuals’ well-being and takes into consideration the role of systemic inequality. The first half of the paper argues that the individualistic notion is flawed in two ways: i) it can foster ill-being because it is cognitively taxing, and ii) it discounts (...) systemic inequality because it transfers the responsibility of any achievement and failure onto the single individual without regard for conditions of oppression. The second half of the paper reconceptualizes the concept of resilience as a relational notion that takes into account structural support as well as conditions of oppression and marginalization. According to this latter notion of resilience, the chapter argues that oppression, lack of material conditions, or lack of structural support are elements that can impact the appropriateness of calls to be resilient. A relational notion of resilience fosters well-being because it puts the collective community at the center (instead of the individual) and it takes into consideration material conditions and structural injustices. (shrink)

It’s often said that relational view of experience can’t provide an explanation of mode of presentation phenomena: the idea is that if experience is characterized merely as a relation to an object, then we can’t make sense of the idea that one and the same object can be given in perception in many different ways. I show that we can address this problem by looking at the causal structure in relational experience. Experience of an object is caused (...) by experience of particular properties it has, such as its color and location, and experience of the object is in turn a cause of experience of its properties as characteristics of that object. We can explain mode of presentation phenomena as a matter of there being different sets of properties that can cause perception of one and the same object. I discuss how experiments in vision science and computational models of vision can underwrite this way of finding the causal structure in experience, relationally conceived. I look at an alternative, internalist approach to mode of presentation phenomena, in terms of ‘mental paint’, and suggest that the internalist approach is simply incoherent. Finally, I point out that we have mode of presentation phenomena for the spatial aspects of vision, such as perception of spatial relations and spatial location, but that these phenomena resist analysis in any of the terms proposed so far.On a relational view, visual experience is a relation between the perceiver and the scene observed. It’s often said, quite wrongly, that relational views of experience cannot reckon with mode-of-presentation phenomena. I begin by explaining how a relational view of experience can make sense of the idea of the ‘way’ in which an object is given to the perceiver, in terms of the properties used to single out the object. I explain why relational views are to be preferred to approaches in terms of ‘mental paint’. I then sketch the problem posed by spatial perception. Spatial perception is peculiarly difficult to characterize on a relational view, because it’s difficult to characterize the way in which spatial locations and layouts are given to the subject. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The view that belief is a dyadic relation between a believer and some other object, e.g., a proposition, appears to receive support from the fact that we can infer ‘There is something that Jones believes' from ordinary belief ascriptions such as ‘Jones believes that the tallest man is wise’. On consideration, however, it turns out that even a crude nonrelational view of belief can accommodate this inference. In order to permit the inference the nonrelationalist must read‘ There is (...) something that Jones believes' as equivalent to‘ Jones has a belief. (shrink)

Karl Marx's normative views have routinely been contrasted with moral-political theories such as utilitarianism and Rawlsian justice. They have not been systematically contrasted with characteristically African, and specifically communal, values, with post-independence African leaders such as Nyerere and Nkrumah instead having emphasized the similarities. In this article, a work of analytic philosophy, I sketch the essentials of Marx’s approach to the human good, especially his early writings on alienation from 1843-1845, and weigh them up against a theoretical interpretation of the (...) under-explored African moral-political tradition. According to the latter perspective, a person displays human excellence insofar as she prizes communal relationships, ones of sharing a way of life and caring for others’ quality of life. My aims are to identify key differences between this Afro-communalism and the young Marx’s views, and, where they diverge, to provide some reasons for favouring one approach over the other. I conclude that insofar as the two ethics differ, the African ideal is the better candidate for capturing a moral point view, one that includes human rights, whereas Marx’s is preferable, and even compelling to a wide contemporary audience, as a broader account of how to live well. (shrink)

Accountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 (...) teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation. (shrink)

The objective of the present study is to examine the ethical grounding and process-relational nature of meaningful work through the relationship of dignity and meaningfulness. Adopting a practice lens, we show how a shift from methodological individualism to a process-relational worldview allows meaningful work to be understood through organizational activities rather than individual characteristics. Building on practice-based theorization, we present a process-relational model of meaningful work that 1) examines meaningfulness as a flow of experience in the stream (...) of work activity events; 2) highlights how experiencing meaningfulness is embedded in social practices, distinguishing it as a social phenomenon that is defined by this embeddedness; 3) delineates situationality, historicity, and contextuality of meaningfulness; and 4) shows how meaningful work is grounded in the prioritization of dignity in the logic of practice. Accordingly, our model enables a more holistic understanding of how dignity functions as the ethical basis for the experience of meaningfulness in the context of work and organization. (shrink)

In a class of quantum gravity approaches it is indicated that our observable world emerges out of a fundamental structure that appears highly resistant to any clear spatial or temporal interpretation. In this work we are examining an analogue quantum system that appears to simulate such an unintuitive structure: the emergence of the so called topological phase of matter depicted by the Chern–Simons gauge theory. By investigating the proposed analogy from the lens of category theory, we offer a clear interpretation (...) of the way in which space and time act at the fundamental level. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of demographic characteristics on ethical perceptions. While earlier research has produced conflicting results regarding the predictive power of these variables, significant and definite insights were obtained with proper controls. The following predictors of ethical attitudes are examined: age, gender, marital status, education, dependent children status, region of the country and years in business, while controlling for job status. A nation-wide random sample of employees was used in obtaining a response rate of fifty-three percent (total n (...) of 423). Indices of aspects of business ethical attitudes were constructed using factor analysis. Linear multiple regression analysis indicated the significant predictive variables. Age was found to be a most-significant predictor. Older workers had stricter interpretations of ethical standards. Gender and region predicted attitudes about job-discrimination practices only, with women and persons from the Midwest most strongly opposed to the practice. All the other variables proved to be unreliable ethics predictors. (shrink)

: McDowell opposes the view that the intentionality of language and thought remains mysterious unless it can be understood ‘from outside the conceptual order’. While he thinks the demand for such a ‘sideways-on’ understanding can be the result of ‘scientistic prejudice’, he points to Sellars's thought as exhibiting a different source: a distortion of our perspective ‘from within the conceptual order’. The distortion involves a failure on Sellars's part to see how descriptions from within the conceptual order can present (...) expressions and mental acts as related to extra-conceptual objects (a failure in turn explained by his failure to see how such relations could have normative import). In this paper, I argue that Sellars's thought suffers from no such distortion. If that is right, McDowell's examination of Sellars has not uncovered a disorder whose treatment might help relieve the desire for a sideways-on view. (shrink)

A. Plantinga develops a challenging critique of Castañeda's guise theory, by identifying fundamental intuitions that guise theory gives up and by developing several objections to the guise-theoretic world view as a whole. In this paper, I examine whether Plantinga's criticisms apply to the theory of abstract objects. The theory of abstract objects and guise theory can be fruitfully compared because they share a common intellectual heritage---both follow Ernst Mally [1912] in postulating a special realm of objects distinguished by their (...) "internal" or "encoded" properties. Despite this common heritage, however, the theories organize, develop, and apply these special objects in distinctive ways. The two metaphysical systems, therefore, differ significantly, and these differences become important when one considers Plantinga's critique of guise theory. In this essay, the author shows that the theory of abstract objects anticipates and addresses most of Plantinga's concerns about guise theory, by preserving intuitions guise theory has abandoned. (shrink)

The Roman Catholic theological approach to euthanasia is radically prohibitive. The main theological argument for this prohibition is the so-called “stewardship argument”: Christians cannot escape accounting to God for stewardship of the bodies given them on earth. This contribution presents an alternative approach based on European existentialist and philosophical traditions. The suggestion is that exploring the fullness of our relational responsibility is more apt for a pluralist – and even secular – debate on the legitimacy of euthanasia.

The results of two independent empirical studies with Flemish citizens were combined to address the problem of a short fall of information provision about higher welfare products. The research objectives were (1) to improve our understanding of how citizens conceptualize farm animal welfare, (2) to analyze the variety in the claimed personal relevance of animal welfare in the food purchasing decision process, and (3) to find out people’s needs in relation to product information about animal welfare and the extent to (...) which the current information caters to these needs. The first study consisted of a survey conducted in three consecutive years (2000–2002, n = 521) and was complemented with more recent qualitative data from four focus group discussions (2006, n = 29). Citizens’ conceptualization of farm animal welfare matched reasonably well with those in the scientific literature, although it is clearly influenced by a lower level of practical experience and a higher weight of empathy. In general, respondents indicated that animal welfare was an important product attribute, although it was less important than primary product attributes such as quality, health, and safety. Moral issues, rather than a perception of higher quality, were the main influence on preferences for higher welfare products. At present, higher standards of animal welfare are mostly guaranteed within more general quality assurance schemes. Yet people’s decisions to not choose higher welfare products seems to be related to the perceptual disconnection between eating animal food products and the living producing animals. Respondents generally thought better information provision was required and the present level of provision was strongly criticized. In combination, the findings of both studies help inform the discussion about how citizens can be informed about animal welfare and the preferred content, source, and medium of such information. The paper also provides insights into citizens’ semantic interpretation of the concept of animal welfare (what wordings they use) and the range of relevance that animal welfare has for different groups that, in turn is useful in identifying which segments can be targeted. This can contribute to a more effective valorization of animal welfare as a product attribute. (shrink)

In Reasons and Persons, Parfit (1984) posed a challenge: provide a satisfying normative account that solves the Non-Identity Problem, avoids the Repugnant and Absurd Conclusions, and solves the Mere-Addition Paradox. In response, some have suggested that we look toward person-affecting views of morality for a solution. But the person-affecting views that have been offered so far have been unable to satisfy Parfit's four requirements, and these views have been subject to a number of independent complaints. This paper describes a person-affecting (...) account which meets Parfit's challenge. The account satisfies Parfit's four requirements, and avoids many of the criticisms that have been raised against person-affecting views. (shrink)

In this paper, I present, first, a syncretistic account of existence, which tries to show not only that the first-order and the second-order notions of existence are compatible, but also why we need all of them in order to properly understand what existence all in all amounts to. Second, I discuss to what extent Marty’s account of existence, which inter alia mobilizes Brentano’s attitudinal approach to it, can be legitimately considered to be a syncretistic account as well.

The present study investigated the cross-cultural variations in parents' views on the role of play in child development and the primary purpose of preschool education from Ethiopia and Hungary. It also examined the cross-cultural variations in preschoolers' executive functions, the frequency of their engagement in home activities, and the role of these activities in the development of EF skills. Participants included 266 preschoolers with their parents. The independent samples t-test showed that Ethiopian parents view fostering academic skills for preschooler (...) significantly more important than their Hungarian counterparts do. We also found that while Ethiopian parents hold the belief that academic and cognitive development is the major purpose of preschool education, Hungarian prioritize social-emotional development and entertainment. Additionally, preschoolers in Ethiopia were reported to engage in academic and arts and crafts activities after preschool significantly more frequently than their Hungarian counterparts. On the contrary, preschoolers in Hungary were found to engage in fine-motor activities, solitary play, sports and other physical activities significantly more frequently than their Ethiopian counterparts. No significant differences were found in EF skills between preschoolers from Ethiopia and Hungary. Results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that, after accounting for age and SES, preschoolers' frequency of pretend play and their parents' play support beliefs were found to be small to medium-sized predictors of inhibitory control skills in both samples. However, children's frequency of having breakfast at home was another significant predictor in the Ethiopian sample only. The frequency of participation in arts and crafts and other fine-motor activities were found to be important predictors of preschoolers' visual-spatial working memory skills in the Ethiopian and the Hungarian samples, respectively. We also found that, after controlling for SES, parental play support was an important factor associated with preschoolers' shifting skills only in the Hungarian sample. Based on the findings, we made important conclusions. (shrink)

This article presents results from a nationally representative survey conducted in Taiwan in November 2011 that explores Taiwanese attitudes toward China and the world. It demonstrates that while (KMT) and (DPP) supporters maintained different attitudes towards China, few Taiwanese supported reunification. Taiwanese attitudes towards other countries, the sources of Taiwanese party identification, and policy implications for cross–Strait relations are also explored.

Thinking in medicine is still dominated by the cartesian view of science of the past centuries, dividing individuals into the reasoning mind (res cogitans) and an objective body as part of all non-subjective things of the world (res extensa). This classical scientific paradigm does not take into account the influence the observer exerts on the observed phenomena. Applying this paradigm to medical research and education has consequences regarding the relationship between physicians and patients as well as between medical teachers (...) and their students. An improvement of medical education towards a broader understanding of complex illnesses with their psycho-social implications must be based on philosophical and epistemological issues. The requirements of modern medicine cannot just be met by adding more psycho-social content to somatic medical education or by changing the didactic approach without reflection on the underlying concepts and the relation of the human being to his world. (shrink)

아리스토텔레스에게서 행복은 최고선으로서 ‘덕에 따른 영혼의 활동’으로 정의된다. 그런데 아리스토텔레스는 행복이 덕 이외에도 “외적으로 좋은 것들”(ta ektos agatha), 예를 들어 부나 명예 또는 좋은 태생이나 출중한 외모와 같은 것을 추가적으로 필요로 한다고 말한다. 행복에 대한 ‘덕의 충족성 원리’와 ‘외적인 좋음의 추가적 필요성 원리’는 행복의 구성원리가 무엇이 되어야 하는지에 대한 문제를 발생시킨다. 외적좋음의 자체적 가치를 인정하게 되면 덕의 충분성 원리가 훼손되고, 외적좋음의 가치가 인정되지 않으면 행복실현을 위한 추가필요성 원리가 부정될 수 있기 때문이다. 이 글은 아리스토텔레스의 행복론에 대한 보다 정확한 이해를 위해 (...) 그의 외적좋음에 대한 재평가를 시도한다. 이를 위해 ‘외적좋음이 없이는 덕에 따른 활동이 불가능하거나 쉽지 않다’는 아리스토텔레스의 언급에 주목하여, 이 말이 수단과 운적인 것으로 말해지는 외적좋음에 어떻게 적용되어야 할지를 규명한다. 특히 수단으로 말해지는 친구나 부와 같은 외적좋음과 덕활동의 상관관계는 아리스토텔레스의 질료와 형상 개념을 통해 이해를 시도한다. 이것은 수단으로 말해지는 외적좋음을 질료(hylē)에 상응하는 ‘가능태적 좋음’으로, 덕을 형상(eidos)적 원리로 보는 것이다. 결론적으로 외적좋음은 덕과 더불어 아리스토텔레스적인 행복을 실현하는 구성부분으로 이해될 수 있다. (shrink)

When considering possible theoretical perspectives for an ethical conceptualisation oferotic or sexually explicit display in cinema, such as recent controversial work by Frenchfemale directors Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, the thought of Emmanuel Levinas isperhaps not the most likely or obvious candidate. Levinas has little to say directly aboutsexuality or pornography, even though the concepts of desire and Eros are central tomuch of his philosophy.1Equally, he is notoriously suspicious of figurality and the realmof the visual, a suspicion he voices especially (...) forcefully in his essay on the work of art‘Reality and its Shadow’ . It is,paradoxically, and perhaps perversely, for this very reason that this article will considerhim as potentially the theorist par excellence for viewing sexual images in cinema. (shrink)

The challenge of intercultural relations has become an important issue in many societies. In spite of the claimed value of intercultural diversity, successful outcomes as predicted by the contact hypothesis are but one possibility; on occasions intercultural contact leads to intolerance and hostility. Research has documented that one key mediator of contact is perspective taking. Differences in perspective are significant in shaping perceptions of contact and reactions to it. The ability to take the perspective of the other and to understand (...) it in its own terms is a necessary condition for successful intergroup outcomes. This paper sheds light on the processes involved in intercultural perspective taking by elaborating the notion of the point of view based on social representations theory. The point of view provides a theory of social positioning that can analyse cultural encounters between social actors, and identify the conditions for positive relations. Insights are drawn from a study of public views on the relative merits of science and religion, following a documentary by Richard Dawkins in which it was suggested that religion is a source of evil. The findings demonstrate that the point of view may be categorised according to a three-way taxonomy according to the extent to which it is open to another perspective. A point of view may be monological—closed to another's perspective entirely, dialogical—open to the possibility of another perspective while maintaining some percepts as unchallengeable, or metalogical—open to another's perspective based on the other's frame of reference. (shrink)

The relationship of language to cognition, especially in development, is an issue that has occupied philosophers, psychologists, and linguists for centuries. In recent years, the scientific study of sign languages and deaf individuals has greatly enhanced our understanding of deafness, language, and cognition. This Counterpoints volume considers the extent to which the use of sign language might affect the course and character of cognitive development, and presents a variety of viewpoints in this debate. This volume brings the language-thought discussion into (...) a clearer focus, both theoretically and practically, by placing it in the context of children growing up deaf and the influences of having sign language as their primary form of communication. The discussion is also sharpened by having internationally recognized contributors, such as Patricia Siple, Diane Lillo-Martin, and Ruth Campbell, with specialties in varied areas, all converging on a common interest in which each has conducted empirical research. These contributors clarify and challenge the theoretical assumptions that have driven arguments in the language-thought debate for centuries. An introduction by the editors provides a historical overview of the issues as well as a review of empirical findings that have been offered in response to questions about language-thought relations in deaf children. The final chapters are structured in the form of "live" debate, in which each contributor is given the opportunity to respond to the other perspectives presented in this volume. (shrink)

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relevant sense that experience puts us in direct perceptual contact with them. And the content of experience is best modeled as a propositional (...) function, that is, the content of a complex predicate that is true or false only relative to some circumstances of evaluation. (shrink)