Introduction -- Bioethics as scholarship -- Language, narrative and rhetoric in bioethics -- Euthanasia, the Nazi analogy and the slippery slope -- Heredity, genes and reproductive politics -- Human experimentation -- Thalidomide.

This chapter defines and defends time-slice epistemology, according to which there are no essentially diachronic norms of rationality. The chapter begins by distinguishing two notions of time-slice epistemology, and ends by defending time-slice theories of action under indeterminacy, i.e. theories about how you should act when the outcome of your decision depends on some indeterminate claim. In a recent chapter, J. Robert G. Williams defends a theory of action under indeterminacy which is subject to several objections. An alternative theory is (...) proposed in its place. The resulting discussion highlights a more general moral about action under indeterminacy, namely that time-slice theories are supported by strong analogies with ethical theories. In particular, our understanding of agents torn between interpretations of a decision situation should be guided by our theories of agents torn between incommensurable values. (shrink)

Relaxed realists hold that there are deep differences between moral truths and the truths studied by the empirical sciences, but they deny that these differences raise troubling metaphysical or epistemological questions about moral truths. On this view, although features such as causal inefficacy, perceptual inaccessibility, and failure to figure in the best explanations of our empirical beliefs would raise pressing skeptical concerns were they claimed to characterize some aspect of physical reality, the same is not true when it comes to (...) the moral domain. This chapter raises some doubts about this general picture of morality and some prominent ways of defending it. First, it takes up a comparison that is frequently invoked by relaxed realists, and one on which they often place a great deal of weight: a comparison between irreducibly normative properties and truths on the one hand, and mathematical properties and truths on the other. It argues that this comparison is much less favorable to the relaxed realist’s cause than is often thought. It then offers an extended critique of a particularly vigorous and sustained presentation of relaxed realism: that offered by Ronald Dworkin in Justice for Hedgehogs. (shrink)

"One of the most careful and intensive among the introductory texts that can be used with a wide range of students. It builds remarkably sophisticated technical skills, a good sense of the nature of a formal system, and a solid and extensive background for more advanced work in logic.... The emphasis throughout is on natural deduction derivations, and the text's deductive systems are its greatest strength. Lemmon's unusual procedure of presenting derivations before truth tables is very effective." --Sarah Stebbins, (...) The Journal of Symbolic Logic. (shrink)

In the current American iconoclash, certain monuments are subject to vandalism and municipal removal from their pedestals. Phrases such as “the erasure of history” and “damnatio memoriae” point to concerns that iconoclasm is an attempt to censor history or even remove certain individuals from public memory altogether. Because these phrases beckon the past, this wave of iconoclasm calls for a close examination of previous image-breaking to establish motives. Drawing first from art history, we analyze Byzantine iconoclasm and anxieties over the (...) nature of icons’ power, before contextualizing these findings within image destruction from the Paleolithic to the present day. Each comparison is suggestive of an enduring aesthetic principle: that what appears inanimate is not always inert. Next, drawing from cultural anthropology, we argue that principles of sympathetic magic are at the heart of contemporary iconoclasms, but not in the way media outlets often suggest. Instead, the fear of history’s erasure betrays a deeply rooted equivalence between the representation and the represented. In perceiving their fates as shared, sympathetic magic is seen to persist in the way humans create, interpret, and desecrate images. We conclude with the speculative realist proposition that iconoclasm can produce new, original artworks, which carries implications for the autonomy of art and its distribution between artist and artwork. (shrink)

Ten years after the Human Genome Project’s completion the life sciences stand in a moment of uncertainty, transition, and contestation. The postgenomic era has seen rapid shifts in research methodology, funding, scientific labor, and disciplinary structures. Postgenomics is transforming our understanding of disease and health, our environment, and the categories of race, class, and gender. At the same time, the gene retains its centrality and power in biological and popular discourse. The contributors to Postgenomics analyze these ruptures and continuities and (...) place them in historical, social, and political context. Postgenomics, they argue, forces a rethinking of the genome itself, and opens new territory for conversations between the social sciences, humanities, and life sciences. Contributors. Russ Altman, Rachel A. Ankeny, Catherine Bliss, John Dupré, Michael Fortun, Evelyn Fox Keller, Sabina Leonelli, Adrian Mackenzie, Margot Moinester, Aaron Panofsky, Sarah S. Richardson, Sara Shostak, Hallam Stevens. (shrink)

Advances in AI are powering increasingly precise and widespread computational propaganda, posing serious threats to national security. The military and intelligence communities are starting to discuss ways to engage in this space, but the path forward is still unclear. These developments raise pressing ethical questions, about which existing ethics frameworks are silent. Understanding these challenges through the lens of “cognitive security,” we argue, offers a promising approach.

Discussion of the role which religious experience can play in warranting theistic belief has received a great deal of attention within contemporary philosophy of religion. By contrast, the relationship between experience and atheistic belief has received relatively little focus. Our aim in this paper is to begin to remedy that neglect. In particular, we focus on the hitherto under-discussed question of whether experiences of God’s absence can provide positive epistemic status for a belief in God’s nonexistence. We argue that there (...) is good reason to accept an epistemic parity between experiences of God’s presence and experiences of God’s absence. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on a recent account of perceptual knowledge according to which knowledge is contrastive. I extend the contrastive account of perceptual knowledge to yield a contrastive account of self-knowledge. Along the way, I develop a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, regrets and so on) and suggest that a contrastive account of the propositional attitudes implies an anti-individualist account of propositional attitude concepts (the concepts of belief, desire, regret, and so on).

Aristotle connects modality and time in ways strange and perplexing to modern readers. In this book the author proposes a new solution to this exegetical problem. Although primarily expository, this work explores topics of central concern for current investigations into causality, time, and change.

Recent attempts to develop and apply digital ethics principles to address the challenges of the digital transformation leave organisations with an operationalisation gap. To successfully implement such guidance, they must find ways to translate high-level ethics frameworks into practical methods and tools that match their specific workflows and needs. Here, we describe the development of a standardised risk assessment tool, the Principle-at-Risk Analysis (PaRA), as a means to close this operationalisation gap for a key level of the ethics infrastructure at (...) many organisations – the work of an interdisciplinary ethics panel. The PaRA tool serves to guide and harmonise the work of the Digital Ethics Advisory Panel at the multinational science and technology company Merck KGaA in alignment with the principles outlined in the company’s Code of Digital Ethics. We examine how such a tool can be used as part of a multifaceted approach to operationalise high-level principles at an organisational level and provide general requirements for its implementation. We showcase its application in an example case dealing with the comprehensibility of consent forms in a data-sharing context at Syntropy, a collaborative technology platform for clinical research. (shrink)

The doctrine of divine aseity has played a significant role in the development of classical theism. However, very little attention has been paid in recent years to the question of how precisely aseity should be characterized. We argue that this neglect is unwarranted since extant characterizations of this central divine attribute quickly encounter difficulties. In particular, we present a new argument to show that the most widely accepted contemporary account of aseity is inconsistent. We then consider the prospects for developing (...) a new account of aseity which avoids the pitfalls we have highlighted. (shrink)

An investigation into Aristotle's metaphysics of nature as expounded in the Physics. It focuses in particular his conception of change, a concept which is shown to possess a unique metaphysical structure, with implications that should engage the attention of contemporary analysis. First published in hardback in 1982, the book is now available for the first time in paperback. 'A powerful and appealing explanatory scheme which succeeds on the whole in drawing together a great many seemingly disparate elements in the Physics (...) into a neat unitary stucture.' Canadian Philosophical Review. (shrink)

Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering is a superlative collection of essays that does what too few scholarly works have dared: it takes seriously the philosophical significance of women’s lived experience. Every woman, regardless of her own reproductive story, is touched by the often restrictive beliefs and norms governing discourses about pregnancy, childbirth and mothering. Thus the concerns of this anthology are relevant to all women and central to any philosophical project that takes women’s lives seriously. In (...) this volume 16 authors- including both established feminists and some of today’s most innovative new scholars- engage in sustained reflection on the experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and mothering, and on the beliefs, customs, and political institutions by which those experiences are informed. Many of the topics in this collection, though familiar, are here taken up in a new way: contributors think beyond the traditional pro-choice/pro-life dichotomy, speak to the manifold nature of mothering by considering the experiences of adoptive mothers and birthmothers, and upend the belief that childrearing practices must be uniform despite psycho-sexual differences in children. Many chapters reveal the radical shortcomings of conventional philosophical wisdom by placing trenchant assumptions about subjectivity, gender, power and virtue in dialogue with women’s experience. The volume is diverse both in its content and in its scholarly approach; certain of the essays are informed by their authors’ own experiences, others draw from extant narratives; many engage such canonical thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche and Heidegger, while others draw from the works of contemporary feminists including Sara Ruddick, Iris Marion Young, Virginia Held, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. All readers, regardless of their philosophical training and commitments, will find much to appreciate in this volume. (shrink)

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to understand how academic integrity educational tutorials are administered across Canadian higher education. Results are shared from a survey of publicly funded Canadian higher education institutions, including universities and colleges, across ten provinces where English is the primary language of instruction. The survey contained 29 items addressing institutional demographic details, as well as academic integrity education questions. Results showed that academic integrity tutorials are inconsistent across Canadian higher education, with further differences evident within the (...) university and college sectors. (shrink)

While the great medieval philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides is acknowledged as a leading Jewish thinker, his intellectual contacts with his surrounding world are often described as related primarily to Islamic philosophy. Maimonides in His World challenges this view by revealing him to have wholeheartedly lived, breathed, and espoused the rich Mediterranean culture of his time.Sarah Stroumsa argues that Maimonides is most accurately viewed as a Mediterranean thinker who consistently interpreted his own Jewish tradition in contemporary multicultural terms. Maimonides (...) spent his entire life in the Mediterranean region, and the religious and philosophical traditions that fed his thought were those of the wider world in which he lived. Stroumsa demonstrates that he was deeply influenced not only by Islamic philosophy but by Islamic culture as a whole, evidence of which she finds in his philosophy as well as his correspondence and legal and scientific writings. She begins with a concise biography of Maimonides, then carefully examines key aspects of his thought, including his approach to religion and the complex world of theology and religious ideas he encountered among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even heretics; his views about science; the immense and unacknowledged impact of the Almohads on his thought; and his vision of human perfection.This insightful cultural biography restores Maimonides to his rightful place among medieval philosophers and affirms his central relevance to the study of medieval Islam. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: La _Deep Brain Stimulation _(DBS) è un dispositivo annoverato tra le interfacce-cervello computer e che si qualifica come una promettente soluzione medica per far fronte al decorso di alcune malattie neurodegenerative come il Parikinson. Decenni di utilizzo clinico della DBS hanno permesso di comprenderne gli effetti collaterali e il loro impatto sul PIAAAS (_Personality, Identity, Agency, Authenticity, Autonomy and Self_). In tal senso, per sondare cambiamenti psicologici legati all’uso della DBS si è fatto ricorso a metodi quantitativi, come questionari (...) incentrati su valutazioni di ordine numerico, e metodi qualitativi, che si appoggiano alle esperienze riportate dai pazienti tramite interviste. Questo articolo ha l’obiettivo di evidenziare come, a prescindere dai metodi di indagine utilizzati, la ricerca sia stata sempre focalizzata sugli effetti collaterali della DBS e gli eventuali cambiamenti sulle dimensioni comprese nel PIAAAS, lasciandosi sfuggire l’occasione di usare i numerosi dati raccolti per effettuare un’analisi fenomenologica che potesse restituirci una descrizione della sintesi uomo-macchina. Per colmare questo iato, proponiamo l’utilizzo sinergico di due metodi di raccolta e analisi dati di origine fenomenologica. _Parole chiave_: Deep Brain Stimulation; Effetti collaterali; Sintesi uomo-macchina; Fenomenologia _Deep Brain Stimulation and the human-machine synthesis: A possible phenomenological perspective_ _Abstract_: Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a device included among the brain-computer interfaces and that qualifies as a promising medical solution to cope with the course of some neurodegenerative diseases such as Parikinson’s. Decades of clinical use of DBS have allowed us to understand its side effects and their impact on PIAAAS (_Personality, Identity, Agency, Authenticity, Autonomy and Self_). In this sense, to investigate psychological changes related to the use of DBS, quantitative methods, such as questionnaires focused on numerical assessments, and qualitative techniques, which are based on experiences by patients through interviews, have been used. This article aims to highlight how, regardless of the survey methods used, research has always been focused on the side effects of DBS and possible changes in the concepts included in the PIAAAS, missing the opportunity to use the numerous data collected to carry out a phenomenological analysis that could give us a description of the human-machine synthesis. To bridge this hiatus, we propose the synergistic use of two phenomenological methods of data collection and analysis. _Keywords_: Deep Brain Stimulation; Side Effects; Human-machine synthesis; Phenomenology. (shrink)

Expanding the Critical Animal Studies Imagination: Essays in Solidarity and Total Liberation pushes critical animal studies forward and outward by making new connections to movements and ideas that have been little engaged with in publication to the present. This book challenges critical animal studies adherents to expand their efforts of solidarity, mutual aid, and activism. Contributors to this volume extend invitations to those not familiar with critical animal studies to welcome them in with gestures of solidarity towards total liberation. Expanding (...) the Critical Animal Studies Imagination does not shy away from controversial topics but critically engages with them using care and tact. This is not controversy for the sake of being provocative, but not being afraid to target root causes of oppression. This book works toward coalition building to resist the current violence and build peaceful communities. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I criticise a recent account of fictional discourse proposed by Nathan Salmon. Salmon invokes abstract artifacts as the referents of fictional names in both object- and meta-fictional discourse alike. He then invokes a theory of pretence to forge the requisite connection between object-fictional sentences and meta-fictional sentences, in virtue of which the latter can be assigned appropriate truth-values. I argue that Salmon's account of pretence renders his appeal to abstract artifacts as the referents of fictional names (...) in object-fictional discourse explanatorily redundant. I further argue that his account is therefore no improvement over those he criticises, thus leaving his own account unmotivated. (shrink)

The pursuit of social goals and ethics in business creates challenges. Sustained efforts to address poverty, environmental degradation or health/wellbeing require meaningful and transformative responses that impact across multiple levels—individual, community and the global collective. Shifting predominant paradigms to facilitate change entails a renegotiation of business strategy—between organizations, their purpose(s), individual and collective stakeholders and ultimately with society at large. Hybrid organizations such as social enterprises are positioned to affect such change. However, in balancing divergent goals such organizations encounter tensions (...) and paradox, creating a duality of ethics. Utilizing in-depth interviews to develop a case within the sustainable fashion industry, we identify tensions and paradox within women-oriented hybrid organizations. Significantly, managing these tensions and paradox results in multiple dualities of ethics, often with a wider impact on organizational founders/managers. We find three interrelated ethical dualities: business strategy and personal values; financial sustainability and holistic sustainability; and business, employee, societal wellbeing, and personal wellbeing. This insight is noteworthy when looked at within the broader context of sustainability and highlights the importance of sustainability in women-oriented hybrid organizations. (shrink)

Attributor contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism both suggest ways in which our concept of knowledge depends on a context. Both offer approaches that incorporate traditionally non-epistemic elements into our standards for knowledge. But neither can account for the fact that the social role of a subject affects the standards that the subject must meet in order to warrant a knowledge attribution. I illustrate the dependence of the standards for knowledge on the social roles of the knower with three types of examplesand (...) show why neither attributor contextualism nor subject-sensitive invariantism can explain them. I then suggest that subject-sensitive invariantism should be supplemented with insights from virtue epistemology so that it can explain the dependence of the standards of knowledge on social roles. This supplementation of subject-sensitive invariantism helps to solve a persistent problem facing that theory: the case of knowledge attributions made by those in high-stakes contexts about subjects in low-stakes contexts. (shrink)

Shortages of life-saving medical resources caused by COVID-19 have prompted hospitals, healthcare systems, and governmentsto develop crisis standards of care, including 'triage protocols' to potentially ration medical supplies during the public health emergency. At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities that together constitute a form of structural racism. These disparities pose a critical ethical challenge in developing fair triage systems that will maximize lives saved without perpetuating systemic inequities. Here we review (...) alternatives to 'utilitarian' triage, including first-come first-served, egalitarian, and prioritarian systems of allocating scarce medical resources. We assess the comparative advantages and disadvantages of these allocation schemes. Ultimately, we argue that while triage protocols should not exacerbate disparities, they are not an adequate mechanism for redressing systemic health inequities. Entrenched health disparities must be addressed through broader social change. (shrink)

“Ambivalence” is the key word in much of this book; “comic” [is the book’s] most obscure and I think absolutely without use value. I don’t know what B[urke] means by “comic,” as a matter of fact. I wonder if he does, and could define it briefly. Readers of Kenneth Burke are well aware of the importance of comedy and its associated cluster of concepts in his work: comic, comic frame, comic attitude, comic corrective. This cluster of terms figures prominently in (...) his 1937 book Attitudes Toward History, most notably in two key passages that scholars turn to time and again. In the first, from the “Poetic Categories” section of the book, Burke explains how different genres serve as guides for how to act in the... (shrink)

In this important book, Jennifer Scuro's lived experience presents a challenge to common ideas and assumptions about motherhood, femininity, and anti-abortion politics, as well as to the familiar content and form of philosophy. It is centered on an intensely personal, 176-page graphic novel that details the vivid aspects of Scuro's own miscarriage. Her experience serves as a philosophical allegory, challenging neoliberal and ableist assumptions that presume normalcy, expect results, and promise the false freedom of choice. Initially fitting the script of (...) "normal" motherhood and femininity, Scuro's experience brought her to the "razor's edge" of her cisgender, white privilege. The cutting truth of her story is that... (shrink)

Most scholarly fields, at least in the humanities, have been asking the same questions about the politics of encounter for hundreds of years: Should we try to find a way to encounter an other without appropriating it, without imposing ourselves on it? Is encountering‐without‐appropriating even possible? These questions are profuse and taken up with intense interest in scholarship about the personal essay, specifically, which has often been credited as a philosophical form. Within debates about the ethics of the personal essay, (...) the most significant concern is about the traditionally accepted relationship of the writer‐represented‐on‐the‐page. For example, the notable rhetoric and composition scholar, David Bartholomae, argues that students of what he calls ‘“creative nonfiction” or “literary nonfiction”’ (1995, p. 68) write ‘... as though they [are] not the products of their time, politics and culture, as though they could be free, elegant, smart, independent, the owners of all that they saw’ (p. 70). In other words, the personal essay, as a subgenre of creative or literary nonfiction, allows for the perpetuation of the fallacy that a writer can be ‘free’ of social influences, ‘independent’ of a society and of its politics, and ‘owners’ of their own perspectives and experiences—of those the writer expresses on the page, specifically. Consequently, if the writer is not conscious and critical of the social influences acting on him/her, if s/he believes the text to be the singular and uninfluenced production of his/her own self, then the topic taken up in the essay is tyrannized by the self‐centered (and dangerously un‐critically‐conscious) perspective of the writer. However, the personal essay also has its strengths as a philosophical form: in its privileging of skepticism; in its attention to complexity and complication; and even in its existence‐as‐evidence of some quality of its writer. Too, very often essays pay homage to works of other essayists, as in the case of Gass's ‘Emerson and the Essay’, instead of mowing down other works in order to establish its own reign. Despite these ethically responsible characteristics, though, I show, using Gass's essay about Emerson's work, that the personal essay continues to be devalued because of its reliance on and celebration of its transparent relationship to its author. In general, essayists don't complain in their work about the belief in this transparent relationship; they advocate it. Thus, my purpose is not to suggest that there is no relationship between the essayist and the essay. Rather, I will, in the latter half of the article, turn to the work of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, which describes and enacts an approach to an other (writer/text) that does not hinge on the assumption that writer and text are in a transparent relationship to each other. I hope that in presenting this possibility for re‐thinking the essay (and its relationship to its writer), writers, scholars, and teachers of the essay—and even its opposition—will give it new attention and explore further the possibilities that it may provide for engagement, for encounter. (shrink)