Too often, we as individuals do things that harm us, that seriously interfere with our being able to live in the way that we want. We eat food that makes us obese, that promotes diabetes, heart failure and other serious illness, while at the same time, we want to live long and healthy lives. Too many of us smoke cigarettes, even while acknowledging we wish we had never begun. We behave in ways that undercut our ability to reach some of (...) our most valued goals, despite education and despite incentives to choose the right thing. What should be done?If I were to try to harm someone else in a way that alters his future seriously and perhaps irrevocably for the worse, I would be stopped. When it comes to hurting myself, though, we have a common belief that it is wrong to interfere, even if I foresee that I will very much regret what I have done, often when it is too late to fix what I have let happen. I think this makes no sense. If it is permissible, even obligatory, to stop me when I do something that seriously interferes with someone else's chances of achieving the life he wants, I think …. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is to be explained by appeal to the externalist distinction between concepts and conceptions. If concepts are determined by non-conceptual relations to objective properties rather than by associated conceptions (whether individual or communal), then topic preservation through semantic change will be possible. The requisite level of objectivity is guaranteed by the possibility of collective error and does not depend on a stronger level of objectivity, such as mind-independence or independence from linguistic or social practice more generally. This means (...) that the requisite level of objectivity is exhibited not only by natural kinds, but also by a wide range of philosophical kinds, social kinds and artefactual kinds. The alternative externalist accounts of conceptual engineering offered by Herman Cappelen and Derek Ball fall back into a kind of descriptivism which is antithetical to externalism and fails to recognise this basic level of objectivity. (shrink)

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)

Written by an international team of leading political and legal theory scholars whose writings have contributed to shaping the field, Migration in Political Theory presents seminal new work on the ethics of movement and membership. The volume addresses challenging and under-researched themes on the subject of migration, and debates the question of whether we ought to recognize a human right to immigrate, and whether it might be legitimate to restrict emigration. The authors critically examine criteria for selecting would-be migrants, and (...) for acquiring citizenship, as well as the tensions between the claims of immigrants and existing residents, and tackle questions of migrant worker exploitation and responsibility for refugees. All of the chapters illustrate the importance of drawing on the tools of political theory to clarifying, criticize and challenge the current terms of the migration debate. (shrink)

Words change meaning over time. Some meaning shift is accompanied by a corresponding change in subject matter; some meaning shift is not. In this paper I argue that an account of linguistic meaning can accommodate the first kind of case, but that a theory of concepts is required to accommodate the second. Where there is stability of subject matter through linguistic change, it is concepts that provide the stability. The stability provided by concepts allows for genuine disagreement and ameliorative change (...) in the context of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI (...) literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and amplifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the supposition of divine omnipotence entails a contradiction: omnipotence both must and must not be intrinsic to God. Hence, traditional theism must be rejected. To begin, I separate out some theoretical distinctions needed to inform the discussion. I then advance two different arguments for the conclusion that omnipotence must be intrinsic to God; these utilise the notions of essence and aseity. Next, I argue that some necessary conditions on being omnipotent are extrinsic, and that (...) this means omnipotence cannot be intrinsic to God. I consider three different ways of resolving this conflict, but contend that each is unsuccessful. Before concluding, I explain why the type of strategy used to resolve the traditional paradoxes of omnipotence cannot be successfully employed against the paradox presented here. (shrink)

In sentences such as “Some dogs are mammals,” the literal semantic meaning (“Some and possibly all dogs are mammals”) conflicts with the pragmatic meaning (“Not all dogs are mammals,” known as a scalar implicature). Prior work has shown that adults vary widely in the extent to which they adopt the semantic or pragmatic meaning of such utterances, yet the underlying reason for this variation is unknown. Drawing on theoretical models of scalar implicature derivation, we explore the hypothesis that the cognitive (...) abilities of executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) contribute to this observed variation. In Experiment 1, we show that individuals with better ToM are more likely to compute a scalar implicature and adopt the pragmatic meaning of an utterance; however, EF makes no unique contribution to scalar implicature comprehension after accounting for ToM. In Experiment 2, we replicate this finding and assess whether it generalizes to the comprehension of other pragmatic phenomena such as indirect requests (e.g., “It's hot in here” uttered to ask for something to be done) and metaphor (e.g., “to harvest courage”). This is the first evidence that differences in ToM are associated with pragmatic competence in neurotypical adults across distinct pragmatic phenomena. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the symposium on Herman Cappelen’s book Fixing Language. Cappelen proposes a metasemantic framework—the “Austerity Framework”—within which to understand the general phenomenon of conceptual engineering. The proposed framework is austere in the sense that it makes no reference to concepts. Conceptual engineering is then given a “worldly” construal according to which conceptual engineering is a process that operates on the world. I argue, contra Cappelen, that an adequate theory of conceptual engineering must make reference to concepts. (...) This is because concepts are required to account for topic continuity, a phenomenon which lies at the heart of projects in conceptual engineering. I argue that Cappelen’s own account of topic continuity is inadequate as a result of the austerity of his metasemantic framework, and that his worldly construal of conceptual engineering is untenable. (shrink)

This paper provides an externalist account of talk and thought that clearly distinguishes the two. It is argued that linguistic meanings and concepts track different phenomena and have different explanatory roles. The distinction, understood along the lines proposed, brings theoretical gains in a cluster of related areas. It provides an account of meaning change which accommodates the phenomenon of contested meanings and the possibility of substantive disagreement across theoretical divides, and it explains the nature and value of conceptual engineering in (...) a way that addresses recent prominent concerns. (shrink)

The study explores the use of Graphic Novels as an innovative form of training that may improve an individual’s ethical efficacy. A quantitative comparison of the graphic novel method and the traditional written case study is analyzed. The literature on ethics, graphic novels, and training are brought together from theories of narrative and literature perspective to formulate a study. The study uses a 2 × 2 repeated-measure MANOVA to analyze the participant’s reaction to bribery situations based on varying levels of (...) ‘grayness.’ The overall study finds that ethical efficacy increases with the use of the graphic novel method. The greatest improvements are in the individual’s level of self-efficacy and understanding of principle-based ethical issues. In addition, the participant’s level of industry experience may play a factor in applying the graphic novel technique. Finally, guidelines on how to effectively utilize the graphic novel method are stated. Improving ethical efficacy through business ethics training may help improve an individual’s self-efficacy, involvement and principle-based understanding. The study explores the use of Graphic Novels as an innovative form of training that may improve an individual’s ethical efficacy. A quantitative comparison of the graphic novel method and the traditional written case study are analyzed. Literature on ethics, graphic novels, and training are brought together with theories of narrative and literature perspective to formulate a study. The study uses a 2 × 2 repeated-measure MANOVA to analyze the participant’s reaction to bribery ethical situations based on varying levels of ‘grayness.’ The overall study finds that ethical efficacy increases with the use of the graphic novel method. The greatest improvements are in the individual’s level of self-efficacy and understanding of principle-based ethical issues. In addition, the participant’s level of industry experience may play a factor in applying the graphic novel technique. Finally, guidelines on how to effectively utilize the graphic novel method is set forth. (shrink)

Examined as an isolated situation, and through the lens of a rare and feared disease, Mr. Duncan's case seems ripe for second-guessing the physicians and nurses who cared for him. But viewed from the perspective of what we know about errors and team communication, his case is all too common. Nearly 440,000 patient deaths in the U.S. each year may be attributable to medical errors. Breakdowns in communication among health care teams contribute in the majority of these errors. The culture (...) of health care does not seem to foster functional, effective communication between and among professionals. Why? And more importantly, why do we not do something about it? (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)

With more countries implementing Open Notes, the practice of providing patients with unhindered access to their clinical visit notes, research on this practice is finally increasing. Many studies report positive findings, especially around self-reported outcomes, such as feeling more in control of one’s care, increased medication adherence and a strengthened patient–doctor relationship. 1 However, comparatively less research has been done on the potential ramifications that may also arise from Open Notes. Blease’s recent article underscores this and demonstrates why Open Notes (...) must also be considered in terms of nocebo effects, negative side effects that arise from negative expectations. 2 The article presents a compelling and well-thought-out argument for how nocebo effects may vary across different populations by linking patient–clinician communication inequalities with and by presenting preliminary evidence of nocebo effects. Blease’s argument does not detract from Open Notes, but rather takes a balanced approach by imploring us... (shrink)

Concerns that people would be disinclined to voluntarily undergo moral enhancement have led to suggestions that an incentivised programme should be introduced to encourage participation. This paper argues that, while such measures do not necessarily result in coercion or undue inducement (issues with which one may typically associate the use of incentives in general), the use of incentives for this purpose may present a taboo tradeoff. This is due to empirical research suggesting that those characteristics likely to be affected by (...) moral enhancement are often perceived as fundamental to the self; therefore, any attempt to put a price on such traits would likely be deemed morally unacceptable by those who hold this view. A better approach to address the possible lack of participation may be to instead invest in alternative marketing strategies and remove incentives altogether. (shrink)

In his recent book, Frame It Again: New Tools for Rational Decision-Making, J. L. Bermúdez argues that it can be rational to evaluate the same thing differently when it is described using alternati...

This paper uses some modest claims about knowledge to identify a significant problem for contemporary American trial procedure. First, suppose that legal proof requires knowledge. In particular, suppose that the defendant in a jury trial is proven guilty only if the jury knows that the defendant is guilty. Second, suppose that knowledge is subject to pragmatic encroachment. In particular, whether the jury knows the defendant is guilty depends on what’s at stake in their decision to convict, including the consequences that (...) the defendant may face if convicted. Then in order to know whether a defendant has been proven guilty, jurors may need to know something about the potential consequences of conviction. But in nearly every American criminal trial, this information is withheld from jurors. -/- In §1, I lay out the philosophical premises of my argument. In §2, I say more about why these premises present a problem for American trial procedure, and I identify social and political structures that exacerbate the problem. I describe the reasoning that has led courts to withhold sentencing information from jurors, and I diagnose the flaw in this reasoning. In §3, I expand my initial argument, strengthening its conclusions and offering alternative sets of premises that still entail them. I argue that the legal ramifications of pragmatic encroachment depend on highly controversial questions in epistemology, questions about the precise nature of practical stakes. In §4, I propose strategies for legal reform. (shrink)

Research on adaptive rationality has focused principally on inference, judgment, and decision-making that lead to behaviors and actions. These processes typically require cognitive representations as input, and these representations must presumably be acquired via learning. Nonetheless, there has been little work on the nature of, and justification for, adaptively rational learning processes. In this paper, we argue that there are strong reasons to believe that some learning is adaptively rational in the same way as judgment and decision-making. Indeed, overall adaptive (...) rationality can only properly be assessed for pairs of learning and decision processes. We thus present a formal framework for modeling such pairs of cognitive processes, and thereby assessing their adaptive rationality relative to the environment and the agent’s goals. We then use this high-level formal framework on specific cases by demonstrating how natural formal constraints on decision-making can lead to substantive predictions about adaptively rational learning and representation; and characterizing adaptively rational learning for fast-and-frugal one-reason decision-making. (shrink)

The authors conducted a baseline survey of baccalaureate and graduate degree health humanities programs in the United States and Canada. The object of the survey was to formally assess the current state of the field, to gauge what kind of resources individual programs are receiving, and to assess their self-identified needs to become or remain programmatically sustainable, including their views on the potential benefits of program accreditation. A 56-question baseline survey was sent to 111 institutions with baccalaureate programs and 20 (...) institutions with graduate programs. Respondents were asked about three areas: (1) program administration (managing unit, paid director, faculty lines, paid staff, funding sources); (2) educational program (curricular structure, CIP code usage, completion rates); and (3) views on accreditation for the field. A clear majority of respondents agreed that some form of accreditation or consultation service could address resource and sustainability issues. Overall, the survey responses to staffing, curricular structure, and support suggest the need for developing a sustainable infrastructure for health humanities. (shrink)

Written over a period of thirty-five years, these essays explore the topics of causation, time, fate, determinism, natural teleology, different conceptions of the human soul, the idea of the highest good and the human significance of leisure. While most of the essays take as their starting-point some theme in Ancient Greek philosophy, they are meant not as exegesis but as distinctive and independent contributions to live philosophizing. Written with clarity, precision without technicality, and philosophical imagination, they will engage a wide (...) range of readers, including scholars and students of Ancient Greek philosophy and others working on more contemporary analytical concerns. (shrink)

Born to secular Jewish parents and raised in Camden, New Jersey, Andrea Dworkin became a radical second-wave feminist. By Dworkin’s own account, her work is informed by a series of negative personal experiences, including sexual assault at age nine, again by doctors at the Women's House of Detention in New York in 1965, work as a prostitute, and marriage to a battering husband whom she left in 1971. While Dworkin self-identified as a lesbian, since 1974 she lived with a gay (...) male partner, writer John Stoltenberg, whom she married in 1998. Understandably, the main theme of Dworkin's work is male violence against women. This violence is a defining feature of our male-supremacist culture, in which rape, prostitution, and pornography are inevitable expressions of gender norms. Dworkin's writings are primarily aimed at social change rather than intellectualizing. She describes her first book as "a political action where revolution is the goal". What one finds in her writings is not so much philosophical theorizing as calls to action. Thus it is difficult to summarize the abstract theory to which she is committed and from which she draws arguments against the sexism she finds in our culture. What is clear is her desire to eliminate binary concepts of gender and their oppressive effects. In particular, Dworkin urges the destruction of a female gender role that involves masochism, self-hatred, and passivity. She sees male supremacy constructed and reinforced in our culture through the sexist structuring of public institutions and private interactions, locating three crucial foci of male supremacy in action: pornography, sexual intercourse, and rape. These are her central concerns. Her work includes seven monographs, three collections of essays and speeches, a memoir, two novels, and a book of short stories, all of which explore these themes. (shrink)

The right to health care is a right to care that is not too costly to the provider, considering the benefits it conveys, and is effective in bringing about the level of health needed for a good human life, not necessarily the best health possible. These considerations suggest that, where possible, society has an obligation to provide preventive health care, which is both low cost and effective, and that health care regulations should promote citizens’ engagement in reasonable preventive health care (...) practices. (shrink)

Recently, attention has been drawn to the basic principles governing the use of human embryos in research: specifically, the so-called fourteen-day rule. This rule stipulates that human embryos should not be allowed to grow in vitro past fourteen days of development. For years, the fourteen-day limit was largely theoretical, since culture techniques were not sufficient to maintain embryos up to this point. Yet in the past year, research has suggested that growing embryos beyond fourteen days might be feasible and scientifically (...) valuable. At the same time, work with pluripotent stem cells, including human PSCs, has shown that under certain conditions, they can form structures that recapitulate developmental features of the postimplantation embryo. This raises the possibility that PSCs could generate embryo-like structures in vitro, even “synthetic embryos,” that might provoke moral concern but would not fall under most current embryo research policies. In countries that permit embryo research, the fourteen-day rule has long been the linchpin of an effective policy compromise between what remain deeply divided moral positions on the human embryo's status. It has also, particularly in the United Kingdom, been influential in establishing a bioethics public-policy process. Any moves to change the rule must consider not just the implications for the use of embryos but also the potential impact of this model of bioethical governance of science. (shrink)

This paper examines the pedagogical values inherent in various traditions of philosophy education, from the ancient Greeks to current practices in Ontario high schools, and asks whether our current educational practices are imparting the philosophical values we wish to bestow upon our learners. I compare the approaches of Socrates, Descartes, and Dewey on the nature of philosophy and the pedagogical frameworks they defend for transmitting the “spirit” of philosophy, and then examine the Ontario curriculum guidelines for the teaching of philosophy. (...) In past philosophical traditions, dynamic growth, free questioning, and social responsibility are considered essential to the practice of philosophy. Certain factors in today’s educational institutions limit students’ abilities to achieve those values, although the appeal to these values is the same. I end with recommendations for amendments to the Ontario curriculum expectations that would help put the philosophical development of the individual student more clearly at the centre of these guidelines. (shrink)

According to some authors, emotions can be unconscious when they are unfelt or unnoticed. According to others, emotions are always conscious because they always have a phenomenology. The aim of this paper is to resolve the ongoing debate about the possibility for emotions to be unfelt. To do so, I focus on the notion of “unconscious emotions”. While this notion appears paradoxical, by way of a distinction between two meanings of emotional consciousness I show that it is not so. These (...) meanings are both compatible with the leading views of consciousness and they do not require one to distinguish different senses of “emotions” or “consciousness”. This distinction is helpful to define how emotions can be unconscious. (shrink)

This article presents an interdisciplinary conversation between the authors discussing the potential of cultivating a feminist, embodied, ecological approach to screendance and environmental attunement in video dance performance. It draws from Lux Eterna’s artistic research and body of work including the film AURA NOX ANIMA (2016) filmed on the sandy dunes in Anna Bay, New South Wales, Australia, and her current development in dance film production: THE EIGHTH DAY (2023) in conversation with Sarah Pini to consider the presence and (...) embodied situatedness of the artist-maker in shaping visual experience in screendance. Through open-ended interviews to one another, the authors ask if the cultivation of an ecological perspective can offer forms of resistance to hegemonic modes of seeing and experiencing the body on screen. These reflections are theoretically contextualized through establishing their relation to ecological frameworks, feminist literature and an ethnographic approach to dance and the lived body. With this dialogical article, the authors invite a reconsideration of the notion of place and emplacement as key elements informing processes of screendance and aesthetic experience. (shrink)

This article will briefly explore some of the ways in which the past has been used as a means to talk about psychotherapy as a practice and as a profession, its impact on individuals and society, and the ethical debates at stake. It will show how, despite the multiple and competing claims about psychotherapy’s history and its meanings, historians themselves have, to a large degree, not attended to the intellectual and cultural development of many therapeutic approaches. This absence has the (...) potential consequence of implying that therapies have emerged as value-free techniques, outside of a social, economic and political context. The relative neglect of psychotherapy, by contrast with the attention historians have paid to other professions, particularly psychiatry, has also underplayed its societal impact. This article will foreground some of the instances where psychotherapy has become an object of emerging historical interest, including the new research that forms the substance of this special issue of History of the Human Sciences. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly inputting into various human resource management functions, such as sourcing job applicants and selecting staff, allocating work, and offering personalized career coaching. While the use of AI for such tasks can offer many benefits, evidence suggests that without careful and deliberate implementation its use also has the potential to generate significant harms. This raises several ethical concerns regarding the appropriateness of AI deployment to domains such as HRM, which directly deal with managing sometimes sensitive aspects of (...) individuals’ employment lifecycles. However, research at the intersection of HRM and technology continues to largely center on examining what AI can be used for, rather than focusing on the salient factors relevant to its ethical use and examining how to effectively engage human workers in its use. Conversely, the ethical AI literature offers excellent guiding principles for AI implementation broadly, but there remains much scope to explore how these principles can be enacted in specific contexts-of-use. By drawing on ethical AI and task-technology fit literature, this paper constructs a decision-making framework to support the ethical deployment of AI for HRM and guide determinations of the optimal mix of human and machine involvement for different HRM tasks. Doing so supports the deployment of AI for the betterment of work and workers and generates both scholarly and practical outcomes. (shrink)

On November 26, 2018, the world awoke to the news that genome editing had for the first time been used to create genetically modified human beings. He Jiankui, a scientist then employed by Southern University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, announced via social media and the popular press that he had performed genome editing on embryos with the aim of disrupting the CCR5 gene in order to induce immunity to HIV, implanted the embryos, and that twin girls had (...) been born.In the wake of this announcement, arguments, claims, and accusations flew. Most commentators declared He's actions "irresponsible," pointing to various statements by scientific organizations agreeing that human embryo genome editing was... (shrink)

This article attends to the transformation of national identity that occurs in the context of ‘the multicultural debate’ in the Netherlands, and unfolds on the terrain of Dutch (secular and sexual) exceptionalism. First, it explores the connections between two topics that are prominent in the ‘multicultural debates’ all over Europe and undergird the civilizational discourse of a post-Cold War geopolitical era: discussions about secularism on the one hand, and gender and sexual politics on the other. Through a mode of ‘secular (...) nostalgia’, which mobilizes the understanding of the Netherlands as a place par excellence of emancipation for both women and sexual minorities, the Dutch secular arrangement is restructured in new exclusionary ways. Second, it explores how dominant discourses on the symbolic and material borders of the nation interpellate young Muslim women who often figure as the central ‘subjects of debate’. I rely on the notion of interpellation (Althusser) to explore the question of subject formation, with a particular attention to the epistemological conditions of ‘talking back’ as a subject whose constituency and agency is always already informed by the terms in which she is addressed. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Heraclitus fragment B90 (Diels-Kranz). It argues that we can enrich our understanding of the fragment by reading it, not as a primitive analogy, but as a skillful simile grounded both in the poetic tradition and in the cultural context that would have conditioned its significance for Heraclitus and his audience. Read in this way, B90’s evocation of a cosmos whose common measure parallels the common measure of the polis’ marketplace is not simply a (...) source of cosmological doctrine. It is also an epistemic challenge that threatens to undermine the very possibility of cosmology. (shrink)

Much research has explored developing sound representations in language, but less work addresses developing representations of other sound patterns. This study examined preschool children's musical representations using two different tasks: discrimination and sound–picture association. Melodic contour—a musically relevant property—and instrumental timbre, which is less musically relevant, were tested. In Experiment 1, children failed to associate cartoon characters to melodies with maximally different pitch contours, with no advantage for melody preexposure. Experiment 2 also used different-contour melodies and found good discrimination, whereas (...) association was at chance. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2, but with a large timbre change instead of a contour change. Here, discrimination and association were both excellent. Preschool-aged children may have stronger or more durable representations of timbre than contour, particularly in more difficult tasks. Reasons for weaker association of contour than timbre information are discussed, along with implications for auditory development. (shrink)

This essay considers the relationship between literature and film through a reading of Isabel Coixet's film My Life Without Me. The first half of the essay explores how two recent theorisations of the term incorporation allow us to read, on the one hand, the film's relationship to Nanci Kincaid's short story 'Pretending the Bed is a Raft' in particular and to literature in general and, on the other, the narrative consequences of the protagonist Ann's decision to keep her terminal illness (...) a secret. In the first instance, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's definition of incorporation in Remediation helps explain how the film does not adapt the short story upon which it is supposedly based, but in fact only repurposes it. Literary aspects of the film's mise-en-scène, plot and imagery, however, signal My Life Without Me' s incorporation of literature. In the second instance, the essay explores how Jacques Derrida's theory of incorporation's role in mourning helps the viewer understand the film's plot development out of Ann's secret. In the second half of the paper, Leo Bersani's idea of impersonal intimacy is developed into a theory of literature. The conclusion posits that impersonal intimacy defines the literary in contrast to cinema's tendency to full disclosure. (shrink)