In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 123-125 [Access article in PDF] The Self as Relatum in Life and Language Grant Gillett THE STUDY REPORTED by van Staden is extremely interesting to any psychological theorist influenced by Jacques Lacan because of Lacan's insistence that the unconscious is not only structured like a language but actually reflects and is produced by linguistic interactions between the subject and others.The distinction he (...) draws, on the basis of Frege's analysis of logical and grammatical structure, is not straightforwardly evident on a superficial inspection of the sentences concerned. It is also less clear than the agent-patient or subject-object distinction that one might look for on the basis of considering the action being performed. van Staden makes both of these points in the course of illustrating the relevant deep grammatical property on which the study turns. In doing so he engages with the subtle work on subject and object by Strawson (1959) who was one of the first, in the "descriptive metaphysics" of Individuals, to explore the resonance between what we might call (after Frege) "logical grammar" and the deep metaphysical structure of our thought. Strawson noted that the position of grammatical subject in a sentence was typically occupied by a particular or individual substance rather than the accident or property of a substance so that the subject predicate structure of language reflects a basic feature of our world picture whereby the world is seen to be populated by particular objects that instance universal features.Chomsky is the other player whose thought is important in this area in that he argues that we have an innate sense of deep structure, which allows us to disambiguate any sentence so as to reveal the state of affairs that is being represented. Thus we discern that what is denoted by "John loves Mary" is the same thought as that conveyed by "Mary is loved by John." van Staden focuses on something more general—the deep structure that expresses semantic relations or positions. This is not the same as the agent or the simply grammatical subject and van Staden calls it the owner of the relation involved as distinct from the accident of that relation. The terms are well chosen because ownership is a term a la mode in postmodern thought to express the relationship of a human being to the events and attributes associated with him or her. When we look at this subtle grammatological or semantic feature of language we see that the linguistic feature in question is the kind of thing that could easily be overlooked were it not for a post-Fregean analysis of the type van Staden offers.The content that van Staden identifies in relation to what is signified or represented by an utterance is difficult to characterize. It is not what Frege would call logical content in that it does not contribute to the truth value of any of the propositions concerned. It is also problematic to call it psychological content because it is not part of the conscious message conveyed by the utterance. Nevertheless, the study concerned raises [End Page 123] the possibility that it is psychic in a very significant way, which is best approached by considering the relationships between language and the unconscious.Chomsky is regarded as having defined a number of linguistic operations that take propositional or meaningful content and transform it into the form in which it is uttered. The relevant cognitive operations are usually regarded as being performed by the cognitive unconscious, which in some sense applies the rules of grammar to yield well-formed utterances on the basis of speaker intentions. In any event, nobody would seriously question the idea that there are unconscious operations that underpin the production of grammatically structured utterances.If we add to this the possibility that a more dynamic aspect to the unconscious has a role to play in the semantic content of our utterances, then a fruitful line of thought begins to emerge. The dynamic unconscious has to do with self-image and those influences that form the psyche... (shrink)

The aim of our paper is to show that there is a sense of body that is enactive in nature and that enables to capture the most primitive sense of self. We will argue that the body is primarily given to us as source or power for action, i.e., as the variety of motor potentialities that define the horizon of the world in which we live, by populating it with things at hand to which we can be directed and (...) with other bodies we can interact with. We will show that this sense of body as bodily self is, on the one hand, antecedent the distinction between sense of agency and sense of ownership, and, on the other, it enables and refines such distinction, providing a conceptual framework for the coherent interpretation of a variety of behavioral and neuropsychological data. We will conclude by positing that the basic experiences we entertain of our selves as bodily selves are from the very beginning driven by our interactions with other bodies as they are underpinned by the mirror mechanism. (shrink)

Many of the major self-determination movements of the 20th and early 21st Centuries did not go smoothly, but resulted in forced or semi-forced transfers of groups of people from one country to another. Forced population transfers are not, of course, supported by major theorists of self-determination and secession. However, the problems that make population transfers extremely common in actual cases of self-determination and secession, are not squarely faced in many theories of self-determination. And, I (...) shall argue, certain leading theories of self-determination and secession would make population transfers almost inevitable in practice, even if not called for or sanctioned in theory. This is a major stumbling block for any attempt to move from an abstract account of self-determination towards a working theory. In this paper I take a first step towards addressing this problem. I shall show how any approach to dealing with secession, including “primary rights” accounts, “remedial rights only” accounts, and even “consensual” accounts, must be able to deal with the inevitable problem of population transfers, if it is to be a complete and plausible theory. I shall also show how population transfers, to the extent that we can always expect them to take place, can be made as just as possible, in light of any approach to the problem of secession. I will not here attempt to adjudicate between different approaches to secession and self-determination. To that extent, my argument may be seen as a friendly addition to all of the above approaches, showing how they may try to meet an objection which they have not yet faced. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, with steadily increasing production and consumption of the zombie genre, academic interest in it is also growing. Scholars seek to explain the phenomenon, frequently focusing on the living dead and mostly seeing the figure of the zombie as an expression of the anxieties besetting contemporary society. In particular, its popularity can be interpreted as a response to the escalating climate of terror since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, after which media reporting has routinely been permeated with (...) images of death and destruction,1 constantly drawing attention to the insecurity that threatens to turn the American dream into a nightmare.2There is no shortage of authors who have emphasized the... (shrink)

Background: COVID-19 has taken many lives worldwide and due to this, millions of persons are in grief. When the grief process lasts longer than 6 months, the person is in risk of developing Complicated Grief Disorder. The CGD is related to serious health consequences. To reduce the probability of developing CGD a preventive intervention could be applied. In developing countries like Mexico, the psychological services are scarce, self-applied interventions could provide support to solve this problem and reduce the health (...) impact even after the pandemic has already finished.Aims: To design and implement a self-applied intervention composed of 12 modules focused on the decrease of the risk of developing CGD, and increasing the life quality, and as a secondary objective to reduce the symptomatology of anxiety, depression, and increase of sleep quality. The Intervention Duelo COVID follows the principles of User Experience and is designed according to the needs and desires of a sample of the objective participants, to increase the adherence to the self-applied intervention, considered one of the main weaknesses of online interventions.Methods: A Randomized Controlled Trial will be conducted from the 22nd of December of 2020 to the first of June 2021. The participants will be assigned to an intervention with elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness and Positive Psychology. The control group will be a wait-list condition, that will receive the intervention 1.5–2 months after the pre-measurement were taken. The Power Size Calculation conducted through G*Power indicated the need for a total of 42 participants, which will be divided by 21 participants in each group. The platform will be delivered through responsive design assuring with this that the intervention will adapt to the screen size of cellphones, tablets, and computers.Ethics and Dissemination: The study counts with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, México, and it is registered in Clinical Trials. The article is sent and registered in clinical trials before the recruitment started. The results will be reported in future conferences, scientific publications, and media. (shrink)

The Norman Rockwell image of the American physician who fixed the broken arm of a child, treated the father for hypertension, and brought an unborn child into this world is now almost nonexistent. Since the time of the Rockwell portrait, a highly technical medical industry has evolved. Now two-thirds of physicians are board certified in subspecialties, and patients visit an average of 3–4 different physicians per year. Today's physicians see themselves less as “benevolent and wise counselors overseeing the patient's welfare (...) and more as objective scientists applying the latest technical methods to bring about the desired end.” The intimate patient-physician relationship that was once the norm in our society is rapidly disappearing. (shrink)

Hate speech is one of the most important conceptual categories in anti‐oppression politics today; a great deal of energy and political will is devoted to identifying, characterizing, contesting, and penalizing hate speech. However, despite the increasing inclusion of gender identity as a socially salient trait, antipatriarchal politics has largely been absent within this body of scholarship. Figuring out how to properly situate patriarchy‐enforcing speech within the category of hate speech is therefore an important politico‐philosophical project. My aim in this article (...) is twofold: first, I argue that sexist speech, though oppressive, is not hate speech. Second, I argue that misogynistic speech is hate speech, even when it is intradivisional. This is important because recognizing that the concepthate speechapplies to certain forms of patriarchy‐enforcing speech is another step in clarifying what is wrong with the practice, and how bad it is in relation to other abuses. Consequently, this article provides a more nuanced account of the kinds of expressions that can and should count as instances of hate speech. (shrink)

The medical ethicist is a fairly recent addition to the clinical setting. The following four potential roles of the clinical ethicist are identified and discussed: consultant in difficult cases, educator of health care providers, counselor for health care providers and finally patient advocate to protect the interests of patients. While the various roles may sometimes overlap, the roles of educator and counselor are viewed as being more congruent with the education and training of medical ethicists than are the roles of (...) consultant and patient advocate. (shrink)

Background The fourth section of the 1967 Abortion Act states that individuals (including health care practitioners) do not have to participate in an abortion if they have a conscientious objection. A conscientious objection is a refusal to participate in abortion on the grounds of conscience. This may be informed by religious, moral, philosophical, ethical, or personal beliefs. Currently, there is very little investigation into the impact of conscientious objection on service users in Britain. The perspectives of service users are imperative (...) in understanding the real-world consequences and potential impact of conscientious objection and should be considered when creating and reviewing policies and guidelines. This research provided a platform for women and those who can become pregnant to share their experiences and opinions at a time when these voices are largely excluded in the great tradition of Western political philosophy and law-making processes. Method Five service users were interviewed using a narrative interview approach to uncover their abortion journeys and experiences of conscientious objection. Findings The findings were presented as found poems and uncovered that doctors are not always: informing service users that they have a conscientious objection to abortion, giving service users enough information to access abortion (indirect referral), treating them non-judgmentally, and providing medically correct information. Service users did not experience burdens such as long waiting times and were still able to access legal abortion. However, service users did experience negative emotional effects, as they were often left feeling scared, angry, and hopeless when they were not referred and/or were mistreated. Conclusions Findings indicate that conscientious objection could work in practice. However, it is currently failing some individuals on an emotional level, as not all doctors are adhering to guidelines. Conscientious objection in Britain needs to be addressed, to ensure service users receive fair, impartial, non-judgmental care. (shrink)

The prominent call to legalise same-sex marriage in Australia raises questions concerning whether its achievement will result in amplified societal acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and on what grounds this acceptance will take place. Same-sex marriage may not challenge heteronormative and patriarchal features typically associated with marriage, and may serve to reinforce a hierarchy that promotes traditional marriage as the ideal relationship structure. This may result in only assimilationist acceptance of LGBT people. However, the consequence of (...) inclusion to marriage ought to reflect social acceptance of LGBTs as people worthy of equal treatment in dignity and in rights, regardless of perceived differences or similarities to a supposed majority standard. This article argues that justice would be best served by introducing and promoting a variety of State-sanctioned unions whilst simultaneously introducing same-sex marriage. This ‘pluralisation strategy’ would increase awareness and legitimacy of other relationship-recognition options, promoting respectful acceptance of LGBT and heterosexual people alike. (shrink)

In contrast to theoretical discussions about potential professional liability of clinical ethicists, this report gives the results of empirical data gathered in a national survey of clinical medical ethicists. The report assesses the types of activities of clinical ethicists, the extent and types of their professional liability coverage, and the influence that concerns about legal liability has on how they function as clinical ethicists. In addition demographic data on age, sex, educational background, etc. are reported. The results show that while (...) nearly one third (28.9%) of the ethicists regularly make recommendations about patient care, only 10.8% of them regularly make entries in the medical record; only approximately half (53.0%) of them are covered by professional liability (malpractice) insurance; and the vast majority (84.3%) of them say that concerns about legal liability do not influence the way they function as clinical ethicists. (shrink)

This study investigates the three major educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs in the United States. It summarizes the characteristics of the Cultural Transmission Approach, the Affective Developmental Approach, and the Cognitive Developmental Approach. A questionnaire was sent to 415 teachers of medical humanities asking for their perceptions of the amount of time and effort devoted by their programs to these three philosophical approaches. The 234 responses constituted a 54.6% return. The approximately 80:20 gender ratio of males to females (...) and other demographic data on age and educational background were consistent with other studies of the field of medical humanities.Reflections on the results in Table II indicate that some changes need to take place in the teaching of the medical humanities if the perceived ideal is to be achieved. In order for the current teachers of the medical humanities to think that the appropriate philosophies behind the teaching of the medical humanities are being implemented as they should be, much less time and effort need to be devoted to the Cultural Transmission Approach. With no other published reports on the educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs, this study created a new knowledge base about this relatively young and rapidly emerging field. (shrink)

This article identifies five genres of anti-queer hate speech found in The Australian’s Facebook comments sections, exposing and analyzing the ways in which such comments are used to derogate cisgender and heterosexual women. One may be tempted to think of cis-het women as third-party victims of queerphobia; however, this article argues that these genres of anti-queer speech are, in fact, misogynistic. Specifically, it argues that these are instances of cis-hetero-misogynistic hate speech. Cis-hetero-misogyny functions as the “law enforcement branch” of a (...) cis-hetero-patriarchal gender order. Given the existence of such an order, it is clear that cis-het women’s liberation is inextricable from queer liberation. This article argues that to facilitate allyship and challenge this gender order—the order that elicits such hate speech acts—we need an epistemological revolution in the way we recognize and re-cognize human difference. (shrink)

The past two decades have been a time of heightened interest in the moral aspects of the practice of medicine. This interest has been reflected in medical education by the establishment of medical humanities programs in both preclinical and clinical education in many medical schools. It has also been reflected in the literature with a dramatic increase in journal articles on medical ethics as well as the development of medical ethics in textbooks. A number of journals have developed that are (...) specifically devoted to medical ethics, including The Journal of Medical Ethics, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, The Journal of Medical Humanities, Theoretical Medicine, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, just to name a few. The literature includes both theoretical foundations and conceptual analyses of particular issues as well as practical advice and general suggestions for how to implement programs in medical humanities. (shrink)

The most important distinction in value theory is the subjective-objective distinction which determines the epistemological status of value judgments about medical intervention. Ethical decisions in medical intervention presuppose one of three structures of justification — namely, an inductive approach, a deductive approach which can be either consequentialist or non-consequentialist, and a uniquely ethical approach. Inductivism and deductivism have been discussed extensively in the literature and are only briefly described here. The uniquely ethical approach which presupposes value objectivism is analyzed in (...) detail. This method involves a purely ethical inference which moves from facts to values directly with an emphasis on reason which involves a non-logical justification (as opposed to illogical). It involves the use of natural practical arguments which have an imperative conclusion but no imperative premise and exhibit a value-requiredness between two states of affairs. (shrink)

The enormous growth in medical humanities programs during the past decade has resulted in an extensive literature concerning the content of the discipline and the issues that have been addressed. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the structure of the discipline of medical humanities concerning the process or the theoretical aspects of the pedagogy of teaching the discipline. This report explicitly addresses the pedagogical aspects of the discipline by comparing and contrasting two different basic approaches to the discipline (...) referred to as the classical humanities approach and the humanistic psychology approach which roughly approximate the cognitive and affective approaches respectively. These two approaches are compared and contrasted in terms of their goals, objectives, methods of implementation, philosophical assumptions and evaluational techniques. (shrink)

In recent years, the theoretical work of Gilligan in women's psychological development has led to the development of the concept of moral orientation or moral voice in contrast to the concept of moral reasoning or moral judgment developed by Kohlberg. These concepts have been of particular interest in gender studies, especially as applied to adolescence. These concepts of moral orientation and moral reasoning are being increasingly employed in healthcare ethics studies in a wide variety of settings. The recent work has (...) included studies of physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, social workers, teachers of medical ethics, and hospital ethics committees. However, the study of moral development in healthcare providers has been hampered because collecting the necessary data from healthcare workers has been labor intensive and extremely time consuming. More efficient methods are needed. (shrink)

In the wake of a pilot study that indicated that the experience of medical education appears to Inhibit moral development In medical students, increased attention needs to be given to the structure of medical education and the Influence it has on medical students. Interest in ethics and moral reasoning has become widespread in many aspects of professional and public life. Society has exhibited great interest in the ethical issues confronting physicians today. Considerable effort has been undertaken to train medical students, (...) interns, and residents In how to reason through medical-ethical dilemmas. Media attention has focused on Issues such as abortion, euthanasia, care of severely handicapped infants, organ transplantation, and so forth, producing heated debates in both the professional and lay literature over the morality of the various positions. The curriculum of medical education has paralleled and reflected this general Interest in medical ethics. Most medical schools now offer, and frequently require, course work in ethics. However, further research Is needed to better characterize and understand the relationship of medical education to moral development. (shrink)

Socialism grew up in opposition to capitalism, just as liberalism developed in reaction to feudalism. Both liberalism and socialism combined potent critiques of the existing socio‐economic order with blueprints for a desirable future society. However, liberalism provides a rather more coherent body of thought than does socialism, and its theories are linked with the emergence of a dominant system combining capitalism and liberal democracy. By contrast, no widespread socio‐economic order has as yet emerged which can be confidently or closely associated (...) with the ideas of socialism. In both cases the relationship between theories and actual systems is a contestable one, but it has been particularly problematic in the history of socialism. (shrink)

Psychotic-like experiences are a phenomenon that occurs in the general population experiencing delusional thoughts and hallucinations without being in a clinical condition. PLEs involve erroneous attributions of inner cognitive events to the external environment and the presence of intrusive thoughts influenced by dysfunctional beliefs; for these reasons, the role played by metacognition has been largely studied. This study investigates PLEs in a non-clinical population and discriminating factors involved in this kind of experience, among which metacognition, as well as (...) psychopathological features, seems to have a crucial role. The aim of this study was to extend the knowledge about the relationship between metacognition, psychopathology, and PLEs, orienting the focus on metacognitive functioning. The sample consisted of 207 Italian participants voluntarily recruited online, who gave consent to participate in the study. The average age of the sample was 32.69 years. Subjects affected by psychosis, neurological disease, and drug addiction were excluded from the analyses. The following scales were used to investigate PLEs: Peters et al. Delusions Inventory, Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale-Extended Revised, Prodromal Questionnaire-Brief, and Revised Hallucination Scale. To assess general psychopathological features, the Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale was administrated. The Metacognition Self-Assessment Scale was chosen to evaluate metacognitive functioning. From hierarchical regression analyses, it emerged that the presence of anxiety, depression, and impulsive/addictive symptoms constitute a remarkable vulnerability factor for PLEs, in line with previous evidence regarding the relationship between general psychopathology and PLEs. Metacognition negatively predicts PLEs, and its presence does not affect the significance of psychopathological variables, suggesting that metacognitive abilities seem to play a protective role for the occurrence of PLEs among non-clinical individuals, and such ability operates as an independent predictor along with other variables. These results are explained by the role of metacognitive functions, which allow individuals to operate many mental processes such as interpreting sensorial events as real or illusory, understanding behaviors, thoughts, and drives of others, and questioning the subjective interpretation of facts. (shrink)

Following a brief consideration of two contrasting purposes for teaching the medical humanities, a description is given of a film discussion elective course. In contrast to the usual teaching of medical ethics which is primarily a cognitive activity emphasizing the development of a code of principles such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence, the film discussion elective was primarily an affective activity emphasizing the development of an ethical ideal of caring, relatedness, and sensitivity to others. The pass/fail elective, offered for one (...) credit each quarter for two quarters, met once a week for one hour for twenty-four weeks. Each week a film was shown followed by a group discussion. A wide variety of social issues were covered. The objective of the course was to increase the ethical sensitivity of the medical students through promotion of introspection and reflection on social issues. A brief discussion is given of the importance and appropriateness of using film to promote the affective focus of medicine on the relief of suffering. Examples are given of how the course achieved its objective. A detailed description of the resource materials is provided. (shrink)

Advocacy of an indigenous right to isolation in the Latin American context responds to multiple depredations, above all to plundering by extractivists. Two prominent international instruments declare a human right to indigenous self-isolation and articulate a principle of no contact between indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous majority population: Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact in the Americas and Guidelines on the Protection of Indigenous Peoples. In analyzing both, I argue against the notion of a human right (...) to indigenous isolation and for limited, controlled contact between the indigenous peoples and a narrow segment of the larger society. I propose relational human rights as rights that connect people, as rights-bearers, across borders and differences. They would allow for limited outside observation for possible human rights violations within indigenous communities. I then articulate relational human rights of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation as rights to agency, health, territory, and identity. (shrink)

The emergence of population as an object of government in the 18th century produced a new problematic of government. The focus of this new problematic was how to ensure that the pursuit of self-interest by individual economic actors was compatible with the reproduction and useful employment of the population. From the 18th century to the present, government in the West has addressed this problem in a number of different ways, each of which represents a 'tricky adjust ment' (...) between a liberal element concerned with commercial freedom and a pastoral element concerned with the welfare of the population. The tension between the liberal and pastoral elements of modern Western governance is explored by examining the place of commercial freedom within a householding concept of rule in which security at the level of the state is dependent upon the sovereign's rational management of the population. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law and medicine, (...) truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

Only recently have ethicists been invited into the clinical setting to offer recommendations about patient care decisions. This paper discusses this new role for ethicists from the perspective of content and process issues. Among content issues are the usual ethical dilemmas such as the aggressiveness of treatment, questions about consent, and alternative treatment options. Among process issues are those that relate to communication with the patient. The formal ethics consult is discussed, the steps taken in such a consult, and whether (...) there should be a fee charged. We conclude with an examination of the risks and benefits of formal ethics consults. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to assess the phenomenon of longevity as a particularly important component in the study of increasing life expectancy and reducing mortality. The article reveals the possibilities of increasing life expectancy and reducing mortality through research in the field of the phenomenon of longevity, self-preservation behavior and social information systems. The scientific novelty lies in substantiating the possibilities of changing demographic behavior through the prism of the study of longevity as a kind of model (...) of natural physiological aging of the population, as well as using the system of social "programming" of the population as a special social management tool. As a result of the study, unique opportunities for changing the demographic behavior of the population have been identified, which should be used in the development of practical measures for the implementation of social and demographic policy. (shrink)

In a recent article, J. Angelo Corlett criticises what he takes to be the ‘offensiphobic’ practices characteristic of many universities. The ‘offensiphobe’, according to Corlett, believes that offensive speech ought to be censured precisely because it offends. We argue that there are three serious problems with Corlett’s discussion. First, his criticism of ‘offensiphobia’ misrepresents the kinds of censorship practiced by universities; many universities may in some way censure speech which they regard as offensive, but this is seldom if ever a (...) manifestation of ‘offensiphobia’. Second, we attempt to reconstruct Corlett’s criticism of ‘offensiphobia’ as a criticism of the practice of censuring hate speech, and show that this argument is unsuccessful. Third, we offer some brief reflections on how labelling universities as ‘offensiphobic’ is especially problematic in light of the current climate of political interference in university research and teaching. (shrink)

In “The Blessing of Departure—Exchange of Populated Territories The Lieberman Plan as anExercise in Demographic Transformation,” Prof. Timothy Waters offers a strong endorsement of the right of ethnic majorities within a state to redefine their state's boundaries in ways consistent with the majority's right to self-determination and to opt out of a political union with minority groups, regardless of the latter's' political preferences. Applied to the Israeli context, Waters concludes that parts of the Lieberman Plan—a plan advocating the redrawing (...) of Israel borders, inter alia, in ways which exclude some areas populated by Israeli citizens belonging to the Arab-Palestinian minority —does not run afoul of international law . This short response challenges two points that are central to Waters’s analysis. First, that the right to self-determination of peoples—in particular, the right to external self-determination —is subject to temporal or contextual limitations. The right is fully applicable only in exceptional and formative moments in the life of a nation—e.g., during the formation of a new polity or the collapse of an existing political arrangement , and when states systematically fail to respect the basic interest of some of the groups that comprise its populace—i.e., in response to extraordinary situations of groups exclusion or oppression. Second, even if Waters is correct and an ongoing right to self-determination—including, a right to secede from existing states—is available to ethnic groups comprising diverse national societies, the invocation of such a right must necessarily be limited by other positive rules of international law designed to protect group and individual interests. Specifically, Waters’s concept of self-determination as a right of a preliminary nature, that overrides other human rights , is debatable. (shrink)

The olfactory system was traditionally thought to lack a thalamic relay to mediate top-down influences from memory and attention in other perceptual modalities. Olfactory perception was therefore often described as an outlier among perceptual modalities. It was argued as a result that olfaction was a canonical example of a direct perception. In this paper we review functional and anatomical evidence which demonstrates that olfaction depends on both direct pathway connecting anterior piriform cortex to orbitofrontal cortex and an indirect thalamic circuit (...) connecting posterior piriform cortex and orbitofrontal cortices to the olfactory system. We argue that the indirect corticothalamic circuit has the structure to potentially mediate mediates top-down influences of memory and attention in olfactory perception. This suggests that olfaction is not an outlier after all. (shrink)

The unborn healthy foetus is looked upon as a blessing by one and all. A plethora of thoughts arise in the brains of expectant parents. But what goes on in the brain of the yet unborn still remains a mystery. 'Foetal mind' is a reflection of functions of its organs of sense, an instrument of knowledge that may even be reduced to machine to demonstrate the effect of sense organs and brain contact. Testimony to this fact are the various waveform (...) patterns obtained non-invasively from the foetal Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) by using Colour Doppler Ultrasound. Our study, conducted for evaluating the foetal MCA in a rural obstetric population in Maharashtra, India, explains how the MCA - a major artery supplying foetal brain, can give abundant information about foetal heart and foetal stress. When only the foetal heart is stressed by the presence of arrhythmias or ectopic beats, these changes are manifest in the foetal MCA velocity waveform pattern as seen on Colour Doppler study. When the entire foetus is under stress, as in cases of intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR), changes again manifest in the foetal MCA velocity waveform pattern and are designated as the foetal Brain Sparing Effect. Thus scientific evaluation of foetal MCA waveform can objectively demonstrate that the overtly non-communicating foetal brain indeed remains an internal organ of sense and a vital instrument of knowledge to clarify the various effects of sense organs and brain contact. Although the brain parenchyma or cerebral metabolism has not been studied here, cerebral vessels serve as a window to cerebral metabolism, as auto regulatory function of brain leads to changes in haemodynamics of cerebral vessels. Also, like other vessels, MCA mirrors foetal distress and IUGR; but unlike other vessels, e.g. the umbilical or uterine artery, which show these changes in the form of reduction or even reversal of diastolic flow, MCA shows an increase in diastolic component due to brain sparing effect. The unique connection between physical changes in the foetal heart, brain and mental operations are thus critically clarified to some extent, and this helps untangle and comprehend the lattice of mental operations. Although this preliminary study has its limitations, it still carries forward the present corpus of knowledge on the strength of its evidential and critical enquiry and helps unravel the concept of foetal consciousness. (shrink)

Anyone reading Yuval Shany’s response to my article, “The Blessing of Departure—Exchange of Populated Territories The Lieberman Plan as anExercise in Demographic Transformation,” would hardly characterize it as “agreement.” In part this is because Shany builds his case by assuming I am saying something about self-determination that misses—at least misplaces—my real point. This is unfortunate, both as it masks the fact that Shany and I actually agree transfers can be legal, and it distracts attention from the points of real, (...) substantive disagreement. The misreading is not an accident, rather the product of a patterned view. The points of disagreement, center on: whether transfer is a harm per se; whether the presence of a minority affects the state’s power to transfer; whether there is a positive right not to be denationalized; and whether there is a hierarchy of rights. (shrink)

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are common and costly in both primary and secondary health care. It is gradually being acknowledged that there needs to be a variety of interventions for patients with medically unexplained symptoms to meet the needs of different groups of patients with such chronic long-term symptoms. The proposed intervention described herewith is called The BodyMind Approach (TBMA) and promotes learning for self-management through establishing a dynamic and continuous process of emotional self-regulation. The problem is the (...) mismatch between the patient’s mind-set and profile and current interventions. This theoretical article, based on practice-based evidence, takes forward the idea that different approaches (other than cognitive behaviour therapy) are required for people with MUS. The mind-set and characteristics of patents with MUS are reflected upon to shape the rationale and design of this novel approach. Improving services for this population in primary care is crucial to prevent the iterative spiralling downwards of frequent GP visits, hospital appointments, and Accident and Emergency attendance, all of which are common for these patients. The approach derives from embodied psychotherapy (authentic movement in dance movement psychotherapy) and adult models of learning for self-management. It has been developed from research and practice-based evidence. In this article the problem of MUS in primary care is introduced and the importance of the reluctance of patients to accept a psychological/mental health referral in the first instance is drawn out. A description of the theoretical underpinnings and philosophy of the proposed alternative to current interventions is then presented related to the design, delivery, facilitation and educational content of the programme. The unique intervention is also described to give the reader a flavour. (shrink)

-/- Human beings are conscious not only of the world around them but also of themselves: their activities, their bodies, and their mental lives. They are, that is, self-conscious (or, equivalently, self-aware). Self-consciousness can be understood as an awareness of oneself. But a self-conscious subject is not just aware of something that merely happens to be themselves, as one is if one sees an old photograph without realising that it is of oneself. Rather a self-conscious (...) subject is aware of themselves as themselves; it is manifest to them that they themselves are the object of awareness. Self-consciousness is a form of consciousness that is paradigmatically expressed in English by the words “I”, “me”, and “my”, terms that each of us uses to refer to ourselves as such. -/- A central topic throughout the history of philosophy—and increasingly so since the seventeenth century—the phenomena surrounding self-consciousness prompt a variety of fundamental philosophical and scientific questions, including its relation to consciousness; its semantic and epistemic features; its realisation in both conceptual and non-conceptual representation; and its connection to our conception of an objective world populated with others like ourselves. (shrink)

When Jacques Lacan coined the term "méconnaisance" or "misrecognition," he was referring to the way in which a maturing subject comes to understand his or her encounter with his or her own reflection in the mirror—a psycho-developmental period also known as The Mirror Stage; this encounter, as Lacan theorized, leads to the emergence of an idealized projection of who the subject is. This "Ideal I" that emerges from this encounter with the virtual Other, that is nonetheless the Self, produces (...) both a recognition and a misrecognition of this "I".On the one hand, it produces a recognition of the Self as a coherent body in which this "I" is located. On the other hand, it takes us to a misrecognition of the... (shrink)

Individuals with high self-concept will likely have high life satisfaction, they easily get adjusted to life, and they communicate their feeling more appropriately. However, it was not certain whether self-concept would decline or improve as individuals age, or whether self-concept would vary between genders and ethnic groups. To prove, a study was carried out to compare the self-concept of college students in an Asian context. The inquiry utilized the cross-sectional design in finding out significant differences in (...) the self-concept of participants in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity. A 22-item questionnaire was adapted and administered to 222 Bachelor of Public Administration and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration students from the satellite campus of Bukidnon State University in the Philippines. Initially, a sample was randomly drawn from the population. During the actual data collection, the researchers had difficulty getting the responses from the randomly selected individuals due to internet connection and it was done amidst a pandemic. Instead, it took all responses from those who were available, have access to the internet, and could accomplish the google forms. The data were analyzed using Mean, Standard Deviation, T-test for independent sample, ANOVA and Post Hoc test. The results revealed that college students at the locale have a high level of self-concept in self-fulfilment, emotional adjustment, and honesty. Yet, they only had a moderate level of self-concept in autonomy. Further, there were significant differences in college students’ autonomy and honesty in terms of age and gender. Furthermore, there were significant differences in their emotional adjustment and self-fulfilment as to their ethnicity. The results have implications for instruction, administration, guidance services, and future research. (shrink)

The models of internal self-control that have recently been proposed by behavioral economists do not depict motivational interaction that occurs while temptation is present. Those models that include willpower at all either envision a faculty with a motivation (“strength”) different from the motives that are weighed in the marketplace of choice, or rely on incompatible goals among diverse brain centers. Both assumptions are questionable, but these models’ biggest problem is that they do not let resolutions withstand re-examination while being (...) challenged by impulsive alternatives. The economists’ models all attempt to make a single equilibrium preference predictable from a person’s prior incentives. This was the original purpose of these models’ hyperboloid (“β–δ”) delay discount functions, which have been widely justified by the assumption that a person’s intertemporal inconsistency (impulsiveness) can be accounted for by the arousal of appetite for visceral rewards. Although arousal is clearly a factor in some cases of intertemporal inconsistency, it cannot be blamed for others, and furthermore does not necessarily imply hyperboloid discounting. The inadequacy of β–δ functions is particularly evident in models of internal self-control. I have reviewed several of these models, and have argued for a return to pure hyperbolic discount function as originally proposed, the relatively high tails of which can motivate a recursive process of self-prediction and thereby the formation of self-enforcing intertemporal contracts. Such a process does not require a separately motivated faculty of will, or incompatible goals among brain centers; but it also does not permit the prediction of unique preferences from prior incentives. (shrink)

This research report presents findings about the extent and nature of digital self-harm among New Zealand teens. Digital self-harm is broadly defined here as the anonymous online posting or sharing of mean or negative online content about oneself. The report centres on the prevalence of digital self-harm (or self-cyberbullying) among New Zealand teens (aged 13-17), the motivations, and outcomes related to engaging in this behaviour. The findings described in this report are representative of the teenage (...) class='Hi'>population of New Zealand by gender, ethnicity and age. Key findings are: Overall, 6% of New Zealand teens have anonymously posted mean or negative content online about themselves in the past year. Teenagers’ top reasons for this behaviour were: making a joke, wanting to show resilience, looking for friends’ sympathy, and seeking reassurance of friendship. By exploring the nature and extent of this behaviour, we are providing the online safety community, schools and parents with insights about a complex and, to some extent, hidden phenomenon involving New Zealand teens. (shrink)

Whether ethics is too important to be left to the experts or so important that it must be is an age-old question. The emergence of clinical ethicists raises it again, as a question about professionalism. What role clinical ethicists should play in healthcare decision making – teacher, mediator, or consultant – is a question that has generated considerable debate but no consensus.

This paper aims to critique the phenomenon of advanced patient autonomy and choice in healthcare within the specific context of self-testing devices. A growing number of self-testing medical devices are currently available for home use. The premise underpinning many of these devices is that they assist individuals to be more autonomous in the assessment and management of their health. Increased patient autonomy is assumed to be a good thing. We take issue with this assumption and argue that (...) class='Hi'>self-testing provides a specific example how increased patient autonomy and choice within healthcare might not best serve the patient population. We propose that current interpretations of autonomy in healthcare are based on negative accounts of liberty to the detriment of a more relational understanding. We also propose that Kantian philosophy is often applied to the healthcare arena in an inappropriate manner. We draw on the philosophical literature and examples from the self-testing process to support these claims. We conclude by offering an alternative account of autonomy based on the interrelated concepts of relationality, care and responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation (...) or external design. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is to analyze individual differences in academic self-efficacy within a population of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors from the European cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Variables describing educational level and length of stay were considered in a sample of 377 individuals being cared for in different youth centers. Of these, 63.4% belonged to the group who had stayed at the center for less than 9 months and 36.6% reported a length of stay of more (...) than 9 months. The age of participants ranged between 8 and 17 years old. Once the quality parameters of the instrument were elaborated, reliability and validity was confirmed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis using Structural Equation Modeling methodology. Data collection was then initiated. The results overall indicate that 87.6% of those who completed the questionnaire reported a higher level of self-efficacy with regards to working with any classmate, whilst at the same time seeing themselves as capable of achieving good marks. ANOVA results indicated significant differences with respect to educational level and length of stay. In this regard, students who had received professional training and had been at the Center for more than 9 months, were the ones who developed greater academic self-efficacy for spending more time working when tasks were judged to be difficult. The results obtained demonstrate that any intervention will be positive as long as it promotes different institutions to develop strategies that cater to a length of stay of more than 9 months and target education, academic self-efficacy, socialization and strengthening the future workforce. Such interventions can be directed through new European, Spanish or local level policies. It is clear that institutions still have a lot of work left to do. (shrink)

This study investigated gender related moral reasoning in student essays containing arguments on moral issues. Undergraduate students in a medical ethics course viewed two films on morally controversial issues. The students wrote brief essays about the films which were transcribed and numerically coded to conceal the author's gender from the evaluator. Using a coding scheme originated by Lyons, the evaluator classified each essay as a justice/right essay or a care/response essay or an equal response essay. Subsequently, calculations were made to (...) determine the percentage of male authored essays that were justice/rights essays or care/response essays and the percentage of female authored essays that were justice/rights or care/response essays. The males (87.7%) tended to exhibit the justice/rights moral orientation, and the females (69.4%) exhibited the care/response moral orientation. Several different calculations were made to determine various degrees of gender related orientations also. The difference in orientation was highly statistically significant (p≤0.001). These data contribute to understanding moral orientation and development. Interpretations are given to explain some differences between the genders and help explain the traditional roles in society that males and females have played historically. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é, de forma geral, discutir a noção de acontecimento enquanto uma das principais categorias para a leitura da obra de Michel Foucault, o que nos permite, a partir de uma determinada operacionalização, compreender todo seu projeto como uma acontecimentalização da história. A fim de especificar este processo, estabelecemos o diagnóstico foucaultiano da Insurreição Iraniana como mote de nossa verificação do acontecimento, em que atentaremos para dois aspectos que convergem no nexo principal do événement: o “poder pastoral” (...) e a “espiritualidade política” conduzindo às novas proposições teóricas sobre a formação do sujeito. Será, assim, a partir do grande eixo da subjetivação que desenvolveremos nossa hipótese de leitura, referente à economia da obra foucaultiana, no que diz respeito ao acento espiritual do poder pastoral e o episódio iraniano como estando já inseridos em um movimento que deveria tentar pensar, continuamente, um sujeito outro. Desta forma, tais temáticas, abarcando a questão de um governo dos outros, carregarão igualmente a necessidade conceitual do governo de si, desenvolvida por Foucault através do “cuidado de si” durante a década de 1980. Para percorrermos este caminho, de uma acontecimentalização do levante no Irã, abordaremos primeiramente o poder pastoral e as contra-condutas no contexto do curso proferido no Collège de France em 1978, Sécurité, territoire, population. Em seguida enfocaremos a noção de “espiritualidade política”, utilizada em sua análise sobre o Irã, a partir de um cruzamento conceitual advindo de estudo pontual de L’Herméneutique du sujet, curso de 1982, a fim de poder explicitar, ao final, como a própria metodologia de uma filosofia do acontecimento procura atingir seu principal alvo, o sujeito, ao pensá-lo enquanto processo, através de um questionamento singular: “como se tornar sujeito sem ser assujeitado?”.: The aim of this essay is to discuss the notion of event as one of the main categories for reading the work of Michel Foucault. In terms of the way it operates, the event allows us to understand Foucault’s entire project as an eventalization of history. In order to specify this process, we establish Foucault’s diagnosis of the Iranian Insurrection as a verification of the event, in which we attend to two aspects that converge in the main nexus of événement: “pastoral power” and “political spirituality”. Both of these lead to new theoretical propositions on the formation of subject. It is thus from the large axis of subjectivation that we develop our reading hypothesis. With reference to the economy of Foucault’s work, the spiritual tone of pastoral power and the Iranian episode are already inserted in a movement that should attempt to think continuously of an other subject. Such themes, by dealing with the question of a government of others, also bear the conceptual need of the government of self, developed by Foucault through the “care of the self” during the 1980s. To cover the path of an eventalization of the Iranian uprising, we first consider pastoral power and counter-conducts in the framework of the course given at the Collège de France in 1978: Security, Territory, Population. Then we focus on the notion of “political spirituality”, using Foucault’s analysis of Iran, from the conceptual crossing that emerges from the study of the Hermeneutic of the subject course given in 1982. Finally, we seek to explicate how the specific methodology of a philosophy of event aims to reach its main target, the subject, by thinking it as a process by means of a singular question: “how to become a subject without being subjected?”. Keywords: Event; Michel Foucault; Pastoral power; Subjectivation; Contemporary French Philosophy. (shrink)

In the intellectual confusion prevailing since the demise of Marxism and “marxism”, the attempt is made to define democracy as a matter of pure procedure, explicitly avoiding and condemning any reference to substantive objectives. It can easily be shown, however, that the idea of a purely procedural “democracy” is incoherent and self-contradictory. No legal system whatsoever and no government can exist in the absence of substantive conditions which cannot be left to chance or to the workings of the “market” (...) but must be posited as objectives of political activity. The confusion results from a deficient understanding of what makes a society and an empty idea of “freedom”. The objective of politics is not happiness, an affair to be left to the individuals, but it certainly is liberty understood as participation in the governance of the polity; it is also the pursuit of the common good, defined as the sum of the prerequisites and facilitations of individual autonomy depending on collective action, and as the realization of commonly agreed collective goals. (shrink)